#ALWAYS INVEST IN AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE KIDS

[frmulcahy]

It was already bad enough that my laptop died but because my dumbass didn’t keep things on an external hard drive that means I’ve ALSO LOST ALL OF THE ARTICLES I HAD DOWNLOADED AS WELL AS THE RESEARCH PAPER I WAS SO PROUD OF

[michellemisfit]

TAG GAME: FANDOM EDITION

Tagged by the wonderful @energievie, thank you my love!

Your Name: Michelle (Mys for short)

Your Age: Just turned 38 🤟

Your First Fandom(s): Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Your Current Fandom(s): Shameless is my current active fandom, but like, you never really leave a fandom, you just get distracted by a new shiny thing. There’s still Merlin (2008) and Shadowhunters (2015) fic open on my phone right this minute. And I go back and read some of my favourite fic from much older fandoms on a semi regular basis. I have hundreds of them saved in word. Because if you love something… don’t let it go! Save the ever-loving shit out of it and keep it on your current laptop as well as on multiple external hard drives for back up!!

How did you first get into fandom? I was looking for someone to talk to, and that wasn’t going to happen in real life. So instead I found myself on a German Buffy Forum, which led me to discover fandom, online friends, and fanfic… all of which changed my life forever.

How long have you been engaging with fandom spaces? Probably since 1998? It was during Buffy Season 1, but when it aired on German TV, so 98/99 sounds about right. I DEFINITELY lied to the ‘are you over 18?’ ticky boxes!!

How often do you read fanfics? Daily. I used to be that kid that would walk to and from school with her nose in a book. Now I’m that adult that walks to and from school reading fanfic on her phone.

Top 3 characters from your current fandom(s): Mickey Milkovich. Ian Gallagher. Lip Gallagher.

Have you ever written a fic for a fandom? if so, shout it out! I have. I’m not primarily a writer, but about once a year I get the urge. Here’s my AO3. Also, if you search very hard you may be able to find some German Buffy/Spike fic out there somewhere, from when I was a child, proof read by my mother, whose main comment was ‘Oh my. You could have a career in erotica…’ (They barely kissed! Sheesh!)

Have you ever drawn fanart for a fandom? Yep. Back in the day I did the full range: Drawings, Icons. Wallpapers. Manips. Fic Banners. Fic Awards. Now I mostly stick with traditional art, and then once a year pumpkins haha Some of my recent stuff is on AO3. You can also find a lot of my art on my RedBubble Page or my Instagram.

Share a personal headcanon that you feel very strongly about: For Shameless? The Gallaghers visited Ian and Mickey in prison. Yes, they are busy, but they love their brother, and by extension they love the person their brother loves! And there is loads of them!! If they visited on rotation, it would only really “cost” them one day a month each. Not a hardship, is it? Also, Lip went more often than everyone else. Send tweet.

You’re trying to convince a friend to get into your current fandom(s) with you. what episode, clip, or scene are you showing them? Depends a little bit on the friend and on what aspect of a show I feel they’d vibe with best. 01x03 Aunt Ginger is a pretty good one. It’s got the full family working together to solve a problem. And it introduces Mandy and the itty bitty murder floof, which is a great bonus!!

And finally, what does fandom mean to you? Absolutely everything. You know Penny Lane’s speech in Almost Famous? “If you never take it seriosuly, you never get hurt, you never get hurt, you always have fun, and if you ever get lonely, just go to the record store and visit your friends.”? I followed bands around for about half a decade, and that, and Oasis’ “Please don’t put your life in the hands, of a rock and roll band, who'll throw it all away” were things I tried to live by. But fandom doesn’t work that way. Fandom is all about emotionally investing. Caring too much is basically a requirement. And what makes it safe is the fact that we are all in this together. <3

~

My word that was fun!

Tagging @malec-crazed-author, @ohfreckle, @rutherinahobbit, @deedala, @rereadanon, @toughpaperround, @teawithjelly, @faejilly, @industrious-ian, @orca122, @poemsfromthealley, @allmyfantasiesarethirdperson, @darknutmeg, @glorious-spoon, @hellofavillain, @howlinchickhowl, @katspace, @lynne-monstr, @captainjowl, @crossmydna, @vintagelacerosette, @beatperfume, @nanf1c

[charismaandcashmere]

Energy, not time, is the basis for productivity. Having all the hours in the day won’t help you if you’re exhausted for most of it.

Your habits define your energy levels. If you have good habits, you’ll feel energized and be more resilient to burn out, both physically and mentally. If your habits are misaligned, you can get into a cycle where you feel worse and worse, until your it’s a struggle just to keep up.

Here are nine habits you can work on this year to increase your energy levels.

Habit #1: Go to Sleep Early

Sleep is the foundation of your energy. If you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll start to underperform.

While some people claim to work best on six or less hours of sleep, research says they’re kidding themselves. Seven to eight hours are pretty much mandatory if you’re going to stay cognitively sharp in the long-run.

For some people the sleep deprivation may have mentally plateaued, meaning they feel slightly tired all day, but they don’t think they’re getting any worse. An interesting experiment showed that sleep deprivation caused continuous declines in mental performance, even though subjects felt like they were holding steady.

Try this: Go to bed by 10pm every night, including weekends, for the next thirty days.

Habit #2: Exercise Every Day

Exercise is a long-term investment in your energy levels. It’s easy to cut in the short-term, but over time you’ll reduce your overall fitness, making it harder to think straight and stay alert throughout the day.

If you struggle to find time for exercise, don’t make going to the gym your prerequisite. Make a habit of doing some pushups or burpees every day throughout the day. These will get your heart pumping and blood moving, and they don’t require setting aside two hours from your already busy schedule.

You can add gym or fitness classes on top of this foundational habit, but this basic investment in exercise will keep you sharp when you can’t make it to the gym.

Try this: Do at least 10 burpees every day from your home.

Habit #3: Twenty-Minute Naps

Napping may feel lazy, but there’s research showing it has a range of cognitive benefits. This is particularly true if you’re doing a lot of learning, since the short burst of sleep can help with memory.

I used to feel guilty taking naps, believing it was a sign of weakness. Now, I think it’s definitely a strength. A short nap can turn you back on for work in the afternoon, when you’d normally be exhausted. Even if you work in an office that doesn’t encourage napping, you can use a slice of your lunch break, to quickly rest.

The key is to learn how to take short naps. Many people take naps which are too long, pushing them into deeper phases of sleep which cause them to feel even groggier when they wake up (although the benefits to even these naps often occur after the initial grogginess wears off). The key is to wake up immediately with your alarm. If you start adding more time, a quick nap can become a long sleep.

Try this: Insert a 20 minute nap after you eat lunch to recuperate your energy for the afternoon.

Habit #4: Do Your Hard Work in the Morning

Aim to get your most important work done in the first four hours of the workday, starting as soon as possible.

The benefits to your energy here are mostly psychological. My energy levels depend a lot on my mood. If I’ve gotten some important work done, my mood is usually good and I feel productive. If I’ve wasted time on emails, meetings, calls or failed to produce something valuable, I’m often frustrated and exhausted entering the second half of the day.

The other reason for this approach is that deep work isn’t always sustainable for the full workday. Better to concentrate it into a specific period than randomly insert it across chunks of time.

Try this: Make the first four hours of your morning a quiet, deep work zone.

Habit #5: Set Your Intention the Day Before

Energy is often about momentum. Start working hard and you’ll overcome procrastination and keep going throughout the day. Start slow and you may end up struggling against your own impulses, wasting the energy on things that aren’t productive.

One way to avoid this is to set a very clear intention of how your day will go, particularly in the beginning, the night before. Visualizing this intention and writing it down into your schedule can make it happen more automatically when you wake up.

Try this: Before you go to bed, write down your plan for the next day and visualize it.

Habit #6: Sell Yourself on Your Goals

Many people simultaneously hold two contradictory beliefs: that other people (marketers) are really good at persuading them to do all sorts of things they wouldn’t do otherwise, but that they themselves have no ability to change their own motivation to do the things they have to do.

The truth is, you need to become the salesperson for your own goals. Not for other people, but for yourself.

Part of that starts with packaging—how you frame your goals and projects can have a huge effect on your motivation. Is this something you have to do? Or an exciting challenge?

Next it comes from refreshing and reminding yourself of your inspirations. Why did you get started down this path? What were you hoping to achieve. Good marketers know to focus the customer on visualizing what they want to drive sales. You can focus yourself on what you want to have the energy to get it done.

Try this: Set aside ten minutes every day to think about what today’s actions are helping you build towards.

Habit #7: Get Better Friends

You may not be able to choose your parents, colleagues or your boss. But you do have some control over the friends in your life.

You know that some friends you leave a conversation with them feeling excited and energized. Others you leave feeling even worse than you did beforehand.

You don’t need to exclude friends who are going through temporarily rough times, but you should consider who you spend your time with when there are people who consistently create one-sided emotional exchanges as the basis for your relationships. Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on sometimes, but some people will expect you to be their permanent shoulder.

Try this: Set a time limit on friends who leave you feeling drained.

Habit #8: Read Better Books

One of the great benefits of reading books isn’t simply to give you ideas and information. Rather it’s to reinforce a mentality that often occurs at a subconcious level. The best books aren’t those that teach you facts, but those that subtly change your entire thinking patterns.

Audio books can be very useful for this, since you can listen to them and re-listen to them on the go every day. A good book for this is one that, when you listen to it, automatically adjusts your thinking onto the things you need to work hard on. Just like a good song can be the background for a particular emotion, a good book can be the background for a particular energy of thinking.

Try this: Always have an audio book that motivates you to work on your goals.

Habit #9: Align Your Life

The last habit isn’t a one-time process, but an ongoing effort to bring the different elements of your life out of conflict and into alignment with one another.

A lot of energy is squandered because the different parts of our lives, both internal and external, are in conflict with each other. That could be the colleague at work who doesn’t want you to get promoted, the friends who make fun of your goals or even the internal fears and assumptions that keep you hesitating.

Spend some time untangling the different conflicts in your life to see how you could resolve them. Sometimes that can be done in the short-term, by making a change. Sometimes, it requires a long-term plan to escape the toxic environment, social circle or belief system that holds you back.

Try this: Sit down for an hour and brainstorm all the things which assist your goals and all the things which hold you back. How could you resolve those tensions?

What habits have you built to give you energy to work hard on the things that matter to you? Share your thoughts in the comments!

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Okay start us out with those Magicians Opinions!

the first character i ever fell in love with:  LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT QUENTIN COLDWATER.  Okay, but yeah, they really introduced him in a way that worked-worked for me – that whole opening sequence that cuts between Quentin being tense and closed-off and miserable in this hollow, almost angry way in the office of the hospital, and Quentin trying to act normal at a party, making wan jokes while the misery and the anger leaks out of him and makes him just so unpalatable to be around – I mean, Jason Ralph just takes the character by the throat instantly and Goes There.  I remember thinking as I was watching it that this was the first “anxious nerd dude” character I'd ever seen who wasn't being framed as actually funny/weird/charming/vulnerable/the clear audience stand-in, but framed as if he were a real person who's really eaten up by depression and self-loathing, and just as off-putting as that is in real life.  I vividly remember just having that reaction of, “Oh. This is about someone who's really hanging on by his fingernails, not just Hollywood Depressed,” and latching on so hard, because I needed to see that so much, and I needed to root for him to find his reason, not in spite of but because as a character he was resistant to being liked by other people, by the audience. It's not loveable and charming, to hate yourself, to find your life barely tolerable.  It's not a position from which it's easy to see your way forward, and to me Quentin is the most honest expression of that reality that I had ever seen in genre tv.  So like, I get why some people didn't like him in first season – he's intentionally tough to like – but I was ultra-invested from minute one, and literally everything he ever said or did made me love him more.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: I think I was kind of intrigued by Fen early on – I liked the idea that she was this naive fairy-tale girl who was going to have this harsh awakening when her Destined Prince turned out to be a real person who couldn't fulfill her fantasies, who was going to have to figure out who she was beyond “going to marry the king someday.”  That seemed like an interesting arc, and here and there they were kind of doing it – I love the realpolitik she occasionally comes out with, particularly that one scene on the boat when she's like, “The dipshits from my hometown are going to execute me because of you, so sticking with you is kind of my only option and that's just happening.”  But then...I don't know, she's really irritating, and they got this weird thing in their heads where her problem is that Eliot sucks, instead of that being The Girl Who Will Marry the King Someday is a sucky role to be forced into making a real life out of, and I just gave up trying to like her eventually.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: I liked Penny/Kady all right, until they started doing the weird thing where “in Doomed Love with Penny” was Kady's only emotional arc, like – they actually had her say that all she ever cared about was being Penny's girlfriend, and that's the kind of thing that kind of retroactively ruins the pairing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: So after everything I said up top – it's actually Eliot.  That snuck up on me!  And my love for Quentin never went away, not by any means, but.  God, Eliot.

prettiest character: If I try to take an objective stance, I'd say it's probably Margo?  Like, she's just unearthly beautiful.  But there's something about Jason Ralph's goddamn face that – I don't know, it just enthralls me; he does okay-ish at playing Normal-Looking for TV, but also if I look at him for too long it kind of hurts, he's so stupidly gorgeous.

my most hated character: Hyman.  And I thought we were supposed to hate Hyman, but then season 5 allegedly happened, and everyone was like, aw, Hyman's okay!  But – no he's not?  He's obviously not okay? He deeply sucks?  Ugh, season 5.

my OTP: Hi, I'm Milo, and welcome to my Tumblr.  But yeah, it's Quentin/Eliot, canonical soulmates and The Ditch I Will Die In.

my NOTP: You know, they kind of wore me down to the point of “fine, what the fuck ever,” but I still don't support Margo/Josh.  It's bad, it's a bad relationship, it was a bad idea.

favorite episode: I really love Be the Penny, but the actual answer is Escape From the Happy Place.  I feel allegiance to Be the Penny, I have not a negative word to say about it, but Escape from the Happy Place is just a level beyond, it's astonishingly good.

saddest death: This question is a microaggression and I will not stand for it.

favorite season: I'm about to break your brain, but – it's 4!  It's season 4!  I fucking love the first ten episodes of s4!  I love the Monster, I love Bad News Bear, I love Hard Glossy Armor, I love fucking Santa Claus.  I think s4 has this great propulsive energy where the rest of the series has always been plagued by a tendency to kind of throw everything at the wall and see if anything sticks, the stakes are clear, the external villain and the emotional stuff work together for once, everyone's performances are so strong.  The collapse at the end feels so appalling to me in part because I was totally on the ride for most of the season.

least favorite season: I mean, it's season 5, but it didn't have to be.  I was never going to get over Quentin's death, per se, but I think there were ways to structure the next season that would've been workable, and honestly there are things about s5 that I do like.  I watched most of 5 feeling like it was – messy, but messy in the same way that s2 was messy, the same way The Magicians has always been a little messy, and it wasn't until the end when I really just threw up my hands and was like, okay, I get it, there was never a plan, none of this was going anywhere.  God, the last couple of episodes still frustrate me so much, because right up until that point, there was still time to salvage a lot of character work, but nope!

