#I can definitely identify some areas to improve in but for my first time actually doing pixel art I'm pretty proud of this

[a-suspicious-number-of-ducks]

Hermit-a-Day May Day 8: xBCrafted. Today's medium/style is pixel art + the NPC portraits from Stardew Valley. I have no idea if that suits xB at all, since I hadn't watched any of his content before today, and also I have only played like an hour of Stardew. So. I was kind of flying blind on this one, but I really enjoyed it regardless! (List of materials under the read more.)

References: I won't put the actual pictures here, since that would take up a ton of space, but I spent the most time staring at Alex, Gil, and Leah's portraits on The Spriters Resource, as well as xB's skin on NameMC. Also a picture of the actual guardian mob from Minecraft, specifically the tail (for his ear fins).

Materials: downloaded PNG of Abigail's portrait sprite from Spriters Resource (for the background, so I didn't have to copy it pixel by pixel); Krita.

[skynapple]

Is Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland Worth it? My Two Cents

Since @incorrectpizza was asking, I'm throwing this together cause I've had some words to say about it for a long time.

First off, the project went through multiple layers of Disney Imagineers wanting to create something new and different that allowed them to worldbuild their own new planet without directly drawing on any of the canon movies/shows/books/games. They were also drawing upon shared experiences in middle eastern bazaars. (Source: Documentary about building it that you can watch on Disney+). It was created by Star Wars geeks, for people who may or may not be Star Wars fans. The "may not be" is sort of important here.

Second, I'll say, the first time I walked in I cried with joy. I've been several, several times ever since. As the magic has worn down I've been able to identify a few things. I'll list the good and the bad here.

A. World Environment:

The cons: Because it was built for people who may not be Star Wars fans (aka Disneyland/Disneyworld visitors who are just meandering around the park) it's built to give people a sense that they are somewhere else, and able to identify a few key elements, without necessarily requiring that you know anything about Star Wars at all. They didn't want to give anyone the sense that you couldn't walk in without watching more than 1 movie. This becomes a devastating downfall because other than the literal actual Millennium Falcon or a speeder here, and a first order banner there, there's really no identifying elements. The place is identified as "Black Spire Outpost" which exists only, and ONLY, within the Disney Parks and is not shown within any media. This gives longtime fans nothing to connect to, and nothing much to identify. There's very little to tell that you're supposed to be in a Star Wars environment. My personal opinion is it would have been better had they taken the Universal Studios route and built an environment directly from the Harry Potter movies, giving fans the feeling that they are walking the same streets and seeing the same sights as their favorite characters. It's been a huge success for them and I think that magic is what Galaxy's Edge is missing. I digress.

The Pros: All that said, it's insanely beautiful especially at night. There's so much detail in how they weathered everything and there is Aurebesh literally everywhere, to the point that very little is actually in English. Which is very cool if you're a geek like me that knows how to read it. There are little (and I mean little) nods and easter eggs for fans throughout, but I feel like if I wasn't such a big fan I wouldn't be able to identify them. It's definitely nice to walk through and even though my Mom isn't a fan, she still admires it a lot.

B. Music and sounds:

The cons: They don't play any soundtrack music. Nothing that's been in the media. It's meant to immerse you in the "environment" so it's mostly animal noises and stuff that's supposed to sound alien.

The pros: There's a cool "sound/song" that plays when you enter, like a musical swell, that's signaling that you're entering a new area. I still think that part is cool and it did make me emotional the first time I walked through that "sound."

C. Characters

The cons: There just aren't a lot of characters walking around. There's no aliens. No droids. I've heard they've improved a little bit, and have been adding here and there. But for someplace that's supposed to be so foreign, there's just not enough cast members walking around.

The pros: The cast members and characters that you do see, if you're lucky, are good and you can have fun with them. They have good behaviors, their costumes are great, and are well trained. Being able to see Mando with baby Grogu who is cooing and greeting visitors? Come on, it's so cute. Stormtroopers from the First Order messed with my mom once. It was great. You encounter First Order "employees" a lot on the Rise of the Resistance ride and I always giggle at how they never break character. They're so mean and serious and it's so great to me.

D. The Rides

The cons: There's only two. Honestly not much complain about other than there's not much else to do outside of just these two. There's the Millennium Falcon and the Rise of the Resistance ride. The con about Millennium Falcon is they load the ride in parties of 6, and each person will have a "task" to make the ship fly. If you don't have a party of 6, you're completely at the mercy of the strangers doing their job. The flight is very realistic. If someone in your party misses their queue, it will affect the flight and you will crash. You're allowed a certain amount of damage before your flight crashes to the ground dramatically and your ride ends. The longer you can stay in the air, the longer your experience will be, and the smoother your flight will be. My only gripe about Rise of the Resistance is that the line is so long.

The pros: Insanely cool. The Millennium Falcon is really is a gem in that they've built sooooo so much detail into it. It's so cool. Lots of fun photo spots. You feel like you're really actually in the real thing!! Despite what I said about flying with strangers, when everyone is into it and you're working well together, you'll have a good time. And Rise of the Resistance is the peak of Disney's high tech capabilities across their global projects. It's amazing, I can't say enough about it. Just the feeling, the immersion, it wasn't open when Galaxy's Edge first opened and it's honestly what it was seriously lacking in that "immersive" and "emotional" aspect. I can ride this stuff again and again. I never get tired of it. And honestly, again, my mom is NOT into Star Wars or scifi and Rise of the Resistance is her favorite, she has to ride it every time we're in the park. Sidenote: I still think the best time to ride is at night! It just looks so beautiful at night.

E. The Food:

The Cons: There's not a whole lot of variety, but this is scarcely a huge con considering the variety of foods you can find throughout the rest of the park. Also if your diet is sensitive, or you have allergies, you may have some difficulty. There's also not a whole lot of seating, and this is a big con for the rest of Galaxy's Edge. I complained about it in a survey I received and coincidentally noticed them putting in some new seating, so they are gradually working on it, but for my family of 6 sometimes we struggle. Also, the blue milk is overrated. I prefer the green milk. Both are made with coconut milk, which isn't my favorite, so that's a favorite for some, but a sad dislike for me. Also it's overpriced for a small cup size. So just know that.

The Pros: Docking Bay 7 is one of my favorite places to eat in the park. And the Cantina I have not been to yet because it requires reservations that you literally have to book in the morning just to eat at dinner. I've heard nothing but good things about it though. To me, all the food in Galaxy's Edge is tasty. Also if you're buying a soda like a Coca-Cola or Sprite from a beverage stand, they serve them in the coolest little collector cups and are the same price as they are in the rest of the park, so if you're in a soda mood, buy them there instead of elsewhere in Disneyland.

F. The Activities:

The Cons: So expensive! If you're planning to build a droid or a custom lightsaber, keep in mind that they may be reservation-required experiences and they are $200 each. Please check online before you go. The other con is that there's not much else to do.

The Pros: They put so much thought into these experiences. I built a custom lightsaber and it was 100% worth it. I cried, and as I looked around the room at the climax of the experience, I won't spoil it but everyone else in the room was crying too!! That's how beautiful and thoughtful it was. You can bring 1 friend with you for free as long as they aren't participating, although they can help you. This applies to building a droid as well.

G. The Shopping:

The cons: It was intended to be "bazaar-like" but it doesn't really come off that way. Little, if any, is actually Star Wars branded. Again, they wanted you to feel like you were actually visiting somewhere far away, so the merch is mostly just Black Spire Outpost branded and there isn't much "Star Wars" merch. (If you do want Star Wars merch, I'm not sure for DisneyWorld but at least for Disneyland, the shop attached to Star Tours has tons of exclusive Star Wars merch that makes up for it.)

The pros: Exclusive merch that's mostly good quality. They have differing shops based on category, and it's spread out so it's not too overwhelming. This also eliminates long line. I've returned las Galaxy's Edge just for a specific BD-1 desk topper at the droid-themed shop, and then ran to the lightsaber parts shop, and I was able to get in and out of both stores very quickly.

The Final Rating: 6/10

Overall, for a Star Wars fan, it's a wonderful experience. Yes I have my gripes, but I still return each time. I can't say the cons outweigh the pros. I think major improvements would improve overall impression and foot traffic. That said. I think it's something every Star Wars fan should experience at least once!

Here's some photos for extra measure

[recapcrew]

Week 22 Transcript

Video

Intro

Extra extra, read all about it! Welcome to the Empire’s Recap, and today we will be going over the chaos and drama of our (somewhat) respected rulers!

This week, there’s no time for intros - there’s work to be done!

Pixl

Pixlriffs heads right back into the End with iJevin this time, after a quick trip to make, I mean FIND, some dodos.

[PIX] Abracadabra, LORE! There we go.

[JEVIN] Oh my god, that was amazing!

