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pucksnsticksnhockeyboys · 4 years ago

Text

never isn’t an option - pt. 2

summary: you’re tired of hiding how you feel from Matthew, so you risk everything for chance at happiness.

warnings: none really, angst

word count: 4.7k

note from the writer: here it is! this is the last part, and I'm super proud of how this whole thing turned out. make sure to take this survey to help me decide what to work on next!

read part one here

Three weeks. It had been three, miserable, weeks since you last saw Matt. It felt like an eternity, and you weren’t sure how you had managed to go so long without seeing him. He was your best friend, and he had made every attempt to reach out to you since then. Texts, snapchats, and even a phone call late one night. It was killing you to be so distant from him.

“So what’d you do to Chucky?”

Rasmus asked the question between shoveling fries in his mouth. He had practically dragged you out of your apartment, taking you to the hole-in-the wall diner down the street and ordering some very non-nutritionist approved food before you could get a word in. If it was under any other circumstances, you would have rolled your eyes at his lack of table manners. Instead, you shrugged your shoulders lamely and pushed your own fries around your plate.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You hummed quietly. He wasn’t talking about your failed attempt at confessing your feelings, you were sure of it, because you had gone over that with him at least four times since the incident.

“At first, he was moping because of the thing,” he started, and you were glad it didn’t outright announce what the thing was. Avoiding his gaze, he continued. “And then like a week ago he just got worse. He’s always in a mood now, and you can’t tell me you haven’t seen how sloppy he’s been on the ice.”

“I haven’t been watching the games.” The confession tumbled past your lips before you could stop them, and Rasmus gave you a pointed look. You rarely missed a game, even before you met Matt and fell in love and had your heart broken. “But I’ve been keeping track of scores, at least.”

“My point is, something must have happened to make things worse and I want to know what it is.” He continued before the conversation was completely derailed. You might have been hurting, but that didn’t stop you from caring for Matt unconditionally, so you thought for a minute about what had happened. If you were willing to be honest with yourself, you probably weren’t the most reliable source of information on Matt’s life anymore. It hurt, but you had been removed from him for three weeks. All except for—

“He called me a week and a half ago, late at night.” You offered, trying not to think about if you still were able to affect him so much. Sure, you were his best friend, but you ruined everything with the impulsive decision to confess your feelings.

“Well, what’d you talk about?” Rasmus asked as if the question was obvious. You shrugged, looking back down at your plate. He nudged you with his foot under the table, and you sighed while reluctantly meeting his concerned gaze.

“Nothing really, I told him I was on a date and—”

“You were what?” He interrupted, a little too loudly for the quiet diner but he completely missed the disgruntled look from the middle aged woman behind the counter as he waited for you to explain yourself expectantly. You groaned, dropping your head into your hands and propping your elbows up on the table. “Who were you on a date with? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d freak out like this!” You exclaimed, waving a hand dramatically in his direction. “And it was with one of my friend’s coworkers, she made me go to try and get over Matt.”

“And you told him you were with another guy?” Rasmus asked dumbfoundedly and you nodded bashfully. He sighed, shaking his head at you and you felt as if you were in the principal's office after getting caught doing something you shouldn’t. But you were an adult, you could go out with anyone you wanted. “Wait, if Matt called you late, what were you still doing on a date?”

“Because,” you hesitated, flushing at having to confess what you were next to him. “I went back to his place to, you know, but then Matt called and I bailed right after.” Despite the situation, Rasmus laughed loudly, leaning back in his booth and you wondered where he found humor in the situation.

“So you didn’t even sleep with the guy?” He asked, grin on his face as you nodded sheepishly. You had been fully prepared to, having convinced yourself that not-quite rebound sex was a good idea, but you changed your mind upon hearing Matt’s voice. “Man, you’re so in love with him.”

“Shut up.” You groaned, no heat in your voice. “It doesn’t matter anyways, he doesn’t feel the same and I’m probably never going to see him again, so.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be his plus one to the charity event tomorrow?” The question had the blood draining from your face—you had completely forgotten. It was always assumed that you were Matt’s plus one to Flames events, and you’ve had the charity gala marked on your calendar for over a month.

“I doubt he wants to see me.” You tried to reason, but Rasmus shook his head. He grabbed your phone, and all you could do was watch as he unlocked it and opened your texts.

“That’s definitely not true, like, at all.” He teased, typing out a message for you. You practically jumped out of your seat once you realized just who he was sending a text to, but by the time you reached his side of the booth the message was sent and your fate was sealed.

“Did you really just text Matt—”

“Oh look, he’s already responded.” Rasmus sounded far too pleased with himself for your liking, but you ignored him entirely as you snatched your phone back that he had been dangling in your face. You read Rasmus’ text to Matt first, biting your lip in nerves. ‘You still want me to go to the charity thing with you, right?’ Matt’s response was simple, and came in near record time, but you forced yourself not to think too much into his ‘of course I do’ because you knew that was exactly how you’d break your heart all over again.

You glanced up from your phone and met Rasmus’ smug grin, smile toying with the corners of your lips no matter how badly you wanted to frown at him. His simple sentence was enough to set off a parade of butterflies inside you, but you forced yourself to remember that he didn’t feel the same.

“This doesn’t mean anything.”

Time seemed to pass before your eyes, because before you got the chance to properly breathe and process what exactly entailed a night of being Matthew’s plus one while avoiding thinking about your unreciprocated feelings, he was knocking at your apartment door to pick you up.

You counted to three before opening, both to ground yourself and make it seem as if you hadn't been anxiously waiting for him. Even still, you weren’t ready for how breathtakingly handsome he looked. He was dressed in your favorite suit of his—you were certain he knew it was your favorite, you made a point to tell him that each time he wore it for games—and his hair was put together in a way that seemed effortless.

“Hi.” You breathed quietly, having to be the first to break the silence. He was still taking you in, his gaze raking up and down your figure in the outfit you had picked out weeks before. Like nothing changed, you felt a shiver run down your spine under his gaze.

“You look, wow.” He spoke, a reverence to his voice that had your heart beating faster. You knew being his plus one would be a challenge, but he was making it incredibly hard for you to focus on being just friends with him while he looked at you like that.

“You clean up nice yourself, Mr. Tkachuk.” You told him, the teasing a ghost of your past relationship with him you hoped would transfer to your new role as someone that he rejected. He chuckled, and you decided that maybe things wouldn’t have to change as much as you thought they would.

“Anything for you.” He hummed, and then like he hadn’t said that, he offered you his hand. You took it on instinct, slipping your hand in his and allowing him to pull you out of your apartment and into the elevator. Matt had ordered a car for the night, the same as he always did, and you smiled politely as he opened the door for you.

Even when you were both in the back of the car together, he slipped his hand back in yours, moving it into his lap so he could play with your fingers. You watched him carefully, wondering if he knew how much of an effect he had on you and he was doing it on purpose or if he was trying to make your friendship as normal as possible. You weren’t sure which one you preferred more.

You also wondered how long you’d be able to keep this up. How long you’d be able to stand by his side and pretend that you were perfectly fine with being nothing more than Matt’s friend. You were certain that if you had to sit by one more time and watch him flirt with someone else you’d be physically sick.

Small talk was made to fill the silence, but beneath that you could feel that there was something unsaid, something holding Matt back from being fully present with you. It hurt you to think that maybe that something holding him back was you and what you had said, but you knew you couldn’t have gone on much longer just pining away.

You just wished that Rasmus had been right about how Matt felt.

It didn’t take long for you to run into the other guys once in the venue for the charity gala, especially not with Matt leading you around with his hand dangerously low on the small of your back. You pretended to ignore the smug look Rasmus sent you as you greeted David with a hug, and after pleasantries were exchanged you found yourself tucked back into Matt’s side. You were chatting with one of the guys’ dates—you couldn’t remember who she came with, considering Matt’s touch was dizzying—when she asked you the one question you had been hoping to avoid all night.

“So are you guys together?”

She meant no harm by it, and you couldn’t blame her for asking, considering the fact that Matt had barely let you out of arm's reach since you arrived, but your smile still fell from your face. You saw recognition cross her face, knowing she must have realized that her assumption was incorrect, and you schooled your features into a polite and totally fake smile as she started sputtering out apologies.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” You assured her, but she still looked horrified. You sympathized, you remembered how terrifying it was to first meet all the guys’ significant others for the first time—even though you were not one of the guys’ significant others, if the past few weeks taught you anything.

Her date came then to rescue her, Sam grinning at you as if he knew something you didn’t. You made a mental note to grill him about the new girl he was seeing and didn’t tell you about, but suddenly it was just you and Matt left standing by the bar. You turned to face him, only to find he was already watching you with a look that was a little too close to admiration for your liking.

“Have I told you how good you look?” He murmured, one hand falling to your hip as if he couldn’t help himself. You wanted to be mad. You wanted to scold him for toying with you despite knowing your feelings. But you couldn’t. Instead, you welcomed his touch and gave him a bright smile only he ever seemed to be able to drag out of you.

“Wouldn’t hurt to hear it again.” You mused playfully, distantly wondering just when it became so easy to talk to some that knew your feelings and didn’t reciprocate them. Matt chuckled at your comment, the sound lifting your heart momentarily.

“I’ll tell you that for the rest of my life.”

And that… felt way too much like something that it clearly wasn’t. Too much like a promise of forever that he couldn’t give you. That he wasn’t willing to give you.

Your smile faltered then, and Matt must have seen it because his did too and suddenly you were both looking at each with looks too somber for the mood of the gala going on around you. You hated it for a multitude of reasons, but the one that struck you the most was that no matter how normal things seemed, you being his plus one and hanging out with his teammates, things would never truly be normal. Your confession ruined things permanently with him, and you’d have to suffer the consequences.

Matt opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but someone in an official looking suit approached and stole Matt’s attention from you. Even after the man said he needed to talk business with Matt, it took a second for him to look away from you, like it pained him to take his gaze off of you.

“Can we talk for a minute, Mr. Tkachuk?” The man asked, though you knew before he said anything he’d be pulling Matt away from you. Matt nodded politely, knowing he’d have to leave and go charm the rich guys. It was a charity gala, after all.

Before he left, though, he turned to you once more and bent down so he was level with your ear, lips brushing against your skin at his proximity and you felt a shiver run down your spine. It was quickly replaced with an ache in your chest, knowing that no matter how much you wanted to kiss him, it simply wasn’t in the card for you.

“Nate’s a lucky guy.” He whispered, breath blowing against your ear and you had to actively force yourself to not shut your eyes. He pulled back almost immediately, a grin much sadder than his previous business smile having found a home on his handsome face. He left you, then, confused about what he meant.

It took a moment, but you realized that he was talking about Nick, the guy you had gone on one date with. You rolled your eyes, knowing he mixed up the names on purpose—he did the same with your ex boyfriend, the one you had been dating when you became friends with the Flames. Matt made a point to call him by a different variation of his name each time, and by the end of the relationship, Kyle and somehow managed to change to Liam.

Before, you had held onto the hope that he did it because he was jealous. Now there wasn’t an excuse for his behavior. You doubted that he forgot, but at this point it made more sense to you than jealousy being the cause.

You weren’t alone long before Johnny joined you, leaning against the bar with a look you had seen several times before. Usually, though, it wasn’t directed at you.

“You went on date with someone?” He bypassed pleasantries, and you weren’t surprised, given the exasperated look on his face.

“Who told you, Rasmus or Matt?” You sighed, smiling politely at the bartender who placed in front of you the drink you had ordered soon after Matt left.

“Rasmus did. Matt hasn’t talked about you since he told me he loved you.” He sounded so sure of his words, like it was a fact such as the sky was blue and grass was green and Matthew loved you. But it wasn’t that simple, and you set the glass in your hand down on the counter, suddenly losing your desire for it.

“That’s… no, Johnny. He doesn’t.” You shook your head, focusing on everything, anything, but Johnny.

“He does, and so do you, so just talk to each other.” He sounded tired, and you wondered if he’d given this speech before. You wondered if he gave this speech to Matt, because you surely weren’t the only one in this situation that needed to be lectured. But then again, you knew firsthand how stubborn Matt could be.

“Look, he made it very clear that he didn’t feel the same. So I’m going to just be his friend, and that’s fine.” It certainly wasn’t fine, but you weren’t about to tell Johnny that. Not when you wanted nothing more than the conversation to be over.

“You two are ridiculous.” Johnny huffed, but then it was his turn to be swept off to sweet talk donors, and you gave him a tight smile as he left.

When Matt found you again later than evening, you were in a considerably worse mood than when he left. You were tired of hearing about how he loved you when just only three weeks prior you had left his apartment broken hearted. You weren’t mad at Johnny, you were certain you could never be mad at him, but the entire situation had you annoyed. Not even a light conversation with the wives and girlfriends of other players could fix your sour mood, so you barely paid Matt any attention when he slipped into the free seat next to you at one of the many tables set up in the ballroom.

Your phone was sitting innocently on top of the table, having been discarded there the moment you sat down and engaged Brodie’s wife in conversation. It buzzed halfway through an anecdote about the last roadie, and you picked it up to see you had a text.

“Is that from Nash?” Matt whispered in your ear, voice quiet so no one else at the table could hear. You shot him a pointed look, knowing who he was referring to. He misinterpreted your silence as a question, and you watched as a slight pout found its way onto his face. “That guy you went on a date with.”

“That’s Nick, and this is my mom.” You held up your phone, flashing him the screen so he saw that the name at the top of the conversation was not Nick or Nate or Nash or any other guy. “So try again, Matthew.”

“Wait, are you mad at me?” For a second, you could have sworn you saw a happy look in his eyes. It left as soon as he realized you called him by his full name and not any of the nicknames he was so accustomed to.

“I’m not talking about this here.” You whispered harshly, turning back to the table with the full intention of listening to whichever of the wives had taken over storytelling duty. You knew you were being short with Matt, but your conversation with Johnny had left a sour taste on your tongue and a heavy weight in your chest.

“Fine.” Matt replied, and you stupidly thought that would be the end of the discussion until the end of the night. But you should have known better, should have known Matthew better, because suddenly he was taking a hold of your hand and pulling you up and out of your chair.

“Matt, what—” You started, but he wasn’t even looking at you. He was facing the table of concerned wives and girlfriends, all of them trying to figure out what was going on between you and Matt. All of them except for Johnny’s girlfriend, who was grinning like the cat that got the canary.

“We’re heading out, tell the boys I left.” He told them, and you barely got the chance to say goodbye before Matt was leading you out of the venue, handing out excuses over his shoulder to men in suits you knew for a fact he was supposed to be stopping and talking to. One man jumped in front of Matt to stop him, and Matt stopped so abruptly you nearly crashed into him.

“Matthew, do you have a minute to talk about your point predictions this season?” The man asked as a mere formality. If his appearance told you anything, it was that he was one of the rich donors Matt was supposed to charm for the evening.

“I can’t, sir, my girlfriend isn’t feeling well and I’ve got to take her home.” Matt lied easily, though it didn’t seem much like a lie with the way your face paled at the fake title he gave you in order to get out of the situation. It wasn’t the first time he’d pretended to be your boyfriend, he’d done it a dozen and one times while out at bars and clubs to get random guys to stop talking to you. But it carried a different weight now, now that he knew how you felt and now that you had been rejected by him.

“Ah, well, you better get her home.” The man said, but you barely registered it. Your stomach was in knots and your lips were pursed into a tight line, and even in the car on the way back to your apartment you didn’t say a word. Matt kept his hand in yours, though, and you were certain that the only thing keeping you grounded at the moment was his thumb brushing comfortingly over the back of your hand.

