#And I just imagined what would happen if my prof really found my blog

[didnt-want-to-sleep-anyway]

This is 30 minutes I'm never getting back...

Dear professor, if you decide you want us in school this early, please try to arrive on time for a change?

[ablednt]

aren’t u that blog that constantly promotes self dx and bashes professional dx? like self dx is fine but it’s a last resort for people who can’t access prof dx.

I don't bash prof dx, first off. I fully understand and respect people who needed one for any reason.

However self diagnosis should never be treated like a backup for if you can't get a prof dx and here is why:

(Disclaimer: exact details vary by country making this not fully accurate in every country also I am not saying that treatment is bad or that therapists are inherently bad I am currently trying to seek therapy but any good therapist will treat you without a diagnosis if they are aware of the legal consequences of one)

You can and likely will lose your rights for your diagnoses. It's different by country but in the US if your diagnosed with things like DID, Autism, and probs a lot more you won't be allowed to go on HRT if you're trans. You may have your children taken away if you have any, you may be prevented from donating or receiving blood or organs, if you have abusive family members they may be able to put you under a conservatorship (what happened to Britney Spears) etc.

Literally the vast majority of psychologists do not study these disorders! Do you know what they do when they prof dx? THE SAME SHIT PPL WHO SELF DX DO. The dx process is exactly the same but with a professional dx you have someone who doesn't have that thing, who has no actual first hand experiences, listening to you talk about that thing and telling you whether or not they think you have it with literally no input from the community.

By saying every one has to try to be prof dxed before they're allowed to self dx you're saying that people of color should put up with blatant racism because there's so many documented biases.

Also the criteria that therapists use to diagnose is found in the dsm5, have you read it? I have, it says that autistic people cannot take care of themselves that they're prone to self harm bc of their autism and that they should have their needs ignored it uses all the labels that autistic people ask it doesn't. It says that even if an adult fits all the criteria of ADHD that if their parents arent available to say "yeah they sucked at school and were annoying" that you shouldn't diagnose them. The criteria for personality disorders, schizophrenia, and similar are all intentionally vague and/or exclusionary to one highly stereotyped set of symptoms. They literally admitted to trying to make the criteria for DID as specific and exclusive as possible because they wanted to remove it entirely because they believed people dxed with MPD before DID was coined did not deserve treatment.

The field of psychology started historically to abuse people, they were thrown into asylums and literally beaten and subjected to horrible conditions for any presumed mental illness. This actually has not changed very much at all, even in the last century a psychiatrist was caught physically abusing his patients and using the theory he made on DID to force them to keep coming to him for therapy. Psyche wards are notorious for mistreating patients there in every aspect and I've had psyche students tell me they believe that psychologists should have the right to physically harm patients. Children professionally dxed with autism are often physically harmed at school by their teachers, physical restraint is still used and it's killed multiple autistic students.

Children and teens in abusive homes have ableist parents often who may get violent or worsen the abuse or use a dx against them legally to trap them at home. Do you give them a pass for self dx? Except here's the thing you literally don't know who's being abused and who isn't and asking ppl that is really fucked up so you should be accepting all self dx to create a welcoming and safe space for them.

Physciatrists actually misdiagnose more than people mis-self-diagnose. Which isn't a reflection on the psychiatrist as much as the fact that people know their own experiences but they very often can't explain them. An example before I met someone who had OSDD1 and would explain it to me from first hand perspective no one would have ever suspected I had a dissociative disorder and was plural Because the only words I had for my experiences were "everything before a certain date literally wasn't me idk I'm just not the same person I was" "I'm a really good writer because I talk to characters in my head all day and they respond to things even when I'm not trying to think about them and they're real to me somehow idk lol" none of that sounds like DID but I was actually describing memory gaps from switches, internal communication and presence of fictives, etc. The best guest anyone had was depression and an overactive imagination. Self dxing is literally more accurate and accessible because people can look at the community and see the disorder explained from first hand experience.

Historically (but it's still happening in some cases) therapists would literally refuse treatment to anyone who talked to other people with their diagnosis. The case I'm thinking of is people with MPD (the dx that came before DID replaced it) would be refused therapy if they spoke to anyone else with MPD outside of therapy and even forbade them from going to support groups for survivors of incestual abuse because those groups advocated for the rights of people with MPD. To this day therapists often disrespect any and all ND/mentally ill communities because we happen to know our own literal lived experiences better than them.

Oh and prof dxes are often used against people legally so if anyone is in a minority group often targeted by police that potentially puts them in even more danger if they're arrested. Least we forget there's an entire field of study dedicated to criminalizing mental illness.

This isnt even half the reasons but I'm running out of spoons (I can source most of these things but I don't have the spoons so if anyone needs a source just ask)

I'm a firm believer that the need for prof dx not be pushed on everyone when it can have permanent and negative consequences and is no better than a self dx. If someone needs a diagnosis for access to medications, for financial support, or for any other legal reason then it very well may be worth the risk but they need to have the right to understand the consequences and make that decision. Imo it's professional dxes that should be not a last resort perse but it shouldn't even remotely be your first steps, your first steps are find the community and hear their actual lived experiences bc that will be so much clearer than anything a therapist who doesn't experience that thing can explain.

Also why do you care if people self dx? Why does their not having an Official Document saying they have their disorder bother you? I think it's deeply unsettling that you think everyone in the entire world needs YOUR approval to have something.

Jsyk the sentiment that self dx is lesser than prof dx is fostered by our capitalist nt society that's benefiting off of our abuse and systematic oppression so like you're literally helping us stay oppressed with this rhetoric.

If y'all really want to be progressive and anti-capitalist like most of this site does (and should) then that goes for disability justice too. Stop helping our own communities abuse and accept that not everyone has the luxury you apparently had to never be affected by your diagnosis ever.

[worldoffanficskpopcpop]

Bang Chan AU Fanfic Recommendation Masterlist

Hello! Welcome to my fanfic recommendations! If you would like to see other groups or other content in regards to this artist or their group, please click the links below! All of the masterlists/posts I’ve made will always be updated when I find new content or scenarios! Feel free to recommend me some blogs to check out! Also, you like my fanfic recommendations, please like and/or reblog so that more people can see it! I will release more groups as time goes on!

Go Back to Stray Kids’ Main Masterlist

Go Back to All Group Masterlist

Arranged Marriage AU 

promise this:  Can I learn to love you?

Boxer!Chan

Boxer: Chan needs to know his limits 

CEO AU 

late office nights: An extremely important project was assigned to you, a new employee in a prospering company. Will all the late nights in the office be spent in vain, or will something good emerge?

Slowly, Suddenly, and Then All at Once:  “You lot are way too nosy aren’t you? Well, if you must know, I’ll tell you the story of how we stopped hating each other and became your unofficial parents. But I’m warning you, no interruptions, otherwise the story ends.” 

Detective AU

Detective Dumbass: Detective Bang refused to accept any help from the rest of the squad, insisting that he worked better alone - but what happens when he realizes that he does need his team with him?

Idol!Reader 

An Aussie Jealousy: Chan feels jealous that you are collaborating with 5SOS

Jealousy:  Momo had never been too fond of me and when she found out that Chan and I started dating, it only made it worse. Now, I had to put up with her for almost a month so we could learn the dance to their new song for a stage

 You and Me: As a trainee at JYP Entertainment, you are exposed to new things. Such as new music, new styles of dance, and new boys

Mafia AU 

Imagine: Chan’s right-hand man needs to learn his place in the gang

Trust: Chan’s patience had ran low with you 

Neighbor AU 

Love Drunk: Peering through the peephole, you spotted the bent-over figure of what looked like your neighbor, fretfully trying to shove his key into your lock. As neighbors go, you and Chan were, for lack of a better word, friendly. So by all means, this wasn’t the first time Chan came over, but this was the first he came over drunk, dazed and confused.

Royal AU 

royal blood : it’s kind of hard to be mean to your soon-to-be husband when he’s one of the kindest people you’ve ever met.

Wounded Hearts: When Chan caught you sneaking back into battle after he had specifically told you not to, he was less than pleased. Why couldn’t you just understand that he wanted nothing more than for you to be safe?

School AU 

Bubblegum: Chan is a underground rapper and you’re a too cute chemistry major

Coincidence?:  just as you were thinking of leaving because your date did not arrive, another guy sits down instead.

College Muse: College Music Producer!Chan and College Writer!Reader both dwell on each other for some help on a project similar in nature 

Competition: Chan’s swim team made it to the finals and you stayed to support him, you didn’t realise your presence would cause such a fuss. 

Hidden Comforts: Your hidden relationship with Jock!Chan makes its reveal 

Idyllic: (adj.) extremely happy, peaceful, or picturesque 

insomniac:  in which you meet a music student that is definitely in need of some sleep

Let me love you: he has a reputation in the school and you as a good girl, he hides your relationship because of his reputation and you get sick of secret dates and decided to confront him it turned into an argument, then the two made up.

Muse: You were the Fine Arts major, and he was the Music Composition major. Normally, you’d have nothing to do with the cutie, but as it turns out, you were each other’s muses

nothing like us: You’ve been through countless numbers of miserable relationships. Little did you know, the right one was closer than you think. 

not that bad: chan is getting bullied. you’re like “stop that ''. chan is like “hey…. you’re not a mean person despite having a reputation for being cold-hearted 

Pretty When you Cry: Perhaps all those special times with him didn’t mean shit. Love and let go

Race: It’s the same every time, you always win the races, but Chan doesn’t give up, until you make it up to him

Rescued: You had an accident while swimming 

rubicund :  music production major chris really needs a place to live - and you just happen to have a few empty rooms and need a new roommate.

Shunned: you never seemed to fit in at school; you couldn’t understand why. “Because you’re… different” some people said. But how is that a bad thing? You were always alone, at least until he came along. 

Stuck: student-teacher au, you get stuck in the library with college prof!Chan

Why Not?: You and bang chan weren’t that close, but you were still friends. Through a series of events, you and him ended up being the only ones in his house without any way of you getting out. It was late so bang chan being bang chan insists it’s fine for you to stay which is all well and good except that you get pretty bad nightmares and can’t sleep unless cuddling something or someone and you had unfortunately left your human-sized stuffed bear at your place. 

Single Father AU 

I love you: As a single father, Chan experienced every single difficulty one could imagine. He was frequently frowned upon by others and only could rely on those who were close to him: his eight best friends. As time went by, he learned to ignore those who looked down on him for the sake of his daughter but deep inside, the words, the stares, and the constant questions affected him and he refused to show it. It was only a matter of time when the weight of the burden started to tear him down. It wasn’t until he met you that his whole world found another bright light to cling onto. Even though he feared to say he loves you, you found it easy to love someone like him.

Soulmate AU 

Falling For You (So Sweetly): first touch you have with your soulmate causes magnetic attraction to them for a week or so, enough to ensure that you two get together for sure.

Healing Love: You can feel the pain of your soulmate. Additionally when they receive a bruise or cut, you receive the same marking on your skin. When you meet your soulmate, every injury on you disappears, and you gain the power to heal your soulmate with a simple touch

Human Canvas: You were six years old when you got an inkling of what kind of person your soulmate is; they would draw little doodles on their arms all day, and you would draw back. But as an adult, its as if you two are at war with each other, with them covering your right arm with tattoos and you occasionally painting on your left arm for the fun of it.

My Glow: To have a soulmate was one of the finer things in life. 