[PIX] and LORE! There it is.

[NARRATOR] Making this farm requires spawning a new End gateway, which means fighting the Ender Dragon, from Dodo-back this time. With the help of community tools and destroying the intended spawn location, they force the gateway to appear in the middle of nothing, perfect for making an Enderman farm. This’ll help Pix achieve his goal of getting godlike with ender pearls, though first he and Jevin have to actually get an endermite to spawn, which takes unusually long. Finally, the farm is up and running, complete with an overflow flush so that the server isn’t overwhelmed by Endermen.

In the Overworld, Pix decides to face the overwhelming amount of cats that Joe Hills has been breeding by giving the man something else to do with his time.

[PIX] Wh- Why, Joe? Why all the cats?

[NARRATOR] The museum needs a security guard, to keep anything else from getting swiped, and a man with his love of poetry and history seems perfect for the job. And maybe those cats can be useful, or at least moved off of the bridge.

That handled, Pix pops back into the end to improve the new Enderman farm just a bit. He adds a pearl voider to clean out the inventory, and a minecart system to make passage to and from the farm as quick and hopefully un-glitchy as possible.

Not content with one massive project this week, we find Pix placing an infinite amount of buttons in the process of making a Wither Skeleton farm. I’m starting to think this man’s definition of relaxing is “more work somewhere else”.

That, or the wine and cheese parties that happen in the froglight orchard, as he tells a visiting Rendog, who has a very enticing offer for him. Pieces of history, the Firsts of Rendog himself, a collection that Pix is eager to get his hands on. He gains a single piece in return for a dodo, that Rendog swiftly falls in love with.

[REN, LOUDLY] Her name is Deirdre!

[PIX] There you go, alright, she has a name now. And she’s all yours.

[NARRATOR] After sacrificing snow golems to a bound Wither in the End for wither roses, Pixlriffs makes the first spawning platform for the skeleton farm, and it’s so effective that he swiftly runs out of food. His trip back to the Overworld is far from uneventful, however.

Joe Hills, in his duty as museum security guard, noticed some odd patches of sculk popping up around the buildings. And then found out that Cubfan had placed more than a few sculk catalysts in the area.

[JOE] Anyway, I found the first few sculk catalysts and I put them in the evidence locker here, and… then I found another ninety.

[NARRATOR] Even with all the identified and removed catalysts, there’s still more in the area; a single mob burning in the sun could set off a chain reaction. Pix thanks Joe for his thorough and continued service, and returns to the Wither Skeleton farm to distract himself from the infection riddling the Ancient Capital, because if he can’t stop it, he can at least stop thinking about it.

Xisuma pops in yet again, happy to help move piglins in exchange for some of the wither skulls. They get just enough that even a few losses moving them into the farm are acceptable, and though only one layer is finished, the farm is shaping up to be quite strong. And dangerous - wither skulls in the wrong hands could spell a lot of trouble, and there’s a LOT of wrong hands on the server right now.

Joel

Those wrong hands include whoever replaced all of Joel's torches and lanterns with blue soul equivalents and left all of the replaced lighting in a chest with no explanation. Well, there was a sign, something about souls and skulk, but Joel is no less confused.

He plans to build a temple for Hermes in Upper Stratos, but first, he needs to gather some materials. His expedition into the nether goes awry when he accidentally places his bed instead of an ender chest, and explodes himself, along with all of his stuff. After putting together a set of backup gear, he finishes gathering all the items he needs for the build, and heads off to the ancient city to obtain another swift sneak book. He lucks out, finding one in the first chest he searches.

Joel then builds Hermes' temple, complete with golden throne for his boy. Hermes also has a new outfit, and Joel brings him over to Sanctuary to show off his new dapper fit.

fWhip also comes to visit, asking for Joel's protection from the Sheriff and his Hotguy. Joel, eager for any chance to fight and kill the Sheriff, agrees, and even pays fWhip to set up an opportunity to do so.

[FWHIP] I’ll call on you when I need ya.

[JOEL] Alright, cool.

[FWHIP] Thank you Joel!

[JOEL] Just—Just-- Just blow any horn, at any time.

[FWHIP] …You got it! Okay!

[NARRATOR] Finally, he moves part of the wall surrounding lore city outwards in preparation for building a temple to himself, but for now, the sheriff best be wary of goat horns sounding.

Jimmy

This week begins with a new dilemma for Jimmy. His strongest alliance and friend, Scar, has tagged Jimmy for the Hermit’s game of tag. As funny as the tag hat looks on the tiny sheriff, Jimmy wants to immediately get rid of the large responsibility. Afterall, he does have many other responsibilities in order to uphold the law back in Tumble Town.

Pearl finds herself as the Sheriff’s target after the tag machine tells Jimmy he must use fall damage. The plan is simple, somehow convince Pearl to climb to the tallest part of Hermitopia, retrieve her wings, and push her off the edge.

[JIMMY] Oh hello!

[PEARL] Oh, gosh!

[JIMMY, LAUGHING] Wait, that was the most British reaction I’ve ever heard!

[NARRATOR] Easy… kind of. The challenge proves successful when Pearl is a bit too trusting of the Sheriff’s law and hands over her wings to be inspected. With his plan being a success, he hands over the tag hat to Pearl. It was too big for a tiny toy anyway.

However, another hurdle presents itself soon after when Grian and Joel decide to spawn a wither right next to Tumble Town. Jimmy’s worry ends up being for nothing because the wither remains in the ‘wasteland’ and only hits parts of Tumble Town, which is also known as Joel’s kingdom seeing as he’s built most of what was damaged. Jimmy retrieves the star from the two outlaws but ends up in a high speed chase, forcing him to trade his prize for the wither skull and a bunch of random trash the others didn’t want.

Jimmy vows to get back at the God for his shenanigans to which he soon follows through. The sheriff happens upon something named an invisibility switch that reveals the secrets of Stratos. Turns out, the kingdom of Stratos is not floating, but held up by stilts.

[JIMMY] His base is being held up by-- by stilts! It ain’t flying! It aint hovering! It aint a God! He’s a liar!

[JIMMY SNICKERS]

[JIMMY READING SIGNS] I thought you were a God and you had like Lore and stuff. Your base isn’t even hovering. Bit cringe.

[JIMMY] There it is. There it is! I got him. I got him!

[NARRATOR] Later, Jimmy meets up with Scar who is wearing Scott’s hat that Scar had to trade the spare sheriff hat for. Scar swears he’ll get the sheriff hat back… eventually. This does not stop the two from showering each other in gifts. Jimmy bestows Scar with the deputy badge and Multiverse Jellie in return for a villager trading centre and stacks of iron for a Tumble Town beacon.

Finally, Jimmy heads back over to Hermitopia to try and sneak his way in only to find the Hermits have added a face to the build, a face that is unrecognizable to Jimmy.

Sausage

The economy is thriving in Sanctuary! There are a whole new array of villagers, ready to trade their goods. But a special guest arrives! Keralis laughs at everything Bdubs, including the cute dodo named Bdoubledodo. He makes plans for a more effective wood farm under Sausage's current one.

Sausage needs a disguise to infiltrate the Hermempire. He devises a clever outfit of sunglasses and goes undercover with Oli. They encounter Impulse and point him in the direction of fWhip's course, while freaking out over the sleeping Grumbot.

Meanwhile, back at home, Sausage has a vision, this time teleporting him to a dungeon that seems awfully familiar. And then, from the shadows, another him appears! And he is evil, but thankfully, he gets rescued by Bubbles.

Safe back in Sanctuary, Sausage builds his Casita. It's got everything: from a meditation room for him to a new bedroom for Hermes. But actually, Sausage decides that's not good enough for his boy. So he builds him an entire house, called Hermes’ tower. It's fit for a prince.

In another reality, something is brewing. Evil Sausage is planning something, and it's not good.

Scott

Something weird is at work in Chromia when all the torches and lanterns are replaced by soul versions! I mean, come on, corruption is so last season.

[SCOTT] Guys come on, a corruption-like thing spreading over a server? Like that’s so last year.

[NARRATOR] Updates from the stream include the somewhat illegal acquisition of Jimmy’s sheriff hat and Scar’s head to be placed in the tavern.

[SCOTT] I got some important items. One item being Scars head, the other item being a Sheriff hat!

But! To decorate the tavern slightly more than just some heads, Scott takes Pearl's suggestion to add a sunflower field out front.

[SCOTT] Just like that, we have a little sunflower patch outside the tavern, which I think looks super cute.

We’re going underground with this market and Scott realizes that he probably should add some more entrances. Make everyone complicit, you know? The sheriff can’t arrest them all.

[SCOTT] Ok, here is the entry from Sanctuary side, and again it’s a one way in so I’m going to need to go round and go back up into Chromia, and I think I do the other one over here in Joels area.