You led the way into your apartment and left Matthew to shut the door as you changed into a pair of sleep shorts and a baggy sweatshirt you were certain was probably his. He had already made himself comfortable on your couch, his suit jacket tossed over the back of your arm chair. He had loosened his tie and it was clear that he had been running his hands through his hair, and he looked entirely like the boyfriend you wanted but couldn't have.

You waited for him to speak first, making a point to scroll through your phone instead of meeting his gaze that fell heavy on you. If he was going to drag you out of the gala, then he was going to have to explain why. He cleared his throat after minute five of nothing but tense silence in your living room.

“Rasmus told me that you bailed on your date after I called.”

Of course he did, you thought, making a mental note to lecture the defenseman about keeping secrets the next time you saw him. You didn’t look at Matt as you nodded, but you did turn off your phone and drop it into your lap.

“Good, that’s—yeah, good.” He nodded to himself, and something inside you snapped. Your brows tugged together like you were trying to solve something complex and annoyance bubbled up in your chest.

“I tell you how I feel and you let me down, so I move on.” You started, voice firm despite the fact you felt your resolve breaking down. You had assumed that you’d go on to live the rest of your life never addressing what happened at Matthew’s, but now you were bringing it all back up. “I go on a blind date and you get annoyed. If we can’t be friends anymore then just tell me because I can—”

“I love you.” Matt interrupted, rushing to assure you that not having you in his life was something he absolutely did not want.

“I—what?” You stopped, feeling your heart stop and blood freeze. That was the exact last thing you expected to hear him say, and who could really blame you, considering the way things ended the last time you talked about your feelings with him. “No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.” He hurried to correct you. Your look of confusion only deepened, a frown etched into your face as you tried to figure out what angle Matt was working. He shifted from his spot on the opposite end of your couch to directly beside you. “Johnny knocked some sense into me the other day.”

“What day?” You asked slowly and quietly. You knew Matt would never do anything to hurt you and pretending to love you the way you loved him would certainly count as hurting you, but the instant trust wasn’t there. You were protecting yourself, slowly opening up instead of immediately jumping into his arms.

“Twenty minutes before I called you when you were on your date with Noah.”

“Nate.” You corrected, sounding a little too winded for having just been sitting on the couch. But Matt had an effect on you and you were certain he always would.

“Nick, but nice try.” Matt smirked and it was then that you realized you had screwed up your own date’s name. You didn’t care in the slightest about Noah or Nate or Nash or whoever he was, because Matt was sitting before you and Matt was offering you his heart.

“You really love me?” You asked, teetering on the edge of giving into Matt. You saw something akin to heartbreak flash in his eyes, a result of you even questioning his love. He nodded, then, slowly and calmly and you were certain that was the only time you had even seen Matt do something slowly and calmly. “Then do something about it, please.”

He wasted no time then in connecting his lips to yours in a kiss so long awaited the entire world slipped away in an instant. Before, Matt was overt in his affection, kisses pressed to your cheeks and forehead and hands and shoulders—anywhere but your lips. You’d always had an idea of what Matt’s lips on yours would feel like, but nothing could have prepared you for the feeling of being kissed so soundly by the love of your life—of being kissed by Matt.

It could have been ten seconds or ten minutes, but you felt breathless by the time Matt pulled back. He was grinning from ear to ear, a look you were certain was mirrored on your face. No words were shared, at first, and he brushed a strand of hair out of your face in an act so tender and so intimate you felt yourself falling for him all over again.

“Was that good enough?” Matt teased, and despite that fact that you rolled your eyes you chased after his lips for another kiss. He hummed in content against you, which elicited a giggle from you and soon you were both in a fit of laughter on your couch for no good reason other than the fact that you were two idiots in love.

“So Johnny talked to you, huh?” You questioned, catching your breath. Matt rolled his eyes, clearly remembering how Johnny told him to get his shit together. He replied with a nod, wrapping an arm around your shoulders to pull you closer to him.

“Told me that I loved you, made me realize I’m an idiot.” He explained, a lightness in his voice as he admired you openly. You had his undivided attention, a fact that made your heart soar.

“You kinda were an idiot.” You teased, earning no argument and a laugh from him. You couldn’t help yourself, then, leaning up to press a kiss to the corner of his lips. He didn’t let you retreat far, chasing after your lips for a series of short and sweet kisses. Finally, after what could have been an eternity later, you parted and dropped your head against his shoulders.

“I’m sorry I let you walk away.” He told you sadly, his tone serious and sentence punctuated by kisses pressed to the top of your head. His somber mood should have transferred to you, but you were riding the high of being loved by him so wholly you felt it to the tips of your toes.

“As long as you never do it again.” You told him. You were smiling, certain that you wouldn't be able to stop smiling for the next few weeks. And, slowly, the expression was mirrored on Matt’s face and nothing but honesty flooded his crystal blue eyes as he spoke next.

“Never.”

Never, for Matthew, was the only option.

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livlepretre · 4 years ago

Note

I was just catching up with your blog, and I saw your klonnie post. It just got me thinking about how literally anyone in the narrative would have been more logical to pair Klaus up with than Caroline. I’ve read all your posts regarding why Klaroline does not make sense. 100% agree. I feel like Caroline is just who they went with because committing to a real Klaus love story would have taken way more time than the show had, and Caroline was the one who had the least commitments elsewhere in the narrative. I mean, there are plenty of plot heavy episodes where Caroline just disappears for no reason, and it’s obvious that the writers just didn’t have anywhere to logically put her. I honestly believed during my first watch through that Klaroline was just Klaus trying to put Tyler in his place. He never interacted with her before the episode where Tyler challenges his authority and refuses to bite Caroline, and then after that episode, he was being ooc and fake charming with her. I just thought Klaus was trying to get her to sleep with him so he could show Tyler that he was the one in charge and could take anything he had. Color me surprised when that was never the case.

Anyway, this all got me thinking about what individual arcs Caroline got, and I can’t really think of one after her becoming a vampire and getting tortured by her dad. After that, the show kind of played “pass the Caroline.” She would get passed around during episodes where she was either tagging along with Stefan, Tyler, or Klaus. Obviously it’s okay for your characters to be in scenes with each other, but the problem is you could take Caroline out of the season 4 sire-bound breaking storyline or the delena ft. sad Stefan storyline and nothing would really change. She is really on par with Jeremy and Matt in which she could just leave for a while and make a reappearance later like nothing happened; however, unlike Jeremy and Matt, she isn’t treated this way in the narrative. Caroline is made out to be more important than she is. I didn’t realize how long this ask would be, but if you could change the story structure of TVD to fix this, how would you do it? Would you have written Caroline to have more individual storylines or would you have decreased her role? Maybe it’s just me and you would keep her the same. Idk. Either way, I’m very interested in your opinion. Especially because Caroline is the more utilized and loved character throughout this fandom and fanfiction, and I don’t know why.

first of all “catching up with your blog” what kajfklajdfklajdf

sorry it’s taken me a few days to reply, I’ve been mulling this over and it’s been kind of a long week so I’ve had to gather the bandwidth to answer

I agree with your analysis about why the show chose Caroline as Klaus’s love interest... I’ve always said that it was just so painfully obvious that they wanted to give Klaus a love interest from amongst the heroines (which: rude, he already had a love interest, it was Stefan) because he was interesting and hot. And I always assumed they picked Caroline because 1) Elena already had too many love interests even though she and Klaus had history and wicked chemistry so this still to me remains the obvious choice 2) Bonnie would have actually had moral problems with Klaus (but would still have been a great choice because then we could explore those morality issues with Klaus) and 3) they wanted to do another “bad boy” romance without actually digging into the fact that Klaus had crossed lines for us as an audience that were SUPER hard to come back from, namely: MURDERING MAIN CAST MEMBER JENNA. (I would argue that this is different for us as an audience than Vicki’s death because Vicki died at the beginning of the show; our emotional investment in Jenna was significantly higher after 2 full seasons with her.) So, Caroline becomes the path of least resistance because Klaus has no serious, personal history with her, and she’s not as prone toward actually making moral judgment calls as Bonnie is-- for example, she’s shown to be significantly more flexible about murder and mayhem than Bonnie is.

I’ve never thought about the fact that it was partially just that the writers didn’t have any great ideas for Caroline’s personal storyline though, and that really brings up 2 huge questions: 1) DID they assign her the Klaus romance because they didn’t know what else to do with her? and 2) did that romance storyline actually deprive her of other (better) storylines?

This got me thinking about Caroline’s storylines in a broader sense, and her place within the narrative structure. I think of TVD as having 3 types of main characters:

A-level characters-- Elena, Stefan, and Damon are the only A-levels, as they appear in every single episode and the plot falls apart without them

B-level characters-- Bonnie, Caroline, and then later Klaus would all fit in here-- characters that are in most episodes, and have their own independent side plots that are ongoing, sometimes for long periods of time -- we know they’re B-level and not A-level because sometimes they disappear for a few episodes-- in other words, they’re not essential every episode like the A-levels

C-level characters-- the rest of the main cast-- Tyler, Matt, Jeremy, Jenna, Katherine, Rebekah, etc-- these characters sometimes have ongoing plotlines (the werewolf plot, the Hunter plot, the serial killer plot, etc) but they’re literally dispensable to the overall plot-- the writers feel comfortable having them come and go as necessary, and we often experience them through the perceptions of the higher-leveled characters--they tend to actually be the object of higher level plots as well-- Damon kills Jeremy to move his plot along with Elena; Matt scheming against Caroline’s vampirism is actually part of Caro’s plot; Katherine is mostly a narrative tool to use with the main 3; Jenna’s death isn’t even about her at the end of the day from a narrative perspective but about Elena, etc.

So when thinking of the basic structure in this sense, that issue you brought up where Caroline doesn’t have enough of her own storylines really comes to light. Part of that I think is that functionally, she has less to offer-- Bonnie is a great counter point, because she often has her own storylines, and she serves a super strong narrative purpose of 1) witch and 2) the moral center on the show-- like, usually the only one who doesn’t forget what’s right and what’s wrong from a basic human perspective. Klaus also has his function as villain, though he gets derailed by the show not killing him off when it was time.

Caroline meanwhile... the show probably took her as far as they could with her being human, and turning her into a vampire in season 2 was incredibly strong and compelling storytelling. It brought Caroline into the main fold of schemers, it gave her agency, and it put all of her problems with her family and friends and self-esteem under a microscope lens. Season 2 is Caroline’s strongest season because it offers her the most development and gives her both a functional role as baby vampire-- working for Katherine, working with the gang, trying to keep the big secret from her mother-- as well as a satisfying emotional arc. The issue is that she just doesn’t have a ton of places to go as a character once the issues with her parents are resolved midway through season 3 and a lot of her self-esteem issues had actually been tackled... The only other storyline I can think of that was HERS was her mother’s death, but I never finished that arc and never got to no humanity!Caroline anyway, so I don’t have much to say on that topic. I will say that the show REALLY drove Caroline’s storyline into the dirt when they turned Elena into a vampire-- having two baby vamps on the show was WAY too many. We’d already gone through this with Care, but also, Elena is an A-level character-- anything she goes through necessarily usurps the power from any similar story the writers could have told about Caroline.

So. The Klauroline romance. (Apparently I’ve been mispelling this ship for a decade but honestly you can’t expect me to stop now.) I think they gave Caroline to Klaus (rather than giving Klaus to Caroline) as a love interest for the reasons stated above, but it really did limit her character; I’ve gone over my problems with it ad nauseam here on this blog. The whole thing just spun Caroline around in circles forever-- I remember dreading that this ship would be canon but the show just kept spinning the Klaus/Caroline/Tyler wheels for two seasons without ever really progressing anything or changing anything, just always always always spinning in place, with Tyler disappearing to make room for the other ship but the writers also not actually committing to anything... It really does get in the way of Caroline’s character development.

So, how to fix?

Well, first off, I think Caroline (and Bonnie, and Klaus, and everyone else) should stay in their lanes as B or C level characters-- the show didn’t have enough stories to give every single one of them main character status, and that’s okay.

But if Caroline is a B-level character, she still needs her own stories and subplots interwoven throughout the show.

The obvious thing that comes to mind is something I’ve said many times-- Fix Klauroline so that it actually makes sense and doesn’t break character-- give them a subplot where they have to work together and learn to rely on each other or see each other differently than how they expect-- literally TVD is amazing with tight, action packed episodes-- it would have taken ONE episode to establish this, and then have the relationship progress as a subplot-- not as Caroline’s main plot-- give her other things to work on with the team and let the Klaus thing develop alongside it.

Other things: the issues with her parents probably could have been extended to be season 3, honestly, with her facing her vampirism more in season 2-- or she could have gone off the deep end earlier, or she could have wound up in trouble with the council, or she could have taken a more active role in trying to kill Klaus other than just “bait” which would have been great because then she would have had to face her feelings about it directly, or she could have been the one to investigate the vampire lab at Whitmore and maybe end up briefly imprisoned or whatever-- I personally think Elena should have only been a vampire for one season, which would have made Elena actually face her moral crisis, but also opened up the space in the show for Caroline to get the young vampire storylines the way that Bonnie gets the witch storylines.

The show gets into this weird habit at some point of forgetting that it’s really about the main three and not supposed to be a HUGE equal ensemble show-- if you look back at the promotional materials, it was originally always the three of the main triangle, but by seasons 5 & 6 there’re these photos with like all dozen cast members... equalizing things didn’t actually help Caroline’s or Bonnie’s or anyone else’s storylines because it stripped down the time we spent with the main story and it meant adding a lot of frustrating swimming in circles for the others (how many times was Bonnie dead? I can’t keep track anymore)

Sorry this is so rambly, I hope it made sense! I have a lot of feelings about Caroline-- I really loved her and the handling of her storylines from season 3 on has never sat well with me.

(As for why Caroline is the fan favorite, I do have a theory: she actually tells us what she’s thinking and feeling, so it’s easier to connect with her. Elena meanwhile rarely ever explicitly states her emotions, instead tending to brood and force us to work through what her silences mean, and Bonnie tends to bottle until she explodes--which is still easier to empathize with than Elena, because at least Bonnie eventually tells us. Meanwhile, Caroline gets upset, or she gets drunk, or she has long conversations where she spills her heart out to Stefan or Elena or Bonnie or anyone... so it’s easy to jump on board with her. That’s my theory at least.)

#anonymous #tvd meta

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struwwelzeter · 4 years ago

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Stripped Making Of (not so) Liveblog, actually more of an aimless ramble

Ah the stripped video. One of my absolute favorites.The one I could say so much about and at the same time am so exhausted by even thinking about it ...

But basically this is why I don’t trust Philipp Stölzl. Because I honestly don’t buy that he couldn’t explain to them how controversial Leni Riefenstahl Material would be. I do buy that they were fairly unfamiliar, lots of people were and still are, and especially with their background, I think they genuinely might have not understood. But him? I mean in order to even think of that material he had to have known. And like, that means he is either way too comfortable with her proximity to the NSDAP, or he genuinely kind of just assumed that they knew what they were letting themselves in for. And that’s assuming a pretty arrogant position to be honest. I know he initially wanted to refilm all that but I genuinly don’t think that if he had explained to them more in-depth what this means that they would have still used it. Not with them always being so upset at being seen as right wing. @msgwendolenfairfax recently said something like that he’s jerking off to his own intellectualism, and ever since I do believe it’s mostly that, that he just assumed this “it’s an aesthetic choice, not a political one” position which I am very much on board with in principle, but in practice was letting the band walk into open fire imo. I mean I looked, and he has a clean reputation otherwise, so I do believe it must have been that. Which - giving him the benefit of a doubt - could have just been because he comes from a very intellectual (theatrical) background, that’s what he does nowadays, so it could have been genuine mistake, —- kind of expecting more from the audience than it could deliver, but really? A mistake that big? Why, Philip? It’s entirely possible that I read wayyyyy way too much into it, but like, I have seen people fired for a lot less in this country and I am just so suspicious.