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: So I don't hate her, and in fact I came to kind of like her eventually, but I did actively hate Julia for a long, long time.  Just.  Like, she really – pushes my buttons in a very specific way, and if she were a real person I would absolutely love myself by having as little contact as possible with Julia, but because everyone except me loves her so much, I really kind of forced myself to delve into her and try to see what people liked about her, and I do think it was a pretty successful project.  I would definitely say at this point that I appreciate Julia as a character, and I have a pretty good sense of what Stuff she activates in me that produces that ruffled reaction, which has allowed me to go beyond Julia Sucks Actually to This Character Is Not Really For Me.  I love and support the 98% of fandom who like Julia!  In my way, I love and support Julia!  But kind of like – a sibling you're sort of forced to into a relationship with, that you love even though they drive you crazy and you're not too sure you will really ever like them.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: The Monster.  I mean, it's not that I wanted a redemption arc for him or anything (although @portraitofemmy has always been onto something with the idea that if the Monster is essentially a child, allowing Quentin to save the world by parenting him would've been a pretty clever payoff for long-term arcs), he's just the kind of villain that is just endlessly fun to watch.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: I mean, that's a pretty succinct summary of the entire Eliot Waugh Experience.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: With the caveat that I still don't believe in guilt because these are just imaginary people in imaginary stories, I definitely still think there's a great romantic tragedy right there for the taking with Eliot/Seb.  I wouldn't say the show should have done it, because that would obviously have been just a very different direction than they intended to go, but as a non-canonical ship, I think it's so potentially rich, and someday I'm going to have time to go back to that story I was writing about them, whether or not anyone else ever gives a shit about it.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: I never could figure out what people's issue was with Julia/Penny23, they seemed to make each other happy.  He was a sweet, supportive dude, and I like their little Wild Thornberrys Interdimensional Adventurers family at the end, although I wish they'd done it on purpose, because “guess what life-changing thing is happening to Julia's body without her consent this week!” was not a well the writers needed to go back to, in my opinion.  But I like the idea that Julia ends up with a good guy and a magic kid and is off doing quests and shit, the whole shebang, I thought that was a nice ending.  For whatever that's worth, and I imagine that from the perspective of a real Julia fan, my opinion at this point is not worth much!

[graffitibible]

Building ocs to complement the characters like that is an absolute galaxy brain move, are there any specific ones from starry eyed??

thank you!! and yes, all the most prominent ocs in starry-eyed (i.e. the other two crews he had prior to the fab four) were built to complement or highlight some aspect of jet. i’m not sure how well some of them came across but they were all meant to correspond to or develop a trait of jet’s.

doublestar signifies jet’s relationship with assertiveness. he’s not a super assertive personality by nature (he tends to be drawn to people with a lot of conviction and external confidence, like dust devil and party poison) but some of that has to do with his upbringing. he wasn’t really encouraged to figure out his own relationship with leadership because doublestar was a very “i take charge and you do what i say” personality even if it was with benign intentions. it’s in part because of doublestar that jet has a lot of doubt about making his own decisions for himself and feels more comfortable following someone else’s lead, and also one of the key reasons he puts so much weight on himself to always perform well. she complimented him a TON for the things he was really good at and she did this with good intentions - he’s a great sharpshooter, he’s a fast runner, he’s got excellent instincts for survival. but because jet’s a heavy internalizer, he took all that to mean “oh, i have to perform those things ALWAYS and it’s my direct fault for things that go wrong in those areas because I’m The Best At Them Like Doublestar Said.” so for all that doublestar did her best to prepare him and her group for desert life, she didn’t excel at that in every respect lol

coma doze represents a humor, impulse, and lust for life that jet didn’t really allow himself to have, even as a kid. coma chases emotional highs; jet never allows that for himself. jet’s own enjoyment of something is literally always the last thing on jet’s list of priorities. coma’s a much more lighthearted, spur of the moment kind of guy than jet ever allowed himself to be, and also incredibly pathos-driven. coma’s willingness to throw himself at the fight taking place in the analog wars has more to do with a need to do something with himself than any genuine investment in the struggle taking place. those moments where jet says “fuck it” and does something stupid (like charging a scarecrow while he’s completely alone and without backup for example lol) come from a similar place. most of the time coma’s willing to let his emotional high dictate where he ends up without considering the why or how or the aftermath of it. this is meant to be a clear contrast to jet, who even at his angriest and stupidest, has a reason for doing what he does. he sees a scarecrow, he’s overcome with anger and frustration and a willingness to avenge his friends - but even in that state of heightened emotion he still has a moment where he weighs the risks of the action before he decides to take it.

nova cane indicates jet’s skewed priorities and his sense of strategy, which ties into the above point, as well as his familial mindset and loyalty. that moment before he does something stupid or does something big where he checks himself and weighs the risks of it, that’s something that i wanted nova to represent. nova’s the voice of dissent when coma wants to charge in guns blazing and try and turn the tide of the analog wars, because she’s got the presence of mind to note that two people aren’t going to change the landscape of an entire war. and yet she’s also the person who doesn’t register that she’s been shot because she’s too busy fucking up the dracs that fucked with her crew. the risks to herself don’t sit on the same level as the risks to the crew as a whole, which probably seems pretty familiar since jet’s very much the same way. the risks he takes when it’s his own life on the line are significantly greater than the risks he’s willing to take when it’s the well-being of the group that’s put in the crossfire. nova was there to vocalize and highlight that a little since it’s not something that jet ever sat down and verbalized to himself, and not necessarily something he’s even aware of. it’s a little more evident when it’s someone else falling into those same patterns because that’s less subject to the inherent biases of jet’s pov.

nine-volt rocket was there to highlight jet’s tendencies for codependency. there are a lot of instances in part i where rocket was having a hard time (both physically and emotionally) and jet helps them out with basically no prompting from anyone. a lot of the “nurturing” (read: self-sacrificial) instincts jet picked up early in life have to do with rocket and this notion of “other people have it worse than me so i have to push myself to help them out since i don’t have it as bad” which is categorically not true but jet has a piss-poor conceptualization of his own limitations because of it. he always prioritizes other people above himself, and part of that is because for as long as he can remember, he’s kind of had to do that. of course the idea that he “has” to do it is more or less manufactured. no one asked him to take care of rocket or anything. he internalized the idea that he’s the “most capable” person in the group and so assumed that the responsibility fell down to him and because it tied into the “survival of the group” mentality, no one questioned it.

dust devil is one of those assertive personalities that jet’s drawn to. they’re representative of some of the early germs for the sense of justice that would later drive jet and by extension the fabulous four. dust devil’s aware that some things in the world are very broken and really wants to fix them but ultimately his plan to do that comes down to “break shit very loudly and raise hell doing it” which made for great catharsis but not much in the way of tactical warfare. because jet didn’t have any great stake in the analog wars other than the loss of nova and coma (which more came down to both of them being in the wrong place at the wrong time), dust devil was pretty necessary to introduce that element of “this affects everybody in the desert and you should care about it.” also on a less serious note dust devil existed to make it evident that jet’s Very Gay. i write the fab four as a family unit more than anything else so writing romantic interactions within the group doesn’t super jive with me. but i wanted it to be apparent that jet’s a dude who likes other masc-aligned folks so that’s what that whole mild panic over dust devil planting one on him came from.

fever queen is another character that highlighted jet’s self-sacrificial and codependent tendencies, and this was meant to call to light just how unhealthy they were. queen likes to vent to him and doesn’t really take into account how jet feels about these things - it’s a surprise to zir when jet chimes in because what queen really wants is a blank wall to throw things at so ze can get it out of zir system. queen also has this innate cynicism that’s supposed to counter jet’s own mindset - ze doesn’t think that any efforts to fight back against BLi are worthwhile and are ultimately doomed to fail, but sticks with the group out of necessity. while jet’s not so optimistic to feel like he can singlehandedly tip the balance of a desert-wide struggle, there’s a reason that he’s drawn to the idea of hitting back against better living, and that’s because of the sense of justice i touched on in the point above. queen was also meant to indicate that jet’s ultimately a pretty extroverted person, despite how nonverbal he is. he gets his energy from other people. queen similarly wants to be surrounded by other people, even if ze doesn’t believe in what they’re fighting for, and that’s something jet can relate to.

haywire is a natural exaggeration of jet’s self-destructive tendencies, and is also meant to indicate that a lot of those tendencies stem from a fundamental sense of self-loathing. haywire is dying and knows it. she doesn’t give a fuck about long-term survivability. she hurls herself headfirst into every firefight and when it isn’t charging straight into every clap she runs across, it’s out and out baiting people into fucking with her. jet might not be dying but he’s got a similar mindset. he’s super willing to put himself in the line of fire because he thinks nothing of himself, thinks nothing of the worth of his own life. his self-destruction isn’t big and flashy the way it is for haywire or someone like party poison or fun ghoul, but it’s very much present nonetheless. there’s that moment where haywire basically begs jet to kill her because she’s got a lungful of poisonous gas and she’s dying in a very slow and painful matter, and jet refuses. this is supposed to be a demonstrable contrast to how jet indulges his own self-destruction at the end of part ii. he’s not the kind of guy to put a gun to his own head, but he’ll wander the desert until he dies. he’ll entertain the idea of waltzing into battery city or out into the remains of zone seven just to see what happens. it’s a passive self-destruction as opposed to haywire’s active self-destruction, but that doesn’t make it any less retroactively horrifying that he and haywire are so goddamned casual about how willing they are to Fucking Die.

100% titanium is maybe the most obvious. they gave jet a “voice” in a sense because while jet’s a primarily nonverbal dude, titan was entirely nonverbal due to injury. but even before jet started picking up sign language from them, he got them in a way that not a lot of the other members of the group did, with the exception of raya. titan was there to make it a little more obvious that jet’s actually extremely good at reading other people’s body language and communicating nonverbally. he doesn’t need words to make his point and other people don’t need to spell out their points to him when he can pick most of the big points from the little things - how they stand, how fast they’re talking, how much they’re moving, their expression, etc. titan’s easily one of the characters in part ii that jet has the closest and best relationship with, and i also wanted a character to emphasize that jet has a massive capacity for a genuine love and warmth. some of his most genuine moments in part ii come from his interactions with titan.

mantarraya is meant to represent jet’s faith. she was initially there out of necessity - there was this nonverbal character that no one else would logically be able to understand, so mantarraya was there to streamline that. but more than that, i needed someone to remind jet of the faith he kept back in part i since queen was an outright nonbeliever and neither haywire nor devil were all that devoted to the idea of the witch. so raya believes in the witch, she believes in destroya, and she’s hopeful that she’ll see the latter raze battery city in her lifetime. for her, her faith takes the sting out of the inevitability of death - the witch will take care of her once she eats it, so it’ll be okay. jet doesn’t have that same confidence, in part because he pours so much of himself into others rather than into himself. so much of him wants to shut down and stop but he refuses to indulge that because other people need him. maybe the witch will take care of him, but he won’t be there to help of everyone else who needs him, and what’s worse is he’ll be helpless to stop whatever happens next. it was that existential fear that raised its head toward the end of part iii, because he hadn’t really taken the time to confront it until then. 

[onthevirgeofdestruction]

Would you mind if I request some more of the Logince family with baby Patton and older brother Virgil? Who did they adopt first? What was the meeting between Virgil and Patton like? Did they like each other right away or no? For Anon

I split this into two chapters.

Words: 2,051 Warnings: Anxiety, Jealousy, Insecurity Characters: Virgil, Logan, Roman Ships: Logince Universe: Kid!Patton & Teen!Virgil Adopted by Logince Genre: Family 

  Some part of Virgil registered that his dads had already started the adoption process. That they wanted him there and that they loved him. That it had been two years with them now and they had no plans of letting him go. But there was a very loud voice saying that he would be replaced by another kid. That the other kid would fit better and be better and they’d change their minds or ignore him. And he’d go back to scraps and struggling alone because there was no one to help him when things too overwhelming.

   Virgil knew it didn’t make sense. His dads would never do that to him. They even asked Virgil if he’d be okay if they could foster another younger child. Virgil agreed to it. Papa had said that taking Virgil in had made them so happy they wanted to spread the love. Dad was clear that them wanting another kid didn’t mean that they would love or support Virgil any less. And Virgil honestly felt secure in that moment. Papa wrapped him up in an enormous hug when he agreed and they went out to Virgil’s favourite pizza place to celebrate. It was a nice day. He’d had lots of nice days since he got to the Sanders.

   But now that the day where a new kid would come was here, he couldn’t help but hate the new kid. He’d never even met him. Dad said his name was Patton, and he was six. He was shy and his communication was a little stunted. And that all sounded well and good. Until Virgil’s stupid fear of abandonment issues started acting up.

   Virgil fiddled with his hoodie strings while he sat alone in his bedroom, balled up against the wall on his bed. He knew he was being stupid. He was completely aware. Why couldn’t he stop? He didn’t even know this kid, and he hated him from an irrational fear. It wouldn’t even bet this kid’s fault if he got abandoned, it would be his parents. It made even less sense the more he thought about it. But he also couldn’t stop hating him. Virgil yanked on either side of the string and stared down at his lap blankly. His parents want this. Why can’t he be happy for them? Why can’t he be happy for the new kid? Virgil groaned in frustration and dropped his head to his knees.

   “Virgil?” Logan said, peeking into Virgil’s bedroom. Virgil glanced up and gave Logan a weak wave in acknowledgment. “I had a feeling,” Logan said, opening the door and coming into the bedroom.

   “A feeling, huh?” Virgil laughed grimly and wrapped his arms around his legs.