[NARRATOR] New entrances aren’t the only new thing, as there appears to be some sculk catalysts lining the walls and a new stall set up selling deputy badges.

[SCOTT] Ok so deputy badge, I will take one, thank you very much. *Cha-ching noise*

[NARRATOR] New pirate Cleo surprises him with some questions about the market, and makes some purchases of her own.

[CLEO] I… don’t have a diamond, but I can steal a diamond.

[SCOTT] There we go.

[CLEO] That is a thing that I can… *laughs*

[SCOTT] I love it.

[CELO] If I- If I wear that around Jimmy, is he going to absolutely lose it?

[SCOTT] He’ll probably be very confused if you suddenly flash it, just-- you can just be like, ‘it was a totem I don’t know what you mean’.

[NARRATOR] Cleo must’ve told Joey though, as next time Scott visits he gets a gun to his head and an interrogation about a missing trident.

[JOEY] Oh, so you just like to take things that don’t belong to you, and sell them to strange people?

[SCOTT] I have no idea what you’re on about Joey. Also isn’t taking things that don’t belong to you your entire thing?

[JOEY] Yeah, exactly, so leave it to me!

[NARRATOR] Apparently, Scott can defeat Joey with the power of customer service and being unfazed by a gun. At least he got a profit out of it!

[SCOTT] --and somehow also scam Joey twice, like I’m—I’m actually very impressed with that. You know, maybe this life of crime is actually made for me. Huh!

Joey

[NARRATOR] Joey says he’s ready for anything, and immediately gets proven wrong by ZombieCleo showing up in her new non-pirate hat. She knows how observant her Captain is, (or isn’t) and she’s got a message for him: his magical trident has been stolen! He checks, and she’s actually telling the truth.

Outraged, Joe follows her to Hermitopia and to the secret black market inside of the Greatbridge, which is apparently where his trident was last spotted as Scott of Chromia stole and sold it! He thanks Cleo for the lead, lying in wait until the thieving salesman himself appears.

And appear he does, checking on his ill-gotten wares. Joey threatens Scott at gunpoint, and bribes him with gunpowder, and the mixed messages do the trick: Scott sold the trident to Animalia’s own Mayor Lizzie! He also invites Joey to make a stall of his own, smoothing over the ruffled feathers. A black market is practically a second home for a pirate!

But first, he needs his trident back. Joey bursts into the Critter Council, holding all of them for ransom from a terrified Mayor for an amount of plunder so exorbitant, even Pirate Joe doesn’t know exactly how much it is.

[LIZZIE] How much is a bajillion in… pirate terms?

[JOEY] I think that’s like probably, like uh… *laughs*, ten stacks or something.

[NARRATOR] Mayor Lizzie pays up, returning the trident and paying the pirate, who returns home to Eversea feeling rather pleased with himself. And look, someone left him a little gift; does the pirate have a secret admirer?

[JOEY] Aw, that’s so sweet…

Shelby

[NARRATOR] If you're wondering how we got here, Shelby has finally emerged from her journey into the fog with a recap of the first encounters with the Hermits. Truly, the strange man - Tango, he said - is lucky he found the Evermoore. She’d prefer not to have lost souls wandering around the Mangrove anymore than they already are!

He’s not the only strange occurrence, and after False’s doppelgänger shows up, and the two are very happy to see each other – she finds out there was a group came through a portal but were apparently separated!

[TANGO] -Hermitcraft, yes. And we were sent through a portal by Grian. Do you know Grian?

[SHELBY] Grian… No.

[TANGO] No, you don’t. Ok. Well—

[SHELBY] No, we don’t have one of those.

[FALSE, OVERLAPPING] Uh.

[SHELBY] Welcome to the mangrove—

[SHELBY, SURPRISED] Oop—Is that Grian?

[TANGO] That’s the Grian! Yep!

[SHELBY] That’s the guy!

[NARRATOR] She equips them with an iron sword before setting out to Sanctuary, it’s probably the most welcoming place on the server. She’s not the only one with that idea, and the three of them meet up with a much larger group of people, including all the people fWhip and Joel found!

Sausage turns up with Keralis and Jevin in tow, but he’s a little late to stop the ransacking of his storage room.

She takes off back towards her swamp after hearing that there are some more visitors, and it’s Scott, Katherine and their collection of new people!

She directs them all to Sanctuary and ends up at the border of Eversea, where Joeys “new pirates” try to murder her! The truce is definitely off now!

[JOEY] Now, get her!

[SHELBY] NO!

[CLEO] Now!

[SAUSAGE, IN THE BACKGROUND] No, Shelby, run!

[SHELBY] I thought we had a truce!

[KERALIS] No, no, no.

[XISUMA] Kill the witch!

[JOEY AND CLEO] Kill the witch! Kill the witch!

[XISUMA] We were told to do it I’m so sorry!

[SHELBY] No!

[JOEY, ANGRILY] NO!

[SHELBY] So much for a truce with Joey. Sounds like we are no longer friends and not in a truce. And he wonders why Katherine didn’t pick him.

[NARRATOR] Old habits die hard, and Shelby and Tango meet again while ransacking fWhip’s storage room. He’s still wearing the hat she gave him, and ends up agreeing to have a few lessons on witchcraft!

One must always do brewing in a proper area - gotta make a good impression! - so Shelby and Tango travel to the Evermoore where she can teach him about potions! He listens intently, but he’s disappeared when she turns around!

Maybe he drank something and turned into a frog!

[SHELBY] Tango? Are you—did I? Why I didn’t even… Did you drink something? Tango? Did I make you a frog? I’m so sorry, it was an accident, I can fix this, I can fix this! I can make—oh my god.

[TANGO] What? What, what, what? What’s the matter?

[SHELBY] Oh my god. Wait, Tango? Are you speak--You can talk?

[TANGO] ...I’m right- I’m right here. Hi. Hi.

[NARRATOR] Oh. Oh good, he’s fine! It’s fine!

The two “new pirates” come skulking around, they’re called Cleo and Xisuma, and *apparently* they’ve been ordered to murder her, but actually want to recruit her to a scheme to kill Joey?

…she’s in!

[SHELBY] This goes against all of my morals—yeah no I’ll do it.

[NARRATOR] Joey is very mad after the murder and reveals he knows a secret of hers - blackmail, of course. What could he know? He can’t know anything! Well… that letter for her grandmother…

One of the new guys, Cubfan, comes over upon request to use his massive axe and science brain to figure out something about the fog - he comes back not quite right.

She decides to take a look for herself, which may not be the smartest idea. She gets further and further into the forest and finds a massive, massive frog.

He must be so old! The vines are so overgrown… maybe he got lost! She decides to help him out, and tries her best to lead him back towards the Evermoore again.

They get there, and the frog lets her put a saddle on him - he must like her enough, even though he’s not talking to her.

Outro

And with that, join us next week for more chaos and shenanigans! Thank you for watching, liking, and subscribing, and thanks to everyone helping with the project, check them all out below!

[seotoolskit]

Why are Google reviews important? Why do we use it?

What is one of the first things you do when purchasing something on Amazon? I always read the reviews. If the item has a five-star rating based upon 1,000 reviews, it’s a boost to the product’s credibility and I’m likely going to buy it.

In the same way, Google Reviews are vitally important to the credibility of both B2C and B2B organizations. Potential clients and customers will Google your business name to check you out or they may simply Google your product/service and your Google My Business profile will appear. This will display your Google Reviews. If you have never paid attention to these reviews before, here are several reasons to start doing so now.

Visit Seotoolskit for more exciting and free SEO Content.  

Why Google Reviews are important:

Google Reviews are a big credibility boost to your business and you don’t need to spend a dime. There’s no need for a slick marketing campaign with Google Reviews. Simply ask your customers to take some time to fill out a review. The best part is that with Google My Business, you are able to make it easy for them and provide them a direct link. TRG Marketing has developed a strategy for this where our clients identify the customers that they’ve served well, and ask them for an online testimonial, making it as seamless as possible. The key is to be targeted in your approach so that you receive positive reviews.

Google Reviews increase your online exposure and help with SEO, especially local SEO. The Google search algorithm is complex (understatement of the century). However, Google Reviews definitely have an impact. According to Moz, almost 10% of Google’s entire algorithm is driven by signals originating from Google Reviews. Since Google is trying to provide people with the best results for their search query, online reviews are a strong indicator as to whether people like your business. Number of reviews also play a role. Both Google and potential customers like to see businesses with 40+ reviews or at least more reviews than your competitor. People are also beginning to call businesses directly from Google rather than visit the website first. This shift underscores the importance of your Google My Business profile and the type and number of online reviews.