All that being said, that video IS brilliant aesthetically, and anyone who wants to dispute Riefenstahls accomplishments because of it’s evil purposes completely misses the point to be honest. Some of these shots are filmed in a way that would be rare and astonishing even today. My grandmother was only a couple of years younger than her and one of the two first female students at the Munich School for Photography, and she was accused weekly of being too stupid for a camera. That’s the time we are talking about. She might have been a dirty opportunitist, but how much can you really blame her. Can you imagine saying no to these opportunities as a woman, with a camera, during that time? Honestly? People give Albert Speer more slack than her and it’s. Suspicious, let’s leave it at that.

Back to the actual making of, I should update on how my Depeche Mode exploration is going perhaps. I love those “works for everyone” acts, I mean how many of these are there even? What is comparable from later on? Gorillaz? Wu Tang Clan? Billie Eilish?

Richard being a smiling fan boy makes me squeal internally. I am making horcruxing a verb, because him hiding liking pop music is basically me hiding my Eminem records and my classical CDs from my punk friends and I start to be convinced he just flung a bit of his soul around he accidentally splintered off during the chaos of reunification and I had to catch it like the idiot I am.

God, them trying so hard to do it justice makes my heart so full. Schneider is so genuine, and look at Richard smiling, he’s so into that challenge I ... moving on, ok.

I think the stripped ... down to the bone might have been so hard for Till because it covers quite a big range from beginning to end of the line, and he doesn’t normally do that. Like it would be a fluid change from where his voice needs to sit in the beginning to where it sits in the end of it? Because in principle he should be able to hit it I think ...

Yeah see, they didn’t think about the consequences. But they should have and I genuinly do not understand why noone stepped in and made them.

I love how unwilling to compromise Paul is here. I mean I 100% agree with him, and to be honest I don’t think they should have decided against using it, it’s just that they seemed to have been so unaware of what they are using that makes me pause.

See I actully like how Stölzl explains this here. If you take those images on their own and recontextualize it, there is nothing wrong about it whatsover. And doing just that is an art historical constant. It’s just difficult because most people aren’t art historians and can’t sort their instincts away from objectivity. It’s a weird mix of simultaneously knowing too much and too little that makes cases like this so difficult.

See that’s the thing, yes there were (and are) alot of debates about the “who are we and how are we gonna deal with this legacy” thing, but just blindly starting that experiment slightly puts the answer before the question, or? And again, if this would have been a conscious decision of everyone involved I am all for it and I agree, but it just seriously seemed like that wasn’t the case? Or alternatively if he just stumbled over rolls of film and used it, that would’ve been fine too.

The aesthetic commonalities of Nazi Germany and the Warsaw Pact countries could send me into a whole other tangent but I’m gonna shut up about it other than “YES”, because I’m not actually knowledgeable enough about it.

God, I feel so sad for them for that fallout. :(

Yeah, Richard’s right. It is a pity that knowing that fallout going in, you wouldn’t make that video. So maybe it is a good thing in a way that it happened that way, because it is an aesthetic masterpiece, that otherwise would not exist. The ideal state would be when we could make a video like that, fully knowing what it means, and still being able to do it because the majority of people would understand how semiotics work, but I mean utopia isn’t real so.

God honestly ... that conflict of aesthetics and their emotional impact vs their history can fill dissertations (and already does), and it’s truly one of those things our society needs to learn to give people the individual freedom to draw those lines in the sand for themselves. It honestly goes both ways, people say “it’s not like the nazis” because it doesn’t wear neat uniforms but dirty shirts and red caps, and they say it causes school shootings even tho school shootings are caused by bullying and the music we listen to has probably helped more bully victim survive and stay sane than anything, and it’s all part of a huge “I think I understand something based on what it looks like and use that as a quick escape from actually making the effort to understand what it is” delusion.

Yeah see, Stölzl referencing the darkness and crossing of limits - he KNEW what he was doing. He completely derails his own argument, first he says those images are only negative if you know what they came from like it’s two completely seperate things and then he goes “yeah the darkness was needed” ... the darkness you only know if you know where it comes from ... ? What’s it gonna be Philip? I mean I can follow both arguments but like, using both simultaneously seems a bit ... hmm.

Aww Schneider and Paul being proud boys, look at them. It’s funny how Paul “I want to fling shit in everybody’s face” Landers actually gets quite flustered when people he likes love his stuff, no? He reacts the most impressed with the Lost Highway thing aswell, it’s really quite endearing.

I think I rambled on without conclusion even worse than usual but in fairness it’s a very complex issue. TL;DR: I wish they would have made that video knowing what they let themselves in for, because I do think it would have made the fallout easier to bear and I wish that hadn’t happened to them. Does that make sense? At some point very far into the future I will want to write an actual essay about this but we can jot this down as initial brainstorm before you jump on me with arguments I missed, ok! (Seriously tho, please discuss this with me I need arguments that aren’t my own to sharpen my opinion)

https://youtu.be/mImuguOghRM

youtube

#stripped #leni riefenstahl #rammstein #struwwel liveblogs #Youtube

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threewaysdivided · 4 years ago

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Hello! I'm currently fighting with writing, myself. My protags have a habit of getting away from me. Have any tales of your YJDW where the characters just... decide to take a narrative swing to the left when your outline clearly heads right?

Hi there!

So this particular problem isn't one I've had much of when it comes to the actual writing side, which I think is mostly down to my particular writing preferences.

On the scale of planning to pantsing I tend to fall very heavily on the planner side (I've joked about it before but I do actually have most of YJ:DW planned in a fair amount of detail right up to the ending). Partly because my brain just goes a lot faster than my hands can write/type out complete sentences, partly because I like to have a fairly complete idea of the final product before I start work, and partly because the way I naturally engage with things leans more towards analysis than storytelling (I mean, I have a whole dedicated tag for essays on my blog). There's also that, at least when it comes to fanfic I'd actually publish, yes I know that's just one right now I tend to want to have an idea/concept/emotion to explore and also an idea of how to bring it to a satisfying conclusion.

The long and the short of it is that, because I tend to do most of my story-crafting before I actually get to the prose, and because I often end up reverse-engineering/ puzzle-solving chunks of the story around an idea/scene/character moment I want to include, those kinds of characters-derail-the-story or story-takes-a-hard-left-turn moments tend to happen at the planning phase. I'll be looking back over a planned scene/plot and decide that something doesn't feel right or that I'm not sold that my version of the character would believably act like that in those circumstances, or some other part of my brain will pop up from below the desk and slap down a thought like "hey, have you considered that you could get to your goal in a completely different way by adding this idea?"

(Not to claim that any approach to writing is better than another - I have a lot of respect for the confidence, vision and sheer productivity it takes to set out on a long-fic with only a loose idea of where it's heading and the belief that the journey itself is worth it - but one thing I will say for planning is that is does lower the associated "costs" of making big story changes since it's a lot simpler/faster to change or shuffle dot points than to cut, add and rewrite huge swarths of prose not that I don't also do that in the writing phase for some chapters. It's a difference in preference; planner-style leans towards space for analysis during "preproduction" while pantser-style puts it in more at the edit.)

Usually by the time I get to actually writing things in story form I'm pretty comfortable that I've created a plotline/scenario where the characters will follow at least central thread of what's happening. More often what I get in terms of "going off script" is less derailing the scene and more like an actor deciding to ad-lib, improvise or play with a conversation during a take - they'll add a quip or get distracted by a related topic or decide to do something on the side or they might suddenly say something more insightful than originally planned.

Generally I'm okay with keeping this kind of stuff in so long as what they're saying/doing doesn't contradict, change or accidentally accelerate the story/their arc to a later stage that it's supposed to be at - it helps things feel a bit more naturalistic and if they're really going off-track I can always have other characters pull them back on topic, the same way it might happen in a real conversation.

So yeah, I won't say it doesn't happen but just the way I prefer to write means that it tends to happen less often and in smaller ways than for other people.

But that probably isn't super useful for helping with your writing-fighting so, without knowing the specifics, here are some things that could be useful.

Maybe consider stopping to do a little bit of analysis of your story:

Is there a idea(s)/concept(s) that your story is really about/ interested in exploring? Don't worry if what you come up with isn't super neat or precise, I still don't think I could give a fully comprehensive description of what YJ:DW is about in terms of "theme" or "message".

Who are you characters: what do they want, what do they need, what do they think they need, what is their take on the situation they're in, how do they see the world, how accurate/ biased is that worldview, what sort of things interest them and why, what insecurities/ phobias/ dislikes do they have and why, why do they act the way that they do?

What is the main purpose of this scene/plot point and what essential thing(s), piece(s) of information, interaction(s) need to be covered to serve that purpose?

If you stepped back from the needs of the story and just looked at these characters in the situation you've created, how do you feel they would act? Does it line up?

It also might be worth looking at what your protagonists/ characters end up doing in the moments when they try to derail your story, and seeing if you can figure out any potential reasons for why it might be feeling more natural/ the momentum might be stronger in that direction. They might be going "off script" but are they also going off point or are they heading towards the same/ a similar point in a different way than what you originally planned?

It could be that there's a conflict between what you want to have happen and what you've set up to have happen, and that reworking the scene or preceding scene(s) to better direct the characters based on how they've been established to react to things might get them to behave.

It also might be that some unconscious part of your brain has worked out a different route to the same goal and is trying to send you down that path. Or your brain could potentially have identified (or even misidentified) a pattern in the story/character(s) and is trying to communicate that to you through them. It could be that there's some contradiction between what you've established/have planned for the character(s)/story overall, and what's happening in the details of the specific scene that's causing them to break ranks. Sidenote: I just want to point out that this doesn't necessarily mean that what you had originally planned is somehow inherently "worse" or "wrong". Sometimes your brain might be defaulting toward what feels familiar from common tropes in the media you consume because "this is just what happens in these stories", or it might be trying to move a scene that is in some way challenging more towards your existing comfort zones as a writer. On a deeper level, asking "why does this feel correct to me" can also be useful.

Generally though, I think that your plan and your characters/story being out of step with each other is a bit like an indicator light on a car. As much as we like to enjoy the fantasy that these characters and worlds are real and separate from us and not fully under our control, and as much as stepping away from that can sometimes "kill the magic", it's worth stopping to pop the hood or stick our heads behind the curtain sometimes to make sure everything is working in sync and going in the direction it's meant to. Plus, you might learn some new things about your story/world/characters in the the process that end up being useful later.

Hope this helps!

#young justice: deathly weapons #characters #character misbehaviour #writing #story-crafting #writing advice #anonymous #3WD Answers #I have a pet theory that a lot of this kind of thing comes down to us as a species being geared towards pattern recognition #the phrase 'you might not have noticed it but your brain did' exists for a reason #I do wonder if sometimes this is our brains coming up with creative ways to flag a pattern or a devation from a patter #Or suddenly making an extrapolation/interpolation to fill in a gap based on the existing 'facts' of the world/story #In my case though usually it involves the characters getting a lot more quippy/snarky/silly than is needed by the plan #which is nice - it makes them feel more like actual people #I'm working on Chapter 18 and Wally & Sphere decided to have a quippy bit of back and forward in the middle of a tense scene #and it's funny so I'm probably going to keep it #I wish my writing stories were more fun to share but a lot of it is just me being a ~ neeeeerrrrrrd ~

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rosecorcoranwrites · 6 years ago

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Editing Advice Part 2: Plot

Last time, I discussed the importance of editing for continuity in the categories of time, place, and people. This week, we're going to focus on the plot-centered issues of internal consistency and plot holes. The line between these two categories is vague at best, but I'm still going to discuss them separately. For our purposes, let's say an internal inconsistency is a problem with the world building and a plot hole is a problem with the plot (as the name implies).

Internal Consistency

I'm not of the belief that you need to know every single thing about your fictional world—when the agricultural revolution happened, how ALL of the economic systems works, etc—but you do have to know enough for it to make sense, and you have to realize when it doesn't. Even if your setting isn't consistent with our world, it needs to be consistent with itself, thus the phrase "internally consistent". You can't break your own rules.

You should be thinking about internal consistency throughout the writing process, but, well, some people don't, so editing is your last shot. Ask yourself, does everything that you have chosen to include in a story follows naturally from how you've built your world? Is there something you don't talk about in your book, but that needs to be mentioned for the world to make sense? If you were a reader, is there anything that would strike you as "off" or unbelievable about the world, even in (or specifically because of) the setting it's in?

For example, in the the setting of Leigh Bardugo's fantasy books, known collectively as the Grishaverse, homosexual relationships are considered as normal as heterosexual ones. Yet, in Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, there's this whole subplot about how Wylan's father thinks he's unfit to inherit his mercantile company because Wylan can't read; the father has already divorced/disappeared Wylan's mother, attempted to have Wylan murdered, and remarried so he can get a "better" heir. But, um, why? In a setting where gay relationships are the same as straight ones, there would have to be systems in place for non-bloodline inheritance. Otherwise, homosexual relationships would be seen as a burden by families, since gay heirs wouldn't be able to have heirs of their own without all sorts of weirdness (which I hardly think the families or the heirs would be okay with!). Bardugo has two conflicting societal norms: homosexual relationships are considered normal, and bloodline inheritance is a necessity. She needs to deal with one of those two things, either by explaining it (maybe Wylan's dad cares about blood when no one else does) or getting rid of it (nix the entire subplot with the new wife and have Wylan's dad trying to set up some adopted son or trusted coworker to be his successor instead). Otherwise, part of her world just doesn't make sense.

Internal consistency requires that you think about how everything is connected and affects everything else. No man is an island, they say; no world building factoid is an island, either, I might add. If you want your world to be taken seriously, you have to take it seriously by stepping into it and seeing it as a place with history, culture, sociology, natural history, cosmology, and so on. This is true regardless of how close or far removed your setting is from our own. If you make even one change—vampires exist, no one lives past the age of thirty, the North lost the Civil War, etc—it will have ripple effects across society and the world. Take some time to think about wether or not you've thought those effects through, and wether they might impact something important in the rest of your setting.

If everyone in your society is put into a warrior caste, lawmaker caste, scientist caste, and un-person caste, who grows all the food? Maybe mention that at some point. If you have a space fairing civilization, why would weapons dealers be the richest people and not fuel manufacturers. Maybe switch that around (Last Jedi, I'm looking at you!). If there was a widespread conflict between magic users and non-magic users, can you justify the people who can't wield supernatural forces as being the winners? If wizards have always lived apart from muggles, as evidenced by their robes, feather quills, parchment, and candles, why do they also use locomotives and buses? Why not use pens, paper, and lightbulbs as well? These are the types of questions you should answer at some point, and the editing process is your last chance to do it.

Plot Holes

Plot holes are easier to spot, yet they find their way into published works more than any other inconsistency, probably because people—writers, editors, those who should know better—tend to get so caught up in the story that they overlook things that don't quite make sense. You owe it to yourself, your story, and your readers to keep constant vigilance concerning holes in the plot.

One common plot hole is when a character has some ability or item that could easily solve some problem, but... they just don't use it. Why? Because the plot requires it! Another example is when the villain insists on carrying out some complicated scheme instead of the much simpler option because... plot.

An example that combines both of these hole types is Voldemort's plan in Goblet of Fire, in which the entire plot of the book is predicated on not using a Portkey in a timely fashion. Hear me out. We are shown that Portkeys (items that teleport people who touch them) can be made from anything, even trash. We are eventually shown that the Triwizard Cup is a Portkey, as it is used to teleport Harry to the spot where Voldemort uses his blood for magical resurrection fuel. We learn that Barty Crouch Jr. has gotten close to Harry so that he can manufacture Harry's win, so that Harry can be the first to touch said Portkey. I repeat: he gets very close to Harry, pretending to be his teacher. Harry trusts him. And Portkeys can be anything. Anything.