Serendipity: For the entirety of your life, you have had the small, neatly and prettily scripted name inked into your flesh on your left wrist

Summer Love: Chan was your summer love once upon a time, and now you two are reunited by the strings of fate once more

The One: Where everyone has a timer on their wrist that counts down until you meet your soulmate

Street Racer AU 

Fast Lane: Chan had pulled you into his world filled with fast cars

Vampire AU

174 years: Chan was frustrated he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. A kid whose brother broken into his house decided to sit him down and describe his face to him one by one

mistaken: vampire! chan mistakes human! y/n for a vampire

Youtuber AU

Youtube covers: You used to post singing covers on youtube until you got bullied. Yet the person closest to you admires this ‘anonymous’ person’s voice

[miss-pearlescent]

LIFE UPDATE (lol)

Hello, this is going to be a long-winded life update because I simply want to just talk about things that have been going on and why I don’t update on a consistent basis :)

One of the reasons is above! Last week (two weeks ago??) I covered Naughty with a friend! Please check it out :D Honestly, this didn’t take away from my writing at all because I do random covers all the time, but I just want the views lmao HUMOUR ME! (I’m the one in white). Oh, and please don’t comment anything about my writing/fanfiction/tumblr on that video! I keep this blog pretty private.

Anyway, what did take away from my writing is A WRITING COURSE! Can you believe :) the :) irony :) I signed up for this writing course because I’ve always really wanted to publish a book aka basically give birth. As a teenager, I followed a few YA authors like they were gods, and when I attended signings, I was starstruck! I’d be like, “Girl, your mind!” So there I was, looking up how to publish a goddamn book and realizing that there were so many things to it other than just writing. It was discouraging to say the least! Then two years ago, I mentioned my hobby to my therapist and she suggested taking a writing course.

She (bless her heart) even searched up local colleges for me and opened my eyes to the fact that educational institutions held entire courses dedicated to romance writing. Wow. Of course, I rejected her idea because of the kind of person I am.

I’m kidding.

I’m not.

LOL ok so I was like “I don’t want to take a writing course because I don’t want people to judge my writing and tell me to write romance a certain way or else it doesn’t feel organic. And what if I lose my interest in it? Then what will I do with my free time? And what if people find my shit really fucking weird? etc”

I put the idea off for a year and finally came back to it last year when I found myself taking frequent trips to the library to write for a whole day. I would buy a Booster Juice, some sushi or Subway, and then I would park my ass on a plastic library chair for 5-8hrs straight. Come Fall/Winter, with the knowledge that I had some basic self-discipline (lmao), I looked into writing courses. I decided to take an online romance writing course that would start February 2020.

Guess when my country began seeing COVID cases? February 2020. Oh boy!

So my lifestyle changed, my work changed, and then I have school work?!?! My dumb ass hasn’t touched anything school related in three years. I was like “you know what? I’m going to try! I’m going to want to learn, and I’m going to put in effort.” Holy shit!!!!! I’ve learned that school still stresses me out lol it doesn’t matter that my grades literally don’t matter in this course. I’m still stressed.

That’s not to say I didn’t like this course. I really enjoyed it because I actually did learn a lot. My instructor (professor???) was also really...ELOQUENT LMAO Her lecture notes would spill mad tea but in the most polite way possible. I have yet to see any of my marks or read any of her comments (due to my fragile ego) but I am excited to do so.

One example of her brilliance in getting her message across is this little section about active vs passive verbs. We’ve all done this lesson hundreds of times in high school, but OMG the line that she uses at the end really solidifies the difference! After reading that, I decided not to skip any of the other readings lmao home girl had my respect.

OK ANYWAY! Back to me stressing! I was very stressed with every assignment. It was nice to be challenged to write differently (creating better mood, fleshing out characters more) because the end products were all...”nice”. But that shit took so much energy that I couldn’t write anymore! I couldn’t think of new plots that I was interested in :( It also didn’t help that I was going through other personal issues, and my libido was nonexistent. As a result, I have so many intros to stories because I’ve had to force myself to think of something for this course, but I never was truly interested in them to actually write it all out from start to finish. Not to mention, I have not written a sex scene since February lol

Then came the final assignment that I just submitted two days ago. OMG. It was a straight up publisher’s package. You had to have a 20pg manuscript. You had to write a query letter/cover letter. You had to research which publisher you would submit to. IT WAS SO SCARY.

I was going to write a whole new story for this manuscript but after writing 4k words, literally nothing was happening in the story and I was so bored. So I scrapped it all and took one of my most recent stories (Universal Differences, but in third person lmfaooo) and tried to tweak it. It was soooo difficult!!! Of course, I also procrastinated this whole thing because procrastination is one of my character traits. On the last three days, I pulled 8-10hrs non-stop everyday to finish it (unrelated, but I watched the SuperM 100 MV after one of these days, and I had to close my laptop immediately after the video because I felt like the MV was attacking me to stay awake LOL). There were so many times where I legit hated myself and my writing and nearly cried because I would think back on all the love that you guys gave to that story and then I’d be like “THE STORY (and, in turn, me as a person) IS SO UNDESERVING OF ANY LOVE AT ALL.”

See, this is why I went to a therapist a few years back loooool I had to rewire my brain to dissociate my writing from myself. I had to keep reminding myself that even if my prof didn’t like it, I would still get good feedback at the end of the day and none of that feedback would reflect me as a person. That even if she told me that I was never going to be able to ever publish anything, there are many writers who were told the same thing and came out of it alive and prosperous because they continued to work hard. I have a whole ass template now of what to send to a publisher/agent. If I wanted to, I would have the skill base to take a story and know where to direct it for publication.

And I would have the confidence to do that!!! Because I’ve already done it once!!!

Something cute my prof said when one of the students said they were overwhelmed:

[ I think it can help if you just think of it as the business processes of that industry - and not you laying your heart and soul out in front of some stranger to judge. :)]

;____________;

OK that is all for now, I think! Since I have submitted my final assignment, my imagination has come free of its reigns so I hope to get more stories out to you guys! Thank you for the requests too! The wilder they are, they more they get my brain going hehehehehehehhehe have a good week everyone~

[softspaceboibrian]

Journeys End in Lovers Meeting (Chapter 2)

Pairing: Professor!Gwilym Lee x reader

Summary: Reader is a new student at Harvard University and, on her first day, she does something she might regret. Or maybe not.

Warnings: none

Wc: 2700

A/N: okay, so, not as many people as I thought read the first chapter, which is sad since I thought it was good. but yeah, I'll keep posting it anyway and, hopefully, it will gain readers with time

Other chapters: 1 - 3 - 4 - 5

“Gosh, you’re soaking wet… get inside the car” He sounded worried and confused. You didn’t let him beg for you to actually do it. You didn’t know why, but you trusted him enough to get instantly inside his car, even though you had known him for, what? Less than a day? “What happened to you? I thought you were going to go home by bus.”

“Well, the bus didn’t come, I don’t have money for a cab, my flat mate is still working, I don’t know if I left my keys at home or if I lost them. Oh, and it started raining.” You explained without managing to look him in the eyes. You were embarrassed because of all that happened to you in less than ten minutes.

“You can stay at my place till your friend gets home.” His voice was soft, his smile sincere.

“Oh, no. Don’t worry. You can just drop me off at the library or, I don’t know, a café. I really don’t mean to bother you.” You started rumbling on, really not wanting to be a weight for him.

“You are not bothering me. I live alone with my dog, and she loves people. You’re more than welcome, trust me.” He smiled gently, before starting the car. Apparently, you didn’t have much of a say in it. He just decided that you were going home with him and, for some reason, that didn’t bother you, at all. The drive wasn’t long and surely a lot less embarrassing than the walk they had together to get to his office a few hours before. It was filled with funny comments and stories of embarrassing students hitting in him during lesson or trying to kiss him during office hours. After fifteen minutes or so, the car stopped in front of a beautiful townhouse, which reminded you of London.

“Make yourself at home” said the man while letting you in. The house smelled of cinnamon, books, coffee and cranberry. You looked around, noticing that that place looked exactly how you expected the house of an English literature professor to look like: books everywhere, papers full of notes and stains of coffee, tons of used notebooks, numerous bookshelves filled with every kind of book you could ever think of, the desk and the coffee table submerged with papers and, yes, you guessed it, more books. “I’m really sorry for the mess, we were obviously not expecting any visit anytime soon.” He laughed. The way he talked about himself and his dog warmed your heart.

“Don’t worry, my home is a lot worse. I mean, two girls leaving all by themselves, without any parent to remind them to tidy up the room. I think you can imagine how that looks like.” You giggled, putting your bag down and taking off your shoes. Immediately afterward, you felt something touching your leg and, when you turned around, you saw a furry ball sitting right in front of you, with two beautiful blue eyes, and a ball in her mouth.

“Lady, don’t bother our guest” Said the man, getting closer to them, probably to take the dog away. But you got down on your knees, petting the dog before taking the toy from her mouth.

“Lady, that’s a beautiful name” You commented, starting to play with her, throwing the toy and waiting for the dog to bring it back to you.

The man didn’t answer. He just smiled and disappeared in a room, coming out of it a few minutes later in some more comfortable clothes. “You’re still wet, maybe you want to take a shower and change into some warm, clean clothes.” His voice was so gentle it almost gave you shivers.

“Ehm… yes, thank you. If that not a problem with you.” You got up from the floor, leaving Lady alone and walking towards him.

Twenty minutes later you walked into the kitchen wearing warm clothes that were definitely too big for you, your hair had been pulled up in a messy bun, but at least you were no longer soaking wet because of the rain. The kitchen smelled even more of coffee than the living room did, inviting you to get inside and take a seat at the table where the Professor was working. The last thing you wanted to do was to disturb him. But as soon as you sat down, he looked up from the laptop, laying his eyes on you, that soft smile that showed the little wrinkles around his eyes made its way on his face, making you blush for no particular reason. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, thank you.” You smiled, lowering your gaze on the table, while you started fidgeting with your hands.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I actually prefer tea”

“Black?”

“Yes, please”

“Coming” He winked, going immediately to the stove to prepare you tea. It amazed you how different he looked there, at home, where no one could see him, where he simply was Gwilym, the nice guy next door with an adorable puppy and amazing taste in books. “I’m working on an article.” He said breaking the silence. “I write for an online newspaper. I take care of the literature section. I review new books, I write about recently deceased authors, but this kind of article I’m working on right now is by far my favourite: I have to work on a theme, analyse it through different works, authors, countries, genres.”

“And what is the theme of this article in particular?” You asked, being sincerely curious.

“Don John. You know, the famous Spanish womanizer.” He turned around, arms crossed in front of his chest. “I started by analysing the first drama ever written about him, then I compared it to the Romantic version. Then, I talked about Mozart’s and Byron’s plays and Kierkegaard’s theory of the three phases of life.” He explained with a proud grin on his lips, until he got unexpectedly cut off.

“Did you consider writing about Wilde’s Dorian Gray as modern Don John?” You asked, tilting your head to the side, laying your cheek on the palm of your hand.

He looked at you speechless. “No, I did not…” You had surprised him, positively surprised him.

“Well, you see, they are more alike than one would ever imagine: they both care about appearance more than everything, they like to seduce people – here’s the first difference, Dorian seduces not only women, but also men. Then, for example, look at the characters and the object: Sybil is Doña Ines, Sybil’s brother is Don Gonzalo, the picture is the statue. Easy.” He was amazed by the girl in front of him and her knowledge. “Why modern, you might ask. Well, you see, when the story was first written, it was set in Seville, Spain, one of the most glorious reigns of those times. When Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray, England was the most powerful country in the world and geographically the centre of the world. Don John used to go out drinking, Dorian is known for using drugs, such as opium.” You kept rambling on for several minutes, stopping only to thank the man for the tea.

When you finished presenting your theory, Gwilym remained silent for a couple more moments, still astonished by your intelligence. “You know Spanish literature too?”

“And Anglo-American, German, Italian, Scandinavian and a little French and Russian.” You replied, right before taking a sip of your no-longer-too-hot tea.

“You will never stop to surprise me, won’t you?”

You giggled, hiding your now rosy cheeks behind the mug, not really knowing what to answer. “You can use my idea, if you want.”

He sat down across from you, setting his mug down on the table right on a small pile of papers. That’s why there's stains pretty much on each paper on his house. “You should write for a blog or a magazine yourself.” His voice was gentle, just as his smile.

“Oh no, writing articles isn’t my thing. I’m more into poetry and novels.” You shook your head, crossing your legs on the chair. “But, I’m serious, use it. If your readers find it interesting, all you need to do is thank me.” You giggled, putting down the mug on the table.