Google Reviews are a great way to gain testimonials for use in other marketing areas. Now to do this you still need to ask the person leaving the review if it is okay, but it is a lot easier for them to say yes when they’ve already done the work. TRG Marketing used this strategy when we were developing a new website for one of our clients. We wanted testimonials scattered throughout the website, so we took a few quotes from the old website and then searched Google and Facebook. We asked a number of people who left reviews on these platforms if we could use them on the new website. It was successful!

Finally, Google Reviews are a good way to better understand what you are doing right and/or wrong as a business. Reviews help you see what areas are doing well and what needs improvement. Not all reviews are fair, but they always can provide information and insight on how your business can improve. One hesitation that businesses often have when asking for online reviews is the fear of negative comments. A negative review is not always a bad thing. When a business actively replies to negative reviews in a professional way and tries to resolve the situation, it shows prospective customers that you care. A mixture of bad reviews and good reviews can actually increase conversions – it makes your online presence more realistic and transparent.

Visit Seotoolskit for more exciting and free SEO Content.  

[violethowler]

False Start: Analyzing Kairi’s Arc After Melody of Memory

In October 2019, I did an analysis of Kairi’s character arc as of the end of Kingdom Hearts 3 and what I felt was being set up for her going forward.

My major point was that Kairi's fear of change was holding her back from reaching her full potential and catching up to Sora and Riku, but that by the end of Kingdom Hearts III she had overcome that fear and was ready to move forward. 

In hindsight, I jumped the gun in assuming that the end of KH3 marked the definitive point where she got over her change and could truly move forward. While she had some good moments in Re:Mind, Limit Cut promptly put her to sleep for an entire year, trying to search the memories in her heart for a clue to Sora's whereabouts. 

But then Melody of Memory happened. 

When Kairi faces the memory of Xehanort, she says in the original Japanese version that Sora and the others being hurt was the result of her strength not being enough. I'll save the rant about how the English localization consistently removes Kairi's moments of self-reflection throughout the series for another day, but my main point is that this sets the groundwork for her decision to remain behind while Riku goes to Quadratum. When she chose to increase her training under Aqua, I was thrilled because finally this was the sign I was looking for that Kairi was really, truly, ready to move forward. 

A lot of people were disappointed by this decision because they felt like Kairi needing more training was the whole point of her being brought to the Mysterious Tower at the end of Dream Drop Distance. But there are a few things that set this moment apart and explain why her training in Kingdom Hearts 3 did not amount to as much as fans were hoping. 

First, it's that this time Kairi is exerting her own agency and making the choice herself. Her training in Kingdom Hearts 3 was never something we saw her actively choose. So Kairi making that choice on-screen has more weight than Riku bringing her to the Mysterious Tower for training on Yen Sid's orders. 

Second, while the memory of Xehanort notes that she did improve in the brief time she was training, the way she was being trained wasn't suited to her style. The description we get of her training in Kingdom Hearts 3 mostly seems to amount to her and Lea sparring each other repeatedly - which is exactly how Sora and Riku developed their sword fighting skills growing up. And when you look at her battle stance and the way she holds her Keyblade in Kingdom Hearts 3 compared to how she held it in previous games, her stance is an exact copy of Sora's. It's no wonder then why she changed into Sora during the final boss fight in Melody of Memory then when she was clearly trying to imitate him. 

In the 2006 Characters Report Vol. 1 book, Tetsuya Nomura's comments about Kairi in the early games identify the fear of growing apart from Sora and Riku as a major source of anxiety for her. The fact that her training and combat stance in Kingdom Hearts 3 imitate Sora so heavily indicates that Kairi is trying to catch up to Sora and Riku by trying to be exactly like them in that area as much as possible. With how much the series has focused on personal identity with regards to Roxas and Xion being their own people, it makes sense why Kairi doing that failed her in Kingdom Hearts 3. Because Sora and Riku's style isn't suited for her. 

Because she isn't them. 

For Kairi to achieve her goal of catching up to Sora and Riku's level, she needs to step out of their shadow and figure out how to be herself instead of trying to be Sora. And the best way for her to understand herself will be to understand her past. 

The Xehanort that Kairi faces in Melody of Memory is explicitly identified as a construct of her heart. He tells her that the answers she seeks "lie in memories that are long gone," and tells her that there is nothing for her to find in her heart. However, that isn't really true with what previous games have established about how memories work in this universe. Chain of Memories establishes that memories are stored in the heart, and that while the connections between them can be rearranged, they are never gone for good. 

So while Kairi may not consciously remember her childhood before arriving on Destiny Islands, the memories are still there deep in her heart. All she needs is something or someone to help her restore the connections between them. To rebuild the links in her Chain of Memories, so to speak. Kingdom Hearts 3 and Melody of Memory both specifically call attention to Kairi's first meeting with Aqua in Birth by Sleep, as well as the fact that Kairi doesn't remember it. From a narrative standpoint, the series has set up that remembering that first meeting will help Kairi regain the rest of her memories from Radiant Garden. 

But remembering her past is not the only arc the story has set up to help Kairi understand herself better. Training with Aqua also puts her in a position to interact with another teen who has a heart of pure light.

Who was also in a coma for a time while his heart rested in Sora's body. 

It's not a coincidence that Union X first revealed the existence of the entity known as Darkness just a few months after KH3 revealed that being a Princess of Heart was a mantle that could be passed on rather than a permanent state of being. Then Re:Mind revealed that Darkness is still hiding within Ventus' heart in the present day. And following the release of Melody of Memory, the next Union X update revealed that Darkness had killed Streliztia because it saw her death as the best way to grant Ven's desire for strength. The ability for Princesses of Heart to pass on their powers serves as set up for Kairi to do the same, opening herself up to struggling with darkness in her heart for the very first time. 

Kairi wants to become stronger in order to stand alongside Sora and Riku. But she has not struggled with her negative emotions the way that Riku has or that the narrative framework sets up Sora will be in the near future. But her decision to train alongside Aqua puts her in a position that has the potential to force her to go through that struggle herself should Darkness try to grant her desire for strength in ways that she doesn't want. 

I know that I was wrong before about Kairi getting over her fear of change. But this time, I'm confident that Kairi's character arc is finally picking up momentum. What Melody of Memory has that previous games didn't is a clear sense of narrative direction. All Dream Drop Distance did was vaguely establish that she was going to start training. Kingdom Hearts 3 didn't give enough information to form concrete theories about the trajectory of her arc. 

But all the Kingdom Hearts content released in 2020 has set up foreshadowing for a very specific plotline in regards to Kairi's character growth. And not only that, Xehanort's monologue in the flashback to her childhood where he says "if you arrive in a world that is neither light nor darkness, but somewhere on the other side, your task will be far from easy" adds a significant connection between Kairi rediscovering her past and the mysteries of "unreality." Especially because Xehanort acting like it was actually possible for her to end up there instead of Destiny Islands raises the question of whether she truly went straight to Destiny Islands after Xehanort sent her off. 

Kairi's connection to "unreality" makes her the lynchpin of all the major story arcs being set up for the other characters while Sora and Riku are in Quadratum. The parallels between them foreshadow Ventus regaining his memories of the Age of Fairy Tales just as Kairi is set up to regain her memories of Radiant Garden. Ventus regaining his memories of the past logically connects the Birth by Sleep trio to Lauriam and Elrena through his role in Strelitzia's death, as well as to the Twilight Town crew considering that Subject X is heavily implied to be Skuld. Then of course there's Luxu, who is directly responsible for Subject X's disappearance, and the Foretellers, who are still with Luxu last we saw them.  

With Sora and Riku off in Quadratum with Yozora and the Master of Masters, Kairi is narratively set to step up and take charge in dealing with the major unresolved plotlines from Union X and KH3 that need dealing with. By the time Sora and Riku finally make it back, she'll be a whole lot closer to their level.

TL;DR: I was too hasty in 2019 when I declared that Kairi had gotten over hear fear of change. I only had nebulous ideas of what would come next. But now I can pick out all the subtle foreshadowing that illuminates a concrete path forward, and I'm confident that now she's finally on the right track.

[lovelyirony]

Moony-Eyed

@bironfam i hope this is okay! 

Tony didn’t think that their new astronaut was going to be anything special. 

Well. 

That’s a lie. 

You kind of have to be special if you’re going to be an astronaut for NASA. You have to keep your cool, have good eyesight, and be okay with the possibility of dying. Maybe. Maybe you have to be cool with that. 

Tony is rather good at his job. From revolutionizing how space suits are made to making the functions of the ship easier to manage, Tony is NASA’s secret weapon, the handyman of all handymen. 

He’s usually squirreled away in his workshop, at his apartment that he honestly needs to clean far more than he does, or arguing with Potts about why he needs eight different coffee mugs. 

They know him as a guy who doesn’t exactly give a rat’s ass about the chain of command, or dress code. 