   “I’ve learned a lot from you, Virgil. Do you mind if I join you?” Logan asked, stopping a foot or so from the bed. Virgil shook his head and Logan climbed up on to the bed and sat next to Virgil. He paused for a moment of consideration and wrapped his arm around Virgil’s shoulders and pulled him closer. Virgil exhaled and leaned against Logan.

   “Why do I have to be like this?” Virgil asked quietly.

   “I’m afraid I’m missing some important context. Would you like to elucidate me?” Logan asked, rubbing Virgil’s shoulder a little.

   “Not really,” Virgil muttered. He didn’t want his dad to be mad at him.

   “Well then, I suppose the argument is nature versus nurture in a more broad sense. Is it your genetics or your experiences who make you who you are today? Is anything really you and your choices and wants or is everything considered ‘you’ determined by chemical reactions in your body?” Logan mused and leaned against Virgil.

   “That’s… weirdly philosophical of you. And a little terrifying,” Virgil looked up to Logan in confusion.

   “Finding out what motivates us is important to the progress of ourselves. We can’t be more if we can’t find out what makes us want more,” Logan explained, sounding fascinated.

   “What makes us want more?” Virgil was even more confused now. “What do you mean?���

   “There are two types of motivation. And motivation is what keeps us moving forward. One kind is intrinsic motivation, which comes within. The other is extrinsic motivation. That’s external motivation. External motivation is important, of course. This is things like validation from peers and rewards in the real world. But intrinsic motivation is the things done for the sake of the satisfaction of the activity, even when there’s no reward to be found,” Logan continued on. But Virgil still felt a little lost.

   “What does that have to do with why I’m like this?” Virgil asked, furrowing his eyebrows and looking to Logan at an angle.

   “I don’t know exactly what you’re talking about. I just know what motivation is an important part of being who you want to be instead of what nature or nurture has already provided for you. Why you could be one way or another. You don’t sound satisfied with where you are, so we should find what motivates you to help you change. Roman, for example, has lots of talent, but he’s very insecure. These two things conflict for him. But when people cheer for him or he receives accolades, he finds happiness and satisfaction despite the internal conflict,” Logan motioned to the door, perhaps towards where he last saw Roman.

   “Okay,” Virgil nodded. He felt like he was following now.

   “And consider me. I find happiness when I complete things of my own merit. I like proving to myself that I’m capable, and I don’t mind if nobody cheers for me as long as people respect me and take me seriously. I can get insecure when people do not take me seriously, but I can still find happiness in my own tasks without interaction,” Logan said.

   “So you guys are like the two kinds of motivations?” Virgil said.

   “That’s correct. So which kind makes more sense for you?” Logan asked gently.

   “I don’t like it when I’m the center of attention. But I also don’t like it when no one recognizes when I’ve worked hard. I don’t think either make sense for me,” Virgil admitted quietly. “So I’m like this because I’m unmotivated?”

   “No, I don’t think so. Not everybody is one way or the other. Plenty of people need a combination of both. When I’ve worked particularly hard, I like my work to be acknowledged by others, too. And when Papa practices and rehearses, he does that alone and is motivated by his own drive to be the best he can be. Maybe you’re more balanced between the two. So what makes you feel good?” Logan asked, giving Virgil a small squeeze with his arm.

   “I don’t know. When people like me, I guess. I like feeling included and stuff. Music makes me feel good. I dunno if that’s a motivator, though,” Virgil admitted softly.

   “It can be if you’re interested in it. Music could be intrinsically motivating for you. If you are feeling dissatisfied, we can consider a musical pursuit, but I don’t understand the root of the problem. I would like it if you didn’t exclude details so I could assist you better,” Logan said, sounding somewhere between concerned and perturbed.

   “I can’t say it. I’m sorry,” Virgil muttered. “Thanks for caring, though,” Virgil added, feeling a little less sour. He pressed into Logan and reached up to squeeze his arm briefly.

   “I’ll always care for you, Virgil,” Logan said softly. “Both of us will always be there for you,” Logan rubbed Virgil’s shoulder again. And hearing him say that helped much more than Virgil wanted to say out loud. Part of him still hated the competition and the unknowns. But even the day they were expecting Patton to come, Logan took time out to talk to Virgil and reassure him even when he didn’t know what was wrong.

   “Hello, gentleman!” Roman popped his head in. “Are you alright, my little stormy sky?” Roman stepped in and sat on the edge of the bed.

   “Yeah, I’ll be all right. My head’s just in a weird place,” Virgil looked up to Roman and gave him a weak smile.

   “Being in a weird place helps you know when you’re in the right one, sometimes, as strange as it sounds,” Roman smiled. “We’re here for you, though, every weird place, nice place, and bad one. If you tell me what you want and I will move heaven and earth to find it for you,” Roman put his hand to his chest and raised his other one dramatically.

   “Papa,” Virgil groaned and rolled his eyes.

   “Virgil said he is interested in music,” Logan sat up a little and looked to Roman with a sly smile.

   “Music? My boy? Really?” Roman beamed and looked like he was glowing with excitement.

   “Papa,” Virgil groaned harder. “I’m just interested, okay, I like it,” Virgil tapped on his legs.

   “Well what part of music are you interested in? Singing? Playing an instrument? Music production?” Roman asked brightly, deeply invested, leaning toward Virgil with a bright smile.

   “I don’t know!” Virgil leaned back against the wall.

   “How about you do some research and come back to us with something that sounds intriguing to try?” Logan asked.

   “Oh, that’s boring, let’s go to a music store and you can play with all the instruments and tools and see what feels right for you,” Roman objected with a little pout towards Logan.

   “Guys,” Virgil groaned. But he liked it a bit, if he was honest with himself. It was all reassuring. But Virgil wouldn’t really know for sure how they’d treat him until it happened.

   “I’ve never heard you sing, Virgil. Maybe you can practice with me sometime?” Roman offered. “I can teach you the basics,” 

   “If I wanted to later, would the offer still be open? I don’t know if I want to, but…” Virgil trailed off.

   “Anytime, sunshine, all I need is a sign,” Roman sang with his arm in the air.

   “Fine,” Virgil chuckled. If the offer really stayed open, then Virgil could maybe shut his head up about it.

   “A poet in the making!” Roman declared dramatically. Logan chuckled and rolled his eyes.

   “How about we reconvene in the living room and do something more active help put you in a better head-space, Virgil?” Logan offered. “It will not help any to be alone with your thoughts no matter what you are going through,” He added in that helpful way he did that always just skirted annoying. But it sounded nice.

   “Can we play spoons?” Virgil asked, looking up to Logan.

   “I will get the finest deck of cards!” Roman declared, standing up.

   “Roman, we have two decks of cards,” Logan huffed, flipping his hand free hand flippantly. 

   “I will get the one with the gold foil and make fruit punch mocktails so we can feel fancy!” Logan adjusted his statement.

   “I have some solid gold coins in plastic containers we could use as the proverbial ‘spoons’ if you wanted to feel extravagant,” Logan said, rubbing his chin.

   “What? That would be so cool!” Virgil shot, unable to contain his excitement at the prospect. He’d never seen a real gold coin and wanted to play with it. It would be much more fun than spoons. Like being a thief in the night as he sneaked a real gold coin under their noses.

   “Can you both promise to be careful with them and not drop them? It’s important they stay in their casings or they will lose value,” Logan asked, holding up a finger.

   “Yes, dad,” Virgil and Roman both intoned, then looked at each other and laughed. Logan rolled his eyes and gave Virgil a last squeeze before getting up off the bed. Virgil watched them head into the living room and tried to gather himself. Okay. He was starting to feel better. Kicking their asses at spoons would probably help, too. So maybe he didn’t really know what motivated him so he could be less insecure and worry less about being abandoned again, but it sounded like they wanted to help him find that what did, even if Virgil couldn’t admit what was really bothering him. Logan was always telling him he had to try before deciding he hated something. So Virgil could try. 

taglist: @elizabutgayer​​

[telekinsesis]

"🎭The Masked Autistic Quiz🎭

If you’ve spent your life ‘faking normal, you might not look autistic to the casual observer. So I’ve made a questionnaire that’s tailored to the masking autistic adult.

#ActuallyAutistic #AllAutistics"

1. Have you ever felt as if you were missing the built-in instruction manual that everyone else seemed to possess?

Yes. I had to slowly learn how basic things worked while others seemed to instinctively get it.

Did you spend an inordinate amount of time learning to copy the behavior of other kids so that they wouldn’t realize you were different?

Yes. I always just wanted to fit in and have friends and be liked, but I always felt different than them.

2. Are you able to make eye contact, but would much rather NOT make eye contact? Have you taught yourself to ‘cheat’ by looking between the eyes or at the eyebrow? Does eye contact make it harder to think clearly?

I can't handle eye contact for longer than a couple of seconds. Most of the time I find a way to avoid it, I can only remember doing it in stare contests with my sister or for comedic purposes.

3. When you’re alone do you make random noises or repeat interesting words to yourself? Do you move your hands or feet because staying still feels ‘wrong?’ Bonus points if you do this around other people.

I'm always shaking/bouncing my leg. Sometimes I hold my breath for no reason or find myself making involuntary noises with my throat. Every once in a while I also say random things.

4. Do people refer to you as a ’space cadet’ or a ‘day-dreamer’, even though those terms make no sense to you? Do you appreciate unusual things like constellations in the popcorn ceiling, tricks of light, numbers and textures?

I am always daydreaming or spacing out, I would be more called out for it as a teen than I am now. / I don't find those things unusual but I love noticing them and the little details about it, I do appreciate it.

5. Do your anxiety levels spike when there is a change of plans, or when somebody calls, rings a doorbell or sends an email/text? Do people perceive you as rude and antisocial for being unappreciative of their surprise attacks?

Yes, yes, yes. Unless it's someone I deeply trust (sometimes not even then though), sudden changes of plans or routine upset and stress the hell out of me. Phone calls can give me anxiety and sometimes I need a lot of time to reply to a simple text.

6. Do you have a hard time understanding why people feel the way they do without a personal point of reference? Are you able to relate much more once you’ve tied their experience to something that’s happened to you?

I can't remember or realize if I do, but I do know that I'm better at "empathizing (?)" when I relate to the situation in one way or another. My closest friends are people I share similar experiences/feelings with and we can get each other.

7. Do people jokingly call you ‘OCD’ for your organizational strategies or list making, even though there are perfectly rational reasons for your behavior? Does this ‘obsessive’ behavior also bring you a sense of calm and order when you’re allowed to see it though to completion?

Not really, but my sister who's a psychologist thinks I have "obsessive/compulsive traits" or whatever because of how often I wash my hands. I also enjoy organizing my saved files, even if it takes me hours, and feel much better when they are.

8. Do you have social anxiety, but only because you have a hefty track record of rejection due to missed social cues, difficulty navigating conversations and an inability to understand what other people are thinking?

I have been diagnosed with social and generalized anxiety but I don't know why, it's just my brain. I do remember it starting/getting worse when I got to high school, around the same time my depression kicked in.

9. Do you avoid places because of the overwhelming noise, visual clutter, bright lights or overwhelming smells? Do you avoid busy stores and do your shopping when things aren’t as busy?

I don't go out a lot overall, I like staying home better. I don't know the exact reason why and when I go out it's hardly ever to packed loud places because I'm very introverted, but I also hate when people talk too loudly 90% of the time.

10. Do you have a built-in ‘BS detector’ and despise playing along with things that infantilize you? Have people said you’re ‘not a team player’ for complaining about pointless gift exchanges or parties? Do you need to understand the purpose of a task?

Yes. I don't complain but I don't participate either, again, I'm very anxious and introverted so unless I feel comfortable with those people, I don't like socializing much. I don't remember ever doing tasks without purpose, I don't think they exist in the first place, everything has a purpose.

11. When you get happy and excited, do people say you’re ‘too much’ or tell you to calm down? Are you unusually animated when genuinely excited, yet find it hard to fake this enthusiasm on demand for others?

When I'm in a good mood, I'm in a good mood. When I was younger and participated in things I was passionate about I would get told to tone it down and be less "loud" or "annoying" because the way I expressed my excitement was too extra. I found it easier to blend in and calm myself externally after called out.

12. Do you feel so closely connected to your hobbies that you can blissfully engage in them for hours and have a hard time stopping for anything else? Does losing interest in them make you feel as if you’ve lost a part of yourself?

Yes, definitely, yes.

13. Is driving a stressful and exhausting experience for you? Do you tend to take the same familiar route every time and even go so far as to avoid stressful intersections and fast highways? Do you struggle making quick decisions behind the steering wheel?

I don't drive.

14. Do you feel as if you relate to animals more than other people? As a child, did you secretly suspect that you were from another planet or species than that of your classmates? When meeting someone similar to yourself, do you feel like you’re ‘home’, so to speak?

I relate more to cats than people I know. I still do, even though I rationally know it's impossible, kinda. It's not very often but yes.

15. Do you abhor the idea of making conversation with people who share nothing in common with you? Would you happily go out of your comfort zone to talk with others about a shared hobby or passion?

My classmates gave me anxiety but I would talk for hours with one of my sister's friends because she liked classic movies too.

16. Do people assume you’re angry at them when you’re not? Do you smile or laugh inappropriately, upsetting others? Have people told you that you have a ‘resting bitch face’?

I have been asked multiple times if I was okay or if I was sad when I was nothing of the sort, but maybe I was simply depressed? I remember laughing and then realizing it wasn't a good moment but I don't remember it happening a lot or why I did it.

17. Do you have an unusually monotonous or singsong voice? Do you have a hard time modulating your volume and speak with inappropriate volume for the situation?

I don't know, I don't think so but I constantly do get called out for not speaking clearly or mumbling or talking too low or fast even when I think I'm being clear or think it's possible to understand me regardless.

18. Have you purposely chosen interests that fly under the radar as ‘normal’, yet you still prefer to enjoy peripheral aspects of that interest, such as studying the stats of baseball players or making elaborate backstories for your Barbie dolls?

As a kid I would create novelas around my Barbie dolls, when I made pillow forts with my friends I would create dramatic/tragic stories and wanted to act them out with them. Currently I don't "choose" interests or care about how "normal" they appear, I'm just naturally invested in things.

19. Do you find it inordinately difficult to listen to someone when other people are talking? Do you have a hard time carrying on a conversation in a loud or crowded place?

I don't know but I don't think so, when a person is loud enough I can hear them over other noises, even if it's by a little. Again, I don't usually go to loud or crowded places so I can't remember.