But, at that point, the article was long forgotten, the laptop went on standby mode. “Are you staying over for dinner?”

The next day you woke up at the sound of your alarm going off. You reached for the phone, without finding it. It must have fallen from the nightstand or something, or at least that was what you thought. When you finally managed to open your eyes, the view of a room you had never seen before appeared in front of you, leaving you perplexed. You finally found her phone, which was on the nightstand, charging. A just not your nightstand. It was only when you read Rose’s text messages that it all hit you.

[9:47 pm] Honey, I’m so sorry if I didn’t answer. I was still working. Hope you’re fine.

[9:48 pm] Oh, I see, you’re with Prof Charming.

[10:14 pm] Yes, your keys are home. I’ll leave the spare one under the mat outside the door.

[6:45 am] You’re not home? Are you already out or did you sleep at your teacher house?

[7:01 am] I’m actually a little worried. Text me asap, so I know that you’re okay.

You unlocked you phone and immediately responded Rose’s messages. Yes, you had spent the night there, but you didn’t recall falling asleep in that bed. That was extremely confusing. At that point you got up, taking your phone with her and walking outside of the room, following the scent of black tea and coffee coming from the kitchen, finally finding the tall man, who was standing in front of the stove, waiting for the coffee to be ready, printed papers in his hands. You just walked in, looking at him and greeting him, waiting for him to realize you were actually there. And when he finally raised his eyes from the papers to meet your gaze, a soft smile formed on his lips. “Good morning.” His voice was still a little raspy, he had probably just woke up himself. “Did you sleep well? I made you tea, and here you have toasts with jam or butter, granola, cookies, fruit. Take whatever you want.”

You sat down at the table, still looking at him, hoping he would say something that could remind you how you ended up waking up in his bed. Like, did you drink so much that now you couldn’t even remember doing it? Did you have sex? What happened?!

“Last night you were watching TV and you fell asleep on the couch” He said, as if he could read your mind. “So I picked you up, took you to my room and let you sleep in my bed, while I slept on the couch instead.”

You looked at him in silence for a second, waiting to finish chewing the cookie you had started to eat. “You didn’t have to. You could have woken me up and driven me home, or even just let me sleep on the couch.”

“That’s okay, don’t worry.” He smiled in that gentle way, like he always did, that kind of smile that reassures you, makes you feel comfortable. “Do you need me to drive you to your place so that you can change before going to University?”

“Yes, but you could just drop me off there and then I could take the bus, you don’t need to wait for me.”

“I insist.” His voice was soft, soothing, in a way. He had only known you for less than a day and he was already so caring and thoughtful. And the was weird for you because never in your experience someone did that just because they wanted to. Back in high school, people always wanted something in exchange. They treated you kindly and then they wanted you to do their homework; they invited you to parties, and then they wanted you to vote for them; they invited you over to their place to study together, and then they wanted to have sex. “Come on, I’m just trying to be nice. After all, we’re going to work together now.”

You didn’t let him go on for a lot more. You trusted him, even though you weren’t sure why. In his eyes you see that something that ha led you to accept his ride the day before. You trusted him, and that was the reason why you eventually gave in. And there you were, twenty minutes later, in front of your apartment, finally opening the door and letting the man in. “I’m really sorry for the mess.” You giggled, immediately running towards your flatmate’s room to close the door – it looked like a bomb had exploded inside that room, there were clothes all over the floor, open books on the bed and shoes on the desk, nothing was where it should have been. Luckily, the rest of the house wasn’t that bad, still a mess, but it could have definitely been worse. The living room wasn’t that big, the couch took up most of the space, all of her books were still inside those big cardboard boxes, only a couple of notebooks were lying on the coffee table with some other papers, most of them covered in tea and mug stains. Your room, on the other hand, had a reason for it to be a mess: it was still a work in progress, there were still boxes out, you hadn’t put all the books on the shelves nor all the clothes inside the closet, but that was just because you would usually have something else to do in the afternoon or in your spare time instead of tidying up.

“You can wait here, on the couch” You smiled, right before vanishing inside your bathroom. It didn’t take you long and fifteen minutes later you had showered and were now wearing some dark wash mom jeans, a loose navy blue turtleneck with white stripes, a cream coloured long cardigan and white sneakers. As simple as it could be. You put on some lip balm and walked out of the bathroom, picking up your bag and going back to the living room. There you immediately met those blue eyes that almost sent shivers down your spine, before going back to what they were looking at before. There was something about that man, something that you couldn’t yet understand but that still made you want to spend time with him as if he was a simple friend.

“Your poems are breath-taking. I didn’t expect you to be this good.” He commented, his eyes still on an open notebook. “I mean, I imagined you were probably really good, but I didn’t think you were this good.” When you finally realised what he was holding in his hands, you let you bag fall to ground with a big thud, before running towards him, taking the notebook from his hands and closing it immediately. He looked puzzled, why should someone this good hide her talent? “I’m really sorry, I found it there, on the coffee table. It was open, and I peeked. It’s impressive what you can do.”

“I never show my poems to anyone.” You whispered, hiding the notebook behind your back.

“I don’t get it? Why not share it with the word? Those are wonderful.” His voice was soft, sincere, his eyes tried to meet yours, which were now looking at your shoes.

“I don’t… I don’t think people would actually like them.”

He looked at you in silence for a while, before crossing his arms in front of his chest. “The Romantics, am I right? Those are the poets you look up to. Keats is probably your favourite.”

“Yes”

“Well, that explains a lot.” And you knew exactly what he meant by that, so you just kept your eyes low, trying to hide the peachy colour of your cheeks. “We should get going.” Said the man after taking a quick glance at his watch.

[profbruce]

Heads they win, tails you lose

Why it’s such an uneven playing field when it comes to mortgage financing

I have a client who signed a mortgage commitment. Then a few days later, he got a better offer. Can he accept the second offer or not?

Here’s what I wrote to Robert (not his real name):

I read over your mortgage commitment from Acme Financial (name changed), which you signed.

I can tell you from experience that there are weasel words in this agreement that permit the lender to get out of this right up to the day of completion if they want to.

I had just that happen to a nice client of mine (a young engineer with a spotless credit history and a good job). How come?

Well, the underwriter googled him and found out he was looking for some roommates. She called me and told me, “We’re pulling out of the deal.” This was with three days to go before completion.

I asked her why.

She said, “This isn’t his principal residence, it’s a rental. He lied on his application.”

I told her that was not accurate—it was indeed his principal residence… him being a 1st time homebuyer and all, he was a single guy and just wanted a few of his buddies to share with him. She didn’t care and hung up on me.

So, I called the realtor for the seller and got a 2-week extension (for $500!) then I asked my client (who was in tears by that time) to take down his kijiji ads, which he did.

We financed it with another lender and closed no problem at all.

Apparently, no part of your principal residence can be rented. It’s total nonsense IMHO. Having a few roommates would have made it easier for my client to pay his bills including, of course, his mortgage. In fact, I’d imagine there are a few million existing mortgages in Canada that are in breach of this (dumb) clause.

I know many elders, some or them experiencing financial difficulties, who have taken in boarders, Airbnb guests or roommates to make ends meet. If they still have a mortgage, they could be in breach of their mortgage terms. But seriously, what are you going to do? Starve while your home remains under-occupied/utilized?

Here’s the thing though—the reverse is not necessarily true—I’ve had clients back out of their mortgage commitments (because they got, say, a better offer!) and then the first mortgage broker and lender have gone after them for costs and fees. Ugh.

So, my advice is to negotiate with Acme and the mortgage broker to make sure you get a full release before signing anything else.

It’s really unfair but, frankly, the whole planet is tilted in favor of these lenders and their ecosystem. I mean where else can 30-year-olds make an average of $900,000 USD a year? Only on Wall Street. And how come they make so much? Because for them if it’s heads, they win, if it's tails, you lose.

Best, Bruce

ps your real estate lawyer can certainly help with this… he can talk to the lender and probably get you a release.

FOR REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT AND BUSINESS COACHING THAT’LL HELP YOU PROVIDE FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY FOR 3-GENERATIONS, PLEASE CONTACT:

Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (civil), M Eng-Sci, PhD Real Estate Investment and Business coach Century 21 Explorer Realty Inc broker Ottawa Senators founder 1-613-762-8884 bruce.firestone@century21.ca https://www.linkedin.com/in/profbruce/twitter.com/ProfBruce https://brucemfirestone.com/blog/ profbruce.tumblr.com/archive https://www.youtube.com/user/ProfBruce/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/reiroi brucemfirestone.com

BOOK YOUR FREE CLARITY CALL WITH PROF BRUCE NOW, https://brucemfirestone.com/coaching/prof-bruce-real-estate-investment-and-business-coaching/talk/

• MAKING IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE • FREEDOM VIA REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT AND PB4L, PERSONAL BUSINESS FOR LIFE • FEHAJ, FOR EVERY HOME A JOB • MAKE YOUR HOME WORK FOR YOU, INSTEAD OF YOU WORKING FOR IT • HIGHER ROI NOT JUST FOR OWNERS AND INVESTORS, BUT FOR TENANTS, GUESTS, VISITORS, NEIGHBORHOODS, COMMUNITIES, TOWNS, VILLAGES, CITIES AND THE ENVIRONMENT TOO

Image source: By ICMA Photos – Coin Toss, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71147286

[cosimaballettithomas-blog]

Blog No. 5

This week’s readings focused on environmental worldviews, education, ethics and sustainability, all of which are expounded on in environmental philosophy. In response to why environmental philosophy is important, the PowerPoint explains that it helps us to analyze environmental problems as well as the reasons for such problems having to do with our anthropocentric and selfish attitudes about our place in the universe (Prof’s Powerpoint). Our Miller textbook defines worldviewsas “how people think the world works and what they believe their role in the world should be” (Miller 2012, 662). Miller furthers that a person’s worldview is due in part to environmental ethicsor, what one believes is right and wrong in one’s behavior toward the environment. Miller lays out the three main environmental worldviews, the first being the ignorant and excessively anthropocentric “Planetary Management” which maintains that humans and nature are separate entities and we can use nature and its resources at our will because we have the technology and imagination to guarantee that they will never run out (663). The second worldview is “Stewardship” which maintains that we have “an ethical responsibility to be caring managers of the earth.” While this worldview encourages sustainable use of the environment and its resources, it still believes that such resources are unlimited.

The last worldview, which, in response to the Critical Thinking Question #2, also happens to be my worldview, and is “Environmental Wisdom,” views humans as one with nature and recognizes that our resources are limited and we should act more in accord with the environment because it sustains us and we have no alternatives (Miller 2012, 663). This worldview recognizes nature’s intrinsic value and thus we should use nature in conjunction with how it regulates itself by mimicking its “sustainability principles of solar energy, chemical cycling and biodiversity” (Prof’s PowerPoint). This also relates to the notion of Environmental Citizenshipwhich “is the idea that each of us is an integral part of a larger ecosystem and that our future depends on each of us embracing the challenge and acting responsibly and positively toward our environment” (Hargrove 323). People with this worldview tend to also advocate for environmental justice, which, according to Robert Figueroa’s Environmental Justice, is a movement that emerged in the United States out of the Civil Rights Movement with respect to inequality in the living and working conditions of African Americans (Figueroa, 342). His piece focuses on intragenerational justice which describes the duties we have to protect and care for the people withinour generation and lifetime, both those close to us and complete strangers. Part of the reason I want to go to law school is to hold people accountable for environmental neglect and injustice such as those responsible for the Love Canal catastrophe (pictured below). Figueroa explains that Love Canal was a “watershed event” for the movement “which sparked the national antitoxics movement by forcing state and federal agencies to relocate more than 900 families from their neighborhood, which had been built on top of 21,000 tons of buried chemical waste” (Figueroa 342). I think Love Canal was also important in setting a precedent for similar catastrophes to come that people and communities, regardless of how small or seemingly unimportant they are have a voice. It also represented the sheer and unequivocal power of unity.