“You can’t fire me,” he had told Happy, after he had tried once again to stop Tony from entering areas containing sensitive information in sweatpants and a sweatshirt that proclaimed him the “MIT class of 1992.” 

Tony is good at his job, nearly too good. He likes it that way. 

But back to the astronaut. 

Danvers had taken leave to take care of her family, and honestly? Space usually isn’t a lifetime event for astronauts. You see too much of it, you need time away. A lot of time away. 

Pepper is giddy. She loved Carol, but Carol was happily married with a baby girl, and this one? This one wasn’t. 

Not that Pepper was looking for anyone. No, she and her partner Nat had standing date nights every Saturday evening, and she loved them too much to even think about anything else. 

But Tony? Tony needed someone. He never really dated anybody, at least not anybody that he genuinely liked. 

Stark was a powerful name, and it got tossed around a little bit, but Tony mostly kept to himself and only responded to it when he was at a party or Happy was mad at him for forgetting his ID badge yet again. 

James Rhodes was a nicely built man with a strong, confident aura, and single. 

(Pepper had checked.) 

She thought that he and Tony would get along quite well, if anything. 

James is shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He’d rather just get to work on what he needs to do. Getting into the air is one of the best feelings, and the sooner he can experience it, the sooner he’ll be fine. 

He always pushed the limits, and space is just the last limit he gets to push. He’s excited. He’s always wanted to work for NASA, be on their roster of astronauts. He wants little kids who identify with him to know that they can do it too. 

So he’s ready to work with the best and brightest of their era. 

“Where the fuck are my nachos?!” 

His head whips around to a man who is wearing an ill-fitting cardigan (that is most likely not his), old jeans that have what look to be equations written on one thigh, and glasses that are most definitely broken sitting at an angle. 

“Your nachos were too close to the computers,” one woman says without looking up. “Stop bringing nachos here or I’m going to fucking kill you.” 

“You can’t kill me,” the man retorts. 

“Tony,” comes another voice. James turns and sees who must be Pepper Potts. “Go to your office. Now. Change your pants, you wrote on them again.” 

“I did?” 

He looks down and swears. 

“Son of a bitch!” He then looks at Jim. “Wait, who are you? Are you the new astronaut?” 

“Uh, yes? I’m James.” 

He sticks out his hand. 

Who seems to be Tony stares at his hand. 

“Your name is seriously James?” 

“Do you think I’m bad at jokes?” he asks, eyebrows raised. 

Tony grins. 

“No, I think you’re gonna be a riot. But I’m not calling you James.” 

“Jim, then.” 

“No,” Tony says. “You’re not an old man, you’re still attractive.” 

His eyebrows raise. 

Tony’s face pales. 

“I’m going to. Go. I have math on my pants.” 

Pepper snorts, readjusting her grip on her clipboard. 

“Welcome to NASA, Colonel Rhodes. I can promise you that we don’t usually yell about our lunch location or write on articles of clothing.” 

- 

Surprisingly, James doesn’t see Tony for two weeks. Apparently, he’s been working outside with a couple of the interns to calculate some stuff, rework some of the older ships for experience, and stay out of the way of Pepper, who says that he’s attempting to murder her via headaches to deal with. 

He seems interesting, however. There are sticky notes and papers all over the offices and breakrooms reminding people of what Tony had for breakfast/lunch/dinner, or where the extra coffee supplies are. 

“You provide for him?” he asks Pepper one time. 

“He gets too much into his own head sometimes,” Pepper says. “He focuses too much on a program or an improvement and forgets that he works around other people. You wouldn’t believe how many times we had miniature science experiments based off of lunches that he would leave in the fridge.” 

Rhodes nods. “Well. I’ll look forward to working with him.” 

- 

Tony has been working outside of the office for two reasons: 

1.) To legitimately help the interns. (Ned and Peter are making improvements!) 

2.) James Rhodes is the hottest guy on earth. Maybe in the universe. For real. Seriously. 

He hates Pepper for this. Didn’t even tell Tony what the new astronaut looked like, and then shows up with a god of a man. Rude and unfair. 

And he had to be the dumbass with the equation on his pants. 

He didn’t even have spare pants! He had to stay in his office for the whole day because the equation was actually really important and he needed it. 

“Why didn’t you just transfer it over on paper?” Bruce asks over the phone. Bruce is his friend who works in a technically classified, off-the-books, not-exactly-government-issued building. He’s cool. He also points out the obvious. 

“I’m the biggest idiot on the planet,” Tony groans. “There was just a new guy at work, and he threw me off balance, so-” 

“What’s he look like?” 

“Why, you not crushing on that hot Nordic space dude?” 

“No, still am. But I still remember when Barton came to work for you guys and you didn’t know that his name wasn’t George until about six months into him working there.” 

“In my defense, he works mostly with physical therapy and prep for no gravity,” Tony says. “I work with math and shit.” 

“Still,” Bruce says. “You wouldn’t have pointed him out if you didn’t think he was cute. What’s he like?” 

“I...don’t exactly know.” 

“Oh my god, you’ve been avoiding him?” 

“Oh what, like you didn’t jump out of a window when Thor almost saw you in a tank top?” 

“I have a farmer’s tan! Totally different circumstance!” 

“Is it?” 

“I hate you.” 

“Get to dating Thor and then we’ll talk again. Have fun re-revolutionizing green energy, Dr. Banner.” 

“Look to the stars, Tony.” 

- 

James has to get fitted for his suit. 

He faces Tony, who looks quite different from when he first saw him. His hair is somewhat less messy, he has one of those geeky NASA-logo shirts that they sell at Target, and is wearing khaki pants with about a million different pockets. 

(Something in his mind is whispering that he definitely shouldn’t find him attractive. But he will anyways.) 

“Alright space-cowboy, let’s get your measurements,” Tony says. “You feeling okay today?” 

“Right as rain.” 

“Rain is never good, sunshine,” Tony quips. “Now, about your nickname from me...hm. Rhodey.” 

“How’d you figure that out?” 

“Substituted the ‘s’ for a ‘y’, just simple stuff,” he says with a shrug. “You approve?” 

“I...guess.” 

“Good. Now Rhodey, how are you feeling?” 

“Like sunshine and gumdrops,” he responds sarcastically. 

Tony smiles, and damn if it makes his heart thump a bit. 

“Better answer, soldier. Extend those arms, please.” 

Tony smells really nice. Subtle cologne and clean laundry. Rhodey finds that he likes it. 

“How’ve you been doing, Tony?” 

“Like a gentle breeze on a day that’s seventy-two degrees,” Tony answers. “Work’s been good today. Helen made tacos.” 

“I had some of those, they were pretty good.” 

“Mm,” Tony answers. “Legs a bit more apart, thank you.” 

Rhodey shifts his stance a little bit, carefully not watching Tony bend down just a tad to get the bottom of his foot. 

(But oof, that was hard.) 

Tony comes back up again, looking into Rhodey’s eyes. For a moment, for a brief moment, his breath is taken away. 

“I need to wrap my measuring tape around your waist. You okay with that?” 

“More than.” 

“Don’t get saucy,” Tony winks. “No one likes more than one floozy at the office, and that’s what got me this job anyways.” 

Rhodey lets out a laugh, and Tony grins. 

He likes making him laugh. Likes it more than he should. 

- 

They spend more and more time together. Tony always makes adjustments, Rhodey realizes that Tony doesn’t exactly keep track of when he eats, so they have lunch together. 

They like it a lot. 

On good-weather days, they eat outside on a bench. Tony leans against one said, foot brushing Rhodey’s calf, and Rhodey doesn’t really mind because he’ll lean over occasionally and steal whatever Tony’s eating. 

“This is theft, you know.” 

“You eat like a bird, what do you know about food theft?” 

Tony almost always stays later than anyone else except for nights with Rhodey. 

Once a month, they have dinner together. Rhodey’s new to the area and Tony’s almost never social with anyone, so they’ve been working through a list of the three-star-rated restaurants and seeing which ones they like. 

“It’s kind of like a date,” Pepper says, on her monthly hangout with Tony (and also kind of a clean-up party for his house). 

“Not dates,” Tony says. “Just friends. I’m sure he has his eye on someone in or out of the office.” 

“Like you?” 

“His first impression of me was me writing an equation on my pair of jeans, and then I haven’t exactly upgraded my style since,” Tony deadpans. “He’s seen me in neon orange sweatpants, Pep. You don’t exactly come back from that.” 

“Maybe he likes you for who you are!” 

“God that’s such a bullshit answer,” Tony whines. “You sound like a straight-to-video movie that came out in 1997!” 

“That’s too specific.” 

“And? You still get the point!” 

Pepper flings a pillow his way. 

“Where is your wine?” 

“In the same cabinet you always leave it.” 