Do you see my problem? Why not make some random classroom item the Portkey? "Potter, go fetch that book on my desk. The purple one." BAM! Harry's in a graveyard and Voldemort can do the ritual. No need to make sure Harry's name gets in the Goblet of Fire, or talks to Hagrid, who takes him to see Charlie's dragons, in the hopes that this information might give Harry a leg up in the contest, maybe, and then do all the other convoluted things that might, hopefully, ensure that Harry has a head start into the final challenge. I mean, I love Goblet of Fire, but its plot absolutely does not need to exist. The fact that Barty Crouch Jr. doesn't just smack Harry with a Portkey while passing him in a lonely hallway or something is a huge, gaping plot hole.

Another sort of hole is when writers change the rules for certain characters for the sake of the plot. Again, let's look at Harry Potter (if it seems like I'm picking on Rowling, it's because I was absolutely obsessed with her books as a teenager. I nitpick because I care!). In Deathly Hallows, Rowling established that to become the master of the Elder Wand, you have to "defeat" the previous owner. Malfoy defeated Dumbledore with Expelliarmus, then Harry defeated Draco by physically grabbing Draco's wand—not the Elder Wand, mind you, but Draco's own wand—so that Harry is now the Master of the Elder Wand. But we're to believe that Voldemort, then, doesn't become master of the Elder Wand when he Avada Kedavra's Harry in the forest? Why not? How does basically killing someone not count as "defeat" when disarming someone or stealing their stuff does? Because Harry's the Chosen One, I guess? And the plot required it.

Let me be clear, I'm not saying you have to fill in every plot hole, but you definitely have to address them all, in one way or another. Let's go back to our two examples.

Option one, of course, is to fix them. In Goblet of Fire, maybe the resurrection ritual has to take place during an eclipse, and wouldn't you know it, the final challenge of Triwizard Tournaments also takes place during eclipses, and maybe Barty Crouch Jr. has to actually be present at the resurrection ritual so he can't slap Harry with Portkey on that day... or something. For Deathly Hallows, maybe nix the Deathly Hallows (and thus the Elder Wand) subplot from the story entirely, since they add nothing to the plot (in a later post, I will argue that they actually derail the plot), which already involved finding and destroying Horcruxes.

Option two is to keep the plot hole, but explain why it isn't a plot hole. We already know Voldemort could have used any enemy's blood in the resurrection spell (no, really, he says this in the book!) but he has an obsession with Harry. Perhaps this obsession could lead him to forsake the obvious course of action I outlined and instead focus on producing a "worthy" enemy by having Harry "prove himself" in the tournament. As for Deathly Hallows... I mean, I guess you could say Voldemort didn't defeated Harry in the woods, but defeated a piece of his own soul, but that's still pretty weak, in my opinion (just stick with option one and get rid of the Hallows!). Anyway, for this option, the writer has to acknowledge that the plot-hole does exist, but that there is a reason for it to exist, and thus isn't really that much of a plot hole.

A final option is to hang a lantern on it. This means that you leave the plot hole in and point out how big of a hole it is. This works better for comedies or stories where characters are meta-aware of tropes than in more serious works (so, not Harry Potter). For example, have someone wonder why so-and-so didn't use that super useful item back there. Well, he's an idiot, so he forgot! Or maybe someone points out how incredibly unlikely it is that a certain character showed up at exactly the right time and place the other characters needed them in, and he says, "Well, that's a funny story, actually..." before being interrupted, and it is never brought up again. If you're writing such a story and come across a plot hole, feel free to have your characters point it out and move one, as long as you can do this in a way that feels natural to your writing style.

Of course, both world building and plot are so central to any narrative that fixing them may require more than a simple tweak and instead, a complete overhauling of large parts of the story. Next time, we will discuss how to tackle these and other issues during rewrites!

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raendown · 6 years ago

Link

I was matched with @mantykora14 (whom I can not tag still) for the @madatobiremix challenge! Fun! I did a remix of their story What Not To Do In The Office.

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 3223 Rating: T+ Summary: Madara has a habit of looking without properly seeing - although he does really like what he's seeing.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KOFI

Blind Observations

There wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary about Tobirama’s ass – if you left aside the fact that it looked as though it had been sculpted by the gods themselves. All things considered, however, it was still attached to the most annoying and stuck-up prick that Madara had ever had the displeasure of knowing so it wasn’t as though he planned to do anything with this attraction he had. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t shamelessly check out Tobirama’s posterior so long as the idiot was going to flaunt it so easily around the work place. After all, a man had to take his pleasures where he could find them in this world.

Sliding a little lower in his chair, Madara tilted his head to one side and let his eyes roam down the natural path laid out for him by the seam of Tobirama’s deliciously tight pants. Bent over the Hokage’s desk to mark something on the map spread across the top, he was in perfect position to give the rest of the room a little show. Izuna was much too busy inspecting his nails with boredom and Mito had given her attention to the folder of intel they were all discussing. Neither of them seemed particularly distracted by Tobirama’s ass, which Madara could understand; it was a little disappointing that his favorite eye candy wasn’t worth the trouble of bedding at least once. It would have been nice to sink his teeth in to those perfectly sculpted muscles but the screaming protests it would take to get there turned him off the idea every time he revisited it.

When Tobirama straightened at last just to berate his sibling for some ridiculous statement or another Madara mourned the loss of his wonderful distraction as the younger man’s shirt slid back down in to place. Then he made sure to rearrange his expression so that by the time the object of his gaze turned around there was no hint that he had spent the last ten minutes fantasizing about what he could do with those pale cheeks.

“Mito, my sweet, where did the file say they were first spotted?” Hashirama asked. His wife flicked back a page to check before looking up with a small smile.

“Your brother is right. They were spotted closer to the eastern outpost, not down by the ravines.”

“Hmph.” Sitting back with a pout for having been proved wrong, Hashirama crossed his arms to glare at the map.

Madara was thrilled to see Tobirama roll his eyes and bend down again to reach across and point at the spot they had just been arguing over for so long. While it was annoying that this stupid conference was apparently going to be derailed yet again for another pointless disagreement, at least he had something nice to look at while he waited for order to reassert itself.

Or for Mito to get tired of the bickering and set them all back on track with only a few sharp words.

Sparring with Tobirama had several benefits which, in Madara’s mind, far outweighed the downsides of having to spend any time in the company of someone so insufferable. He wasn’t exactly going to be thanking Hashirama for forcing them in to this stupid exercise in learning how to get along but he also wasn’t quite as upset about it as his friend might think.

For one, Tobirama’s sparring outfit left a great deal more skin exposed than his usual attire and the longer they traded blows the more the material stuck to him in a manner which left very little to the imagination. Madara could easily picture this image of a sweat soaked panting Tobirama transposed on to the image of his own bed where the flush on his cheeks would be from a very different kind of strain. He imagined the narrow-eyed look of hyper focus would probably stay the same as well and, honestly, he couldn’t say that didn’t appeal to him all the more.

He was also a fan of the treat which was watching Tobirama’s muscles shift and flow as their limbs struck out against each other. Just watching the man spin about for a roundhouse kick and getting that split second view of his flexing ass was more than worth the pain of a heel connecting solidly with his solar plexus.

Even the vicious smirk parting those pale pink lips and baring sharp teeth was attractive somehow. Madara felt his eye twitch when he finally noticed how badly he had allowed himself to be distracted by his opponent’s physical features. Clearly Tobirama wasn’t aware of his thoughts but it still wouldn’t do for Madara to allow himself to be bested, not by him. Tightening his fists with renewed determination, Madara drove forward with intent to disable, if not maim.

There might be some kind of attraction there but Hashirama was mad if he thought they could be forced to get along by being made to fight each other. Stupid backward logic, that was.

Public bathing had always been an uncomfortable experience for Madara. Prancing about naked and defenseless with so many other people around, most of whom he had never met, always left him tense during an activity which should have relaxed him. Modesty wasn’t a big problem but feeling a stranger’s eyes on him made him question whether they were admiring his figure or plotting an attack. When possible, he avoided the public baths.

He was very glad that he had not been able to avoid such an outing today. In fact, if this was to be his reward then he would need to give some serious thought to making a new habit of accepting Hashirama’s offers to go together. Madara wondered if there was a way to ask whether Tobirama usually accompanied his brother or not without arousing suspicion.

Observing without getting caught was, for once, incredibly easy. It seemed Tobirama was very used to the hungry stares that followed him as he waded in to the hot water to find a place where he could get comfortable and close his eyes. Hashirama remained as oblivious as ever while he chatted away, complete ignorant of the way Madara’s gaze had yet to leave his brother’s naked body. Miles of pale skin lay stretched out on delicious display, slowly turning pink from the heat of the water, glistening with the steam hanging in the air, and Madara drank it all in with relish.

Try though he might, he couldn’t think of a single thing he did not enjoy about Tobirama – physically at least. Everything from the angular fall of his hair to the faint scars of battle were attractive. Madara tilted his head to one side and tried to imagine what sounds the man might make it he were to sink his teeth in to one of those rosebud nipples, notably small for a man his size but perfectly bitable.

Before he could take the thought much further he jerked as one of Hashirama’s wide hand gestures splashed water in to his face. He turned to his friend with a scowl, annoyed at having his fantasies interrupted.

“Watch it!”

“Oops! Sorry Madara.” Hashirama beamed at him in apology, to which he scowled even deeper.

“I specifically put my hair up so it wouldn’t get wet. I just wanted a nice relaxing soak and now you’re splashing me!”

“But it was an accident!”

Sometime between the crocodile tears and the begging for forgiveness Madara looked over to see that Tobirama still had his eyes closed but his lips were stretched out in an amused smile as he listened to their bickering. He looked vastly different without the frown which seemed to appear by habit each time the two of them were within a dozen feet of each other. Actually it was quite a lovely effect, softening his features until he looked more amiable, almost inviting. Madara wondered idly how much effort it would take to see that smile again – solely for aesthetic purposes, of course.

Not that he had any intentions of putting in that effort. What did he care if Tobirama smiled for him or not? The thought was a distracting one, though, and Madara regretted allowing his attention to waver when Hashirama managed to splash him for a second time.

Listening to a bunch of puffed up halfwits yammer on about things that really shouldn’t require this much deliberation was boring. Madara felt absolutely no guilt in letting his mind wander away from the council meeting going on around him to instead focus on something much more interesting.

As he always did, Tobirama sat across the table with a scroll open before him and his hand dancing across the page as he recorded the minutes of their meeting. He hadn’t lifted his eyes in probably close to twenty minutes or even opened his mouth to make one of his usual sarcastic comments. Very likely he wished he could tune out of the proceedings as well and Madara smirked to know that his nemesis was also trapped listening to boring old men squabble like children.

Dressed in the boring vests Hashirama had okayed as the standard uniform, most of his body hidden under the wood of the conference table, there wasn’t a whole lot for Madara to stare at and fantasize about today. Yet somehow he still found himself captivated watching the elegant way Tobirama’s fingers manipulated his pen. For a man he had incredibly beautiful hands, long delicate fingers and smooth palms, soft despite the callouses every shinobi earned in their early years. His nails were all neatly trimmed down and cleaned and Madara blinked slowly as he imaged sucking two of those fingers in to his mouth, swirling his tongue around them and hallowing his cheeks.

Fifteen minutes later Madara was startled out of his daydreams by a fist slamming down on the table in irritation and it was hard to say what he found more disturbing: that he was still staring at nothing but Tobirama’s fingers or that the sexual nature of his thoughts had slowly cooled to become a contemplation of what they would feel like wrapped up in his own.

Ridiculous, he grumbled silently to himself as he wrenched his eyes away. No force on earth could ever make him actually want to hold hands with that beast.

The only time he could choose to be distracted that might possibly be worse than this would be if they were right in the middle of battle. Listening to Tobirama recap troop movements and known jutsu specialties less than half a mile from the targets they were about to be in battle with was also a bad choice. Not knowing this information could get him or the people around him killed.

Still he couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away from the top of the man’s head. Today’s weather included a healthy breeze which entered the cave they were using as cover in fits and starts, barely reaching farther than where Tobirama stood in the entrance as he spoke to them all. Each time the wind reached him it lifted his hair and tugged at the frosted locks. He didn’t seem to notice – or if he did then he didn’t care – but Madara found himself fascinated by the effortlessly tousled look reminiscent of someone who had just gotten out of bed. Watching his hair lift and dance was mesmerizing. It made him wonder if those locks would be soft to run his fingers through.

“Uchiha do I have something on my head?” Tobirama’s drawling sneer brought his eyes back down to meet the irritated glare aimed his way. “Or are you deliberately not listening because you wish to put your comrades in danger?”

“Fuck off. I’m listening.” Madara crossed his arms and glared back, embarrassed to have been caught staring. Like hell he would admit to it.

“Go on then, repeat back to me anything of what I just said.”

“I am not a child, Senju. Just keep talking!”

Tobirama huffed and rolled his eyes, turning to face more towards the other shinobi with them in a very subtle snub. Rather than take further offense, Madara made certain that no one was looking his way before allowing his eyes to slide back up in to Tobirama’s hair, though he did make sure to keep his ears open this time.

It wasn’t his fault the stupid man was so pretty. Actually, now that he was paying attention he realized that Tobirama also had a very pleasant voice as well; it rumbled from somewhere deep in the chest, the kind of voice built for dramatic statements and momentous words.

Madara smirked to himself. No wonder their whole clan was so prone to drama.

It took several more incidents like these before Madara realized the precarious situation he had managed to get himself in to but by then it was too late. He stared shamelessly whenever Tobirama stretched before a spar, he riled the other up just to listen to the cadences of his voice while he yelled, and it wasn’t until he realized that he was spending his off duty hours seeking the other out just to stare wordlessly that he finally came to terms with what was happening.

Lingering at the edge of the field where Tobirama was currently running his students through several drills, Madara suffered a minor breakdown as the thought occurred to him at last.

“Fuck. Fuck me and fuck it and fuck everything,” he whispered frantically under his breath. “I have a crush on him!” Madara tugged at his hair and spun around to face the opposite direction in case the man he’d been observing happened to look over and wonder at the source of his panic.

Stomping away back towards the village proper, Madara wondered how the hell he’d gotten to this point without even realizing it. It was just supposed to be a healthy bout of lust, nothing more than admiration for another man’s well-shaped body, something to fuel his fantasies but certainly nothing he had ever planned to pursue. Now he realized that somewhere between staring at a fine ass and smiling at sharp dry wit he had developed actual feelings for the worst possible person.

What was he supposed to do with these feelings? Surely he couldn’t tell the man – and kami forbid Hashirama ever find out. He shuddered to think what kind of terrifying reactions his friend would have to knowing about this situation. Either he would deliver the world’s most threatening older brother speech in history or he would enthusiastically air Madara’s dirty laundry to the entire village at top volume. Both of those options sounded awful. Clearly the best thing to do would be to keep to himself, avoid as much contact as possible, and hope that this temporary madness passed quickly.

Tobirama’s laughter echoed through the trees behind him and Madara swallowed thickly when he realized he wanted nothing more than to turn around and go back just so he could listen for that sound again. He was in deeper trouble than he’d thought.

“Are you ever going to do something about that?” Tobirama’s voice sent Madara jerking upright in his chair. By the time the other turned around there were no signs he had been staring at anything but his own paperwork, certainly not the delectable rump exposed when his current project partner bent over to grab whatever he had dropped.

“What are you talking about?” he grumbled, hearing the exasperated sigh but refusing to look up.