                                                                                                (Buffalo News 2018)

This is discussed in an Environmental News Network article titled “Environmental Degradation Leads to Public Health Crisis” that describes how “the impacts of both climate change and other types of environmental change are likely to be experienced disproportionally by the poor and by future generations whereas many of the benefits associated with these changes accrue to the wealthier and to current populations (Barret 2014). One example of is the smog and smoke produced in the process of rainforest clearing in Indonesia that has exacerbated air pollution and “linked to a rise in cardiopulmonary disease.” Another example is the decline in biodiversity as a result of habitat destruction which in turn limits the meat/protein supply and has caused a rise in anemia in many parts of the world (Barret 2014). This also brings in Clark Wolf’s piece on Intergenerational Justicewhich “refers to the set of obligations the members of one generation many owe to people of other generations” (Wolf 518). While Figueroa focuses on intragenerational justice, Wolf discusses intergenerational justice which describes our duties to future generations in ensuring that they have the same resources and quality of life that we do. This involves the notion of sustainability which describes using environmental resources at a rate that they can replenish themselves. Wolf’s piece demonstrates this dilemma we face of how we should go about prioritizing environmental issues given that while things are bad right now, the state of the environment is likely going to get much worse. Is it more important that we address the people suffering currently or the likely even greater population that will suffer in the future?

Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethicalso discusses this dilemma between present self-interest and obligation and stresses the need for a remodeling of education and the values it teaches us, for it is not the sheer “volume” of education that is lacking but the “content” itself that promotes self-interest as opposed to ethics and values (Leopold 1948). David Orr discusses this and how all “education is environmental education.” For example, he writes that “to teach economics without reference to the laws of thermodynamics or those of ecology is to teach a fundamentally important ecological lesson: that physics and ecology have nothing to do with the economy. That just happens to be dead wrong” (Orr 1991). Leopold also attributes all of our environmental issues to our distorted relationship with nature that is rooted in profit as opposed to “love, respect, and admiration and a high regard for its value.” By value he does not mean economic but philosophical and figurative.

This relates to Judith Heerwagen’s Biophiliapiece which she defines as an “innate and emotional connection of humans to their environment” (Heerwagen 109). Heerwagen’s article also pertains not only to Leopold encouragement that we become more in tune with nature but the aforementioned “Environmental Wisdom” worldview which maintains that humans have a profound connection with nature. Largely since the rise of the main environmentalism movement, there have been many studies conducted on the physiological and social benefits that human contact with nature arises” (Heerwagen 110). Heerwagen furthers that there is evidence of the cognitive benefits of nature contact. For example, one study “found that subjects working in a windowless room with plants completed a series of computerized tasks faster, had lower blood pressure readings, and felt more attentive than subjects working in the same room without plants” (111).

Richard Louv’s “Last Child in the Woods” also discusses the importance of nature contact for children especially, and suggests “the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression” have partly to do with what he calls “nature-deficit” and the emergence of “today’s wired generation” (Louv). This makes me wonder if “Seasonal Affective Disorder” might not only have to do with the cold weather, but the lack of bright and colorful vegetation that we see in warming months? Speaking of environmental education, the “No Child Left Inside” movement, which was inspired by Louv’s book, aims to promote environmental literacy in schools and encourage “outdoor recreation and sound nutrition” (Wikipedia 2017). The now nationwide movement is rooted in the idea that “the human child in nature may well be the most important indicator species of future sustainability” (Louv 2008).

I think this movement is really important in promoting a more sustainable future given that ideology is often partly generational and to instill within the younger generations a more compassionate and enlightened attitude towards the environment could perhaps accelerate this trend towards environmental reform that tends to be more prevalent in younger, and typically more progressive generations. If children learn early on of the importance of sustainability and the recognition of nature’s intrinsic value, perhaps over time we will see a more collective shift towards a more environmentally conscious worldview. In response to Critical Thinking Question #9 that asks what three pieces of information about our environmental problems I would share with the world if given the opportunity, I would first explain how these environmental problems are our problems in that without ecosystem services and resources we cannot survive because we simply cannot recreate or replicate ecosystems and regulating services such as the hydrologic cycle. Secondly, I would provide the basic and indisputable facts pertaining to these problems, i.e. direct correlation between temperature rise and the rise in coal combustion processes. Lastly, I would expose my listeners to the reality of our future plagued by rising sea levels, millions more displaced people, intensified natural disasters, crop failure, drought, etc., because first of all everyone at this point has either experienced one of these or knows someone who has and secondly I really think that going forward fear is going to be a very effective tool in igniting change and concern about the environment.

Word Count: 1510

Discussion Question: What do you think are the main driving forces/factors that lead someone to adopt a particular environmental worldview? Does it have to do with geography, how they were raised, socio-economic status, or perhaps a combination?

Work Cited

Miller, Tyler G., and Scott Spoolman. “Chapter 25: Environmental Worldviews, Ethics, and Sustainability." Edited by Scott Spoolman. InLiving in the Environment. 17th ed. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning, 2012.

Figueroa, Robert Melchior. "Environmental Justice." Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy.

Barret, Nicholas. "Environmental Degradation Leads to Public Health Crisis." Environmental News Network. January 08, 2014. Accessed February 07, 2019. https://www.enn.com/articles/46878-environmental-degradation-leads-to-public-health-crisis.

Dabkowski, Colin. "A History of the Love Canal Disaster, 1893 to 1998." The Buffalo News. August 06, 2018. Accessed February 07, 2019. https://buffalonews.com/2018/08/04/a-history-of-the-love-canal-disaster-1893-to-1998/.

Wolf, Clark. "Intergenerational Justice." Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy.

Leopold, Aldo. "The Land Ethic." In A Sand County Almanac. 1948.

Judith Heerwagen. "Biophilia." Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy.

Louv, Richard. "Last Child in the Woods - Overview - Richard Louv." Richard Louv. Accessed February 08, 2019. http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/.

"No Child Left Inside (movement)." Wikipedia. September 25, 2017. Accessed February 08, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Inside_(movement).

Louv, Richard. "Last Child in the Woods - Children and Nature Movement - Richard Louv." Richard Louv. Accessed February 08, 2019. http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/children-nature-movement/.

Hargrove, Eugene. "Environmental Citizenship." Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy.

"What Is Education For?" Context Institute. September 15, 2011. Accessed February 08, 2019. https://www.context.org/iclib/ic27/orr/.

Van Buren, Edward. “Prof’s PowerPoint Notes.” https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKbjVLpnX0RMjVGYUwwZlBXa28/view

[x-men-x-imagines]

Imagine #14 Charles Xavier (Request)

Requested by @kkkkkennedyyyyy: Hello! So I came across your blog and being the slut I am for Xmen would like to request an imagine. If it is not too much to ask can I request a Charles Xavier one where he is jealous of your relationship with another xmen (maybe Erik Lehnsherr, or Alex Summers) and then the ending can be all fluffy and stuff... Also can it be through the reader's perspective? You are awesome. Thank you!

Not my gif

Words: 1934

Warnings: fem!reader, typos, swearing

A/N: So, I feel like I was half asleep writing this, I hope it’s readable! Enjoy! xoxo

„That’s it for today.“, you ended your lesson and then added: „And don’t forget your assignments, some of you can’t afford a bad score right now.“ Collective moaning accompanied the familiar sound of talking and laughing students gradually leaving your classroom to start their free afternoon. Some of them seemed to be in quite a hurry, you realized and grinned at Peter’s back that was just disappearing around the corner. He knew that you had referred to his grades before. And you knew that his essay wouldn’t be anywhere close to well done, probably not even close to ‘you tried’. Oh, what were you gonna do about that kid, you thought to yourself. Such a smart guy and so absolutely not interested in using his brain for anything else than pranks and music.

You were so lost in thoughts that you didn’t notice the figure sneaking up next to you and when you heard Erik’s voice, you almost jumped. And you might have let out a suppressed scream before turning to your best friend and hitting him with your notebook. “Jesus Christ!”, you hissed. “Just me.”, he replied and you rolled your eyes. “Your kid…”, you gestured vaguely towards the door, “is going to fail my class, if he doesn’t get off his ass soon. Tell him that. You can quote me.”

“Hey, he’s an adult, he can do what he wants. It’s not like he respects me particularly.”, Erik justified himself, as he sat down on your desk. You liked it when he did that, because that way, you were taller than him. You always had to look up at everyone. Well, except for the professor, you reminded yourself. But that didn’t count.

“Of course he respects you. Everyone does, you know that. Those who don’t respect you, have come to fear you.”

“So that’s what you think of me!”, he placed one hand on his chest and looked up at you with a pained expression. You hit him again. “You know what I mean.” “I do. Coffee?” And with that, he handed you a cup of black coffee. “I love you!”, you sighed, taking a deep gulp. Your coffee addiction would be the death of you. At least that’s what the professor always said. He was desperately fighting for the return of teatime into everyone’s daily routine. You grinned subconsciously.

“I know. Speaking of, any luck with our little fiery problem?”, Erik responded, putting down his mug on the table next to him. You sighed. He was referring to some difficulties regarding your mutation that had recently developed and that you were desperately trying to get in control of. Turns out, being able to control your fire in day-to-day life didn’t mean anything. A few weeks ago, you had managed to set one of the professor’s cars on fire. You weren’t even sitting in it, on the contrary. You had been in a meeting – a particularly boring meeting – and had simply lost yourself in one very specific fantasy, starring Professor Xavier, his office desk and some other utensils that you weren’t going to think about any closer, when suddenly, the car outside the window had caught on fire.

Everyone had realized that you had lost control, but only Erik you had told the reason why. And since then, the only thing he would talk to you about was this particular problem of yours. He seemed to find this whole situation very funny.

“There is no problem, as long as I don’t…”, you felt yourself blush like a teenager and took another sip from your coffee. “Indulge in any explicit fantasies about our dear friend Charles.”, Erik smirked. “Your dear friend.”, you corrected him. “I hardly know him.” “But you would like to change that.”

Before you could reply, there was a knock on the door that you hadn’t realized, had fallen shut. “Yes?”, you called and Erik turned to face the professor, who was just entering the room in his chair.

“Ah, excuse me, am I interrupting something?”, he asked politely. “No, perfect timing, Charles, I was just about to braid y/n’s hair. Afterwards I can do yours, if you want.”, Erik said, getting up from the table. He was in such a weird mood today, you thought, furrowing your brows and looking at him closely. Was he planning something? God, you hoped not.

“No, thank you, old friend. I promised Raven that I would let her do my hair later.”, Charles responded, placing one hand on his bare head. “I was actually going to ask y/n, if she wanted to get a coffee. Or tea. But given that you are obviously already cared for…”

“No, professor, wait!”, you interrupted, as he turned to leave. You felt your cheeks go red. “Uhm, you know about my addiction, I could need another coffee.” You smiled and hoped that it didn’t look too shaky.

“But y/n!”, Erik called indignantly. “Are you trying to replace me? Am I not the one to bring you coffee?” You shot him a glare, but he seemed to be having the time of his life. God, weren’t you all adults? On the other hand, weren’t you the one blushing at the thought of getting a coffee with your boss?

You turned to face the professor again. “How about I come to your office in a few? I have to grade some papers first.” That was a lie and you were hoping, that he wasn’t just now reading your mind. But he simply smiled and nodded. “Perfect. See you then.” And with that he left, conscientiously closing the door behind him.

“What the fuck is going on with you?”, you hissed at Erik. He simply shrugged and grinned. “So, you want me to braid your hair?”

 You hesitated, your fingers inches away from the professor’s door. So, were you supposed to knock? Probably, couldn’t hurt to be polite. It could hurt, however, to be an awkward fucking moron, you said to yourself. How does one manage to make a simple conversation this uncomfortable? Maybe that was a part of your mutation, you had always been bad at talking to people you liked. But most of the time, those people hadn’t been way out of your league. But whatever, you couldn’t chicken out now.