“Goody.” 

While Pepper sways to bed, Tony thinks about what she said. 

It could be possible. Tony had never exactly asked him about himself in that capacity, but Rhodey never had an odd reaction to a statement that involved talking about a partner of the same-sex or a one-liner about it. 

Maybe? 

...no. 

Guys like Rhodey deserved someone better than someone who forgot to eat lunch four out of the seven days of the week. (And maybe four was being generous.) 

- 

On the flipside, Rhodey was currently telling his woes to Carol, who was laughing at him. 

“You nerd!” she says. “You like Tony, and you’ve done nothing about it? Have you even told him that you also like guys? Cuffed your pants?” 

“No,” Rhodey says. “I just...why would he like someone like me? I’m...boring.” 

“You’re not boring,” Carol says. 

“Yeah you are!” Maria calls from the kitchen. “You’re very boring, Mr. ‘Only-Drinks-Black-Coffee’!” 

Carol giggles. 

“Maybe Maria has a point. Maybe.” 

Rhodey groans, leaning against the couch. 

“I’m so fucked.” 

“On the contrary-” 

“Oh shut up.” 

- 

Pepper is tired of people’s problems. They’re getting closer and closer to launch, and Clint’s out sick and Helen is being weird again, and Jane is off somewhere to a secret government-but-not-government launch to discuss things with two potential boyfriends. (Maybe boyfriends. Maybe.) 

Tony is getting stressed. 

Usually, he’s the only one who’s fine during a launch. He’s still cracking jokes, making fun events, and calming down people who are a bit too nervous. 

But usually, he’s not as close to the astronaut as this. 

He’s been thinking about the accidents they’ve had over the years. He doesn’t want a repeat. He’s been pulling all-nighters, avoiding sleep, and checking in on Rhodey consistently, to the point where Rhodey has to drag him outside and tell him that things will be fine. 

(In Pepper’s professional opinion, they’d be fine if they just did a goodbye kiss or whatever, but okay.) 

Tony’s getting into his own head. 

So is Rhodey. 

He’s going to be gone for a long time. He’s going to miss the holidays. And Tony won’t be able to talk to him everyday. 

“You should tell him,” Pepper murmurs. “I think you both would benefit from it.” 

“I’m not going to play that unfair card,” Rhodey murmurs back. “I either confess my love and go to a dangerous mission knowing that he loves me back and I said it when I can’t return, or he doesn’t and I just played a guilt-trip card.” 

“It’s not like that.” 

“Isn’t it?” 

Rhodey shakes his head. 

“I...I can’t do that to him. Wouldn’t be right. After the mission.” 

“After, then,” Pepper says. “When you come home.” 

Rhodey grins. 

- 

The day of launch happens far quicker than anyone wants it to, most of all Tony. 

Pepper actually kicked him out of his office, told him to shower, and wear something nice for once. 

“Make sure he knows he has someone to come home to,” Pepper says. “Wear your turtleneck!” 

“It’s only September,” Tony scowls. “And he’s his own person who’s about to launch himself into space.” 

“He will be fine,” Pepper says. “With your research and work, we’ve cut down overlooked mistakes by about forty percent.” 

“Still not half.” 

“Because we’re NASA,” Pepper sniffs. “Our mistakes matter more, so we make less of them.” 

Tony nods. 

-

He ends up almost being late to the launch because of Pepper’s stupid wardrobe advice. 

He’s wearing his nicest pair of pants, a button-up that’s been at the back of his closet for quite some time, and he’s feeling stupid because he had to play AC/DC in the car so he would actually focus on what was going on. 

Now he’s waiting for Rhodey to exit wearing the space suit that he made and to tell everyone that it was an honor and a privilege to be going to space where things happen and Tony can’t be there to help. 

Life sucks. 

But it goes on, and there’s Rhodey in the brilliantly-designed suit, and Tony’s never been more proud and more sad, but he sucks up his tears and walks up anyways. 

“Hey space-cowboy. Ready to explore the frontier?” 

“As ever,” Rhodey says. “You ready to forget to eat your lunch all over again?” 

Tony smiles. 

“You’ll have to check in with me soon, then,” Tony says. “Cut the mission short?” 

Rhodey laughs. 

“Wish I could. But I’ll send you pictures,” he says. “I promise.” 

Tony stops for a moment, smile dropping from his face. 

“Promise me one more thing.” 

“Anything,” Rhodey says. “Anything you want.”  

“Come back safe. Swear to me that you will.” 

Rhodey grins. 

“Safe and sound, honey. Safe and sound.” 

Tony watches him board the ship, wave to the cameras, and wink at him. 

He rolls his eyes, but blows a kiss anyways. 

-

Tony’s a nervous wreck. 

Pepper has decided that Rhodey needs to not go on missions anymore, or at least take Tony with him because he’s annoying. 

“Can you stop crying on the second floor bathroom? It’s getting annoying,” Pepper says. “Clint says he can hear you and feels bad.” 

“Well how are we supposed to know that Rhodey’s okay?!” Tony says. “For all I know, he could be dead!” 

“I really hope you don’t mean that,” comes a voice from behind. 

Tony whips around, seeing Rhodey’s grainy face from the big screen. 

“You bitch!” 

He laughs, and it doesn’t sound real, but he can see him. 

“Hey Tony. You been making sure no one is pissed at you for forgetting your dinner in the fridge?” 

“Well, now I will,” he admits. “I’ve missed you.” 

“I missed you too,” Rhodey smiles. “How’s everything been down there?” 

“Boring,” Tony says. “When are you coming back?” 

“I got about two more months,” Rhodey says. “And then I’ll be back.” 

“Quit hogging all the screen time,” Natasha teases. “You lovebirds can have your moment on earth.” 

Tony blinks. 

“What.” 

But by that time, Natasha and Sam have already been asking a million questions, and Pepper is filling Rhodey in on what he’s missed. 

Tony is still stuck on the whole ‘lovebirds’ thing that Natasha suggested. 

...that couldn’t be possible. And yet if other people saw it that way...

“Tony? Tony?” 

He blinks again, looking back up at the screen. 

Rhodey is smiling at him, that smile that means that he’s happy to see someone. 

“I’ll see you soon, honey.” 

“Right back at you, space-cowboy.” 

The screen goes to black, and Tony smiles a bit. 

“Aw, you nerd,” Clint teases. “So, you gonna ask him out on a date?” 

“Clint, I will cut off your leg,” Tony says cheerily. “I have to go finish some paperwork!” 

Tony’s done all of his paperwork, it’s one of the few times that Pepper’s had it done on time. 

He has to keep doing things to stop thinking about Rhodey. 

-

He writes him letters. He knows that he won’t ever read them, but writing letters helps and sometimes it makes his hands less jittery. 

He’s not ever going to send them. Ever. Letters are cheesy and they feel...personal. 

Pepper tells him that he’s being lame. 

“I’m not being lame!” Tony cries. “I am just. Protecting myself!” 

“You have the reasoning of a Jane Austen love interest,” she says flatly. “I swear if you don’t tell him, then I’ll meddle. And you know how bad I am when I meddle.” 

“You literally have made things so much worse for so many people,” Tony responds. 

“Not worse, per se.” 

“Oh right, how could I forget?” Tony exclaims sarcastically. “You made things the worst.” 

“If we weren’t such good friends, you’d be dead,” Pepper says. 

“Then let’s be worst enemies,” Tony mutters. “You still ready for pizza night?” 

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Pepper says. “Meet at your place at seven, right?” 

“Right.” 

-

Here is what Tony does not know: Rhodey’s coming back down earlier than expected, and Pepper knows this. 

So she’s been busying Tony with work while she’s acclimating Rhodey to life on earth again. 

“Has he really missed me?” Rhodey asks for about the twentieth time in about two hours. 

“Yes,” Pepper says. “I hope these aren’t your talking points for your interviews. If people know you’re this much of a love-struck idiot in real life, they won’t take you seriously.” 

“I just missed him!” 

“Oh sure,” she responds, rolling her eyes. “And I’m sure you’ll tell the news reporters that you missed me with as many stars in your eyes as now. You like him, you absolute geek.” 

“Well, maybe a little,” Rhodey mutters. “But you’re sure he’ll like the surprise?” 

“One hundred percent.” 

-

Tony is having, perhaps, the worst day in his life. Maybe in history, if he’s being quite honest. 

His car, for one thing, won’t start for more than is done-away-with concern, so he has to call Pepper and say that he’s going to be late since he has to fix his own car. 

“Will you get coffee on the way here?” Pepper asks. 

“Your usual order?” 

“Yeah, you know the drill.” 

Then the line is long because some stupid person wanted to complain, and Tony was this close to just threatening to buy the entire store to make it stop, and he cried on his way to work because he saw a duck cross the road and it reminded him of how Rhodey crashed his first car avoiding a duck that was crossing the road. 