20. Do emotions and sensory overload build up into a thunderstorm of rage that you have no choice but to ride out until it passes? This might be a meltdown. Alternately, does the buildup result in you retreating from the world and ‘zoning out’? This would be a ‘shutdown’.

Yes.

21. While not officially criteria, this is something that many autistics will relate to: Do gender, romantic and sexuality norms seem arbitrary and fake? Even if you don’t identify as LGBTQ+, do you hesitate when referring to yourself as cisgender or heterosexual?

I'm a lesbian that questions her sexuality at times and have no idea what my gender is, I just know I'm not cis.

22. Have you developed coping mechanisms such as lists, schedules, stacks of paper, alarms and reminders to help you function as an adult? Would you still be able to get by without them?

I'm currently not doing anything that requires me functioning like an adult and don't remember what I did when I had to but I would never be able to be an adult.

23. Do you go through periods where you can’t even remember how to make dinner or get ready for work, and even the easiest of tasks seem insurmountable because you can’t fathom completing the steps to completion?

I don't forget how to do things but I can forget to do them or it's almost impossible to bring myself to physically do them.

24. Do you find it easier to do things when they’re a passion or ‘special interest’? Were you good at cooking/gardening/organizing when it was interesting, but find it impossible to start once the passion has abandoned you?

Always. I have abandoned many projects once I lost interest even if I was somewhat good at it at the start.

25. Do you have a hard time recognizing or remembering faces? While not all autistics are ‘face blind’ many of us are.

I don't think there are many faces I need to recognize or remember, and I have a shitty memory anyway so I don't know.

26. Is keeping and maintaining relationships difficult for you, even if you’re loyal to them? Do you suddenly remember a good friend or relative that you literally forgot about for months or years? Is it hard to initiate conversations without a prompt, even with friends?

Yes. If I'm close and trust them, it's not hard to text them first but I don't always know what to exactly say or talk about.

27. Lastly, do you get emotional and feel ‘seen’ when reading the above tweets and other content by autistics? There might be a reason for that.

I do some and most times, but I don't wanna assume things.

[pynkhues]

I’m not really sure what I’m expecting to happen in season 3 but I’m keeping my expectations low. I will be extremely disappointed though if we still don’t get any scenes with Rio’s POV. I feel like at this point they have to give us a bit more from his perspective and have him have scenes outside of Beth and the girls but I honestly don’t know if they will. I’m just tired that we always has to headcanon things about Rio’s character bc the writers don’t give us much when it comes to him.

I think that’s all fair, anon. I’ve had quite a few asks in the past about people wanting a Rio POV, and if I’ve ever answered them, it’s usually been pretty vaguely, because honestly? It’s a bit of a loaded question for me - although probably not for the reasons that you think. So I figure it’s finally time I actually sit down and answer it. As always, this is just my opinion, and I’m not trying to invalidate anyone’s feelings or theories in the process of this, it’s just me. Talking, haha.

The reason this is complicated for me is that it requires a bit of a reconciliation in my head between Sophie the Viewer and Sophie the Writer, because honestly as a viewer? I’d really love it too! I find Rio a compelling character and Manny’s performance excellent, and I want to see more of him, and obviously I ship him pretty hard with Beth, and think Manny and Christina perform magnetically together, and I do think he’s a bit underutilised in the narrative sense.

That said, as a writer? I think it not only makes sense, but is important in terms of the narrative structure and the rules they have established that he hasn’t been a POV character up until this point. Up until the finale, he hadn’t connected in a meaningful way to any other character beyond the scope of the girls, meaning that it would make no sense to have him as a POV character. I actually think that for all the damage 2.13 did, we’re actually set up really, really well for that to change.

Beth, Ruby and Annie are, of course, the focus of the show. That’s not exactly new information for anyone, and the suite of supporting characters – namely Rio, Dean, Stan, Greg, Nancy, Boomer, Marion, Mary Pat, Noah and Turner (phew!) – are ultimately defined not just by their relationships to the girls, but by the points where their worlds intersect with the girls’. Whether you have characters like Dean or Stan who are intersecting due to sharing a domestic space / a life with them, or a workplace / job like Boomer or Mary Pat, or a mission like Turner, we only ever really see them in terms of how their stories interconnect with, or disrupt, the girls’.

And yeah, the most common argument I see around this is that Boomer has been a POV character quite a lot, but the thing is Boomer is also a bridging character, which is the main thing that I want to talk about here. Boomer is a character who connects a lot of the story worlds – he brings us to Annie, he brings us to Marion, he brings us to Turner, and then he brings us to Mary Pat. As much as he is an antagonist and, of course, a character in his own right, he’s also a narrative tool who’s being used to smooth transitions between scenes, and connect characters in unexpected ways, and in doing so he drums up dramatic tension, can be used to pass information between the characters he connects with (we saw that early on with him seeing Rio, taking the picture, and showing Turner, thus connecting Beth and Turner), and can plant seeds for future plot points (i.e. recognising Annie’s tattoo during the robbery in the pilot, the pen cap, his ‘death’, etc).

And it’s not just Boomer either. The show has established that supporting characters really only get their own POVs when they intersect in some way with other supporting characters. Think about Stan. He was not a POV character in S1. We never saw him acting as a security guard, and we only saw him at work at the police station when Ruby visited him (and again – Stan became a bridging device in that moment between Ruby and the news of Eddie’s arrest), but by taking the pen cap in S2, his world collided with not only Ruby’s in a way it hadn’t before, but with Turner’s, and he became a POV character. Even those scenes with him though, as much as they were about his own character arc and his own stressors, we wouldn’t have seen them if they weren’t essential to Ruby’s character arc, and to her conflict with Beth. Same with Mary Pat and Boomer. These are C plots that ultimately influence the A narrative – which is about Beth, Annie and Ruby trying to Do Crime and Survive.

Even Dean is the same. With the exception of his new job in 2.12, he’s only ever a POV character when he’s somehow connecting with another supporting or minor character – usually Amber or Turner, in a way that drives Beth’s arc – the former of whom is integral to Beth’s internal journey, and the latter to the pressures dictating her external one. Hell, we didn’t even see Dean take the kids! We didn’t even see him interact with his mother. We saw Beth interact with Judith, not Dean. That’s because the show isn’t about him, and the time that we spend with him is ultimately about the ways his behaviour is going to effect (and usually hurt) Beth.  

The problem with Rio as he existed prior to 2.13 is that he was, narratively speaking, an island. He couldn’t connect any of the subplots, because he wasn’t connected to anyone else.

Rio operates in a world that is almost completely removed from the ones Beth, Annie and Ruby live in. It would make no sense to have him suddenly have a subplot with – say – Mary Pat, or even with someone like Stan. The collisions of those worlds wouldn’t serve the narrative, it wouldn’t reveal anything about the girls, and it wouldn’t be authentic to the overall story. We know that he’d kill Mary Pat, and that storyline would instantly be over. We know that he already has a mole inside the police station, so what use would Stan be to him?

Think about it this way. If Rio was a POV character right now, and he wasn’t interacting with the girls, what would he be doing? What would we be seeing? Likely, it would be his operation, right? Which would require a whole new set of worlds and sets, a whole new suite of characters, likely unique subplots, which would ultimately take us too far away from the central arc. His world does not crossover enough with the girls’ yet to make narrative sense. Hell, we saw that when they did it the one time in S2 – it introduced the country club, and it introduced Gretchen, because he doesn’t otherwise intersect with the girls’ world.

It would be a narrative detour.

(I mean, maybe he could’ve intersected with Fine & Frugal? But I think the fact that Boomer didn’t recognise Rio in S1 means doing so is way below Rio’s paygrade).

That’s why I think that 2.13 establishes us really well. It is deliberately linking Rio and Turner, while also likely positioning us to explore more of the crime world through Beth trying to set up her own kingdom, which will create a narrative overlap in Beth and Rio’s worlds, giving them many more ways to intersect, which pulls Rio closer to the A Storyline. It’d also have the benefit of introducing us to it at the same time Beth is introduced to it, keeping us in line with her perspective, while also opening up the chances to explore other points of view, including Rio’s.

Which hopefully they’ll do! I guess we just have to wait and see. 😊

Phew! That got long, anon, haha.

And for the last part of your question – in terms of the headcanons about Rio’s character – look, I think it’s more obvious that we know so little about him because so much of fandom is heavily invested in him, but we actually don’t have a lot of information about any of the supporting characters. Hell, even our knowledge of Beth, Annie and Ruby’s pasts are sprinkled in very sparingly. We only have a one-off mention for instance of the fact that Ruby has brothers, and we have no idea what’s happened to any of their families except that Ruby’s dad passed away. We know nothing about Stan’s history, or Greg’s, or hell, even Boomer’s. The amount of legwork 2.08 did too in terms of telling us about the girls’ history was massive, given prior to that we actually knew next to nothing.

Honestly, I’d like more backstory for everyone! But that’s only because I’m hungry for every kernel of history this show flicks our way, haha. But yes, more Rio backstory would definitely be nice too, and hopefully S3 positions us in a way we might get some.

[kastlenetwork]

Do you think Karen loves/cares for Frank more than he does her? And when do you think was the moment for them when they were like woah... I love this person?

I think that’s always a hard thing to gauge – how much someone loves someone else and if it’s more or less than the love that person has for them in return. The two of them tend to present their love and investment in each other in different ways, which I think often lends to the outward perception that Karen’s love and care for him is the greater of the two. Based on what we’ve been presented, I don’t think it’s too wild of a thought, what with her care for him being a very external presentation. 

The thing about Karen’s feelings for Frank is that she’s been able to be more open to it for a longer period of time. From the second she meets him she hasn’t had any real barrier between her and her borderline obsessive investment in him and his life and his connection to her and her circumstances. She was “with Matt” [as much as a single date qualifies as being with someone] at the start of her relationship with Frank, yes. But, that relationship with Matt was never really a blocking wall into jumping face first into everything. If anything it was a propelling one, because the speed at which things fell apart with him did nothing but drive her further into trying to help Frank. 

Karen’s definitely dealing with all of her own personal internal trauma and baggage, from the get go, when Nelson and Murdock take on Frank’s case. But, in hers’, her trauma and baggage does nothing more but connect her to him further. She feels for him over his inadvertently getting his family killed, because she killed her brother. She empathizes. She understands the pain of that – how it feels living with it every day. She doesn’t actively believe killing people is the solution for everything, she ultimately believes that there should be repercussions. But, she also believes that fear is a real thing – that threats to one’s self are real. That grown men can chloroform you outside of your apartment and bring you to an abandoned warehouse and wave a gun in your face. That crime kingpins can send hit-men after you. 

She knows she’s a killer, too, just like he is. Different circumstances maybe, but a body count all the same. And she attaches herself to him and, perhaps in most people’s eyes, over invests in his redemption, because it gives her hope that she can be redeemed as well. So, every second that ticks by she’s able to feel more and more for him. She’s anchored to his side with every passing conversation – every passing moment. And her pseudo relationship with Matt crashes and burns before it even takes off the helipad, so she’s got no real barrier halting her from emotionally binding with Frank. Her care for him and his well-being and his answers over DD2, and her feelings and love for him in TP1 and TP2 have no true emotional obstacles to overcome, besides his being a mass murderer who’s constantly walking away.

But, Frank’s emotional baggage and trauma affects him in an entirely different way from the beginning of their story. His focus is on his mission. It’s on his kids. It’s on his wife. I mean, we know that Frank connects to her, as well, before they’re even out of Regrets Only. There’s a reason that he immediately only wants to talk to her. There’s a reason he opens up to her right away and that they share laughs and pain and whatnot. And through DD2, when they’re sharing scenes together, there’s obvious bonding. 

But, the difference is that Frank’s trauma and baggage aren’t propelling walls, they’re blocking ones. They don’t move him closer to her, because he doesn’t even have any clue what she’s gone through. When Karen and Frank are talking to one another, every single minute binds her more emotionally to him, because she knows his story and she knows her own. But, it doesn’t do the exact same thing for him, because in terms of sharing past tragedy, it’s an extremely one way street. Which is obviously something that goes all the way through to the end of TP2. He infers she’s used a gun before. He probably has used context clues to notice her obvious relation to him. But, he has no details. He doesn’t and has not asked for any details. 

Ironically the most that he questions her about is her love life and he sort of bases a lot of personal emotional connection on that. He uses his knowledge of her love life and his feelings about her love life as the tool to try and carry out his feelings for her later in The Abyss. “You have options, that aren’t me, who are better for you [even if I don’t actually have all of the facts on that front] than I am.”

Where Karen’s Never Really Starts relationship with Matt does nothing to dissuade her from Frank and from budding feelings for him – Frank’s Ended In Horrifying Murder relationship with his wife does dissuade him from developing those types of feelings for her, for awhile. He doesn’t even officially let go of Maria’s hand until the end of TP2. His feelings for Karen and his love for her come well before that, obviously [at least obviously to me and us in this fandom lolol], but I think the fact that he hadn’t chosen life yet is a major part of the reason he hadn’t kissed Karen in that elevator. 

Karen’s all outward love. She’s the one telling him she wants to see him, outside of just ‘exchanging info and fighting the good fight’. She’s the one who’s telling him he can choose to love her. She’s the one screaming out for him and to him about how she’s there to help him, how they can work together as a team, as people who love each other, to solve their problems. Frank’s a mixture of both. He’s the one kissing her cheek and stroking her face with his thumb when he thinks she’s hurt. He’s the one taking bullets for her and screaming out, to people who are not her, that’s she’s family. Not so subtly placing her romantic context, when David’s talking about his wife. He’s the one implying to those friend’s wives that Karen’s the one who’s gonna help him through hard times. 

But, he’s also the one that walks away. He’s the one who tells her to walk away. He’s the one who sort of foolishly thinks he knows her romantic paths and that those paths are better for her in the long run. 

So, you look at those two approaches and you’re like, “Well, Karen obviously loves Frank more than he loves her.” 

But, I don’t think that’s true.

I think she’s had more time to embrace her feelings for him – to, honestly, sort of suffer in those feelings for him. She’s had more time to be open to loving him and wanting him to love her. She’s not had the previous romantic blocking walls and missions to slow the process down. She loved Kevin, but he was her brother. The tragic loss of him doesn’t effect her romantically in the same way the loss of Maria does for Frank. She had Matt for a small moment and Crappy Boyfriend Who’s Name I Don’t Remember at some point in life before that and whoever else she’s had interest in, but none of those relationships were a doorstop in progression like Maria was for him. Matt’s death, for the time period where she believed that was true during TP1, doesn’t doorstop the progression, either. It also seemingly propels her further into Frank, because she doesn’t feel alone when he’s around and she feels [like he feels in return] that she can be her most honest self around him.