“Come in.”, you heard the professor’s voice and slowly opened the door. “Ah, y/n. How nice to see you.” He smiled and you couldn’t help but smile back. “Black?” You looked at him blankly. “The coffee?” “Oh, yeah, sure, black.” Moron, you cursed internally.

“Please, have a seat.” You sat down on the sofa in front of the impressive windows and looked at the garden, that was being coloured in a bright orange by the setting sun. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”, you heard the professor’s voice next to you and nodded. “It is. Thanks for hiring me, this school is the best thing that could have happened to me.”

You had only been here for about two months and before that, there had been nothing in your life that you would have described as positive in any way. Looking back now, it all felt like a bad dream. You had never imagined being alone to be such a torture. And only now you saw, how much of a blessing it was, being surrounded by people like you.

“And I’m sure, you are the best thing that could have happened to us.” You turned your head to look at the professor, but he was watching the trees sway in the gentle autumn breeze. “Thank you, Professor.”, you smiled, picking up your – fifth or sixth today – coffee from the table.

“Please, call me Charles.” Again, you felt yourself blush and hoped that it wouldn’t show in the dimmed light. He had told you that before. “It’s nice to see, that you’re happy here. The students as well as the other teachers all seem to be very excited about your presence here, too. And as I can see, you have already bonded with some of them.” His voice sounded vague and you weren’t sure how to reply.

“Well, yes, they are all very welcoming. I mean, you have seen the way Erik practically showers me in coffee.”, you said, trying to loosen up the tension, you hadn’t even noticed before. “You seem to have come very close to him in these past weeks. He usually is a lot less open.”

“Really?” You had realized that Erik tended to be a little grumpy at times, but you had never found it particularly conspicuous. “I have never seen him act like this around anyone. It’s nice to see that he has finally found someone, he can be happy with.” Something told you, that Charles wasn’t completely honest with you. Maybe it was the tone in his voice, or maybe the way he talked about you and Erik like you were married…

“Oh, no no no. No, we aren’t… I mean, he is a friend. Just a friend, we aren’t dating or anything, we’re…”

Something changed in the professor’s expression and he finally looked at you, his eyes shimmering in an odd tone of green as they met with the reflecting sunset. “You are not a couple?”, he sounded almost too surprised and you couldn’t help but laugh. “No, god. I’ll tell him that you thought that, he will find it hilarious.”

“Oh, I think he already knows.”, Charles replied and furrowed his brows, though not without smiling. “That bastard.”, he murmured. You stopped and shook your head in surprise. “Uhm… is… is everything okay with you two, professor?”

“Y/n, would you please call me Charles?” You nodded, still waiting for his reply. “And here I was wondering about his behaviour, but now it makes sense, of course.”

“With all due respect, Prof- Charles, none of what you’re saying makes any sense to me.” You felt the professor’s eyes on you and thought that he looked a little like he was trying to bring himself to jump off a cliff. And you could tell the exact moment he decided to just roll with it. He leaned forward and, in a movement that almost made your heart stop, reached for your hand.

“Of course you can’t tell that Erik has been acting weirdly, because he has been ever since you got here. Though today has been particularly conspicuous. I thought it was, because he had found an interest in you. Which might actually be the case, I don’t know just yet. But it’s not the reason that he’s been acting like this. No, he is trying to mess with my head.”

You furrowed your brows, lowering your gaze to your hand in Charles’ and trying to focus on anything else than your raging heart. For god’s sake, you were a grown woman, where the hell had you lost your chill? But just like that, it made click and you suddenly understood, what the professor was trying to say. Even though it didn’t make any sense to you.

“You mean, Erik was trying to…”

“Make me jealous, love.”, Charles added. “And did it work?”, you heard your own voice. “Are you jealous?”

You heard a chuckle and just as you raised your eyes to look at the professor, he leaned forward and placed a soft, short kiss onto your suddenly very sensitive lips. You didn’t move, didn’t even open your eyes, but your body felt like dancing, like flying. “Not anymore.”, you heard a whisper right next to your ear, before his lips met yours again in another soft, but not at all short kiss.

[moonlitjiminn]

Hi!! So I love your writing! Masterpiece was honestly such a beautiful series and Purple is really good and just all your scenarios are amazing! I was just wondering if you could recommend some bts fanfics to read? Thank you :)

So yes, I have a few fanfics that I would love to recommend but ask other people too because I haven’t been able to read that many on my time here, and I would love to read more.

Note: None of the pieces of writing I recommend will be smut because I don’t read smut but I know some of the writers do write smut so if you like reading that then check do out those as well :)

Also, make sure you check out every writer’s masterlists and all their works because they’re all amazing writers, I’m just recommending a few in particular which are my personal favourites 

And I have a fic rec tag to which I reblog some of my favourite fanfic so definitely check that out too!

I even made a banner for this guys

It’s serious

They are in no particular order, I just love them all, okay?

And sorry if the majority is Jimin fanfic *hides*

@bagelswrites

Love at First Touch

When no one knew

When we were lost

I am so thankful I found this author because I don’t really see much of platonic BTS scenarios and she writes platonic BTS!!! And I just started reading LaFT and let me tell you DAMN it’s amazing. By the way, the last two aren’t actually called that, that’s just the prompt she used to write it, but it’s one of my favourite pieces by her :)

@writeiolite

Wishful Wings

GUYS!!! I NEED MORE KING JIMIN LIKE HONESTLY THIS WAS SUCH A GOOD FIC I NEEEEEED MORE KING JIMIN IN MY LIFE

Honestly so good!!! I loved it! It was so fluffy and cute and just !!!!!!!!

I don’t KNOW how to describe how this fic made me feel except:

asdfghjklkjhgfdsa!!!!!!!!

@triptaech

Carpe Omnia

Photographer Yoongi is so adorable and this fic is so adorable and my heart couldn’t take it. She’s so good at describing and making each moment worthwhile to read.

I loved it

@fireheart-namjoon

Trick or True

This story hurt me and I can’t explain how much I loved that pain. I love the way the author writes, it just made me keep wanting to read even though I started to fear what was going to happen

I LOVE ANGST

I LOVE IT

@btsugaplums

The sun will set

This story is actually the first gang au I’ve ever read and it’s so good?? L is so good at writing, like her descriptions are amazing and you can tell she put so much thought and work into her writing

Make sure you read all her stories

ALL of them

@bangtan-spells

Farewell

Simply Loveable

Idk if you know how much I love angst, and heartbreak so like… Farewell is literally my type of scenario, while Simply Loveable is super adorable and asdfghjkl imagine dating Taehyung like…. it’s so cute

@kmindset

Jimin, New Employee

Daycare

Not out of Love

EVERYONE YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO GO TO HER BLOG AND READ EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR FANFICS OKAY? Okay.

I love me some Jimin CEO stuff and she writes tHE BEST CEO PARK JIMIN

@classybts

My Fault

This story is so angsty I love it so much. I honestly don’t know why I do this to myself but I just love reading angst even though it hurts me both mentally and physically… I still do it

Make sure you check out this scenario as well as all their work!

@wewritekpop

Daddy’s Little Angel 

Okay but who doesn’t die when they read about Jimin as a dad? (Was about to write Daddy Jimin but…) This story is so cute and fluffy and asdfghjkl You need to check out all their work!

@bts-story

One Sided Love

So, as I stated before, I love dying. So I read angst, it’s good for the soul you know? 

@bangtan-wishes

Drown Me

I REQUESTED THIS ONE AND IT TURNED OUT BETTER THAN WHAT I HAD IN MIND AND I JUST ASDFGHJKL I LOVE IT SO MUCH

It’s angst guys

@taeciturn

Sakura

What am I to You?

Idk if you know by now but I love angst more than anything else in this world and

CUUUUUUTE

CUUUUUUUTE

SUUUUPER

CUUUUUUUTE

@bangtangy-candy

You, Me, and the Cherry Tree

This writer is amazing and I keep reading fluffy stories so like…. it’s super fluffy and cute.

@heungtanbts

From The Rooftop

Friday Nights

SO FLUFFY I DIED WHEN READING THIS. I just love the character Jimin has in this story and ahhhhh she’s such a good writer!!

@exoticarmy127

Law of Motion and Attraction

If you’re have a BTS tumblr and you don’t know Kaye, then what are you doing with your life? And if you haven’t read the story about the adventures of Prof V, what are you doing with your life? This is personally one of my favourite stories on tumblr/wattpad, so if you haven’t read it, get to it! And if you already have read it, why not read it again? XD

@mochirapgod

First

This is super cute, if you like super cute then read this super cute fic

@nambaae

We Were in Screaming Colours

Beautifully written, honestly

@sceoulnarios

Camp Bangtan | Afternoon Nap

Sunshine

Saved?

Ghost of You

Ease

So some are super cute but then the others…. you know…

Angst

@chokemejimin

See You Later On

Guys!!! This is so frikin heartbreaking I just-

I love it so much

@summertae

Dial gone wrong

A slice of love

Both of these are sooooo damn cute!!!! I especially love the first one because like I feel like I could totally imagine it happening. The writer is actually so good in their detail and I just love reading her work

And now you see that I really haven’t read that many fics in my time here, and the ones I read are mostly Jimin

Love you guys!!

[agermanbetweenscots]

Settling In

I wish I could remember how exactly I met every single one of my friends for the first time – and really, people should write way more diaries. We should note down way more experiences, memories are so short lived and it sometimes freaks me out.

Shayna and me were talking about it and unfortunately both of our brains are old and leaky – and we might also be similarly awkward with new people that the pure anxiety of meeting each other for the first time made us delete that experience from our brains but here is what we think happened.

1. I was getting coffee and the Costa in the hospital

2. Martha was there too. Maybe Nico too. Or maybe it was Nico and not Martha. Someone else was there.

3. We sat and had coffee (so somehow we must have been early to class) I know. Back when that was a thing. Back when cycling to uni took longer than pressing the ‘join meeting’-button)

4. Hassan and Shayna came in.

5. Hassan saw us, said ‘look, other medics, lets join them’ and dragged Shayna along with him.

Shayna and me obviously bonded over college in the US, boyfriends on the opposite of the world, older age and feeling a little out of it with all the young, drunk kids.

At some point she brought up studying in coffee shops – and I was just like, HELL YEAH. Coffeeshops + studying (+talking) = friends. Fortunately, the equation worked out. Our first coffee shop study friendate was the 12thof October 2019.

On the 23rd of October, Shayna had organised for the Grads to go to the Escape room in town. This escape room was special as it has the same room four times, so we could all do the same room at the same time and this is how I met Hannah and Dom a little more.

Trying to escape, Hannah and me struggled to put batteries into a flashlight (I know, we’re sooo smart), while me and Dom were in a different room, Shayna and Hannah freaked out when a picture fell off the wall as part of a clue. We did not win (but I think we came second).

After the Escape room, we went to Five Guys to have some burgers, this really made me feel like I have friends. Great feeling.

Also, I had joined two sports clubs. Lacrosse and Triathlon.

Triathlon was a bust, I have had such a great time at ENTC in Edinburgh, I loved the people and how kind and cool and chill the people were. Those had been my people, I loved the training sessions, the running and the jokes. And at first, I told myself, new club, new people, new vibes. Give it time, I told myself. And they weren’t terrible. None of the SUTRI people were mean to me or particularly difficult.

It was just the whole vibe of being too focused on times and races and how good someone did on their last race. I remember being at a social and them being a bit weirded out about me not wanting to get faster for 5K.

What I wanted was a chill, chatty running group, a chill trainer, getting better technique with no pressure – I think I found the opposite.

However, I found that in the Lacrosse Club in Soton. LAX was and is still so chill about your skills, they noticed when I didn’t come for a training session – which is always good to know. I like it if the people notice whether you are there or not, so you feel part of the club wven though you just joined.

I wasn’t the only German to sign up for LAX, for the first session, Pauline, Basem, Jana and Larissa were there, too. Jana and Larissa stopped going pretty early on – Pauline and Basem stayed though.