Yeah. It’s rough. 

Then he parks in the wrong parking spot because some asshole with a stupid rental car took his usual spot, and then he stepped in a puddle. 

He hates today. 

“Pepper!” he declares as he enters the building. “I wore jeans today, I got your coffee, and I’m already done with the day. I swear to god if one more unexpected thing happens, I’ll just say ‘fuck it’ and go work for the Soviets!” 

“The Soviets aren’t a thing, Tones.” 

He knows that voice. 

He fucking knows that voice. He isn’t supposed to be back from that mission for another month. 

Tony doesn’t turn around. 

“I’m hallucinating. Oh my god, I’m hallucinating.” 

Hands wrap around his neck, hugging him. 

“This feel like a hallucination?” 

(Okay so Tony drops the coffee.) 

Rhodey’s smile is blinding, and he’s...he’s here. Right in front of him with those not-supposed-to-be-that-hot polo shirts, those eyes that he could get lost in, and just...

Well. 

He hugs him and he hugs him tightly. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back so soon?!” 

“Pepper organized it,” Rhodey says, giddy. “Decided it would be a nice surprise for you.” 

Tony looks over at Pepper, who’s trying to hide a grin behind her hands. 

“Pepper if I wasn’t so over-the-moon right now, your heels would be snapped.” 

She shrugs. 

“Worth it. You requested today off, by the way.” She winks as she turns back to her office. 

“Well, what do you say?” Rhodey asked. “Help me get used to having my feet back on the ground?” 

Tony grins. 

“Dinner sounds like a good start. Gotta get you some good earth food, none of that dehydrated crap.” 

“Do you know how long it’s been since I had a decent slice of pizza?” 

Tony grins. 

“I can fix that.” 

[ilguna]

Redamancy - Prologue (f.o)

summary: it’s time to forgive and repair.

warnings; swearing.

wc; 1.6k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

A silent warning, the look that your mother used to give you right after you did something that you weren’t supposed to. Do it again, and you would be sat in the corner or go to bed early so that you wouldn’t cause trouble for the rest of the day. You were a well-behaved kid most days, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t earn the look a couple of times.

After both of your parents died, you stopped getting that look. Reed couldn’t replicate it, Mox didn’t like scaring you into submission. Not to mention, there was no reason to get into trouble. Your days were spent under the grey clouds, always waiting for the one thing that would trip the rain. Getting your brother’s angry could very well be the last straw.

You understood that life was hard enough without your shenanigans. Might as well be compliant so you four could get through it. Later in life, hopefully you’d be able to rekindle that childish behavior. Plus, you learned a new trick when it came to identifying when Reed was at his breaking point.

A monotone voice, cold eyes, stiff behavior. He wouldn’t entertain your jokes, wouldn’t answer your questions unless they were dire. The final giveaway would be Mox in the bedroom and Reed in the kitchen, chopping dinner a little too hard. With how close Reed and Mox are--less than a year apart--they’re practically twins. They hardly ever fight, but when it happens, it’s never pretty.

Walking on eggshells in a house that silent is practically impossible. You used to just pick up whatever you were working on and leave. Go next door to Naida’s house, or literally disappear until it was dinner time. As soon as dinner was over, it was time to shut yourself in your room and not come out until morning.

As you got older, and as money stopped being so tight, nights like that loosened. No more silent evenings, no more tense nights. The last time you ever got the ‘you’re in trouble’ or ‘someone’s in trouble’ treatment was years ago.

However, staring into Elysia’s eyes right now, you’ve discovered that you still get the same fear as you used to. When every little moment where you’ve ever done something wrong, crosses your mind until you land on the worse one. And then you think, “How the fuck did she find out?”

Your tributes don’t notice, completely clueless on the newfound tension that’s entered the room.

“Go shower and get ready for supper.” you tell the tributes, barely taking your eyes from Elysia’s long enough to look at the tributes, “Elysia will get you when it’s time.”

They take off towards their rooms without a word. Neither you or Elysia move from where you stand, as if that movement will set off the other. Once the two of you hear that the doors have shut loudly, she eases. You straighten up a little, fingers crossed that you didn’t just fuck up this mentoring thing.

It’s only your second year. Last year was the test run, the blueprint for how the future years would go. Anchor and Mags made the job out to be hard, but you and Finnick have got it figured out so far. That doesn’t mean that there aren't grey areas still, cause there definitely is.

“What’s the matter?” you ask, eyebrows twitching.

“Finnick came back from the mansion about half an hour ago.” she says, she’s hesitating. You watch her open her mouth, and then close it.

“So? I’m sure that things are fine. I’ve got to talk to him about sponsors anyway.”

She shakes her head, “He looked upset, I’d give him some space until dinner. I think he needs to think.”

“Did he tell you the problem?”

Elysia shakes her head again. You decide to believe her for now, but you’ll definitely be asking Finnick questions after dinner. You and him normally tell each other things, even after bad news. Keeping things from each other, especially during mentoring, isn’t the brightest idea. Last year you found out that communication and determination is what makes a good team. Your tributes made the top eight, which is a huge ass improvement from the past tributes.

You tell Elysia that you’ll be back before supper, you’ve still got stuff to do. It’s done relatively quickly, since you’re only meeting with a tattoo artist to map out where you’ll be getting your Blaire tattoo. It’s a ‘D3’ on the back of your neck, which is going to be pretty hidden by your hair unless you bring it up.

Reed and Mox didn’t like the idea at first, neither did Laurel when you expressed it over the phone. But all three of them came around once they saw that there was a sentimental value behind it. You’ll be getting the tattoo done sometime during the training days when your tributes are in the gymnasium. Finnick’s already agreed to start persuading people to keep an eye on your tributes.

When you come back around, you lay out your evening clothes and take a cold shower to wake yourself up again. Elysia comes and gets you last. You figure this out when you come out and see that everyone is already at the table eating. You take your spot next to Finnick, and watch as he moves his hand to his lap.

You press your lips together, pausing to decide whether or not you’ll be able to handle this. The silent treatment, the obvious avoidance and discomfort. You hated it when your brothers did it, so it’s worse now that your own boyfriend is doing it. For a moment, you’re about to call the tattoo artist and ask to get it over and done with so that you won’t have to come back until late in the night. 

You don’t act on it, only consider. You decide that you have to be more mature than that. You eat dinner with everyone, taking your time so that the tributes will leave before you do. You don’t want to abandon them out here. The moment that they get up to leave, you wrap up your dinner.

Finnick’s out of the room faster than you are. You and Elysia share a look, listen as the door shuts, “No matter what happens, I’ll be out here tomorrow morning, okay?”

She nods, “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” you get up from the table, heading after Finnick.

Without knocking, you open the door to find that the room appears empty. The lights are off, the bed is still messy, the hammock is void. You shut the door anyway, waiting at the doorway for Finnick to come to you. You know he’s in here, you saw him come this way.

Once he moves in the corner, you see him. He’s sat in front of the window, blanket over his shoulders. The moment he sees that it’s you, he turns his back to you again. A frown appears on your face.

“Finnick…” you start, heading towards him.

The city isn’t going to be alive until the night of the interviews. Then, they’ll be celebrating that the Hunger Games is finally here. For now, he stares down at the bare streets of the Capitol. It’s lonely.

Even with you standing over him, he says nothing. You cross your arms, shaking your head, “Finn, talk to me.”

“Go away.” he mutters.

“Tell me what happened. It can’t be that bad. Did President Snow find out about our training or what?”

He’s quiet.

“Is that it?”

“No. Please, go away.”

You sigh through your nose, “No, not until you talk to me. We’re in this together, remember? We said no secrets, especially when we’re in the Capitol. Head in the game, Finnick.”

“You want to know?” Finnick asks, you feel your blood run cold when you hear how pissed he is. You have no time to respond, “I think we should break up.”

You open your mouth, and then close it. Then you open it again, “What?”

“I don’t think we’re good together. I’m breaking up with you.”

“Real funny, Finnick.” you shift on your feet.

He looks over his shoulder, blanket out of his face so that you can actually see. There is no smile, no reassurance that he’s kidding. He’s staring at you, dead in the eye, “It’s not a joke, (Y/n). We’re over.”

You stare at him for a long moment, too long. He turns back around towards the window in that time, “Get out of my room.”

You grit your teeth, hands forming fists. You say nothing when you leave, but the door slam says everything that you’re feeling. It’s loud, it rattles the doorframe and echoes throughout the apartment. 

You hate that your room is next door, and you hate that Finnick can probably hear the moment you start crying. The walls feel paper thin, you feel like you’re drowning. You try to find a place to hide but the only place where Finnick hasn’t touched is inside the closet.