But, when the floodgates opened for Frank they were opened. And it’s the external examples and the internal examples together that show that he cares for her just as much, loves her just as much, has all sorts of ooey gooey feelings. It’s just that he knows so much less about her, because the writers never have him ask. They have him show both big moments to represent the place she holds in his heart. Swelling moments of yelling and kicking about how important she is to him that startle and surprise David, who actively speaks out prior that he doesn’t know how Karen falls into everything. Literal jumping in front of bullets for her. And they have him show small moments to represent the place she holds in his heart. Soft kisses to her cheek. Clutching onto her and breathing her when she hugs him. Leaning in to kiss her before placing his forehead against hers. Grasping onto her hand when she comes to sit by his side in the hospital. 

But, because they never let him actually get to get ACTUAL details about her life, through actual conversation about what’s going on with her, it always comes across like she’s so much more invested in him and cares for him so much more than he does her. But, her constantly trying to pull him close and him constantly trying to push him away to a better life are the both of them really trying to do the same thing – even if one of their methods is infuriating. They’re trying to show the other love. Karen by being there for him. And Frank by thinking she’s too good to slum it with his emotionally stunted self. 

When it comes to to really realizing that it’s love [however much or little it is at the time] and not just standard investment in one another: I think that for Frank it’s actually when he’s speaking with Sarah. That’s the real start of understanding. She asks him if he’s found something to do that for him, to help him through, and Frank’s responding answer of, “….uh…..maybe….yeah, maybe,” and the delivery of it. It’s like he’s realizing for the first time Karen yelling out at him under the bridge of wanting him to have an after could actually mean something more. I actually think the fact that he kisses her cheek before this moment, in Gunner, says that he hadn’t really known then. Like, it was THERE it just hadn’t registered yet. Because, it’s clear that when it comes to having actual feelings and not just a one night stand maybe I’ll trying this for a hot sec feelings, Frank’s the opposite of proactive. He goes to the direct other end. Protective. You have to choose someone else. I can’t. And I think he probably wouldn’t of kissed her, at that point, if it had already clicked in his mind.

And it all just comes more and more to a head after this conversation when she gives her radio interview and it’s clear she’s in serious danger. On the I Love Karen Page And Would Do Anything To Protect Her Even If It Hurts Me O’Meter, he goes from 1 to 1000 real quick. And then it all cultivates in that elevator. 

When it comes to Karen? Earlier. Much. She’s super locked into him from the start and she really quickly jumps into the, “I know he’s a mass murderer, but he’s never done anything wrong in his life and I love him” pool pretty quick. Like, everyone around her’s like, “Karen cool it.” I actually think that makes hers harder to gauge in a lot of ways, because it’s a steady increase. Maybe it’s in her apartment? When he comes to her on the street and she brings him up to the apartment she should not be able to afford and he gives her flowers and starts to say his goodbyes and she just rushes forward to grab onto him. And then they just sway for awhile. And she pulls away from him suddenly, like TOTALLY overwhelmed and just breathes out that she’s just happy to see him. Like, that hug would’ve went on if she hadn’t pulled away, just as their swaying in the elevator would’ve went on if she hadn’t pulled away and told him to go. 

I think before this moment she is OBVIOUSLY attached to him, probably already has so much love for him because Karen goes quuuuuuuuuuuuick. But, I don’t think she was in love with him in the woods and I don’t think she was when she was on the street when he was shooting ninjas above her. I think that was still growing feelings attachment mode. And seeing him again for the first time since, when she’s just totally alone – no Matt, barely any Foggy, no friends – she sees him and he’s buying her flowers and he’s leaving her again and I think she’s suddenly like, “I love this dude, man. Disengage hug, disengage hug!!” And once again, it all just builds up to the elevator where it’s no longer, “I love this man” it’s “I’m in love with this man and he needs to leave right now.” 

Too long? Too long.

[trainwreckweather]

8&24 (hospital+ soulmate AU) stella/scully

Prompt given by the lovely @viceversawrites (thank you! 💙)

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

It's rare. They say it's like divine revelation. You feel everything, see everything. Taste, hear, know.

So many have chased the feeling to death. Scientists have tried to engineer the euphoria and intelligence in a pill for the richest of the rich.

But it's dangerous. And really, it doesn't compare.

In this day and age, it's a common folk tale. A myth. Taught in history classrooms, in literature too- oh, the sheer romance of it. Professors swoon at uninterested students snapping gum and looking bored.

They don't care about what doesn't concern them.The subject of soulmates is laughable to them.

Oh- oh it's real they say.

It's real, sure. No one will dispute that. It's happened before. Ordinary humans changed within an instant. No one knows why, or how. They don't know how a highschool dropout can communicate in every language known to man- dead and lost included, mere minutes after handing over a fast food receipt.

They're stronger, smarter, and more perceptive once they've met their soulmate. More compassionate too, it seems.

But the catch is, you have to touch the hand of your soulmate to see it all. To know.

Statistics are not in anyone's favor. You can say 'small world!’ all you want, but the population is up there, nearly 8 billion now. Take the seas into consideration, the miles separating city from rural lands, and the restless spirit of humans- it's harder than hitting the jackpot.

No one has time to go and touch the hand of every person they come across, though it's not uncommon to see small children, whimsical and hopeful glide along, giggling as they brush the hands of everyone they pass.

A children's schoolground game. There are nursery rhymes about it too, but Dana doesn't have her head in the clouds, doesn't pay any mind.

She isn't like the children and preteen girls singing and daydreaming of enlightenment and the truest, purest form of love.

She's a realist. She gets up, grooms, shoves half a bagel in her mouth, maybe burns herself with coffee on her commute to work.

People love, people marry, and she thinks she gets along just fine with the knowledge her brain holds now. She isn't interested in soulmates. It never even crosses her mind.

She thinks in numbers, hard facts, statistics. Diseases and treatments and dosages. Possible cures. The closest she's gotten to letting loose is whooping with the kids in her ward who've just gotten the best news of their lives yet. They can go home.

That's where she usually is, that's where she does her best work- The pediatric ward. She shakes all of her patients hands and (thankfully) not once did she feel any different than before.

Today is a changeup.  The ER is short staffed and her ward is quiet.

Dana reviews vitals, orders tests, transfers and medications to be administered. It's busier than she's used to but she adjusts to the fast paced rhythm like she does most things. She finds her groove and excels. Like a machine.

People feel bad for her. She doesn't date, she's buried in her work, too invested. She takes it home with her and reviews files, over and over. Tests theories, work things out in her head, this way and that. What is the best course of action for little Brian? If I proceed with this- he could have permanent nerve damage, if I risk it he may die.

Her nights are much like her days, blended and ordered and perfect. She's happy. She thinks she's happy at least. Who cares about what others see? Who cares about the ultimate human form? Who cares about love? She has everything she could ever want or need.

“Dr. Scully, ambulance is here in two. Car crash, 33 yr. old caucasian female, possible head injury.”

A nurse; his tag says Tommi. She thanks him.

Stella Gibson isn't happy about being here. Before she even pulls back the curtain, she can hear the complaints, a strained british lilt reaching her ears.

“It's barely a scratch! I'm fine. The ambulance was unnecessar-”

She enters and interrupts before things can escalate.

“Ms. Gibson! External injuries can oftentimes present in a manner that doesn't show us what's going on inside. I agree that you're probably alright. But I want to order an MRI and have you stay overnight for observation. Just to be on the safe side.”

“Stella,” she corrects with a steely gaze that leaves no room for argument. Dana nods once.

“Stella. Is that alright with you?”

Stella answers in the affirmative, but doesn't look to happy over her predicament.

She is fair haired, fair skinned and freckled, and has piercing baby blues. She's in need of stitches just above her left brow. Regardless, she's a strikingly beautiful woman, and something instinctual tells her to stay on Stella Gibson's good side.

And something primal, something she isn't used to, tells her to protect this woman at all costs.

She holds out her hand to this woman sitting upright and stiff on the hospital gurney. It's her standard practice. Doesn't think once about it, let alone twice.

Stella begins to say something in an almost sheepish tone, something about how she isn't used to driving in the U.S. - but it's cut off abruptly as soon as they make contact.

The textbooks- they don't prepare you for this. Dana is hit with a force so hard she nearly collapses- stumbles and gasps at the sensation. It's as if all of the earth's energy has funneled itself into this triage.

She feels it. Each and every atom. She can feel them feed off of each other, but it doesn't hurt. Why doesn't it hurt?

It's intense, so much so that she fears her bones will splinter, and that she'll fly apart, simply cease to exist as she was.

Dana doesn't realize what's happening, she can't make the connection. She can only feel. And see.

She sees a young towheaded toddler with unruly curls and crimson rain boots. Someone, her father, lifts her so she can pat the wet nose of a gelding. She feels the anticipation of the girl- part fear, part excitement. The same feeling is there when she views the girl on her back, no longer a girl and so sure that this is her ticket to womanhood. Only 17, but later she feels the sadness and regret. And the sting.

And the sting. Of the freezing rain pelting as her father's casket is lowered into the bitter dirt. Frozen. Frozen like her heart. Which she tries to melt with the burning of cigarette smoke and liquor and the flowing of warm blood and the heat of a quick fuck. It never quite works. Always something missing. Something to be filled.

Filled with University courses, with self confidence, with a uniform. There. Now there is purpose. Now there is wrong and right and she she stands firm on the right side of the line.

She leaves the country to get away from a Stalker, someone who she met once, fucked once, and that not even the law could get rid of. Like herpes.

She's trying to start over here in San Diego. It's different. It was her hope to permanently thaw the ice with this weather. She's working as a barista. She can barely afford her studio. Her car is wrecked. Still she's happier than she's been in a long while.

Happier now still.

As sudden as it starts, that's how it stops. The rushing in her ears is replaced with faint ringing. Dana is back now. To this room, to this body. She's shaking like a leave.

Adrenaline, her mind supplies.

Stella is wide eyed and opened mouth; their hands are clasped between them. This is when it hits her, what just happened.

“Dr. Scully?! Ms. Gibson?! Are you alright? Here, I have a chair.”  Someone is panicked and confused, but that someone is not her. It will never be her again.

She doesn't sit. She waves the nurse off as best she can. She still won't let go of Stella, can't take her eyes off of her.

That primal urge to protect is now reinforced and emphasized. She wouldn't have believed it before, if someone told her it was possible to fall in love in an instant. But really, how can can you call a lifetime an instant? She was there, she was there to see Stella's victories and her downfalls. She was right there with her, feeling what she felt, seeing all she's been through. It's incredible, the strength one person can possess. It's incredible what one can survive. She's never been so proud. She's never been so in love.

Too overwhelmed, they both start leaking tears, but they're smiling at each other, face splitting, opened mouth smiles. Dana can taste the salt on her tongue.

She laughs at the absurdity of today. If Stella had been more careful, if she was out sick, if the ward had needed her- all these ifs. Eight billion little ifs. She shakes it out of her head.

She knows things now. Not just Stella things. She could (and most likely will), cure cancer if given a quiet room and a day to herself.

But right here, right now, there are pressing matters to deal with. Such as making sure her soulmate (god, her soulmate) has nothing more than a gash and a mild concussion. After that- wow. What does one do after this?

Stella sniffs and squeezes her hand.

“I don't suppose you would mind if I asked you out to dinner...”

[holymyth]

damon    +    sorting .

okay,   so as someone who’s super sick of seeing the tvd characters thrown into houses at face - value,   i got invested in sorting damon in a way that was somewhat unbiased .     throwing him into slytherin just because he’s a ~bad guy~ is such a cop out and failure of me to properly analyze his personality,   so i started diving into house analyses in order to help understand my own take on his characterization,   since those of you who were with me at eternaels know my goal is to completely revamp him as a character .      so i hope you’re ready to buckle up for this NOVEL of a post .      by the way,   all things quoted in this post are coming from this post analyzing the houses per potterm.ore .      xoxo gossip amanda

𝑔𝑟𝑦𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑟      ---      let’s  start  with  the  staple  harry  potter  house .      courage,   bravery,   chivalry,   blah  blah  blah .      this  is  my  own�� house,   so  initially  i  wouldn’t  have  pegged  damon  as  a  gryff .      but  the  more  i  got  thinking,   the  more  i  do  see  certain  traits  from  this  house  in  him .      he’d  be  a  very  unhealthy  sort  of  gryffindor,   the  more  recklessly  impulsive  type  with  little  consideration  for  any  casualties  or  trouble  left  in  his  path,   but  some  of  that  gryffindor  fire  can  be  seen  in  him  throughout  canon .      “ gryffindors  also  like  being  around  people .      they’re  not  group - focused    [   .   .   .   ]    and  hate  being  bored .       (    they may feel the need to make a little mischief to keep from being bored .    )      a  gryffindor  never  has  to  worry  about  being  overlooked    -    they  need  to  keep  friends  around  them  and  are  a  more  extroverted  house  on  the  whole,   but  they’re  generally  too  active  to  be  ignored . ”      damon  definitely  has  the  extroverted  tendencies  gryffindors  typically  have,   and  his  ‘mischief’  often  comes  in  the  form  of  more  destructive  habits .      whether  it’s  self - aimed,   or  the  trouble  he  stirs  with  other  people  in  his  life .      he’s  not  the  type  to  shy  away  from  conflict  the  way  some  other  houses  might,   and  he  doesn’t  flinch  away  from  risks  at  all .      he’s  often  one  of  the  first  to  jump  into  action,   with  the  kill  first  think  later  attitude,   or  tendency  to  leap  into  a  fight .      (    even  though  the  selfishness  it’s  generally  driven  by  will  be  addressed  later  in  this  post .    )      

with  all  of  that  said,   he  doesn’t  necessarily  willingly  have  the  gryffindor  ‘hero - complex’  that  he  gives  stefan  shit  for  a  lot  of  the  time .      “ gryffs  do  care  about  people,   and  seek  external  validation  from  others :    they’re  very  interested  in  proving  themselves . ”      sure  he  has  some  ‘heroic’  moments,   but  most  of  the  time  they’re  done  begrudgingly .      that  ‘morally  gray’  thing  i  love  to  harp  on .      but  the  ‘external  validation’  bit  resonated  with  me  a  touch :    he  has  this  big  bravado  regarding  how  he  doesn’t  need  anyone  other  than  himself,   but  we  do  see  on  several  occasions  where  he  does  desperately  seek  approval  and  validation  from  others  on  a  certain  level .      whether  it  was  his  dad  in  the  past,   from  katherine,   from  his  desire  to  be  chosen  first  in  any  aspect  he  can  manage .      to  prove  that  maybe  he’s  worth  it,   maybe  he’s  capable  of  being  deserving  of  the  validation  he  never  received  from  his  father  or  a  woman  he  loved  so  much .      

my  take  on  damon  doesn’t  have  the  full - fledged  gryffindor  desire  to  be  a  hero  that  canon  liked  to  say  he  does,   but  he  does  have  that  fire  and  action - driven  nature .      the  reason  i  don’t  think  he’s  totally  a  gryffindor,   is  mostly  because  bravery  isn’t  something  he  values  most .      i  do  think  he’d  be  a  damn  compelling  poster - boy  for  ‘gryffindor  doesn’t  mean  good’  though,   tbfh .