“That thing you do where you stare at my ass. Are you ever going to do something about it or am I supposed to keep pretending I don’t notice?”

Madara’s jaw clicked painfully as it fell open with shock.

After a long wait with no response Tobirama lifted one eyebrow in a judgmental manner and turned away again, digging through the papers he’d been trying to sort out before. Madara was glad to be given time to think. He’d only just accepted the fact that he had feelings for this asshole and suddenly he was expected to know what he wanted to do with those feelings? That was way too much pressure to spring on someone without warning!

Truthfully he knew exactly what he would want to do with this unexpected crush but the option of making it disappear hadn’t exactly been working out and the option of having it returned hadn’t seemed very likely either. Until now.

“Would you let me do something about it?” he asked cautiously. Tobirama didn’t so much as glance up from the papers he was looking at as he responded, infuriatingly casual.

“I think that depends on exactly what you were to do. And how often you wish to do it.”

“Don’t be filthy! That isn’t what I meant!”

“No?” Tobirama did look up at him then with a genuinely confused expression and Madara sank down in his chair as he realized that the other man probably thought he was only interested in sex.

Grunting darkly, he averted his eyes. “Hn. Never mind. Forget it.”

“I will do no such thing. What else could you possibly be staring at me so often for? Unless you – oh.”

“Shut up!” Shoving his chair violently away from the desk, Madara stood up and scrambled towards the door. Tobirama beat him there. Just before his hand reached for the brass door handle an arm appeared to block his way and Tobirama was there in his face with a stunned expression.

“You like me,” the man said, eyes widening with surprise.

“I said shut up! Get out of my way!”

“Sage above, you do like me.” Tobirama’s face split in to a wide grin and Madara snarled. He didn’t need to be mocked for this!

A scuffle in the doorway wouldn’t exactly be his most dignified moment but Madara was more than prepared to go through with it if the other man didn’t move in the next three seconds. It was much more preferable than the idea of remaining here just to listen to Tobirama making fun of him for something he had no control over.

His half-baked schemes for escaping were foiled when the other man abruptly stopped laughing only to lean forward and pin him against the wall with a fierce kiss and the only thing Madara could think was that he’d been pining for no reason, apparently. Even worse, he had apparently somehow been obvious enough with his physical attraction to catch Tobirama’s eye while at the same time subtle enough with his developing feelings that he himself hadn’t even noticed.

“You like me too,” he accused, murmuring against Tobirama’s lips, unwilling to separate them so soon.

“I have a certain lack of hatred for your very existence. And I could probably be talked in to a date given the proper motivation.” Both of them were grinning, though Madara paused to huff in mock offense.

“Should I bend over so you can check out the goods?”

Tobirama laughed until he was hauled back down for more kisses. Madara took that to mean he would be allowed to stare at the man’s ass whenever he wanted from here on out – among other things, of course.

#rae writes #madatobiremix #madatobi #madara #tobirama #fanfiction

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once-upon-a-ouat · 6 years ago

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“Take a Fall” Chapter 8

Prompt: Stitches

Set after 2x05 “The Doctor”. Whale Queen. Hate sex. There’s a non-consensual kiss but the rest is consensual.

Word Count: 1614 words

Read on FFN or AO3

He opened the door after she knocked for the third time and the first thing she noticed was that his left arm was once again in its place. All magic and no stitches while her heart was in shambles and Daniel’s body was mere dust on the ground at the stables.

“Thank god for magic, right, doctor?” She asked instead of a greeting, pinning a derisive smile on her face.

Whale sighed, looking down at his shoes. Knowing Rumple, he’d probably gloated too before fixing his arm. “Regina,” Whale said as he looked back at her. There was resignation in his tone as if he’d expected her to show up on his doorstep but she could also distinguish wariness.

“Yes, the one you screwed over,” she sneered and pushed past him, invading his apartment. She thought she saw him wince out of the corner of her eye but that would mean that he gave a damn about her which simply wasn’t true. She took a look at his living room. It wasn’t anything special really – a typical bachelor’s home. At least so it looked on the surface and, frankly, she didn’t care to look under.

“I can explain,” Whale said, drawing her attention back to him and she had to admit that he looked rather distressed. He was all twitchy and alerted, afraid of her wrath. He wasn’t quite so brave now that she had her magic. She couldn’t use it of course–she was still trying to keep her promise to Henry despite the setback–but he didn’t need to know that. She could imagine his heart pounding wildly in his chest at the prospect of not being able to do so if she crushed it and it almost made up for all the pain he’d caused her – emotional and physical. She had not forgotten how he’d slammed her into that column, posing a threat on her life.

“Explain then,” she snarled, more riled up than she thought she was. Magic crackled at her fingertips, begging to be let out, and she clenched her fists lest she indulged it. “Why did you lie to me back in the Enchanted Forest?” This time her voice was more controlled but Whale still took a step back, looking ready to dash for the door in case she decided talking was not a good enough option. “Why didn’t you bring him back then?” She asked quietly, hating herself for the pain that seeped into her voice and the tears that gathered in her eyes.

“It was the only way,” Whale said, still on edge but a lot of the tension in his shoulders had dissipated.

“The only way for what?” His body language did not make any sense. He was hiding something.

“I kept the heart and used it to bring my brother back instead but I created a monster.” His gaze was now unfocused, going right through her. He was losing himself in memories.

“You knew what would happen?” Regina snapped, taking a menacing step towards him, bringing him back to the present.

“I thought-”

“About yourself,” she interrupted him. “You were aware of the risks and yet you brought him back. To serve your own purposes,” she raised her voice as she talked, the magic flowing under her skin.

“That’s rich coming from the Evil Queen,” Whale sneered in response and she barely resisted the urge to shut him up once and for all. She was trying for Henry but Whale threw her past in her face after being the reason why she broke her promise to her son. She only managed to keep her hands to herself because she didn’t want to disappoint Henry even more.

“You made him a monster,” she yelled and saw him wince again but she ascribed it to him doing the same to his brother. “I ought to rip your arm off once again for that,” she threatened, her self-control wavering.

“As if that would’ve stopped you from fucking him on sight,” he spat out, stepping closer to her, and if she hadn’t been so shocked by his audacity, she would’ve slapped him if not worse. “You’re so lovesick that you wouldn’t have given a damn even if he was a rotting corpse.”

“And what do you know about love?” She gritted her teeth, her blood boiling and–as much as she hated it–the warmth made the broken parts inside her hurt less.

“Nothing.” His gaze skirted to her mouth and before she knew it, he grabbed at her wrist, pulling her closer, his other arm snaking around her waist, and his lips covered hers.

Her eyes snapped closed as if her brain was trying to shut down, panic rushing into her system and paralyzing her, leaving her at the mercy of Whale and her own traumatic past. She’d promised herself that she’d never allow herself to be trapped into such a situation again – feeling scared and helpless. And the worst thing was that she had magic to protect herself but she couldn’t use it.

Whale’s lips left hers and she gasped for air. “Let go of me,” she pleaded, her voice hollow, her eyes still shut. She was afraid that he could read too much in them if she opened them although everything else was telling enough.

“Why don’t you use your magic?” Whale’s question sounded genuine rather than challenging and she opened her eyes to find him looking at her, his brows creased in confusion. He’d probably expected her to rip his heart out.

“I promised Henry not to use it,” she said, painfully aware that it wasn’t the whole truth.

His hands were gone in an instant and for once she was grateful that the Curse had broken because she knew that his cursed persona wouldn’t have been so courteous. The thought of going back to her empty mansion chilled her to the bone though so she grabbed his arm and pulled him back towards her, pressing her body against his and attacking his mouth with hers.

It didn’t take him long to start responding to her. His free hand slipped in her hair, pulling her even closer, as his tongue slid over her lower lip and he rolled his hips into her, already half-hard. It was almost desperate and tempted her to break the kiss and walk out the door, leaving him alone and needy, but he’d brought her blood to a pleasant boil again in seconds so she opened her mouth, letting his tongue in, and she cupped him through his pants.

Whale moaned in her mouth and she tasted the cheap whiskey on his breath. His hands grasped at her suit jacket, pulling it down her arms. The moment he got it off and dropped it on the floor, he relocated them on her ass, grabbing and squeezing. She clasped his shirt in her fists and ripped it open, sending buttons flying everywhere. His hands slid lower to the back of her thighs and he picked her up, carrying her to the wall and bracing her against it.

She made a quick work of his belt and let his trousers fall to the floor. She hooked her legs around his hips while he pushed her skirt up and out of the way. She stopped him when he reached for her shirt and started undoing the buttons herself as he pulled down his boxers.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she raised a brow at him while still working on her buttons when he pulled her underwear to the side. “Protection,” she said when he gave her a questioning look. He was a known womanizer. She didn’t want to take risks.

He reached down into the pocket of his trousers, nearly causing her to fall, and pulled out a condom. He tore the wrapping with his teeth and rolled it on. “Happy?” he asked with annoyance.

“I’m on cloud nine,” she snarled in response, wondering why she’d let herself fall so low as to find herself in that situation but her train of thought derailed when he entered her.

He kissed her again, his hands finding her breasts and pulling her bra down before grabbing at them while he thrust into her and the sheer crudeness of it all was making her sick but successfully distracting her from the events at the stables earlier that day. His touch felt like needles pricking at her skin and his animalistic pounding would probably leave her sore but it gave her some external pain to focus on other than the bleeding wound in her chest. And the nausea and heartache didn’t stop her toes from curling into her pumps when she reached her orgasm, clawing at Whale’s arms, her heels digging into his lower back.

He followed just as she was coming down from her high, his hands clamping down on her hips in a grip that was sure to leave bruises but those would be nothing compared to the ones this little escapade left on her ego. Whale nestled his head into the crook of her neck and his sweaty body was too close for comfort. He quickly regained his bearings though, pulling out of her and letting her step on the floor.

She adjusted her bra and underwear and pulled her skirt down. She started buttoning her shirt and walked away from him towards where her suit jacket was lying on the floor.

“Regina-”

“Don’t,” she cut him off, without even turning to look at him. “There’s nothing to talk about.” She put on her suit jacket and headed for the door. Her mind was quiet but her heart was still a quivering mess in need of stitches.

#once upon a time #ouat #whale queen #regina mills #dr whale #fanfiction #my fanfiction #my writing #take a fall #chapter 8 #operation end

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suggestionsofthecaribbean · 6 years ago

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Chat: Jack and Elizabeth (Aug. 11)

Feat. @jacksparrowsuggestions and @lizzyswann-turnersuggestions

TL;DR: Jack’s ghost messages Elizabeth after seeing her admit to caring about him, but it soon turns into a shouting match. Concurrent with this exchange.

Jack: You know it's completely fine to admit that you care about me Jack: Even murderesses have feelings Jack: You shouldn't be afraid of them Elizabeth: WILL I EVER LIVE THIS DOWN Jack: Nope ❤️ Elizabeth: Jack, you were going to die anyway. You were going to let all of us die with you! Elizabeth: You would have done the same in my place. Jack: No because you wouldn't have gotten yourself into that situation in the first place so there wouldn't have been a way for me to do the same and that's that Elizabeth: is your argument literally that i'm not a dumbass so i can't put you in a position where you have to choose between my life and your own. Jack: Don't take it the wrong way Elizabeth: Pretty sure you admitted to being a dumbass Jack: Wow you're really derailing this conversation Elizabeth: You know, Jack, it's completely fine to admit that you are a dumbass Jack: Not if you're not a dumbass because in that case you'd be lying, which is wrongOr so I've been told Elizabeth: You traded Will's soul for your own. You were going to leave him to rot on the Dutchman in your stead. I feel perfectly justified in trading your life for his - and mine, and everyone else's - when the problem was yours to begin with. I don't owe you anything. Jack: Okay first of all I didn't leave Will on the Dutchman on purpose and if you have to know that was like, the fifth worst I've ever felt, second of all I came here to have a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked rn Elizabeth: But you LEFT HIM THERE regardless! instead of doing the right thing and telling Jones you'd settle your debt with your own soul as bargained you just left him here and then you LIED TO ME ABOUT IT. And then you tried to sleep with me, all because Will wasn't around, and Will wasn't around because of you! Jack: Idk if you know this but the chances of Jones letting Will go were slim to none and it wouldn't do him much good if I was stuck there with him and it was up to you to get him out. And not to be like That, but it's not like you tried very hard to keep your engagement floating, so I don't feel like you're in a position to critique me there Elizabeth: WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BY THAT Elizabeth: You told me to PERSUADE YOU. I was as persuasive as I could be without giving anything up and if you think that i came an INCH towards actually breaking my engagement with you you are more full of yourself than I thought! Jack: I was referring to the fact that your engagement is pretty much broken off now that you've landed yourself a former commodore. I'm almost impressed, but he's never really been a challenge if I remember correctly Elizabeth: You and I never even MET in Tortuga so how dare you act like you know ANYTHING ABOUT what happened Elizabeth: because that is NOT what happened! Jack: Really? Everyone knows he can't say no to you, it's as obvious as the fact that no one on this rescue mission is the least bit interested in it succeeding Elizabeth: What was it you opened this with? Even murderesses have feelings? Jack: Would you mind elaborating? Or are you too busy deciding who your next fiance is going to be? Elizabeth: I don't owe an explanation to you, and you have no right to criticize me. I've learned some things about your love life too, Jack. Jack: So we're both scum, only you're scum who pretends to be better than other scum? Jack: Honestly I think the reason I can't stand you is because of how much you remind me of myself Elizabeth: NEWS TO ME. Elizabeth: And i am not anything like you. Certainly not in that. Jack: You're just like me, only people like you Elizabeth: Is your pity party over yet?? A whole lot of people who don't like you are preparing to venture into unknown worlds just to save your stupid ass from a probably well-deserved fate Jack: I'm dead, I get to pity party however much I like Jack: I'm literally *this* close to agreeing with anamaria on the matter, but I don't like the idea of you lot messing up MY ship Elizabeth: I'm only on this ship to haul your ass out of hell for a second time so can you stow it? for twenty seconds? Jack: Oh sorry I'm just not that into the idea of you getting nasty with your current fiance (-s?) on the pearl Jack: She deserves better than that Elizabeth: YOU TRIED TO GET NASTY WITH ME ON THE PEARL SO THIS IS WHAT YOU GET, JACK. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET. Jack: That was before you sent her down the depths when you could have easily thrown me overboard or something, so this should not at all be what SHE gets Elizabeth: I'm not listening to any more of this incoherent garbage. Elizabeth: I have captain duties on YOUR precious Pearl. Jack: Listen I don't expect you to understand basic respect for the ship you're sailing, but as a piece of advice I'll tell you that if you want her to cooperate you'll have to step your game up on that point Elizabeth: whatever Jack: Sounds like someone's run out of arguments Elizabeth: sounds like someone's run off the only person who was still on their side, you mean Elizabeth: later hater Jack: The only side you're on is your own. And I'm hoping for dear Norrington's sake he won't get himself off that side

#potcsuggestions #format: chat #ch: her majesty if you're nasty #ch: flightless bird with a drinking problem

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seriousfic · 7 years ago

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Mon-El

I thought I’d make a list of random things the Supergirl writers could’ve explored here.

1. In most modern-day canon, it takes a long time for Superman’s powers to develop under a yellow sun. He starts off unusually strong, by his teens he’s developing actual superpowers, and from there he just gets stronger and stronger. Maybe they could milk some drama out of Mon developing these freakish abilities, Supergirl trying to train him in their use before he’s in a situation where losing control means he sends a truck through a building. Or maybe there’s an emergency and he needs to take in a dangerous dose of solar radiation to bring himself up to Superfamily level.