LAX was great. Every Tuesday evening, we went to training – rain or sun. Although, having placed Lacrosse now for two years I notice that holding a wooden stick with bare hands in the cold Southampton rain is the worst. My poor knuckles and joints. Wide Lane (the pitch we play on) is across from the airport and therefore really far out of the way. The cycle up takes around 25 minutes. On the way there, its fine. Its mostly downhill, you are still full of Energy, excited to play Lacrosse, get out of the house, stop studying etc. On the way back, however, IT IS THE WORST. It is uphill – my bike cannot change gears, you just ran around in the cold, you’re hungry, cold and annoyed and now you get to be sweaty and out of breath as well.

This was mine and Pauline’s first Lacrosse game – we played the Fresher Team of the Uni – we lost (not really a surprise) but it was so much fun to play.

The next picture is of one of those forfeits – basically we play and train and have mini-games we play. And If you lose or aren’t as fast or quick or good as the other team(s), they get to punish you. Sometimes it will be a wheel barrow race, sometimes it is a human pyramid. Most often however, it is having to roll down a hill close to the field – I think I spent most of my time before Christmas muddy, cold, clammy and full of grass spots.

So here I was, settling into life in Southampton. Tuesdays Lacrosse, Mondays Triathlon and inbetween study dates and the occasional social or pub drink.

Shayna and me became closer and started to have study dates after every uni day. We would take the Bluestar 17 down to the city centre and study in Starbucks at the Central Station for hours afterwards. Then we would head to hers and eat dinner, or I would head home.

First term uni was wonderful. I enjoyed FoM being easy (as already mentioned) but the subjects I enjoyed the most were Anatomy, Pharmacology and Pathology.

Anatomy:

I loved the lab. It would be taken from us way to early and way too abruptly but 2019-us didn’t know that. Anatomy overwhelmed us regularly, but thankfully we settled into quite quickly.

We started with the introduction to the different systems of the body that we would learn more about later on: a little breast, a little penis, some GI and lots of histology. Although those slides still look just pink, purple and white to me. Ooops.

The overwhelmingness of Anatomy caused me to buy a skeleton though. And that’s how I got Buddy.

Pharmacology:

Taught by my absolute fave professor Tony Sampson, who is a simultaneously frightening, terribly sarcastic and darkly humorous, we started with pharmacodynamics – and like histology I don’t remember much. But learning about the drugs, drug interactions and side effects made me feel like a doctor in the making.

Pathology:

Karwan was a lot. Lots of definitions, lots of pathological tissue changes that we looked at. Learning the difference between Ischaemia and Necrosis (so subtle) or how hyperplasia and hypertrophy are technically different and still somehow the same. Similarly, to Pharmacology and Anatomy, Pathology added Medicine to the biology and general sciences we studied.

While I was writing this blog post, Dom came into the living room and reminded me of the lecture that scared him in first year.

And it didn’t scare him because of the content. Or because the lights went out, or fire alarm turned on or because zombies invaded the theatre (although first year freshers are often zombies at a 9AM lecture) but because someone fainted. I don’t remember being scared however. Worried for the person and a little bit in awe of how nonchalant the profs react to whenever someone is fainting. This prof (trauma surgeon, talking about traumas and A&Es) was literally just standing there, sighing and then asking the friend to bring the faintée (let’s pretend that this is a word) outside to give her space and a more distance to the powerpoint lecture with gruesome pictures.

I remember someone fainting in the Anatomy lab though, the first person ever to be fainting in front of me. Here, I remember how quick and non-dramatic fainting was. It was just a drop to the floor, knees giving away. I think in my mind, I always imagined fainting to be more dramatic, almost overacted, like in Jane Austen novels or films. Fainting in my mind was a dramatic sigh, a hand to the forehead and then a fall backwards. It is not. I am unsure of whether to be sad or relieved by this fact.

I like thinking back to first year. I remember the strange mixture of pride, confusion, panic and struggle. How many talks have I had with my friends about the workload? I wish I had known what was gonna come my way.

[magnificentmktg]

41 Experts Share Their Top Takeaways from Content Marketing World 2018

    Stephanie Stahl

General Manager, CMI

Trust and authenticity matter more than ever. Clearly our industry is growing and maturing. Content marketing is a proven and sustainable practice. But brands are always trying to improve – to create better content, to rise above the noise. Let’s face it – there’s no shortage of content! So what stood out this year in the many, many great presentations throughout the week was the need for content marketers to build and maintain trust among their audiences -- by being authentic – as a way to stand out. As Kathleen Diamantakis of The New York Times’ T Brand Studio noted, content is one of the reasons we’re in an epidemic of meaningless. Fortunately, content also can be the solution. “If we can achieve meaning, we can achieve vitality, well-being, life satisfaction,” Kathleen said. I think that really resonated with the audience.

    Joe Pulizzi

Content Marketing Institute

So many amazing takeaways from this year's CMWorld, but one thing that I kept coming back to was belief. Simply put, most marketers don't believe that they can create the industry's leading information source for their target audience. This means we are not setting our goals high enough. This may be just a matter of time, but content marketers need to understand they have everything at their disposal to become the media company for their industry, and in turn, grow company revenues. But if you don't believe you can do it, it will never happen.

    Jay Acunzo

Owner, Unthinkable Media

Content marketing has long been a known approach in the broader marketing landscape, but this event spoke to just how tired we've become of the basics. There were countless talks about bucking the trend, breaking the mold, and other metaphors. (There was even a talk by Doug Kessler about metaphors!) The industry is slowly realizing that "best practices" are table stakes now. They're what works on average, but we don't aspire to be average. They're what works in general, but we don't operate in a generality. There's a renewed sense of trying to tailor our thinking to our unique situations, not merely "the other guy" or the latest trend. The bottom line: When the wave crashes and the tide goes back out, those who will be left are those who dug into the fundamentals. Whoever was merely riding a wave will be taken out to sea. I say, good riddance.

    Michael Brenner

CEO, Marketing Insider Group

Content Marketing World 2018 focused on themes that have been common in recent years: build an audience so you can monetize it. We have to be more diverse, more creative, more visual. We heard from a bunch of brands who ironically talked about how awesome they are. We heard about storytelling and personas and strategy and dashboards. And I'm putting some of my own weight behind the promise of AI in content marketing. But look under the covers and content marketing is being challenged still in most companies. In my own session, I talked about how we need to show ROI but more importantly we have to re-define the role of marketing as something more strategic to the business. We have to start making content marketing about something bigger than content marketing, something bigger than marketing, and bigger than "the brand." Content Marketing is really just about people using empathy to help other people and that in turn delivers better business results.

    Andrew Davis

Best Selling Author & Keynote Speaker, Andrew M. Davis Inc.

    Mark Masters

Founder, The ID Group

Let me start off by saying that the main thing I took is that nothing has changed or groundbreaking to reveal within content marketing. However, the principals now sit within the context of the world that we all part of today. With trust at it’s lowest point (as Edelman told us all in January), it provides resonance for businesses to stand for something that holds the truth. With validation, comes trust. If I had to surmise the 2018 event, quickly, it was about how your business: creates meaning, builds familiarity, is believable, becomes dependable. Where we all stand today there is an epidemic of purposeless out there. People and businesses are filling spaces with no meaning and no message. There is pressure on us all because of mobile and connectivity that we have to create at a relentless pace or throw money at a wall. It is time to be part of the change and create a message that is yours and you have the ability to build the right people around it. It is better to sell via association rather than coercion. The more personal your message and what your business believes in where someone else is in the centre, the greater the opportunity for familiarity. Ann Handley, summed this approach up brilliantly in her Sunday email (on 9th September), “Fill your room with the events, the colleagues, the community you need to help inspire your best work.”

    Ann Handley

Head of Content, Marketing Profs

    Andy Crestodina

Co-Founder, Orbit Media

Robert Rose sent shivers down my spine when he showed the "Smile Chart." It suggests that marketers who create things for their clients, without doing strategy or measurement, will soon be fired… The idea goes like this: there will always be another company that will create content cheaper than you. If you aren't also guiding them on what actions to take (strategy) and showing the impact of the work (measurement) you are doing the lowest value part of the job, for which the client will invest the fewest dollars. Move up to the big brain work on the sides and say away from the valley in the middle!

    Jon Burkhart

Beernote Creator, Jon Burkhart Inc.

    Lee Odden

CEO & Co-Founder, TopRank Marketing

Remember the “Marketing” in Content Marketing. Year after year, the CMI and MarketingProfs study reports that marketers are challenged to create a variety of engaging content consistently. As a result, advice about creating more meaningful, engaging, relevant, useful, experiential and especially customer-centric content could be found in numerous sessions at this year’s CMWorld. But what about the marketing of that content? My workshop on content promotion was full and Heidi Cohen’s session on blog content promotion was standing room only. For good reason: What good is great content if it doesn’t reach your intended audience? A big takeaway from this year’s CMWorld is that many marketers have dropped the ball on content promotion and are ready get back on track by strategically planning content promotion at the same time as creation. Content that is optimized, socialized, publicized, advertised, and Influencer activated gives brands a huge advantage in reaching, engaging and persuading their customers. When brands create and promote amazing content, everybody wins.

    Allen Gannett

CEO, Track Maven

    Ian Cleary

Founder, RazorSocial

    Joe Lazauskas

Editor-in-Chief, Contently

    Doug Kessler

Creative Director, Velocity Partners

Well, our passionate community of content marketing evangelists have kind of dissolved into the mainstream of marketing. It feels like we won! Most marketers understand that giving value to prospects before asking for things from them is a good idea. Because of that, doing content marketing credibly is no longer a competitive advantage. You have to do it better than competitors. What ‘better’ looked like at this year’s event was a hugely diverse mix of strategies, tactics and creative. I was impressed by the way—even as our discipline becomes industrialized—innovation is happening on so many fronts at once. And how the spirit of experimentation is starting to separate the innovators from the followers. I came away being even more a believer in ‘home run��� content as a budget multiplier. Andrew Davis’s keynote on Curiosity showed a great path to this. Combined this kind of 10x, big idea pieces with the kind of optimization mindset that Andy Crestodina is so great at and you can’t fail.

    Douglas Burdett

Principal, Artillery Marketing

    Julia McCoy

CEO, Express Writers

"Two of my favorite takeaways from CMWorld '18: first, what Robert Rose said to open the first day of sessions was outstanding. He said trust is Player 2 in today's marketing, and he's 100% right. More and more people are looking for that trustworthy brand or marketer in the middle of all of the noise. My second favorite takeaway would have to be what Joe Pulizzi, my all-time favorite content marketer, shared in his keynote: 'Marketing success only takes three things. Record, Repeat, Remove. Marketing fails when our recorded goals aren't big enough; when there is not enough repetition; and when we do not clear the garbage that stops us from achieving our goals.' Joe shared that the minimum time was 9 months, average 18 months or longer, of implementing content to see success. These were some major takeaways that I've been sharing on Twitter, LinkedIn, and internally with my staff post-CMWorld 2018."

    Bernie Borges

Co-Founder, Vengreso

    Adele Revella

CEO, Buyer Persona Institute

Want to REALLY Understand Your Buyer Personas? Ask them how they make decisions I squeezed myself into a crowded session at the Content Marketing World conference and introduced myself to the person seated on my left, who turned out to be a marketer at Sherwin Williams. When Ellen, the woman to my right, said she was getting ready to paint her apartment, I was astonished at our good luck. Here’s your buyer, Sherwin Williams! Before you read any further, think about what you would say in this situation. If someone told you she was about to paint her apartment, what’s your question? I’ve posed this as a hypothetical scenario to countless marketers, and everyone I’ve asked has responded “What color will you paint your apartment?” Although this is fine for polite conversation, it’s a huge missed opportunity when you want insight into your buyer persona. Imagine how much more we could learn if we asked “How did you decide what color to paint your apartment?” So I quickly asked Ellen if I could record her response to my question. She agreed when I promised not to reveal her last name, lest her boyfriend happen onto this short video. If you had only one minute to ask your buyer a question about his or her persona, what would you ask?