𝐡𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐩𝐮𝐟𝐟      ---      lmao  who  are  we  kidding,   damon  is  as  far  from  hufflepuff  as  a  person  can  get,   really .      human  damon  may  be  an  analysis  for  another  day,   but  vampire  damon  really  morphed  into  a  person  far  beyond  a  hufflepuff - type  personality .      he’s  too  conflict - oriented,   not  keen  enough  on  teamwork,   and  not  one  to  shy  away  from  any  sort  of  risk  or  danger .      considering  he   .   .   .   frequently  is  the  danger .      when  it  comes  to  his  own  personal  sense  of  justice,   he  typically  has  few  limits  to  the  extent  he’ll  go  to  reach  his  idea  of  equity  depending  on  the  situation,   etc .      he  doesn’t  care  if  his  methods  mean  someone  doesn’t  like  him,   so  long  as  he  accomplishes  what  he  believes  needs  done .      he  does  passionately  care  for  those  that  he  finds  himself  loving,   and  he  can  be  fiercely  loyal,   as  loyalty  from  others  is  important  to  him    (    as  we  see  how  much  it  wounds  him  when  his  hard - won  trust  is  betrayed    ),   but  it’s  not  particularly  his  most  dominant  trait .      let  it  be  known  that  loyalty  IS  something  that’s  super  important  to  damon  though !!      

𝐫��𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐰      ---      i’m  gonna  be  straight  up,   this  is  the  house  i  was  convinced  i  was  gonna  put  him  in  when  i  started  writing  this .      damon,   overall,   values  intelligence  and  competence  above  many  things .      and  as  a  person,   he’s  far  more  intelligent  than  given  credit  for  in  the  show .      he  has  a  low  tolerance  for  incompetence  /  stupidity,   which  is  what  overlaps  with  a  slytherin  bit  down  below  about  not  tolerating  unnecessary  risks .      but  he  also  shares  the  ravenclaw  tolerance  of  even  some  of  the  most  high - flying  plans  or  ideas,   as  he  often  comes  up  with  some  of  them .      he  has  the  wit  of  the  house  and  he  may  not  share  the  stereotypical  drive  for  knowledge  fanon  likes  to  put  on  ravenclaws,   it  doesn’t  mean  he’s  not  a  curious  creature  in  his  own  right .      it  just  tends  to  show  itself  in  a  more  obsessive  way,   where  he  fixates  on  what  he’s  interested  in  at  a  particular  moment  until  it  becomes  borderline  unhealthy .      when  he’s  looking  to  learn  more  on  something,   or  figure  something  out  /  solve  a  problem,   he  latches  onto  it  if  he’s  really  interested  or  invested .      it’s  a  selective  sort  of  thing,   though  he  himself  surely  has  a  couple  of  degrees  under  his  belt  from  the  past  century  when  he  got  bored .      he’s  an  incredibly  individualistic  character  who  is  hard  to  cage  like  most  gryffindors  or  ravenclaws,   whose  intelligence  doesn’t  always  display  in  book - smarts,   and  rather  instead  street  smarts .      sometimes  his  plans  are  as  blunt  as  a  gryffindor’s  can  be,   but  in  other  occasions,   they  share  the  creativity  of  that  of  a  ravenclaw .

“ on  the  sorting hat,   ravenclaws  are  least - likely  to  do  what’s  expected  of  them  in  many  cases . ”      damon,   as  a  basic  rule,   is  a  highly  unpredictable  character,   reliable  only  in  his  sometimes  explosive  volatility .      in  canon  he’s  often  the  one  seen  to  throw  a  childlike  fit    (   e.g.   killing  jeremy,   alaric,   you  know  the  drill   ),   but  in  my  portrayal  he’s  much  more  intelligent  in  the  moves  he  makes .      it  can  be  read  as  slytherin  deception  /  clever  nature  on  occasions,   but  it  can  also  be  argued  that  it’s  the  ravenclaw  competence  and  creativity  with  the  way  he  thinks  on  his  feet .

𝑠𝑙𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛      ---      alright  so  HERE  is  the  house  i  always  see  damon  thrown  into,   which  isn’t  fair  to  the  house  to  put  all  not - great  people  into,   but  anywhomst .

“ the  river  in  pottermore  represents  unity,   and  slytherin  is  a  group - oriented  house .      like  gryffindor,   slytherins  are  seeking  individual  greatness    -    but  slytherins  look  out  for  their  own  group  and  see  themselves  as  much  more  unified  than  ravenclaws  or  gryffindors . ”      i  went  into  this  as  not  seeing  it  as  a  damon  thing,   but  after  reading  the  hufflepuff  analysis,   the  ‘looking  out  for  their  group’  part  rings  more  accurate  for  damon .      once  his  trust  is  won,   he  is  generally  incredibly  loyal  to  those  who  earned  it    ---    he’s  very  selective  with  who  gets  his  trust  and  loyalty,   but  once  they’re  within  that  circle  of  people,   he’s  more  likely  to  do  whatever  it  takes  to  protect  them .      but  that  trust  is  also  easily  lost  as  we  can  see  often  in  the  early  seasons,   as  he’s  fairly  volatile  when  it  comes  to  his  emotions  and  general  nature .      which  somewhat  conflicts  with  some  ideas  of  the  slytherin  house,   but  also  coincides  with  others,   so  that  aspect  of  him  is  just  another  area  of  his  personality  that  overlaps  houses .

slytherins  are  known  for  their  ambition,   which  is  usually  the  token  trait  put  on  them .      damon  isn’t  the  most  ambitious  character  out  there,   but  he  does  share  the  slytherin  cunning  and  resourcefulness,   which  he  uses  to  accomplish  his  own  ends  in  whatever  way  he  can .      slytherin   /   cunning   ≠   selfish,   but  in  damon’s  context,   it  often  does  equate  to  that .      like  mentioned  alllll  the  way  toward  the  beginning  of  this,   damon  is  often  one  of  the  first  characters  in  the  show  to  shamelessly  leap  head  first  into  a  conflict,   and  in  canon  it  can  often  be  dumbly  reckless    (   re :    elijah  during  the  dinner  party,   his  desire  to  off  someone  as  soon  as  they  betray  or  wrong  him,   etc   ),   but  in  my  take  on  the  character,   is  often  done  in  a  more  calculated  way .      regardless  of  all  of  that,   when  he  decides  to  jump  into  a  fight  is  often  driven  by  more  selfish  reasons .      he  usually  has  a  personal  vendetta  against  whatever  person  /  big  bad  they’re  facing,   vs  wanting  to  join  the  battle  for  the  better  of  mystic  falls .      it  can  be  argued  that  sometimes  that  attitude  is  a  front,   but  even  when  that  is  true,   it  goes  back  to  that  slytherin  desire  to  protect  his  own  group .      the  rest  of  mystic  falls  be  damned .      

“ slytherins  are  more  interventionist  and  more  risk - oriented  than  hufflepuffs  or  ravenclaws .      they  won’t  fall  back  or  be  cautious :   they  want  their  wand  out,   ready  to  fight,   and  they’re  not  going  to  cede  ground  to  anyone .      on  the  other  hand,   they  also  consider  gryffindors  to  be  needless  risk - takers,   perhaps  a  little  too  overt  and  blunt,   and  so  they’re  not  going  to  go  looking  for  trouble  or  charging  directly  into  the  fray . “      this  ties  into  what  i  was  saying  above,   but  also  suits  him  in  regard  to  an  argument  i  had  to  make  for  him  as  a  ravenclaw  up  above .      damon  as  a  character  isn’t  one  to  not  speak  his  mind,   which  puts  him  a  bit  more  into  the  gryffindor  field  vs  slytherin,   but  he  is  also  the  type  to  not  go  for  risks  he  doesn’t  find  necessary .      key  word  is  he :    other  slytherins  may  find  him  to  be  taking  unnecessary  chances,   but  he’s  also  the  type  to  think  that  of  others .      another  gray  area  between  houses .

“ slytherins  are  cunning  and  confrontational    -    and  lack  a  sense  of  fair  play .    they’ll  cheat  in  a  fight  if  they  can  get  away  with  it,   but  woe  betide  anyone  stupid  enough  to  get  caught    [   .   .   .   ]    despite  being  a  group - oriented  house,   slytherins  are  cerebral    -    they  don’t  care  so  much  for  people,  particularly  people  they don’t  know . ”      this  suits  my  portrayal  in  a  nutshell,   tying  right  back  in  with  my  arguments  about  him  not  caring  a  bit  about  collateral  damage  and  his  general  disregard  for  human  life .      with  all  that  said,   the  analysis  i’m  pulling  from  is  based  on  the  pottermore  quiz,   so  there’s  some  room  for  error  here .

“ where  ravenclaws  want  to  explore  mysteries  and  shed  light  on  them,   slytherins  want  to  be  the  mystery :    great  and  prominent,   but  distant  from  the  masses .      darkness,   the  flip  side  of  the  coin,   the  dark  side  of  the  moon :    all  of  these  are  very  essentially  slytherin .”      cough  dramatic  ass  crow  motifs  cough .      damon’s  entire  game  of  dancing  along  the  line  of  being  discovered  by  the  public  and  the  mystery  of  his  victims  goes  alongside  the  mystery,   his  balance  on  the  tightrope  of  darkness  that  he’s  so  curious  about .

he  really  couldn’t  give  less  of  a  shit  about  tradition  though,   thx

tl;dr  i  went  into  this  post  telling  myself  he  wasn’t  gonna  be  a  slytherin,   but  i  played  myself

[fallenrazziel]

Levi Chronicles ~ Chapter 283 (EruRi)

It freezes badly, but I must say that there's so much light around us that it's enough to feel warm. Finally, I still cold hands, but it's not too serious. I regret not having bought this sweater finally, it's very useful.

The city looks very different from what it is usually. I have never been there in the middle of the night and with all the decorations that distort the perspectives and hide the familiar streets, I'm a little lost. The stagecoach has dropped us north of the city, and now I don't know where to go. And as always when I don't know what to do, I turn to him.

Erwin pays the trip and the stagecoach leaves with new passengers. This jingle of bells, it's so... I wait for him in front of a window, nonchalantly ; I don't want him to realize that I prefer to leave him the choice of direction, even if it's his assigned role anyway. I know the city less than him, even though I patrolled in it. I don't know where to go to have fun. Have fun... That's really what we came to do ?

The idea of staying at the fortress to read an boring book clearly doesn't seem so attractive to me. In spite of myself, I let the atmosphere carry me, and when Erwin joins me, I am quite happy to see that he does not pull the face. In spite of myself, I let the mood carry me, and when Erwin joins me, I'm pretty happy to see he doesn't make a face. The light of the lanterns illuminates our road and I let him drive me on the long avenue full of hurry or nonchalant onlookers. I put my hands in my pockets to mitigate the burning sensation at my fingertips and I make sure to display an expression not too closed. I really have to fight anyway. Because I have trouble forgiving.

Not long ago, these people threw stones at us, insulted us. It's hard to believe. I would love to be as wise as Erwin and tell me that it's part of the scout job to support this kind of thing, but I still don't swallow it... Also, I advance, shoulders a little hunched and tight ass, unable to relax totally among them. Erwin must feel that I'm too tense - if even he notices it, it must be serious - and guides me to a lighted tent on the side of the road. A kid holds in his arms a soft toy of uncertain nature, jumping for joy. I lean forward and see that this is an horseshoe throwing game. I never had the opportunity to play ; in the underground it was more like throwing dice, or billiard for the bigger ones. The principle isn't hard to understand - throw a horseshoe around a picket - but the sight of the prizes to win cools me down.

I ask Erwin with my eyes and he asks me if I want to try. Frankly, I don't care, why don't you do it ? He tells me that I'm probably stronger at this game... but if I don't feel not enough great, there's no problem. Not enough great, that's it, yes. You'll see if I'm not great, big pole. I throw three coins at the owner, and he gives me three horseshoes.

It's not so easy to think about it. Because of the shape of the horseshoe, it can go in all directions and bounce on the edge. I'm trying to get the thing but I just thew the first I know I missed my shot. The horseshoe will nest between two boards. I don't look at Erwin - I don't want to know if he's laughing or not - and I reach out for him to give me another horseshoe. This time, I put it on, I tell you. I concentrate well, remove all the external noises that annoy me and throw it a little to the left. The horseshoe wraps around the picket that I aimed. So, who's the midget ? I have one left and I try to repeat the feat. But he falls next to my target. Damn, it's pretty hard. I didn't believe in the beginning. But hey, I put one, that's good, right ?

The guy announces that I won a prize. Oh no, have mercy, forget that. It was just to fold down the stunner of his big blondie big there. But I see Erwin eyeing the table of prizes. Go ahead, choose something if you want, but you keep it. And obviously, his choice is on what is more stupid and nerdy. When he begins to walk beside me, with that false beard on his face embellished with false glasses, I shout at him that I might leave him on the spot if he continues his childishness. Then he removes them while promising to wear it for the strategic meetings. That's it, Shadis will be thrilled to finally have a good excuse to kick you in the ass.