2. So imagine that you find out that the Earth has been destroyed, everyone you ever knew or loved is dead, and now you’re stuck on an alien world forever. You’d be pretty broken up about it, right? Probably even have PTSD. So wouldn’t it be interesting to see the same feelings that Kara has in the subtext suddenly be foregrounded in this guy?

3. Same as above, but now imagine the alien world you’re on is insisting that you risk your life in public service. Also, you’re not getting paid for this; you have to wear a disguise and get another job to earn money, while you do the life-risking gratis. (And as someone without even a high school education, at least on Earth, what job could Mon-El get? There’s no way he’s staying in as nice an apartment as Kara has if he’s driving a cab) Wouldn’t that strike you as absolutely insane? Especially if you’re actually working at a government agency, for all intents and purposes. Just Mon-El adopting a “fuck you, pay me” stance at the DEO would put him at dramatic loggerheads with the rest of the cast.

3a. Or where does he stay? With Kara? Jimmy? Winn? Alex? J’onn? At the DEO? It seems like any of those scenarios could lead to some interesting ‘roommates’ shenanigans. “Hey, could you pay your half of the rent?” “Hey, could you stop a train from derailing? Cuz I did. Get off my back.”

4. Clark was raised on Earth from infancy, so he considers himself a really weird human, while Kara was adopted as a child. Mon-El is a Daxamite who’s coming to Earth as an adult. So if we’re going to adopt this immigrant/refugee metaphor for aliens, he’s totally unassimilated. What if he says “fuck wearing jeans and pretending to be humans, I’m a Daxamite, deal with it”? What if there’s a traditional Daxamite hairstyle or tattooing or clothing he wears? It seems like the difference between a Muslim who goes around in a nice suit and a Muslim who wears a thobe and grows a neckbeard. Could bring up interesting questions of Kara being ‘ashamed’ of her heritage.

5. By a similar token, Mon-El having a public ID. Supergirl doesn’t get much use out of Kara’s secret, since pretty much her entire supporting cast (and a government agency??????) know she’s Supergirl. Having a guy who’s the opposite--”yeah, I just stopped a train, now I’m getting a burger”--could bring that back into play. Would Kara try to separate Mon-El from herself and her friends to keep anyone from making a connection, only interacting publicly with him as Supergirl? That could be especially interesting if they start to date. A whole ‘secret romance’ thing. Hey, maybe some of the journalists who Kara works with could be looking into Mon-El, resulting in an ironic situation where Kara has to hide her relationship from them or risk her secret ID being publicized. I don’t know, could give someone at CatCo something to do.

6. I don’t know about you, but one of the sticking points of Supergirl’s backstory is that she spends years trying to be normal (as a human?) and just letting her powers go to waste. It seems like that should come up when Mon-El is resistant to being a superhero. Does she regret all the time she spent interning at Catco and going to college when she could’ve been saving lives? Does she think Mon-El will regret it too? Maybe she’s resistant to him becoming a superhero because she thinks he needs time to process and adapt to life on Earth, the same way she did.

7. The big one: we’ve all seen Superman goes evil story where Superman or another Kryptonian tries to take over the world. ‘Superman goes self-interested’ is actually a somewhat fresh idea. Basic morals and enlightened self-interest would steer anyone reasonable away from world domination or knocking over banks (who wants the trouble of a fight with the military?). But to anyone with a lick of sense and a motivation to just live comfortably and enjoy themselves, there’s plenty of ways to monetize having superpowers. That actually seems like an antagonistic ‘challenge’ to Kara that she can’t just outpunch: Mon-El asking her why she wants to be Supergirl instead of just enjoying herself. Is it because she feels guilty about surviving Krypton? Does it make her feel good to help people? If, at the end of the day, she’s just doing this to feel good, then is she any better than him for trying to feel good in his own way?

I’m talking about an existential antagonist to Kara. We’ve seen Black Cat and Catwoman try to seduce Spider-Man and Batman to their way of thinking; surely the gender reverse can work. There could be a lot of conflict in both of them trying to bring each other around. Mon-El could act to put out a fire in the neighborhood, just because he’s not so sociopathic as to let people die to keep a Words With Friends game going, and Kara could say “see, there is good in you, you saved those people” and he could say “nah, I just did it so people would cheer for me, I’m really quite selfish.” Y’know, could be an interesting discussion on the true nature of heroism.

8. Maybe Daxamite culture could actually be different from American culture? It seems like both Kryptonians and Daxamites, on Supergirl, are just Americans with a bunch of fancy toys and the odd ritual when the writer feels like it. So, Space Canadians. Maybe instead, Mon-El could have actually real, dramatic differences from your average American? What if, just for instance, Daxamites had no concept of monogamy? If Kara dates him, is she right to not want him to have a quickie with a Starbucks barista while she has a cold, or is she wrong for imposing her cultural views on him? I mean, if we’re doing ‘aliens are refugees!’ and one of the big discussions on that is of whether refugees with differing cultures can assimilate into their host country, shouldn’t Mon-El actually have a culture that clashes with America to some extent? And no, doing a Planet of the Hats ‘snobs versus slobs’ thing with Krypton (note: in 2016?) doesn’t count.

#supergirl #mon-el

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kldslnthedark · 7 years ago

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return the favor

Wasn’t Return the Favor about… you know what, never mind.

(For clarity’s sake and because I kept losing track in my writing use they/them for everyone, I’m going to be using he/him for our narrator.)

“Oh no, look what you’ve done: that’s me, the victim of a hit and run. Picked up and let down, you were never as you led on.” So our friend the narrator here is speaking to this person that he got ~involved~ with. He’s not in a very good state right now, having been left feeling lied to and used and all to himself to deal with that this person made of him. They don’t want to fess up to the problems that they caused him and just want to ignore what they did, but he’s not letting them.

“You said just friends and no strings, but that leaves loose ends for old flings. Get back to old days and old flames you never let burn out.” He’s using their words against them to show how what they started turned from something casual and fun to something neither of them signed up for. They kept contact with flings before him and would go back and forth and while he most likely didn’t even want that kind of commitment from them, it still made him feel uncomfortable.

“Won’t you let me know? How do I get away, when you’re begging me to stay? What do you need me to say? You’re anything but ordinary.” Hm. Okay. So maybe he did want a little commitment. Maybe he developed a desire for something more than what the previous arrangement called for. Knowing that it was way above what they both agreed to and the fact that the other wasn’t showing any want for being tied to a single person, he tried leaving before things got to be too real. They guilted him into staying though. They still liked having him at their call and in the moment he realized he liked it too.

“What do you want me to do? I’ve given it all to you, I wish you would return the favor.” He’s been honest with them from the get. There weren’t any deep dark secrets being shared, but he never purposely tried to hide anything from them, he probably told them what was up with his feelings when he tried leaving. He’s given a lot of trust into something that didn’t even necessarily require him to, that’s just the kind of person he is and they’re aren’t giving him anything in return for that.

“Did you forget what I said? Trainwreck, here we, here we go again. Derailed, did I fail to mention I put it on the line?” He’s trying to leave again and they’re still trying to hold onto him, but he’s starting to break a little bit. He’s feeling like they’re not listening to him and to the reason why he needs to leave. They’re not thinking of him, they’re thinking of themselves and it’s not registering that he’s making a decision for him; not them.

“Whether you and me could ever be we’ll never see, no, ‘cause you keep the lights off. We only do it in the dark.” He’s not really understanding why exactly that they’re holding on so tightly when all the relationship has been is in the dark with each other being kept hidden away for their own reasons. (Um, not to like, start shit, I’ve seen people take it that Alex had cheated due to this lyric… you know… with the whole ‘in the dark’ thing…….. and when the song was released…. i’m going to shut up now because I’m not using it for my interpretation, but just something that I would actually love to hear what your guys’ take on it would be.) And they wouldn’t have made anything of what they were doing because of this element to their relationship.

“Are you gonna throw it all away? Are we gonna do this all again? I mean, it’s all pretend and the game should end, I guess nobody wins.” This is him challenging them to just speak one ounce of truth to him, to let him in on whatever the hell they’re doing for the first time since they started this shit. (“Are you going to throw away this act that you have and give me something, or are we going to fall into the same pattern over and over again?”) I don’t think they gave him what he was asking for and he didn’t let them win him over and lie to him again. In the end, no one won that fight, since neither of them got what they wanted; his closure and their silence.

#Anonymous #ask #fun fun fun even though i couldn't fUCKING write the beginning for some reason

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nemolian · 5 years ago

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Anything less than nationwide vote by mail is electoral sabotage

The global pandemic has cast a light on decades of cumulative efforts to manipulate and suppress voters, showing that the country is completely unprepared for any serious challenge to its elections system. There can be no more excuses: Every state must implement voting by mail in 2020 or be prepared to admit it is deliberately sabotaging its own elections. (And for once, tech might be able to help.)

To visualize how serious this problem is, one has only to imagine what would happen if quarantine measures like this spring’s were to happen in the fall — and considering experts predict a second wave in that period, this is very much a possibility.

If lockdown measures were being intensified and extended not on May 3rd, but November 3rd, how would the election proceed?

The answer is: it wouldn’t.

There would be no real election because so few people in the country would be able to legally and safely vote. This is hardly speculative: We have seen it happen in states where, for lack of any other option, people had to risk their lives, breaking quarantine to vote in person. Naturally it was the most vulnerable groups — people of color, immigrants, the poor and so on — who were most affected. The absurdity of a state requiring voters to gather in large groups while forbidding people to gather in large groups is palpable.

With this problem scaled to national levels, the entire electoral process would be derailed, and the ensuing chaos would be taken advantage of by all and sundry for their own purposes — something we see happening in practically every election.

For the 2020 election, if any elections official in this country claims to value the voters for which they are responsible, voting by mail is the only way to enable every citizen to register and vote securely and remotely. Anything less can only be considered deliberate obstruction, or at best willful negligence, of the electoral process.

Image Credits: Bill Oxford / iStock Unreleased / Getty Images

There’s a fair amount of talk about apps, online portals and other avenues, and these may figure later, but mail is the only method guaranteed right now to securely serve every address and person, providing the fundamental fabric of connectivity that is absolutely necessary to universally accessible voting.

Hand-wringing about fraud, lost ballots and other issues with voting by mail is deliberate, politically motivated FUD (and you can expect a lot of it over the next few months). States where voting by mail is the standard report no such issues; on the contrary, they have high turnout and few problems because it is simple, effective and secure. As far as risk is concerned, there is absolutely no comparison to the widespread and well-documented process and security issues with touchscreen voting systems, even before you bring in the enormous public health concerns of using those methods during a pandemic.

Federal law requires that troops around the world, among others unable to vote in person, are able to request and submit their ballots by mail. That this is the preferred method for voting in combat zones is practically all the endorsement such a system needs. That the president votes by mail is just the cherry on top.

Fear of voters

So why hasn’t voting by mail been adopted more widely? The same reason we have gerrymandered districts: Politicians have manipulated the electoral process for decades in order to stack the deck in their favor. While gerrymandering has been employed with great (and deplorable) effect by both Democratic and Republican officials, voter suppression is employed overwhelmingly by the political right.

While this is certainly a politically charged statement, it’s not really a matter of opinion. The demographics of the voting public are such that as the proportion of the population that votes grows, the aggregate position begins to lean leftward. This happens for a variety of reasons, but the result is that limiting who votes benefits conservatives more than liberals. (I am not so naive to think that if it were the other way around, Democrats would altogether abstain from the practice, but that isn’t the case.)

This is not a new complaint. Deliberate voter suppression goes back a century and more. Nor is the practice equally distributed. For one thing, white, well-off, urban areas are more likely to have effective and modern voting systems and laws.

This is not only because those areas are generally the first to receive all good things, but because voter suppression has been aimed specifically at people of color, immigrants, the poor and so on. Again, this is no longer a controversial or even particularly partisan statement; it has been admitted to by politicians and strategists at every level — including, quite recently, by the president: “They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

When voting by mail was merely a convenient, effective alternative to voting in person, it was fairly easy to speak against it. Now, however, voting by mail is increasingly looking like the only possible method to accomplish an election.

Again, think of how we would vote during a stay-at-home order. Using only today’s methods would be dangerous, chaotic and generally an ineffective way to ask the population at large who they want to lead their city, state and country.

That is no way to conduct an election. Therefore, we currently have no way to conduct a national election. Voting by mail is the only method that can realistically be rolled out to accomplish an effective election in 2020.

Disunited states

Because elections are run by state authorities, voting methods and laws vary widely between them. The quickest way to a nationwide vote-by-mail system would use federal funding and authority, but even if states were in favor of this (they won’t be, as it is an encroachment on their authority), Washington is not. The possibility of a bill implementing universal voting by mail passing the House, Senate and the president’s desk by November is, sadly, remote.

Which is not to say that no one in D.C. is not trying it:

Vote-by-mail should be having its moment. Will it?

This means it’s down to the states — not great news, considering it is at the state level that voting rights have been eroded and voter suppression enshrined in policy.

The only hope we have is for state authorities to recognize that the 2020 presidential election will be a closely watched litmus test for competence and corruption that will haunt them for years. It’s one thing to put your finger on the scale under normal circumstances. It’s quite another to author a high-profile electoral failure in an election few doubt will be one of the most consequential in American history — especially if that failure was manifestly preventable.

And we know it is preventable because due to federal voting rights laws, every state already has some form of accessible, mail-in or absentee voting. This is not a matter of inventing a new system from scratch, but scaling existing, proven systems in ways already demonstrated and verified over decades. Several states, for instance, have simply announced that all voters will get absentee ballots or applications sent unrequested to their homes. No one said it would be easy, but the first step — committing — is at least simple.

It will be obvious in a few months which state authorities actually care about the vote and which see it as just another instrument to manipulate in order to retain and accrue power. The actions taken in the run-up to this election will be remembered for a long time. As for the federal government interfering with states’ prerogative to run their own elections — that’s a violation of states’ rights that I expect will encounter strong bipartisan opposition.

How tech can help without hindering

Image Credits: NickS (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

The tech world will want to aid in this cause out of several motives, but the simple truth is there’s no way a technological solution can be developed and deployed by November. And not only is it infeasible, but there is serious political opposition to online voting systems to be widely deployed. The idea is a non-starter for this election and probably the next.

Rather than trying, Monolith-style, to evolve voting to the next phase by taking on the whole thing tip to tail, tech should be providing support structures via uniquely digital tools that complement rather than replace effective voting systems.

For example, there is the possibility, however remote, that a mailed ballot will be intercepted by some adversary and modified, shredded, selectively deposited, or what have you. No large-scale fraud has ever been perpetrated, despite what opponents of voting by mail might say. States developed preventative solutions long ago, like secure ballot boxes placed around the city and tamper-evident envelopes.

But end to end security is something at which the tech sector excels, and moreover recent advances make a digitally augmented voting process achievable. And there’s plenty of room for competition and commercial involvement, which sweetens the pot.

Here’s a way that commonplace tech could be deployed to make voting by mail even more secure and convenient.

Imagine a mail-in ballot of the ordinary fill-in-the-bubble type. Once a person makes their selections, they take a picture of the ballot in a dedicated, completely offline app. Via fairly elementary image analysis nearly any phone can now perform, the votes can be detected and tabulated, verified by the voter, then hashed with a unique voter sheet ID into a code short enough to be written down.

The ballot is mailed and (let us say for now) received. When it is processed, the same hash is calculated by the machine reader and placed on an easily accessible list. A voter can check that their vote was tabulated and correctly recorded by entering their hash into a website — which itself reveals nothing about their vote or identity.