    Robert Murray

President, Skyword

Brands are no longer ignoring storytelling. Every piece of content is, at its heart, telling a story, but what’s interesting is that companies still lack the knowledge of how to initiate this. Listening to attendee questions after various sessions showed me that while most are on the right track to transforming from ad-centric to story-centric, they don’t have a clear path in mind when it comes to implementation or strategy.

What I noticed during CMWorld was how relevant and timely philanthropic storytelling is. As customers are connecting to brands in a way they never have before thanks to social media, there is more and more pressure on organizations to take a stance on societal issues. If done properly, brands can actually take advantage of this—just look at what Nike’s doing and how much buzz they generated during the show. Tying brand loyalty and corporate social responsibility into content marketing efforts can be the first step for companies breaking out of their advertising shell.

    Matt Heinz

Founder, Heinz Marketing

I keep thinking about Drew Davis’s presentation on the Curiosity Curve. What are we doing to keep our audience’s attention? How are we creating value through drama, through better storytelling, even through better content editing? This is a critical skill for all marketers but also for sales professionals. Your prospects won’t care about your story until you care about theirs. Progression of storytelling can absolutely manufacture and sustain curiosity until the point that the prospect commits to change. That’s when the magic happens.

    Ahava Leibtag

Founder & President, Aha Media Group

CMW 2018, was as usual, a stellar event. I see content marketers still struggling with creating quality content, measuring their successes and dealing with governance and workflow issues. A major focus seemed to be on really thinking through distribution and how that affects the entire content strategy. I see a movement away from talking about knowing your audience—seems that marketers really understand that concept now. But proving to executives that these are the people to target and how to measure the effectiveness of that targeting is still a major challenge. In terms of governance and workflow, I think this challenge relates back to internal politics and the way marketing, PR and communications departments are structured. Breaking down those siloes and preventing infighting seems to capture many marketers’ energies, not freeing them to be creative and try new things. So we still have a lot of work to do in that area. But people are aware of the challenges much more than they seemed to be—they are asking really excellent questions and trying to find frameworks to solve these issues.

    Andrea Fryrear

President & Lead Trainer, The Agile Marketer

Successful content marketing isn't about doing it all. It's about finding the niche that's meaningful to the intersection of your brand and your audience and owning that space. That means being hyper-focused and getting comfortable saying "No" to things that aren't in alignment with your primary goal.

    Pam Didner

Speaker, Consultant, and Author of Global Content, Pam Didner Inc.

I love Ann Handley sharing the story of how Warren Buffet writes his annual letters to his investors. He writes with his sister, Doris, in mind. His sister is smart, but does not necessarily understands all the financial and investment jargon. He writes in a way that his sister can understand. He also adds a personal touch with humor and stories so that the letter is not boring to read. Most brands have multiple buyers' personas and it may be challenging to create content with only one persona in mind. However, it's important to clearly articulate who we are creating content for and to not be afraid to humanize our own brands with personalized voice. #Findyourdoris

    Peter Loibl

President & Chief Strategy Office, Concured

CMW 2018 truly built upon the rapid momentum of Artificial Intelligence in the content marketing space. What was once looked upon skeptically with apprehension and fear, A.I. is elevating to a "must have" for marketers and is proving its worth by eliminating much of the day-to-day minutia that marketers struggle with (like time-consuming content audits and competitive analysis) and letting them get back to doing what they do well: being great content strategists and storytellers. The chatter around A.I. this year was truly exciting!

    Viveka von Rosen

CVO, Vengreso

    Margaret Magnarelli

VP of Marketing, Monster

    Zontee Hou

Consultant & Speaker, Convince & Convert

While we're still technology- and algorithm-driven, CMW had powerful reminders of capturing the humanity in our work. Whether it's about creating less content that's more emotionally-driven, the need to employ more empathy in our work, or talking more like people and less like brands, it all came back to that central theme of customers first.

    Pamela Muldoon

Revenue Marketing Coach, Pedowitz Group

    Robert Rose

Chief Strategy Office, The Content Advisory

    Jonathan Kranz

Founder, Kranz Communications

This year’s real theme was…reality itself. People GET the theory behind content marketing, they GET the idea of automation – but now they WANT practical insights rooted in on-the-ground experience. How do you make the most of products and/or services that may not be sexy – or even “interesting”? How do you turn technical features/functions into compelling stories? How can small teams create content with big impact? We have enough thought leadership to get us through the next 10 years; what we really need now is more people who can roll up their sleeves and EXECUTE.

    Andrew Spoeth

Director, Digital Marketing, CA Technologies

The content marketing hype cycle is being looked with critical eyes. Is content marketing dead? Has it turned into a purely pay-to-play tactic? Even though it's no longer the latest buzzword, this field is as important as ever as its principles become ubiquitous and seep into other marketing functions. There is also a lot of talk about format. How long should an article be? Do Instagram Stories work? Etc. (I agree that there is still a huge opportunity for long-form content.) Audio content is also being looked at more seriously by brands with the (re)emergence of podcasts as a hot medium. Throughout these changes and the evolution of the craft, the fundamentals of creative storytelling will remain. Those that can tap into emotion, and differentiate themselves, will win with their audiences.

    Scott Monty

Principal, Brain+Trust Partners

While we're still technology- and algorithm-driven, CMW had powerful reminders of capturing the humanity in our work. Whether it's about creating less content that's more emotionally-driven, the need to employ more empathy in our work, or talking more like people and less like brands, it all came back to that central theme of customers first.

    Michael Becker

Digital Content Manager, Emarsys

One of the smartest guys I know, Jay Acunzo, is leading industry rhetoric (and will soon appear on Emarsys' Marketer + Machine podcast) around this idea of finding our own solutions to our own problems — instead of seeking best practices. Best practices represent that which works best, on average. They lead to average results. Applying frameworks, processes, workflows, or ideas that work in general, across the industry, to our unique day-to-day challenges is not necessarily a recipe for success. As Jay discussed, we have to start challenging ourselves to find our own answers to our distinct questions. His presentation "Break the Wheel: Stories and Ideas for Being Better than Best Practices" struck a chord with me because so much of what we do does seem to evolve from what's worked for others in the past. Read More...

    Carla Johnson

Type A Communications

There were lots of great takeaways from Content Marketing World this year. I liked hearing more conversations about where things are going as we get more sophisticated. But one thing that marketers have always struggled with is how to get people to rally around and support projects. This is when a great hallway conversation stuck with me. I had a great talk with Tim Washer about how he got a engineering-driven company like Cisco to say “yes” to using comedy in their marketing. He had a great insight – remove resistance before you walk into a room. We prep for meetings and think about how to counter the people who want to kill ideas once we give our pitch. But Tim pointed out that the best way to handle this is to take care of resistance before we’re that far down the road. And we do that by building relationships with the people who have the power and authority to support out work. That takes time and up-front thinking, because it’s not about brown-nosing anyone. It’s about building a real, person-to-person relationship. There was lots of great content across all stages, but I found that this year’s top takeaway came from behind the scenes.

    Deanna Goldasich

Founder, Well Planned Web

    David MacLaren

Digital Content Pioneer, Media Valet

The time to leverage AI is now. In content marketing, AI brings the promise of efficiency, ultimate relevance and personalization - a best practice most marketers strive to achieve. However, there’s still a huge gap between the possibilities of AI and the typical marketer’s skill and ability to implement it. The time to experiment with AI is now – in small, measurable and meaningful ways. A great start is to try the many existing AI-driven apps and plug-ins for content ideation, SEO, copy and link optimization, content management, text and predictive analytics. Individuals that can get a head start on mastering AI will develop opportunities to advance their content strategies, their companies and their careers.

    Patricia Travaline

CMO, Skyword

What really struck me from this year’s show was Andrew Davis’ keynote on earning attention. In our on-demand world where our audience says they never have enough time, yet they can binge watch Stranger Things on Netflix all weekend, it’s clear that marketers need to do a better job of earning their attention. The ingredient? A curiosity gap—the emotional anxiety we feel when there is a gap between what we know and what we WANT to know. And to build that gap you need create tension over time with a payoff that rewards your audience at the end. I couldn't agree more. In our on-demand world where our audience says they never have enough time, yet they can afford to binge watch Stranger Things on Netflix all weekend, it’s clear that marketers need to do a better job of earning their attention. In order to get there, Andrew Davis recommended following the three Rs: 1) Record your goals 2) Repeat every day and review your goals 3) Remove distractions such as mobile devices. Let’s start there and see where it takes us.

    Anna Hrach

Content Strategist, Convince & Convert

One of the key things I keep coming back to from Content Marketing World 2018 is how to better capture and hold the attention of our audiences, but in real and authentic ways. This absolutely stuck with me from both Jay Baer's session on Talk Triggers, where he talked about giving people something genuine to talk about when it comes to your business, plus Drew Davis' talk on creating curiosity gaps. I think both of them hit on some great points about how to not just differentiate ourselves to differentiate ourselves, but how to differentiate ourselves in a way we can really own and make an impact with those we're trying to speak to.

    Buddy Scalera

Content Strategist, Visual Storytelling, LLC

Content marketing has gotten more serious about content that converts. We're seeing much more business-focused content, not just content that entertains an audience. They're not just looking at number of impressions, likes, or irrelevant engagements. We see marketers talking about effective content that drives conversions, and how those conversions relate to the business strategy.

    Stephan Spencer

Founder, Science of SEO

This marks the 4th Content Marketing World for me, and they keep getting better! My top takeaway was how elegantly “ego bait” can be executed to get high-value links for SEO. Ego bait is where you work some element of flattery into your content that targets one or multiple influencers. If done well, you don’t even have to hint to them that they should link to your content. The specific example I walked away with is Andy Crestodina’s “2017 Blogging Survey” example that he shared during his talk. The survey findings are sprinkled with “Expert Insights” throughout, done as insets with headshots and multiple paragraphs dedicated to each targeted influencer. What an impressive way to showcase the thought leader/influencer. I’ve shown that example already several times in client meetings and speaking gigs. I intend to drill deeper into this topic with Andy — namely, tapping into the intrinsic motivations behind behaviors like linking and sharing —when I have him on my Marketing Speak podcast later this year.

    David Reimherr

Founder & CEO, Magnificent Marketing

There were a ton of amazing things I heard and learned this year and at the top of the list would be these two. Andrew Davis' advice on creating a curiosity gap where you get people wanting to see or read the rest of the story or get the answer they are looking for was huge. This could apply to so many various types of content. Also Ann Handley finally gave me an answer I have longed for which was my question of should we push the company more or the people more in relation to sending out content and building your brand. She suggests that we go strongly towards personal branding and the company brand will benefit by doing so. Also, she really drove home the fact to be yourself, be authentic, and have fun while doing so! This can not be overstated. Be yourself, push the envelope and make some mistakes!

[gosatsuvns]

Weekly Update #198 - Welcome To Jurassic June!

It's finally time! Jurassic June has arrived, meaning that it has actually been an entire year now ever since we publicly unveiled our next murder mystery GENBA no Kizuna! Because of that, I thought I'll use the first blog post of this year's Jurassic June to not only give you an overview of what we have planned for this month, but also to take a look back at what has happened over the past 12 months, what kind of things have changed and how the development of our new visual novel project is progressing in general. So without further ado, let's get right into it!

First of all, for those of you who might have stumbled upon GENBA only recently and might therefore be wondering... What exactly is Jurassic June and why did we pick this month to make the initial reveal?

Jurassic June is mainly a month for fans to celebrate the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World franchise, but I guess in a broader sense, dinosaurs in general. So now you might be asking, okay, and what does that have to do with GENBA? Well, the direction and theme of GENBA have been heavily influenced by my love and passion for all things Jurassic.