And Erwin laughs. I hadn't heard him laugh like that for a long time. I'm surprised how good it feels... I don't know where it's coming from or where it's going, but it's nice. And then, with this more relaxed haircut, he looks almost like another man ; a man I see too infrequently... We walk for a moment beside each other, without speaking, but I feel no embarrassment. Sure, it's not like when we're in his office, Erwin busy reading his reports and me a book. There are people around us, agitation, light, smells, music... It's not very intimate. And yet I feel that we're even more alone that night. Well, alone together... I don't know how to say...

Speaking of smells... it was to be expected. Erwin goes to a stall selling things to eat. And given the scent of sugar that embalms the place, I ni doubt what it is. Another muck who will make him take some pounds. He pointing the stall for me, but I tell him I don't care ; if you plan to finish big with snags full of the mouth, it's up to you but keep me out of it, all right ? Erwin looks so sorry that I feel bad. He tells me that we don't fall every day on delicious honey donuts and we must not turn away from good things. Is it you who says that, when you live almost like a hermit ? I wouldn't follow a fat belly in combat, I warn you, and... Ok, I'll take one too, because it's not fair if you're the only one to feast.

While I chew my donut - I don't like sweet, but that's fucking good - I see that Erwin guides us a little out of the way by cross streets, towards the river that crosses the city. People dance in front of a crowded building ; catchy music and warm light escape from the open doors and we stop, the ass on a fountain, to watch them. My fingers and my lips are all sticky... I would like to dive into the water but it's frozen... So I suck them as best I can, even if it's not glorious...

Erwin, a grain of sugar planted on the corner of his mouth, looks at the dancers and I can see a certain desire on his face. Oh no ! You had me on the rest, but that's out of the question ! I don't know how to dance anyway ! And don't try to invite me or I explode your big feet, understood ! And then... do you know how to dance, you ? He tells me that if I want to know, we just have to go. No, no, no negative and definitive ! Someone must still save the honor left in our duet, if you want my opinion. Erwin points out that nobody knows us here. Yes, it's true...

Erwin abandons the idea and guides towards the river. Skaters - that's what it's called, I believe - have invested the space and glide over the frozen water with more or less elegance. It seems fun, but we have no skates. I realize that since the beginning of the release, it's Erwin who decides everything, and I don't dislike it. I feel a certain satisfaction in letting myself go, in letting him decide, without my having to make a choice. It's relaxing... and after all, he's my leader, right ?

I'm about to ask him if he feels a little happy right now when an icy sensation, accompanied by a shock against my neck, makes me jump. Snow is flowing from my collar to my coat and I shudder as I turn around, ready to swoop on the one who dared to make this foolish blow. A kid with blond hair stares at me with his big terrified blue eyes. Hey, brat, you took me for a titan or what ?! Get out of here before I thumped your buttocks skin ! He flatly apologizes saying that he was targeting his friend, hidden behind me. Behind me ? Another kid runs into the shadows of a street, screaming and making fun of him, and the little blondie runs after him. You believe it, Erwin ? This kid has...

I don't have time to finish my sentence. Another heap of powder is crushed on my face, and I can barely see Erwin, surrounded by brats, getting ready to bombard me again. Do you want war, squad leader ? You'll have it and not a little ! Hey kids, those who want to win should come on this side, I warn you ! Each posted on one side of the bridge spanning the river, with our respective teams, we begin to launch loads of cold and hard snow, and soon the face of Erwin is all red ; I feel my ears freeze under the cold, and my fingers are numb, but I unleash myself for not to lose this battle. I've never lost a snowball fight... With Betti, we were throwing so much in head that we felt even more our nose at the end... I feel totally euphoric at once ; it's not only this memory that makes me feel good, but also the way Erwin commands his little soldiers to try to get on my knees ! Don't count on it, big pole ! It's you who will surrender !

Erwin raises his gloved hands in the air as a sign of surrender, and I finally stop strafing. I'm not fresher than him, but I feel perfectly fine ; I needed to let off steam. Leave to pass for a kid in the eyes of people, which doesn't seem to displease Erwin. Kids scatter to have fun - there's no more usable snow in this area - and I help Erwin get up. He tells me that I'm really good at this game and he had no chance of winning. What do you want, I'm the best, yes or not ?

The cold returns step by step and I start shivering again. Erwin too and we better cover our coats. I hold my hand to the side of my front because an old pain is waking up ; just a little bit... Erwin takes a worried expression - unseen tonight - and asks me if my head is hurting me. No, that's fine, it's well healed now. Stop worrying, it was very good so far, I want you to stay as carefree as possible. You'll have plenty of time to worry about others again.

Erwin whispers, reluctanlty, that I could have died. Yeah, I can also die by breaking my neck on this ice. To be alive is to take the risk of dying, nothing can be done. Greta apologized, what more do you want ? I thought you had turned the page...

I'm very cold all of a sudden. The euphoria is gone and I don't want to see Erwin with a gloomy air. I don't want to talk about job, surveu corps, titans, all that... even though I know it will inevitably be one of our topics of conversation. But I would really like to be an ordinary human until tomorrow...

If you find us a hot place, instead ?

[gspikes18-blog]

athletes getting paid

Tyler Tynes https://www.sbnation.com/2018/3/16/17121588/college-basketball-fbi-investigation-ncaa-player-compensation

Gavin Spikes

English 1010

Dr. Robertson

13 Nov 2018

Athletes Getting Paid

There has been much controversy surrounding college football especially concerning the payment of college athletes. Many people, particularly college athletes, have been speculating for years about the salaries. Multiple colleges make copious amounts of money from collegiate sports. Most of the profit does not even go to the players and instead ends up funding the schools. These schools often do not upgrade facilities or do anything to benefit the players aside from just the normal scholarship. With many people donating to these programs, it is sensible to believe that student athletes should be compensated beyond just the normal scholarship.

A large number of Americans believe that college athletes deserve a salary. Most of the top tier sports in college bring in significant revenue. While schools are gaining large profits, some athletes come from an impoverished background, which creates an unfortunate situation. Student athletes with low socioeconomic status may tend to accept external booster sources that may eventually place them in a position of ineligibility. Regardless, one motive behind the situation may be because they are willing to financially help their families. Nonetheless, the act of receiving booster funds is illegal according to the NCAA. Since it is illegal for donors to give athletes money, they may reconsider helping their families. Imagine, talented athletes with low socioeconomic status who bring great profit to the schools they represent, and yet they cannot provide well for themselves or their families. Most of these athletes get a full-ride scholarship which includes a full tuition, books, meal plan, and a small stipend. This small stipend could be as little as 500 dollars to 1500 dollars a month but most athletes have to use that to pay rent unless they live in student housing. So, this scenario shows how students athletes work extremely hard every single day hustling as “slaves” to the school without a salary as the school they represent make hundreds of millions of dollars. Those athletes receive absolutely nothing in return, except an education. Yet, exploiting students of their talents just to pay for their education is not enough because student athletes help school gain more than what may be expected, especially in terms of football. If schools pay these wonderful kids, these athletes may be able to provide help to their families and also learn how to financially plan and fund what is necessary. If savvy with their pay, student athletes might invest that money and build up residual income. For example, if each player is paid a 1,000 dollars a month, then over four years that will be 48,000 dollars. Most importantly, players will be more inclined to stay in school and finish their degree, instead of quickly becoming drafted after 3 years, cutting their college career short by one year and then depriving themselves of a full college education. That in itself should be enough for colleges to pay the students if they really care about the well being and the success of each student as they claim to. If schools make so much money, why can they not just pay the players so that they can help themselves and their families? It is because these colleges seem to greedy and it is all about putting the money into the pockets of the people that run the school.

The next point that should be brought to light is just how much the College Football Playoff alone generates a profit each year after only 4 games. The number is substantially high. Simply from four games, the College Football Playoff makes 600 million dollars. Just off of those four games alone it generates enough money to pay every single college athlete that participates in an NCAA sport with a salary of 54,000 dollars a year. That number is substantially more than just the 12,000 dollars listed above. 54,000 dollars a year is more than the average income in the United States of America. If that is how much football alone makes off of just four games then imagine how much football generates over a whole season; that is more than enough to pay each of the players and still profit more than enough money to upgrade facilities.

Of course, there is always a downside to each idea that has ever been presented in the human era. When a person goes from being less fortunate to having a decent amount of money in their pockets each month, then serious problems could arise. Some players may lose the drive to attend class since they are going to collect a check either way. These athletes already miss enough school to attend events and games and other sports-related events. They get behind because they miss so much class and need tutors that more times than not, may do their work for them, instead of helping the athletes through the learning process. By paying them and creating an environment in which students may lose the drive to attend class, this problem may only be magnified and intensified causing them to drop out or become ineligible to play sports.

The next on the list of problems is financial irresponsibility. These players are young and possibly naive. Getting paid each month may create terrible spending habits. For example if a player is given 1,000 dollars a month and he sees a car he likes and has never been able to afford a nice car with payments such as 300 dollars a month, then car insurance as well as other bills and things will affect their financial planning. This is a major problem if they do end up getting paid then they should be required to take a budgeting class or some type of financial responsibility class that will help them manage money and spend it wisely for things that they need such as, clothes, food, and other necessities.

The last point is that it could remove the competitive nature from the game. These kids lose the incentive to play. In college the players are trying to make it to the NFL well, in the NFL the nature of competition is slightly lower because many of these people have already made it they have the money now. So these players would most likely be less inclined to play at their best performance.

As this list contains the Pros and Cons of paying college athletes there is many conclusions that you can come to. Now I believe players should be paid and compensated for the hard work that they put in to succeed and make it to the next level of football. There are many things that go against and go in favor of each side. It is hard to say if the NCAA will ever come to the point where they will pay the players for their hard work and dedication they put in day in and day out to help the school profit money.

Malcolm Lemmons (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/college-athletes-getting-paid-here-are-some-pros-cons_us_58cfcee0e4b07112b6472f9a)

Patrick Hruby https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/college-football-has-money-pay-players-college-football-playoff-proves-ncna833486

Patrick Gleason and Eric Garland https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article202272034.html

Ryan Swanson https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/10/02/want-to-clean-up-college-athletics-pay-the-players/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.eea79e79623f

[crawldepth-blog]

The Hustle Is Killing You

Long have social media superstars and startup disruptors proffered a cure to perpetual growth in The Hustle. Gary Vaynerchuk, he of sock-tasting for wine variety and excitable ne’er-do-quit entreprenuer, swears fealty to the compulsion of hustling, exhorting in homemade videos and glitzy conference appearances that mandate to never stop. Gary V preaches to legions of startup owners, founders, and sycophants who seek to replicate even a tenth of his success. His message bears a constant drumbeat of “Never give up. Always hustle to get the next thing done. To stop is to wither and die.”

Good advice, no? Good advice for businesses, government, academic, scientific, and many other communities. The fabled rule of the early bird getting the worm still applies in today’s rush-to-grow world because of the hoi polloi’s continued need to believe that the pace and intensity of work will one day equate to immense riches and startup dreams of their own. Tell-all stories from Thiel, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and even little guys that got lucky continue to inspire individuals to sacrifice everything in the name of The Hustle. That next phone call. That next meeting. The next deal. Relentless focus on goals. Everything in service of growth. Always on.

The hustle is killing you, though.

It’s hard to disagree with the simple promise of the modern work ethic though, isn’t it? You have to work harder than everyone else in the market to get seen, to deliver your product, to close enough money to keep people employed, to ever be focused on the new and the next. Product cycles. Acquisition. Contract negotiations. Fuzzy goalposts. Goalposts that move. Meetings, meetings, meetings. Never losing face in front of your customers and competitors. Turning chaos into opportunity.

The problem with every hustle lies in the power dynamics of who’s hustling. Invariably, a business - or other similar organization - relies upon hierarchical structures to function and grow. That means people at the top direct and manage people below them to achieve goals. One way to do that efficiently is to motivate a workforce with some core belief or principle that binds everyone to common purpose. Unfortunately, many choose hustling as that belief.

Not that hustling in and of itself is a terrible thing. Misapplied in the workplace, however, particularly from a position of power downward, the unrelenting pursuit of that which never stops will eventually damage the cognitive resilience of those subject to its edict. Hustling in this day and age capitalizes on the worst cognitive impairments brought about in our daily lives: 24-hour tethering to the smartphone. Ceaseless travel between meetings. Last minute planning and preparation. Impossible dedication to long days and crunch culture. Perpetual beta: “We’ll fix it in the next version.” How well is moving fast and breaking things working out for the systematic infection of hate and abuse in certain online platforms?

Worse, hustling became its own industry, the afterbirth of startup celebrities and media poobahs all seeking better ways to do the same things. Shameless promotion gets normalized by the Tim Ferrisses of the internet because he’s providing so much value, man!!! Helping us get more efficient at our own intransigence, our steep sprint down the depressive mountain. Chris Brogan has turned it into a pathetic infinity loop of reinvention, so much so that he publicly blogged about the dissolution of his family as it happened, addicted to being seen. He’s got books to sell too, man.

People fetishize The Hustle to the point of slavish devotion to all the negatives it brings about, becoming apologists for burnout and Asshole Leadership. Accomplishing goals becomes the driver for performance review, and goalposts get moved often when corporate whims or opportunities change. Those left behind become forgotten, or worse, terminated, often as expedient ways of dealing with interpersonal problems that a senior leader just doesn’t want to waste time on.

Some have become so enamored of the hustle culture that we have normed the concept of the side hustle. This used to be a clever euphemism for writing that screenplay you always wanted to in your free time or brewing beer in your garage after work. However, whole economies of industry underwrote their business models with legions of side hustlers seeking to line their pockets with an Uber or a Lyft job, yet receiving none of the benefits typical transportation workers do. Side hustling today leads to longer work days alongside other hustles just to stretch dollars further, all the while hoping to own something of your own one day whilst unknowingly trapped in this mercantilist service cycle.

To be sure, this is not an argument to a return of Olden Days when Jack and Jill reported to their abacus, cranked out documents for 8 hours and a lunch break, and skipped on home to 1.5 kids and a range by 5pm. These goalposts were too rigid, and they crippled vast swaths of American workers with slavish dedication the other way, to fixed processes and promises that could not evolve and support the burgeoning workforces in auto mechanics, coal mining, and other dying industries. People still punch time cards today but only in service to new industries, none of which come with their own long-term safety nets. Ask any code monkey who got let go in favor of fifteen foreigners working the same developer project for a quarter of the cost.