What if something goes wrong? Say the ballot is lost. In that case the voter has a record of their vote in both image and physical form (mail-in ballots have little tear-off tabs you keep) and can pursue this issue. The same database that lets them verify their vote was correct will allow them to see if their vote was never cast. If it was interfered with or damaged and the selections differ from what the voter already verified, the hash will differ, and the voter can prove this with the evidence they have — again, entirely offline and with no private information exposed.

This example system only works because smartphones are now so common, and because it is now trivial to process an image quickly and accurately offline. But importantly, the digital aspect only addresses shortcomings of the mail-in system rather than being central to it. You vote with only a ballpoint pen, as simply as possible — but if you want to be sure, you may choose to employ the latest technology to track your vote.

A system like this may not make it in time for the 2020 election, but voting by mail can and must if there is to be an election at all.

via:TechCrunch, May 23, 2020 at 01:47PM

#IFTTT #Feedly #TechCrunch

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talabib · 5 years ago

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How To Enhance Your Team's Productivity

We all know that personal productivity is important, but there’s more to the ability to get things done than just our own individual working style. No matter how well we work on our own, our environment and our interactions with other people can either drag us down or help our productivity soar.

And the same is true for companies. If we want to improve productivity at the level of an organization, we need to think beyond the individual. And this means looking at how we work together, by paying close attention to the culture of our organization, the communication styles we use, and how we manage projects and the examples that we show when we lead.

In this post, you’ll learn about the practical strategies you need to improve the quality of your interactions with others and avoid productivity pitfalls.

The right company culture is key to building more productive teams.

Do you find yourself spending most of your working day dealing with unexpected interruptions or wasting time in unfocused meetings? Is your inbox overflowing with unread emails? Are your priorities constantly derailed by last-minute requests?

If you recognize your workplace in this picture, you work in a culture of friction. Friction is the loss of productivity that happens between people, like when your plans for the day are disrupted by having to pick up the pieces of someone else’s unmet deadline.

It’s a fact of life that emergencies can happen, and it’s natural that your productivity takes a hit as a result. But a lot of the time the slump in your productivity comes down to a build-up of little things that you don’t even notice until you realize how little you got done. It’s things like meetings always running late and too many irrelevant emails arriving in your inbox happening day in, day out that are a clear sign that there’s too much friction in your working life.

Fortunately, most people mean well and don’t deliberately set out to work in a way that disrupts others. But if poor practices are widespread in a company, it can really work against those good intentions.

For example, your colleagues might invite you to their meetings because they value your opinion, not realizing that you might have other priorities. But if your company culture pressures you into saying yes to every invitation, this can prevent you from being as productive as you could be. Instead of focusing on the real purpose of your role, you’ll spend too much time half-listening to irrelevant discussions.

This means that to really increase productivity, we need to pay attention to how our actions could inadvertently be making other’s lives more difficult. It’s a question of taking a look at our working lives and pointing to behaviors that create the friction. They could be something very specific – perhaps it’s a norm in your company not to bother with a clear subject for emails, making it hard to prioritize your inbox. Or it can be something more general like a lack of empathy and respect for each other’s time. Once we know what the problematic practices are, we can start to change them.

A productive team member is purposeful, mindful, punctual, and reliable.

If you’ve ever played a sport or game of any kind, you will have learned the importance of having good team players. Dig a little deeper, and you will see that what really brings the team together is the focus on a common goal – like winning the game.

The same is true when it comes to work culture. And the only way to guarantee that your team is working towards a shared goal is for it to be purposeful and mindful.

Being purposeful means that you have a firm grasp of your objectives and priorities, and can work on what’s truly important, instead of getting distracted by busywork.

But it’s not just about you. You can’t work on a shared goal without thinking about how your work affects others. If you work mindfully, you stay conscious of this. You aim to help your teammates achieve their goals rather than distracting them. For example, you keep an eye on the quality of your own work so others don’t have to deal with the sloppiness and mistakes that happen when you’re in a rush. That way, you have a team working with drive and harmony towards a great result.

Another crucial element to working together with people is trust. You probably know from experience that it’s very difficult to work with someone if you can’t depend on them. But what is trust made of, professionally speaking? Well, the two main ingredients are: punctuality and reliability.

You may think that being punctual in the workplace should go without saying. But it’s not just about showing up to appointments on time. Being punctual also means respecting deadlines and responding to requests in a timely way. And it requires you to be proactive in how you manage your own time, for example, by planning enough time to complete tasks and making sure to set yourself reminders.

Reliability, on the other hand, means people can expect you to do what you say. It requires that you take responsibility for your actions and hold yourself accountable. It’s really as simple as following through on your promises, so that people don’t have to chase you or keep reminding you.

To change disruptive behaviors and create a new culture, get together with your team and come up with specific productivity principles.

So now you've learned how important purposefulness and mindfulness are for a driven team. But it's one thing to work on your own levels of purposefulness and mindfulness – how do you encourage them in your team?

This is where productivity principles come in. Productivity principles guide behavior by combining a desirable quality that you want to encourage and a situation where it applies. Once you develop a solid set of principles together with your team, you’ll be well on your way to a more productive working style.

Say you want to foster the quality of mindfulness in your team. One area you recognize as a persistent problem is that everyone sends too many emails. Some good principles here would be to cc only when truly necessary, and to write clear subject lines to make things easy for the reader.

Your productivity principles should be clear and specific, so that it’s easy to tell if they’re being followed. After all, it’s far easier to tell if an email is written in a clear way than to make an abstract judgment about how mindful someone is. And that makes it easy for your team members to recognize which behaviors they need to change, and to hold themselves accountable. For example, your colleague might start writing something more useful in his email subjects than just: “a question.”

But emails aren’t the end of it. You’ll need to develop a whole set of productivity principles for the specific challenges that you’re facing. Each situation and each company are different, so join forces with your team to come up with the principles that would be most useful for you.

A good place to start is to brainstorm what is currently causing you friction – or productivity problems. You can then take the problems and turn them around into productivity principles. Do this by asking: what behavior would stop this from happening?

For example, you might have a problem with meetings always dragging on and finishing late. One way to prevent it would be to start wrapping up ten minutes before the end. That’s something specific anyone leading a meeting can do, and it’s easy to judge if it’s working. So it makes a good principle to follow.

Make your communication more productive by getting clear about the why, what, and who behind the messages you send.

Most of us send countless messages on autopilot every day, and as a result, everyone’s inboxes are constantly overflowing.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can take steps to increase the quality of our communication, so that our messages are not permanently dragging each other’s productivity down.

How does this work? To start with, each time you think about contacting someone, ask yourself: why am I sending this communication?

Asking this question is important because if you’re clear about the goal behind your message, you can plan the best way to accomplish it. Say you’re emailing your super-busy boss for a quick decision. A straight to the point one-liner email would likely be the way to go. On the other hand, if you’re contacting a client you don’t know very well, putting some effort into establishing a good relationship could be a better approach. So a longer message with a bit of small talk would make sense.

Once you’ve determined your plan of action, you can ask yourself more questions to figure out the best way to put it into action. The next question to ask is, what do I need to communicate?

It’s important here to remind yourself that the content of a message isn’t just the information it conveys. It’s also how it’s conveyed. You need to make it easy for the reader to get your point. That way you’ll be sure to have her attention among the other hundreds of competing messages she’s probably struggling to get through. Keep in mind that a request that’s easy to understand is easier to act on – and more likely to get done.

And that’s where well-structured, clear, and concise writing comes in. How do you achieve this? One trick is to state upfront what you want from the reader. Is it an action, a response, a decision, or are you simply sharing information? Including keywords like these in every email subject is the system the US military uses to make communication more effective. For them, a clear message can be a literal matter of life and death.

When it comes to longer messages, another useful tip is to include a summary at the beginning. Then the reader will know from the start why they’re being contacted and what they need to do.

Right, so now that you’ve got your why and what, you can think about the final question: who. Who exactly should know about what you’re communicating? Don’t cc your entire department just in case, select only those directly affected. That way, you spare your team unnecessary distraction, and your company culture works all the smoother.

A more thoughtful approach to meetings will increase productivity.

Remember all those project meetings you’ve sat through that dragged on and on beyond their scheduled time, only to leave none the wiser as to what your next steps are supposed to be? Well, luckily, there are specific things you can do to avoid this waste and make your meetings more productive.

The first thing to do is simply decrease the number and length of meetings being held. Consider if you really need a meeting or if the same goal can be achieved in another way. Would a phone call between the main decision makers work instead, with a follow-up informational email to a larger group? And if a meeting is required, does it need to last an hour or would 45 minutes be enough?

The next step is to be purposeful about who is invited to meetings. As a general rule, the fewer participants, the better. You can even try the pizza principle invented by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon – only invite as many people to a meeting as can be comfortably fed by two pizzas.

If you don’t trust pizza, perhaps science will convince you. In fact, research tells us that the maximum number of people in a productive meeting is roughly seven. More than that, and the decision-making gets sidetracked by too many conflicting opinions and irrelevant discussions. A study by top management consultancy Bain & Company showed that for every attendee over seven, effectiveness is reduced by 10 percent.

To get more selective about who really needs to attend your meeting, you can list participants and their reasons for attending as part of your agenda. This process will also ensure that everyone who receives the meeting invitation will know why they need to be there and what they will get out of it.

The final step toward more purposeful meetings is to examine what actually happens in them. How can you use your time in the most efficient way?

One trick for this is to always create a meeting purpose statement for every meeting you organize. This is simply a brief explanation as to why the meeting is being held. It can be as simple as this: “The purpose of this meeting is to decide on the invitation list for the client dinner, and to agree on the wording for the invite email.” With the goal clear, everyone can stay focused and work toward it.

Successful collaboration on projects is crucial to working together productively.

Even if the words “project manager” are not in your job title, chances are, you spend most of your professional life managing projects. A project doesn’t have to be something huge – any piece of work that takes a few steps to complete counts, from writing a report to organizing the company Christmas party.

And the success of most projects hangs on how well the people involved work together. Even a seemingly solitary task like writing a report usually means that you need to cooperate with colleagues to get their input on time and in a format that makes sense. So to achieve your goals, better collaboration is essential. But how can you ensure successful cooperation on projects? There are three main ingredients to consider.

The first is alignment, which means having a shared understanding of the project’s goals and purpose. This is important because otherwise everyone could be working on different priorities and aiming for different results. Imagine if a football team didn’t share the aim of getting the ball through the other side’s goalposts. It would be chaos on the field. The same is true in the office. You need to know what you’re aiming for in order to reach it.

Once you’re aligned on the purpose of your project, the next crucial ingredient is agreement. Agreement means a shared process for achieving the project goals. It’s more than just planning the steps needed to complete the project. You’ll also need a strategy for how everyone will work together in a way that keeps friction to a minimum.

This means you’ll need to agree on the specific details like how you’ll communicate, how you’ll flag problems, or how you’ll update each other. To this end it’s useful to pin down some clear ground rules. For example, you could agree to minimize email and have conversations instead. Another idea is to have a fifteen-minute meeting twice a week to discuss progress. These will make your interactions smoother, so that everyone can focus on their actual work.

Of course you’ll need to keep track of how everything’s going and adjust when necessary. This is where awareness comes in. With awareness, you and your team can make sure that everyone is working to increase each other’s productivity and quickly resolve any friction that appears.

To build awareness, it helps to dedicate specific time to it in meetings. Take a moment to ask the team some simple questions about the working process. For example, do they feel the meetings are effective? Are they overwhelmed with emails? Do they have a good sense of progress? Their answers will help you keep steering your project towards success.

Become more productive by actively responding instead of passively reacting to urgency.

Do your clients or bosses expect you to drop everything and react immediately every time they get in touch? If so, like most people, you live in a world ruled by urgency.

When urgency is the order of the day, you’re constantly losing focus and being taken away from the priorities you’d planned. As a result, productivity tends to sink. But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, most urgency is completely unnecessary.

To be sure, all workplaces do have their own real emergencies once in a while. But unless you work for the fire service or the hospital, in the vast majority of cases, an instant response is just an unrealistic expectation. The sense of urgency simply doesn’t reflect reality.

And even if the urgency is real, it’s often unreasonable. Things become urgent as a result of someone’s poor planning, like leaving tasks till the last minute. And suddenly, your colleague needs that complicated budget calculation right this moment. Not because it’s some unexpected crisis, but simply due to no one thinking in advance about what exactly will be needed for that client presentation.

To avoid these kinds of situations and the inevitable hit on your productivity, you need to reduce urgency. The way to do this is to take a more active approach to managing all those requests. And this comes down to responding instead of reacting.

So what exactly is the difference? Well, reacting means that you’re constantly getting sidetracked to deal with all the interruptions that come your way. It’s a way of working that doesn’t pause to check if the projected urgency is really something that needs immediate action. Responding, on the other hand, is a matter of taking the time to think through the context of what is being asked. That way, you can evaluate its true urgency and reasonableness.

How do you move from reacting to responding? The answer is to take a more long-term approach to how you work. It’s all about proactively planning your own tasks and learning to anticipate the future. If you plan carefully, you’ll know where your priorities need to be at each moment. Then you can respond more thoughtfully to urgency. And when you focus on what really matters, your productivity will soar.

People working at all levels can take a lead on creating a more productive culture.

You may think that if you’re not the CEO, or at least a very senior manager, you have no chance of making any real difference to your organization’s productivity culture.

But change doesn’t need to come from the top. In fact, it’s often much more effective to start local – by bringing in new ways of working in your own team. If you focus on your immediate team culture, you’ll be able to set achievable targets and reap the rewards more quickly.

What’s more, the local improvements you accomplish will make ripples in the wider company culture.

How would this work? Well, with your new productive micro-culture in place, your team might become the one everyone else wants to work with – and takes as a model. By setting an example and impressing them with your productive principles in action, you can inspire others to change their own suboptimal behaviors.

But how can you, as a leader, form this dream team in the first place? Well, it takes much more than just being the boss. It’s about the ability to influence.

Before you dive into influencing, make sure you internalize the first rule of leadership: do no harm. Too often, leaders work against their team by disrupting its productivity with last-minute requests or unnecessary meetings. Just letting people focus on what they do best will get you much further – and make for a calmer atmosphere.

The key to being an influencer is to stay at the forefront of productivity yourself – and make sure it’s visible. When others see you embracing productive habits and committing yourself 100 percent, they’ll be eager to work with you and get behind your ideas. So do what you said you would, turn up when you’re needed, and don’t be afraid to change your own behavior when something’s not working.

And remember that everything you do should show the kind of productive behavior you want to promote. It all sends a message about what’s important. After all, if you’re the one constantly late to meetings, no one will take you seriously when you talk about punctuality. And who wants to follow a leader they can’t trust?

Productivity is not just about how much you can accomplish on your own, but has a lot to do with the culture in which you work and how you interact with others. Whether you’re a leader, a manager, or a working professional, you can take concrete steps to improve the productivity of your team and your wider company. You can do this by improving the ways you communicate, putting a stop to disruptive behaviors and developing a more active approach to emergencies and crises.

Action plan: Have a conversation. Next time you find yourself typing a long email to someone sitting on the other side of the office, get up and walk over there instead. Have a chat in person. You might find that it takes two minutes of conversation to solve a problem that would have otherwise dragged on for 15 emails. And you might discover that you like your colleagues!

#How To Enhance Your Team's Productivity

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theinvinciblenoob · 6 years ago

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Gather round. The EU has a plan for a big update to privacy laws that could have a major impact on current Internet business models.

Um, I thought Europe just got some new privacy rules?

They did. You’re thinking of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which updated the European Union’s 1995 Data Protection Directive — most notably by making the penalties for compliance violations much larger.

But there’s another piece of the puzzle — intended to ‘complete’ GDPR but which is still in train.

Or, well, sitting in the sidings being mobbed by lobbyists, as seems to currently be the case.