I've been a dinosaur nerd ever since kindergarten and one day, after having already come up with the basic idea for GENBA, while thinking about its setting... I decided to have it themed around dinosaurs. Similar to how our previous project, SHINRAI - Broken Beyond Despair, is themed all around Halloween (another thing I'm very passionate about).

But even in SHINRAI, I couldn't help but hide a Jurassic Park reference here or there...

My first idea for GENBA was to actually have the murder occur in the dinosaur section of a natural history museum. But over time, the idea evolved and the setting eventually turned into the Kaseki Residence. Once home to the late paleontologist Prof. Dr. Genshi Kaseki, it is now owned by his grandson, Ryuunosuke Hazama, who lives there together with his three friends, all of whom are enormous dinosaur nerds. So, just like with SHINRAI's Halloween theme, the dinosaur theme in GENBA is well reflected in the design of its characters and location:

(And as you can probably imagine, there are Jurassic Park references to be found here as well, because how could I resist? w)

Still, as much fun as I'm having with this theme and setting, this isn't just about me indulging in my passion for dinosaurs. Just like with SHINRAI, the two most important factors for me in regards to this project are providing a compelling mystery as well as compelling characters. As a matter of fact, it's the characters who always take the top spot for me when it comes to working on such a project, so I put a lot of effort into creating GENBA's cast.

We have already introduced the four playable protagonists last year. You can check out their profile cards in the GENBA section of our website. However, these four just make up one part of the full picture. We have four investigators/detectives and, of course, a victim. However, you still need a little more than that in a murder mystery. While witness characters, for example, could be a nice addition, they rather fall into the "optional" category, though. You don't necessarily need any to write a murder mystery. But there is something else you need rather desperately. One other category of characters outside of "victim(s)" that is absolutely essential: "suspects".

GENBA no Kizuna will provide a total of four suspects. And this Jurassic June, we want to focus on them a little more.

You might have already seen a bit of them here or there if you've been following us for a while and, of course, patrons have been able to check out the initial design sketches ever since last year. But I thought it's about time to finally reveal them publicly, so please look forward to that later this month (or check out our Patreon if you want to learn more right now)!

Of course, there are a few other things I want to show and talk about this Jurassic June as well, but for now, I'd like to get back to GENBA in general and, as promised in the beginning, talk a bit about the past 12 months and the state of our progress.

If you take a look at the initial character introduction cards I posted last year and compare them with the ones currently found on our website, you will undoubtedly notice that they have changed a bit. Some changes might be more obvious, others a little more subtle. A lot of tiny details have changed over the course of this past year, like the story now taking place in September rather than June, or Rei's age having been adjusted. Everything has been a constant work-in-progress right down to such seemingly insignificant details. That's actually one of the main things I've been working on ever since last Jurassic June: ironing out the details and direction of the story. I wish I could talk about this in more detail, but due to spoilers, I guess that will have to wait until after the game has been released. Maybe in the extras section or something, haha.

Either way, I'm more certain and even more confident about many story-related things now compared to one year ago. And to me, that is a big step. Writing an engaging murder mystery really is no easy task. With a story so heavily relying on logic and realism there is a lot of research required. The devil truly lies in the detail.

It's very difficult to give a percentage of how much progress has been made or an estimate of how long it might take until the game will be finished. I've tried that in the past with SHINRAI, only to realize that I've always been way off, so I'd rather not make promises I cannot keep again. You always have to keep in mind that, in the end, we're just a team of basically two people, so... it sadly takes a while. Especially in the beginning because, when starting a new project, the workload is extraordinarily high. You literally have nothing and need everything: sprites, backgrounds, CGs, music, a written script, sound effects, a fully designed and coded GUI and so on and so forth. That's what we've mainly been dealing with over the past 12 months: asset creation.

On the flipside, this also means that, the more assets are created, the faster we will be able to make coding progress. After all, it's not like each and every chapter needs the exact amount of new assets. Eventually, you will have all the expressions you need for a character, for example. When we got to the final chapter of SHINRAI, all of Raiko's sprites were already there. Same with most of the other characters. So rather than having to spend a lot of time creating more assets again, we could mostly use those we had already created for the previous chapters. GENBA will be very much the same. The closer we will get to the end, the more drastically the workload will subside. But of course, right now, there is still a lot to do.

That's the downside of being a tiny indie dev. So, if you'd like to support us, please consider checking out our Patreon. We would appreciate it a lot. And to those of you who have been supporting us there or even still are: thank you so much! It really makes a difference and helps us out a lot. Without this additional help, it would be very difficult to commission Solo Acapello for GENBA's soundtrack or to compensate our proofreader Ariette for her work.

Still, I do have to admit that, even if things once again took way longer than expected, overall I'm very happy and proud regarding the progress we have made so far. I mean, hey, at the very least, we have finally managed to release a first demo for GENBA! And we're hard at work to follow up with that extended demo as soon as possible.

Anyway, this is starting to get a little too long I guess, so I should probably wrap this up. I will tell you more throughout the rest of Jurassic June and I hope you're as excited to learn about our suspects as I am to finally reveal them in public!

Patrons can actually get an early look at a bunch of things I have planned to show publicly later this month and check out various WIP-postings, including the first one for this month's Jurassic-themed artwork! And speaking of monthly artworks, don't forget to check out the one Natsu drew for May, which was themed all around tsuyu, the rainy season:

As always, patrons can download a higher resolution version over here.

The image features one of GENBA's four main characters, Himatsu Mizu. She does not appear in our current demo yet, but patrons can learn a little more about her by checking out not only her introduction scene in GENBA, but even her original introduction scene from... 2008!??

So yeah, I guess that's about it. Please enjoy the rest of your weekend! Until next Saturday, take care, and... Happy Jurassic June! :3

[emilyjoymcdonald]

Halfway

So much for keeping a weekly blog, am I right? 

Student teaching has been a lot busier than I ever expected! It is so crazy to think I am already at the halfway point of my time here in Merida. I have already seen immense growth in myself as a teacher after being here for merely four weeks. The challenges that have come along with the difference of language and culture have been difficult; however, I am better because of it already. God has used this to stretch and push me in new ways I never would have encountered if I had not followed his call to Colegio Americano. Sometimes that pressure is a tad bit unpleasant, but without that uncomfiness (I know, that’s not a word. Just go with me.), growth wouldn’t be possible. Plus, I trust that he will keep on growing me in the time I have left. Usually, whenever God works on me, I don’t notice the changes until months or even years later in my life. I trust that he’s got me.

I’ll just try to do quick snippets of my weeks that I have been here so far to keep my promise of writing this blog. Bear with me!

Week 1: It was so cool to have the education department here during the time I was just starting at Colegio Americano. I spent the majority of this first week getting to know Maestro Gustavo (my cooperating teacher), my students, and the school and school system as a whole. I think all student teachers feel incredibly overwhelmed after their first week in their school, and that was no different for me! Before the ed profs left, they made a point to pray over me. That was a beautiful experience. I felt loved and supported in more ways than I can express. They helped me realize that what I was doing was going to be okay. They pulled me in close as they lifted up my time here in Merida to God. I am so thankful for those women.

Gustavo asked me to create two games to play with the students this week. I chose a vocabulary type game and two truths and a lie. The game required more freedom for the students to run around and have fun, and I don’t think they really knew how to handle that. The classes were very loud and crazy, but I think the students really enjoyed doing something different than their usual classes.

The Mexican school system is a heck of a lot different than the school system in the United States. The federal government is in charge of education. There aren’t even state departments throughout the country. The big dogs decide what is going down in the schools. The entire country has to use the same textbooks, and ideally, every student in the country in a certain grade is on the same page in all of their classes on each day. This leaves very little room for creativity from the teachers with such a prescriptive curriculum. It has been interesting getting used to that way of teaching.

Week 2: This week was a real downer for me because I felt so lonely. The tennis team and the education professors had left. The students who were studying abroad here weren’t scheduled to come until next week. I prayed for God to fill me with his presence and to take away that feeling of loneliness. God definitely answered that plea by placing the daughters of one of the teachers at Colegio Americano into my life! The teacher was Jake’s coop when he was doing his student teaching here, and they befriended him and did a lot of things with him while he was here. Thankfully, they reached out to me, as well! On Friday night, they took me downtown to the Noche Mexicana. There was authentic Yucatecan dancing, and it just made my heart soar!

I took the wrong bus one day after school, and it ended up taking me to the mall Altabrisa. I was terrified for many moments that I was going to be completely lost in the middle of Mexico with no way to get home. Finally, I saw the mall in the distance, and I decided to get off and try to make the most out of the situation. I went inside and bought ice cream and sunglasses. On Sunday, I went to church with Jess (the girl that took me out to Noche Mexicana) and her mom, Lety. It was all in Spanish, but it was really cool to hear. The pastor was so passionate. I was so thankful that Jess invited me to come with! What an answer to prayer she was.

Week 3: The Central students finally came! It was so great to have someone to talk to in the house. At the school, this week was the hardest for me. Up until this point, each day at the school got better and better. However, on Monday, my supervisor came to observe me teach, and the lesson was not rainbows and butterflies like I expected it to be. The students did not react as well as I had hoped to what I wanted them to do and learn. I was given many things to work on, and I was frustrated that the lesson wasn’t successful. I had a mini breakdown believing the lies Satan was telling me that I will never be a good teacher. The lies saying I don’t know what I am doing. I believed them, and because of that, I was a mess. Thankfully, my parents, professors, friends, Val, and Fany encouraged me with our Lord’s words. I recovered and was able to have a good end to the week. I implemented the suggestions my supervisor gave me for that lesson, and the other classes I taught went so much better!

On Wednesday, I went kayaking at Progreso with the students during their orientation week. It was not the greatest weather, and it was quite cold. However, it was so nice to get out of the house and do something fun! I was in a kayak with professor Chia Ning, and we were able to navigate the choppy water incredibly well! It reminded me a lot about choosing joy amidst the seemingly joyless moments of our lives.

That weekend, I was able to tag along with the students again as they went to Mayapan, Acanceh, and the cenotes at Homun. This was an excursion I never did while I was abroad here, so I was so thankful to be able to go! The archeological sites were stunning, and the cenotes were insanely beautiful! 

Week 4: In the schools, this week was fantastic! I felt confident in the lessons I taught. My supervisor even came again on Friday, and she noted how immensely I had grown in just these last four weeks. She gave me a lot of positive feedback, which was something I greatly needed. I learned that I really need to be told that I am doing okay. Affirmation means a lot to me, so I was so thankful to have received that from my supervisor that day.

I had one really great God moment that just made my week. One of my students found out that I will be starting my full time teaching soon, and he came up to me and asked if that was true. I said that it was and that I was a bit nervous to take over. He told me, “Oh, don’t be nervous! We all love how you teach!” I just felt so encouraged and appreciated at that point! With middle schoolers, sometimes it is easy to feel like they could care less about you as a person. It felt good to know they looked forward to the days I would be teaching. 

I also had my first interview for a big person job on Friday! It was a tad terrifying, but I survived! I even got two letters from Jaime on the same day. In one of the letters, he happened to be encouraging me in my capabilities of teaching after the difficult day I had the week before. His loving and uplifting words could not have come on a better day.

This weekend, we went to the ruins of Uxmal and Hacienda Yaxcopoil. I had been on this excursion in the past, but that day, it was just so dang beautiful. Uxmal had been further restored since the last time, so I was able to see even more of the ornate and beautiful details. 

At Yaxcopoil, they told us there was an event there later that day, so we had to leave earlier. When we got there, we found out it was for a wedding! And it wasn’t your normal wedding. It was a MASSIVE and MAJESTIC wedding fit for royalty. Everything was so beautiful and romantic. It was so fun to imagine being a fly on the wall during the fiesta that night!

Next week I start my full time teaching! I am excited/nervous/jazzed/terrified and not yet quite ready. Tomorrow is a holiday, so I hope to get a lot of work done then! I am very thankful for this opportunity to be here in Merida. Stay tuned as I do better at sending weekly updates (hopefully). ;)

Talk soon, fam!!

Miss Emily