Study after study published shows people working harder, degenerating to unhealthier states, and falling into depressive conditions. We get trapped in cycles, hoping for The Next Hustle to alleviate our pain of diminished wages, unrealized bonuses, and unmet quotas. Franchising represents one such cycle: a perfectly legal pyramid scheme meant to enrich those at the top far more than those at the bottom. Ask any McDonald’s burger flipper: how’s your 401k? Don’t have one? Well, just keep at it and one day you’ll have enough money to reinvest in your own McDonald’s franchise, complete with your own employees to lord over, all the while Mickey D’s Corporate rakes in the highest of profits with the lowest investment.

Middle management. Red and gold uniforms. Weekly profit and loss reports. Cum in the cole slaw.

We commoditized human labor in the 20th century to such a degree that we accept it now as a system to classify our various stratifications of society. Working class, middle class, upper middle class, and don’t forget those pesky undocumented workers who do all the shit jobs you won’t. They’re hustling too, sold on the dream of an honest day’s work for an honest wage and too often exploited with the lowest of wages, dehumanizing working conditions, and easy racism.

The truth is that The Hustle is just another means of control. Control by someone else. The Company. The Big Boss. The Man. Whitey. It’s a mechanism to influence others to keep the machine moving with the promise of a reward at the end, one that doesn’t always work out because it’s built on the fantasy that everything will be fine so long as the goals are achieved. It abuses you, dehumanizes you, demoralizes you. It fucks you. And when it comes, it never asks if you want to swallow.

Hustling every minute of every day of every week makes you a fanatic, an inflexible driver of your own train with no cars, no matter how much you think your efforts are in service of humanity. You may be driving this train, but what’s the point if no one’s there? Worse, what’s the point if your hustle’s side effect contributes to your people actively hating or distrusting you? Hustling with no empathy or externally focused care in leadership is just mania or sociopathy.

Fuck hustling. Fuck the deadlines, the performance reviews. Blow them all. Skip a meeting. Go day drinking. Read a book, an actual piece of fiction, preferrably from an author you never would have picked up in the first place. Lie on a beach or in the grass and stare at the sky forever. Doodle on blank paper, whether you can draw or not. Piss outside. Forget to shower for a few days. Stare unseeing into the woods. Hike through hills. Adopt a dog. Or a cat. Volunteer at Habitat for Humanity and build a house. Smoke a joint. Dine and dash. Listen to an album from start to finish without doing anything else, maybe a concerto or some bizarre prog-rock from the 1970s like Yes or Rush. Lose your phone. Forget the internet. It’s killing you too.

[investordivya]

Apex Court In Noida Extension-Ready To Move Apartments

Buying a home is not an easy task as it’s easier to say “we are going to buy a new home”. It takes a lot of research and savings before buying a home. After all, “Home is where our heart is”.

Today we are living in a competitive world, where we find a lot of options for everything from keychain to property, and choosing the best one is one of the toughest decisions we all have to make. It’s hard to opt for the best but not to worry as Realty 360 Degree is here to make it easier for you by bringing up one of the most astonishing projects Apex Court by the well-known builder ~ Apex Group in Noida.

A rare gem in Noida, the Apex Court Sector 12, Noida Extension offers more than an enchanting ambiance & stunning scenery from each of its 2 Bhk & 3 Bhk luxurious apartments. This elegant project is designed in a way to make you feel the magic of panoramic view which you won’t forget for life. Here, we invite you to sink into perfect harmony with nature, embrace slow living & relaxation at nowhere but Apex Court flats available with a floor plan that starts from 880 sq. ft. to 1485 sq. ft. which is designed in a way to give you total comfort.

Do you love fitness? Looking for a home where you can live a smart life without compromising your fitness daily routine? Then not to worry because Apex Court offers you plenty of amenities like a gymnasium, swimming pool, basketball court, cricket pitch, badminton court including all indoor games and lot more all in a reasonable price list starts from 28* Lacs onwards.

Unique Selling Point of Apex Court

Spread over 2 acres.

Registered with Rera ID- UPRERAPRJ8960.

The project has a total of 225 smart flats.

Has a total no. of 2 towers.

Facing a 130-meter wide road.

Two side open project.

The project has a facility of proper cross ventilation.

Amenities of Apex Court Greater Noida West

Internal Features-

24*7 power backup, water supply.

24*7 CCTV Surveillance, gated community.

Car parking, centrally air-conditioned.

Hi-speed lift, fire fighting system.

Intercom and smart entry.

Earthquake resistant and Vaastu Compliant Structure.

External Features-

Reserved car parking space.

Swimming pool.

Central garden, large green area.

Staff quarter, maintenance staff.

Senior citizen Sit-out area.

Additional Features-

Fitness facilities like gymnasium, swimming pool.

Yoga, meditation area, jogging track.

Skating rink, tennis court.

Outdoor games like badminton court, basketball, and cricket pitch.

Indoor games and kid’s play area.

Amusements like sauna, spa, party hall, and card room.

Community center / Clubhouse.

Rainwater harvesting and sewage treatment plan.

Apex Court Location Map Advantages

Greater Noida West link road is just 0.79 km away.

12 min drive to the Sector- 52 Metro Station.

Fortis Hospital is a drive of 15 min.

Close to Gaur City Mall.

8 min drive from Gaur Chowk Noida Extension.

Ghaziabad Railway Station is at a distance of 20 min drive.

Apex Court Noida Extension is one of the most demanding and unique projects from none but by reputed builder ~ Apex Infraventures, who is known for creating the world-class infrastructure in Noida and Delhi NCR. With 122 years of experience, the company has reached new heights in excellence while maintaining the legacy of total customer satisfaction. You won’t regret it after investing in this project as the group knows the value of its customers' money which is why it is always focused on maintaining the decorum of timely delivery of the projects.

Want to know more about this project? Click on the link https://apexcourt.in/ and book your home now!!

Call Us: +91-9811088275

[bunkershotgolf]

V1 Game App Gaining Popularity Among Amateur and Pro Golfers

From Rising LPGA Stars to Recreational Players, Data is Driving Measurable Improvement

The V1 Game mobile app from V1 Sports has been gaining significant traction in the golf world on the strength of its newest cutting-edge features - A.I. Shot Tracking, Virtual Caddie and Virtual Coach. Those features are resonating with golfers of all skill levels, including fifth-year LPGA player Dana Finkelstein, who is having her best season on tour, highlighted by a T-12 finish at the Hugel-Air Premia Los Angeles Open earlier this spring and a T-14 showing at the recent Volunteers of America Classic.

V1 Game, named “Best Apple Watch Golf App for 2021” by GolfPass.com, delivers an innovative combination of on-course GPS data plus deep-dive performance analytics – including numerous Stroke Gained categories – that help golfers understand their on-course tendencies and pinpoint the skills they need to practice most in order to improve. The app requires no external hardware or second screens to provide its A.I.-powered game improvement platform.

“V1 Game uses no hardware on your golf clubs to track your shots,” says Dallas Webster, co-developer of V1 Game. “And, it's totally unlocked for your first two rounds while the GPS capabilities stay free forever. Other technology on the market requires a $300 investment in hardware just to dip your toe into the water. Our artificial intelligence handles shot tracking and makes it intuitive and seamless, so you can focus on golf and put down your phone. Plus, V1 Game makes the data accessible and actionable, analyzing your data and telling you exactly what to work on to make the next leap in your game. Data fanatics can dive as deep as they want.”

UNDER THE HOOD V1 Game’s latest features are revolutionary. A.I. Shot Tracking uses sensors in your smartphone or Apple Watch to detect shots and automatically track your round. An Apple Watch helps V1 Game detect when you swing, marks your location, and emits a soft vibration confirming your swing detection.

“Our integration with Apple Watch obsoletes external sensors,” says Webster. “We detect swings, so you can just play. And when you replace worn-down grips, you don't have to mess with hardware.” Android watch functionality is also coming soon.

If you don't have an Apple Watch, simply start a round and keep your phone in a front or back pocket, or in the cart or golf bag. V1 Game uses the phone’s GPS and accelerometer data, to determine where and when you potentially hit a shot. You may need to do some slight post-round editing - as with every shot-tracking software on the market - by simply dragging shot locations with your finger on the hole map, in places the A.I. marked shots. You can also fine-tune the A.I., depending on if you play fast or not, to further increase its accuracy.

Virtual Caddie goes beyond anything else available, using A.I. to provide adjusted ‘Plays Like’ yardages but also building a history of how you perform from various situations based on club use, lie, distance to the hole and weather conditions. It then offers simplified insights during rounds, giving club recommendations and a quick snapshot of the data – just like a Tour caddie would – so that golfers can make the best on-course decisions. It even warns what to watch for on approach shots, based on miss tendencies from similar previous situations.

The feature-loaded Virtual Coach takes the app to yet another level. While many golf stat apps collect data and then dump it on you to figure out how to apply that to your game, Virtual Coach does the insightful heavy lifting. For instance, it plots putting performance, and uses A.I. to analyze the data and advise specifically what to work on. It displays advice, such as “Work on Approach Shots First” and “You are losing the most strokes on putts from 6-10 ft. Practice this range to improve the fastest.”

Golfers know exactly what to focus on in practice. Because the app also tracks their mistakes, Virtual Coach ‘trends’ plots to quickly see what areas of their game are improving with practice or declining from neglect. Pairing this data with a V1 instructor can further accelerate progress, especially if that teacher is armed with the V1 Coach app for instructors. This companion to V1 Game is a dynamic, data-rich system to help golf instructors and coaches manage their students’ performance data to optimize lesson content, practice plans, course management and scoring habits using the data supplied from V1 Game usage.

THIS TIME, IT’S PERSONAL In the four years since Webster began developing V1 Game with partner Ryan Hebert, he’s personally added 20 yards to his tee shots and cut his handicap by five strokes to below scratch for the first time - all while working two jobs and managing a growing family.

“It provides easy-to-digest data,” says Webster, an engineer by trade who’s now becoming a rising star as a golf tech developer and stats guru. “I didn't want to spend 45 minutes after a round to get to an understanding, so I selfishly built V1 Game to teach me what I did well and poorly, via quick and intuitive feedback. So, now, when I’m standing over a 175-yard shot, Virtual Caddie tells me I tend to miss short and left so I need to take more club and aim right. Easy and actionable. I want golfers to get answers fast and simple. And I’ve learned a ton from our users. I’m constantly in the chat room fielding questions. We take suggestions seriously, and if you have a good idea, we'll try it. If you have a pain point, we work on it. We’ve made many updates this way. We have passionate customers and I leverage them to improve the app for all. We're listening.”

TOUR-PROVEN TECHNOLOGY V1 Game is not just for amateur golfers. LPGA and Symetra Tour pros, including Finkelstein, Marisa Messana, Janet Mao and Vicky Hurst have also begun relying on it. Those tours don’t currently provide Strokes Gained data, so V1 Game is becoming a valuable tool in the hands of its early adapters.

“I love how simple it is,” says Finkelstein. “And I’ve already made a putter change after the app showed how poor my stats are with speed control and 40-foot-plus putts. It’s also showing a positive trend in how my stat tracking from driving and approach shots have drastically improved. That's really cool to see. It's nice to see all of the hard work I put in this offseason starting to pay off.”

Adds Messana: “It’s very helpful for my practice sessions, because I'm all about high performance, knowing myself and my tendencies. V1 Game explicitly says what I need to work on in order to close those performance gaps. People can tell me I’m not making enough birdies, so I therefore need to sink more putts. But really what I learned in V1 Game was that my proximity stats were not where they should be, in order to give myself those birdie opportunities. In other words, it wasn't really my putting, but rather my proximity to the hole on my approaches that I needed to improve. The Strokes Gained insights in V1 Game have already changed my game.”

Strokes Gained is the coveted stat that essentially lets you know how your game compares to other golfers of any skill level you set as a baseline. It helps any golfer. In fact, golfers shooting 100 will likely benefit the most from it because it makes their weaknesses obvious to inform practice sessions.

NEW FEATURES COMING IN HOT

Webster is out to make the V1 Game app even more intuitive. One recent update: As soon a score is entered, the shots graphically populate before one’s eyes. Another fresh feature is Friends Mode, in which golfers and their buddies can link their rounds when they start playing. This allows friends to share a live scorecard between each other and see everyone’s shots tracked on one screen.

V1 Game’s success is another testament to the visionary leadership of V1 Sports CEO Bryan Finnerty, an entrepreneur and former goalkeeper for the Detroit Rockers professional indoor soccer team. Finnerty has led the charge to improve V1 Sports’ technology, sales, service, support and product offerings. New offerings under his guidance include V1 Game, expanding into V1 Baseball, adding the V1 Pressure Mat product and education series. All the while, he’s helped make the V1 Golf and V1 Pro platforms the most commonly used video analysis platforms in golf.

"It’s easy for me to get excited about V1 Sports' vision and the convergence of sports and technology because the root motivation for our work should always be 'Does it make playing the sport more fun?'" he says. "Breaking the four-minute mile. Dunking from the top of the key. The first guy who bent a soccer ball around a wall into a goal. The Pele bicycle kick. I still get chills thinking of all those things because I remember being introduced to them as a kid. Today, with our core products V1 Golf, V1 Golf Plus, V1 Pro and now V1 Game, the market is telling us our vision, to have become more and more consumer-facing over the past five years, truly resonates.”

CONVENIENT PRICING MODEL Par: $1.99/month or $19.99/year – includes 40,000+ golf courses in the V1 Game directory, Accurate GPS Distances, Simple Shot Tracking, Breadcrumbs/Auto Shot Detection

Birdie: $5.99/month or $59.99/year – includes 40,000+ golf courses in the V1 Game directory, Accurate GPS Distances, Simple Shot Tracking, Breadcrumbs/Auto Shot Detection, Strokes Gained Data, DIY Golf Stats

Eagle: $11.99/month or $119.99/year – includes 40,000+ golf courses in the V1 Game directory, Accurate GPS Distances, Simple Shot Tracking, Breadcrumbs/Auto Shot Detection, Strokes Gained Data, DIY Golf Stats, Virtual Coach, Virtual Caddie

V1 Game is a perfect complement to V1’s current line of video analysis software and mobile apps, including the V1 Golf and V1 Pro mobile apps which allow golfers and coaches to conduct online video lessons with advanced feedback including voice-over, telestration and side-by-side swing analysis.

Visit https://v1sports.com/athletes/v1-game-app/ to learn more.