It’s called the ePrivacy Regulation.

ePrivacy Regulation, eh? So I guess that means there’s already an ePrivacy Directive then…

Indeed. Clever cookie. That’s the 2002 ePrivacy Directive to be precise, which was amended in 2009 (but is still just a directive).

Remind me what’s the difference between an EU Directive and a Regulation again…

A regulation is a more powerful legislative instrument for EU lawmakers as it’s binding across all Member States and immediately comes into legal force on a set date, without needing to be transposed into national laws. In a word it’s self-executing.

Whereas, with a directive, Member States get a bit more flexibility because it’s up to them how they implement the substance of the thing. They could adapt an existing law or create a new one, for example.

With a regulation the deliberation happens among EU institutions and, once that discussion and negotiation process has concluded, the agreed text becomes law across the bloc — at the set time, and without necessarily requiring further steps from Member States.

So regulations are powerful.

So there’s more legal consistency with a regulation?

In theory. Greater harmonization of data protection rules is certainly an impetus for updating the EU’s legal framework around privacy.

Although, in the case of GDPR, Member States did in fact need to update their national data protections laws to make certain choices allowed for in the framework, and identify competent national data enforcement agencies. So there’s still some variation.

Strengthening the rules around privacy and making enforcement more effective are other general aims for the ePrivacy Regulation.

Europe has had robust privacy rules for many years but enforcement has been lacking.

Another point of note: Where data protection law is concerned, national agencies need to be properly resourced to be able to enforce rules, or that could undermine the impact of regulation.

It’s up to Member States to do this, though GDPR essentially requires it (and the Commission is watching).

Europe’s data protection supervisor, Giovanni Buttarelli, sums up the current resourcing situation for national data protection agencies, as: “Not bad, not enough. But much better than before.”

But why does Europe need another digital privacy law. Why isn’t GDPR enough?

There is some debate about that, and not everyone agrees with the current approach. But the general idea is that GDPR deals with general (personal) data.

Whereas the proposed update to ePrivacy rules is intended to supplement GDPR — addressing in detail the confidentiality of electronic communications, and the tracking of Internet users more broadly.

So the (draft) ePrivacy Regulation covers marketing, and a whole raft of tracking technologies (including but not just cookies); and is intended to combat problems like spam, as well as respond to rampant profiling and behavioral advertising by requiring transparency and affirmative consent.

One major impulse behind the reform of the rules is to expand the scope to not just cover telcos but reflect how many communications now travel ‘over the top’ of cellular networks, via Internet services.

This means ePrivacy could apply to all sorts of tech firms in future, be it Skype, Facebook, Google, and quite possibly plenty more — given how many apps and services include some ability for users to communicate with each other.

But scope remains one of the contested areas, with critics arguing the regulation could have a disproportionate impact, if — for example — every app with a chat function is going to be ruled.

On the communications front, the updated rules would not just cover message content but metadata too (to respond to how that gets tracked). Aka pieces of data that might not be personal data per se yet certainly pertain to privacy once they are wrapped up in and/or associated with people’s communications.

Although metadata tracking is also used for analytics, for wider business purposes than just profiling users, so you can see the challenge of trying to fashion rules to fit around all this granular background activity.

Simplifying problematic existing EU cookie consent rules — which have also been widely mocked for generating pretty pointless web page clutter — has also been a core part of the Commission’s intention for the update.

EU lawmakers also want the regulation to cover machine to machine comms — to regulate privacy around the still emergent IoT (Internet of Things), to keep pace with the rise of smart home technologies.

Those are some of the high level aims but there have been multiple proposed texts and revisions at this point so goalposts have been shifting around.

So whereabouts in the process are we?

The Commission’s original reform proposal came out in January 2017. More than a year and a half later EU institutions are still stuck trying to reach a consensus. It’s not even 100% certain whether ePrivacy will pass or founder in the attempt at this point.

The underlying problem is really the scope of exploitation of consumers’ online activity going on in the areas ePrivacy seeks to regulate — which is now firmly baked into dominant digital business models — so trying to rule over all that after the fact of mainstream operational execution is a recipe for co-ordinated industry objection and frenzied lobbying. Of which there has been an awful lot.

At the same time, consumer protection groups in Europe are more clear than ever that ePrivacy should be a vehicle for further strengthening the data protection framework put in place by GDPR — pointing out, for example, that data misuse scandals like the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica debacle show that data-driven business models need closer checks to protect consumers and ensure people’s rights are respected.

Safe to say, the two sides couldn’t be further apart.

Like GDPR, the proposed ePrivacy Regulation would also apply to companies offering services in Europe not only those based in Europe. And it also includes major penalties for violations (of up to 2% or 4% of a company’s global annual turnover) — similarly intended to bolster enforcement and support more consistently applied EU privacy rules.

But given the complexity of the proposals, and disagreements over scope and approach, having big fines baked in further complicates the negotiations — because lobbyists can argue that substantial financial penalties should not be attached to ‘ambiguous’ laws and disputed regulatory mechanisms.

The high cost of getting the update wrong is not so much concentrating minds as causing alarms to be yanked and brakes applied. With the risk of no progress at all looking like an increasing possibility.

One thing is clear: The existing ePrivacy rules are outdated and it’s not helpful to have old rules undermining a state-of-the-art data protection framework.

Telcos have also rightly complained it’s not fair for tech giants to be able to operate messaging empires without the same compliance burdens they have.

Just don’t assume telcos love the proposed update either. It’s complicated.

Sounds very messy.

Indeed.

EU lawmakers could probably have dealt with updating both privacy-related directives together, or even in one ‘super regulation’, but they decided to separate the work to try to simplify the process. In retrospect that looks like a mistake.

On the plus side, it means GDPR is now locked in place — with Buttarelli saying the new framework is intended to stand for as long as its predecessor.

Less good: One shiny worldclass data protection framework is having to work alongside a set of rules long past their sell-by-date.

So, so much for consistency.

Buttarelli tells us he thinks it was a mistake not to do both updates together, describing the blocks being thrown up to try to derail ePrivacy reform as “unacceptable”.

“I would like to say very clearly that the EU made a mistake in not updating earlier the rules for confidentiality for electronic communications at the same time as general data protection,” he told us during an interview this week, about GDPR enforcement, datas ethics and the future of EU privacy regulation.

He argues the patchwork of new and old rules “doesn’t work for data controllers” either, as they’re the ones saddled with dealing with the legal inconsistency.

As Europe’s data protection supervisor, Buttarelli is of course trying to apply pressure on key parties — to “get to the table and start immediately trilogue negotiations to identify a sustainable outcome”.

But the nature of lawmaking across a bloc of 28 Member States is often slow and painful. Certainly no one entity can force progress; it must be achieved via negotiated consensus and compromise across the various institutions and entities.

And when interest groups are so far apart, well, it’s sweating toil to put it mildly.

Entities that don’t want to play ball with a particular legal reform issue can sometimes also throw a delaying spanner in the works by impeding negotiations. Which is what looks to be going on with ePrivacy right now.

The EU parliament confirmed its negotiating mandate on the reform almost a year ago now. But MEPs were then stuck waiting for Member States to take a position and get around the discussion table.

Except Member States seemingly weren’t so keen. Some were probably a bit preoccupied with Brexit.

Currently implicated as an ePrivacy blocker: Austria, which holds the six-month rotating presidency of the EU Council — meaning it gets to set priorities, and can thus kick issues into the long grass (as its right-wing government appears to be doing with ePrivacy). And so the wait goes on.

It now looks like a bit of a divide and conquer situation for anti-privacy lobbyists, who — having failed to derail GDPR — are throwing all their energies at blocking and even derailing/diluting the ePrivacy reform.

Some Member States appear to be trying to attack ePrivacy to weaken the overarching framework of GDPR too. So yes, it’s got very messy indeed.

There’s an added complication around timing because the EU parliament is up for re-election next Spring, and a few months after that the executive Commission will itself turn over, as the current president does not intend to seek reappointment. So it will be all change for the EU, politically speaking, in 2019.

A reconfigured political landscape could then change the entire conversation around ePrivacy. So the current delay could prove fatal unless agreement can be reached in early 2019.

Some EU lawmakers had hoped the reform could be done and dusted in in time to come into force at the same time as GDPR, this May.

That was certainly a major miscalculation.

But what’s all the disagreement about?

That depends on who you ask. There are many contested issues, depending on the interests of the group you’re talking to.

Media and publishing industry associations are terrified about what they say ePrivacy could do to their ad-supported business models, given their reliance on cookies and tracking technologies to try to monetize free content via targeted ads — and so claim it could destroy journalism as we know it if consumers need to opt-in to being tracked.

The ad industry is also of course screaming about ePrivacy as if its hair’s on fire. Big tech included, though it has generally preferred to lobby via proxies on this issue.

Anything that could impede adtech’s ability to track and thus behaviourally target ads at web users is clearly enemy number one, given the current modus operandi. So ePrivacy is a major lobbying target for the likes of the IAB who don’t want it to upend their existing business models.

Even telcos aren’t happy, despite the potential of the regulation to even the playing field somewhat with tech giants — suggesting they will end up with double the regulatory burden, as well as moaning it will make it harder for them to make the necessary investments to roll out 5G networks.

Plus, as I say, there also seems to be some efforts to try to use ePrivacy as a vector to attack and weaken GDPR itself.

Buttarelli had comments to make on this front too, describing some data controllers as being in post-GDPR “revenge mode”.

“They want to move in sort of a vendetta, vendetta — and get back what they lose with the GDPR. But while I respect honest lobbying about which pieces of ePrivacy are not necessary I think ePrivacy will help first small businesses, and not necessarily the big tech startups. And where done properly ePrivacy may give more power to individuals. It may make harder for big tech to snoop on private conversations without meaningful consent,” he told us, appealing to Europe’s publishing industry to get behind the reform process, rather than applying pressure at the Member State level to try to derail it — given the media hardly feels well done by by big tech.

He even makes this appeal to local adtech players — which aren’t exactly enamoured with the dominance of big tech either.

“I see space for market incentives,” he added. “For advertisers and publishers to, let’s say, re-establish direct relations with their readers and customers. And not have to accept the terms dictated by the major platform intermediaries. So I don’t see any other argument to discourage that we have a deal before the elections in May next year of the European legislators.”

There’s no doubt this is a challenging sell though, given how embedded all these players are with the big platforms. So it remains to be seen whether ePrivacy can be talked back on track.

Major progress is certainly very unlikely before 2019.

I’m still not sure why it’s so important though.

The privacy of personal communications is a fundamental right in Europe. So there’s a need for the legal framework to defend against technological erosion of citizens’ rights.

Add to that, a big part of the problem with the modern adtech industry — aside from the core lack of genuine consent — is its opacity. Who’s doing what; for what specific purposes; and with what exact outcomes.

Existing European privacy rules like GDPR mean there’s more transparency than there’s ever been about what’s going on — if you know and/or can be bothered to dig down into privacy policies and purposes.

If you do, you might, for example, discover a very long list of companies that your data is being shared with (and even be able to switch off that sharing) — entities with weird sounding names like Outbrain and OpenX.

A privacy policy might even state a per company purpose like ‘Advertising exchange’ and ‘Advertising’. Or ‘Customer interaction’, whatever that means.

Thing is, it’s often still very difficult for a consumer to understand what a lot of these companies are really doing with their data.

Thanks to current EU laws, we now have the greatest level of transparency there has ever been about the mechanisms underpinning Internet business models. But yet so much remains murky.

The average Internet user is very likely none the wiser. Can profiling them without proper consent really be fair?

GDPR sets out an expectation of privacy by design and default. So, following that principle, you could argue that cookie consent, for example, should be default opt-out — and that any website must be required to gain affirmative opt in from a visitor for any tracking cookies. The adtech industry would certainly disagree though.

The original ePrivacy proposal even had a bit of a mixed approach to consent which was accused of being too overbearing for some technologies and not strong enough for others.

It’s not just creepy tech giants implicated here either. Publishers and the media (TechCrunch included) are very much caught up in the unpleasant tracking mess, complicit in darting users with cookies and trackers to try to increase what remain fantastically low conversation rates for digital ads.

Most of the time, most Internet users ignore most ads. So — with horribly wonky logic — the behavioral advertising industry, which has been able to grow like a weed because EU privacy rights have not previously been actively enforced, has made it its mission to suck up (and indeed buy up) more and more user data to try to move the ad conversion needle a fraction.

The media is especially desperate because the web has also decimated traditional business models. And European lawmakers can be very sensitive to publishing industry concerns (for e.g., see their backing of controversial copyright reforms which publishers have been pushing for).

Meanwhile Google and Facebook are gobbling up the majority of online ad spending, leaving publishers fighting for crumbs and stuck having to do businesses with the platforms that have so sorely disrupted them.

Platforms they can’t at all control but which are now so popular and powerful they can (and do) algorithmically control the visibility of publishers�� content.

It’s not a happy combination. Well, unless you’re Facebook or Google.

Meanwhile, for web users just wanting to go about their business and do all the stuff people can (and sometimes need to do) online, things have got very bad indeed.

Unless you ignore the fact you’re being creeped on almost all the time, by snoopy entities that double as intelligence traders, selling info on what you like or don’t, so that an unseen adtech collective can create highly detailed profiles of you to try and manipulate your online transactions and purchasing decisions. With what can sometimes be discriminatory impacts.

The rise in popularity of ad blockers illustrates quite how little consumers enjoy being ad-stalked around the Internet.

More recently tracker blockers have been springing up to try to beat back the adtech vampire octopus which also lards the average webpage with myriad data-sucking tentacles, impeding page load times and gobbling bandwidth in the process, in addition to abusing people’s privacy.

There’s also out-and-out malicious stuff to be found already here too as the increasing complexity, opacity and sprawl of the adtech industry’s surveillance apparatus (combined with its general lack of interest in and/or focus on security) offers rich and varied vectors of cyber attack.

And so ads and gnarly page elements sometimes come bundled or injected with actual malware as hackers exploit all this stuff for their own ends and launch man in the middle attacks to grab user data as it’s being routinely siphoned off for tracking purposes.

It’s truly a layer cake of suck.

Ouch.

The ePrivacy Regulation could, in theory, help to change this, by helping to support alternative business models that don’t use people-tracking as their fuel by putting the emphasis back where it should be: Respect for privacy.

The (seemingly) radical idea underlying all these updates to European privacy legislation is that if you increase consumers’ trust in online services by respecting people’s privacy you can actually grease the wheel of ecommerce and innovation because web users will be more comfortable doing stuff online because they won’t feel like they’re under creepy surveillance.

More than that — you can lay down a solid foundation of trust for the next generation of disruptive technologies to build on.

Technologies like IoT and driverless cars.

Because, well, if consumers hate to feel like websites are spying on them, imagine how disgusted they’ll be to realize their fridge, toaster, kettle and TV are all complicit in snitching. Ditto their connected car.

‘I see you’re driving past McDonald’s. Great news! They have a special on those chocolate donuts you scoffed a whole box of last week…’

Ugh.

Yeah…

So what are ePrivacy’s chances at this point?

It’s hard to say but things aren’t looking great right now.

Buttarelli describes himself as “relatively optimistic” about getting an agreement by May, i.e. before the EU parliament elections, but that may well be wishful thinking.

Even if he’s right there would likely still need to be an implementation period before it comes into force — so new rules aren’t likely up and running before 2020.

Yet he also describes the ePrivacy Regulation as “an essential missing piece of the jigsaw”.

Getting that piece in place is not going to be easy though.

via TechCrunch

#IFTTT #TechCrunch

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fmservers · 6 years ago

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ePrivacy: An overview of Europe’s other big privacy rule change