You lay on your back, on the soft carpet floor with the lights off. There’s no way to properly stare at the ceiling, but you try your best anyway. No matter how badly you want to move to the bed and get a real night of sleep, you can’t bring yourself to get up and move.

It was all for nothing.

--

add yourself to the TAGLIST

[jinxquickfoot]

TFATWS Script Notes

Ok, so while I genuinely enjoyed so much of TFATWS, I have...thoughts. And as a few people have asked me about said thoughts, and said thoughts have been living rent free in my head since the show ended, I’ve made this stupidly long post. (For context, my day job is as a script reader and editor, so here are my TFATWS script notes for anyone kind enough/crazy enough to read them.) And...here we go. 

1) More World-Building

This is a common compliant I’ve seen about the show, and it’s a fair one. While we hear a lot about people being displaced after the Blip and the problems that’s causing, we never really get to see it. Firstly, this is such a wasted opportunity to finally show us some of more of the post-Blip chaos, which is a super interesting world that they didn’t really dive into. Secondly, we would identify more with Karli if we saw what and who she was fighting for instead of just being told about it. You could also add in the woman who dies who was so apparently important to Karli and her community but doesn’t get any screen time while she’s alive, which means we feel very distant from Karli with this loss, when we could feel closer to her. This feels like Karli’s Yinsen or Erskine and we didn’t even get to meet her.

While it was nice that we got an entire first episode dedicated to setting up Sam and Bucky’s arc, that did not need an entire episode of screen time - they don’t even interact until episode 2. Make the opening exposition more succinct, and leave room to set up, if not Karli, then at least the world and the stakes that she’s fighting for.

2) Reveal Sharon is The Power Broker in Episode 3

I know a lot of people didn’t like Sharon as the Power Broker at all, so bear with me, because I like the idea behind this at least - that Sharon has become so jaded after the events of Civil War that she’s turned to crime and has given up on the idea of heroes. As Sam is currently trying to figure out his own ideology and what the shield means to him throughout the series, and he’s already got Zemo pushing his thoughts on him, this would be another challenge for Sam to overcome. Maybe that’s what they were going for, but it’s ruined when they don’t reveal why Sharon is doing what she’s doing and instead save it up for a cheap twist in Episode 6. Most of us picked that Sharon was the Power Broker anyway and it had very little effect on the plot to the point where she felt tacked on as a poorly done set-up for Season 2.

So bring it out that info in Episode 3. It would have been a better twist in that episode, and would have made Sam even more unsure of the right path seeing a former ally as now a potential antagonist. You could also have Sam trying and failing to bring Sharon around by promising her a pardon, which she turns down, making him even more unsure of himself. And then, instead of her feeling tacked on in the last episode, she can come through and help them save the day, revealing that Sam did get through to her after all, the way he always does - empathy and understanding.

3) Wrap up John Walker in episode 5

Walker in the sixth episode was just…weird. They clearly set up him as an added obstacle for Sam and Bucky and then he was their…ally? After killing a man and clearly going for a kill on Sam when they were fighting over the shield? And as cool as that shield construction teaser was, it didn’t pay off, and John Walker did not deserve a redemption arc. So cut the shield scene, and cut Walker out of the final sequence, which would leave more room for Sam and Bucky to actually team up in that final battle. For a show that’s meant to be about their relationship, there was a very little payoff of showing them working together in the final takedown of the Flag-Smashers. Then bring in Madame Hydra and US Agent in a post credits scene for a Season 2 set-up.

4) Bring in Torres as the new Falcon in Episode 6

That’s it, that’s the note. This show definitely suffers from trying to set up too much for later seasons or other Marvel properties. If you’re going to set up Torres as the new Falcon in Episode 5, give it to us in Episode 6. Don’t devalue the show we’re watching for the sake of future content.

5) Have the Flagsmashers turn against Karli

This was such an obvious route that they seemed to be going for, so it kind of amazed me that they didn’t do it. Karli starts off as a Robin Hood-style figure who turns villain, and it’s so clear her followers are starting to doubt her - and her followers should be doubting her. One of their number died, Karli’s threatening to kill hostages, it’s so clear they’re no longer the good guys. So have them back down and abandon her when she goes too far, which leads us into -

6) Have Karli sacrifice herself

Zemo shouldn’t have been proven right. Because he was partially right, and Karli was partially right, and this show should have been about Sam trying to work out the balance between them and figure out what he thought was right, which is what the entire Captain America corner of Marvel has been about. Instead of having Karli go totally evil in her final seconds and trying to kill Sam,  give her the clarity that no one is going to listen to her except if she becomes a symbol. Because people listen to and follow symbols - that’s been a major theme in this show already - and that becomes easier to do if they’re dead. Look at Steve Rogers. Her friend even refers to her as the next Captain America - the seed for this has long been planted.

Karli wants to do good but also recognises the harm she causes. Sam tries to talk her down (I’m imagining he’s put down the shield at this point to talk to her, so they can talk as human beings and not symbols), but at the crucial point she raises her gun with the apparent intent to shoot Sam, causing her to get shot instead. Her death still inspires Sam’s speech and gets her cause won, but it feels more earned and tragic because now it really is a sacrifice - one that maybe didn’t need to be made if she and others like her were listened to in the first place. It also comes with the interesting idea that both Karli and Steve have now sacrificed themselves to win a war, while Sam is still living which, as a certain Washington put it: “Dying is easy young man; living is harder.” Sam choosing to live and fight as Captain America despite knowing the hardships that come with separates him from both Steve and Karli, setting him up to be a new kind of Cap.

I’m so attached to this idea that I have three ideas for who could end up killing her

a) Have it be Sharon

In this version, Sharon embodies a more grey area that Sam would struggle with, and killing a young girl to save a friend would definitely fall into said grey area. Also, Sharon still gets her pardon, but for “eliminating the dangerous terrorist Karli Morgenthau” which…you get it.

b) Have it be Torres

So we’ve established Torres is there as the new Falcon, and all he sees is Sam about to die and takes the shot, only to realize what he’s done when it’s too late. This would add to the price of Karli’s death and be something for Torres to wrestle with in later seasons. Bonus points for one of Karli’s last acts being forgiving Torres.

c) Have it be a faceless law enforcer

This one is the most on the nose, but there’s something in the idea of the government thinking Sam still needs ‘backup’ when really they just make things worse, and Karli letting herself get killed by the system in order to improve it. These are just my opinions - doesn’t mean I’m right all or that all of these would work! But I do think it’s fair to say that the show mostly worked, but it wasn’t a home run, and this is just my script editor brain yelling at me about how they might have got there. (P.S. If this is interesting to anyone except me I have a Iron Man 3 and Age of Ultron one ready to go)

[eintsein]

Impostor Syndrome: What it is and how to deal with it

There may be times when you feel like a fraud, like at any moment people will find out that you have no clue what you’re doing and you don’t deserve any of your achievements. You think that you’re unworthy of praise, that you only succeeded out of luck.

This is known as Impostor Syndrome, and around 70% of people have struggled with it in their lives. The problem arises when high achievers fail to internalize their success, i.e. when you attribute your success not to your own abilities but rather to external factors.

Some say that impostor syndrome could be linked to traits like anxiety or neuroticism. Impostor syndrome has also been commonly attributed to behavioral causes like childhood experiences, e.g. being labeled as “the smart one” or “the talented one”.

Another huge factor is how well you think you fit into a certain group, e.g. impostor syndrome is common among people of a racial/ethnic/cultural minority, women in STEM, and international students at US universities.

Dr. Pauline R. Clance was the first to design a scale to measure impostor syndrome based on six factors

The impostor cycle, where someone is given an achievement-related task and they either (a) overprepare or (b) procrastinate

The need to be special/the best

Superhuman characteristics

Fear of failure

Denial of ability and discounting praise

Feeling fear and guilt about success

There are different types of impostors, as categorized by Dr. Valerie Young, an expert on impostor syndrome (note that these categories aren’t mutually exclusive):

I’ve personally dealt with the first two types. I’m fairly certain I can attribute being ‘the genius’ to childhood/adolescent circumstance: I’ve been known as ‘the smart one’ throughout elementary school and high school - every time I made a mistake, it was met with a chorus of ‘wahh jo made a mistake...’ Even last month when I had a mini-reunion with some of my high school friends, one of them said something along the lines of “I like when Jo makes mistakes because it reminds me that she’s human, too.” I can definitely say I’ve overcome that now because, you know, college - everyone’s as smart or smarter than you and works pretty hard.

Being ‘the expert’ is still something I’m still trying to overcome. Last spring when I was applying to internships, I only dared to apply to those where I met 100% of the requirements. I’ve been coding for like 4 years but I constantly think I’m incompetent. It once got up to the point where I literally took 3 similar courses to assure myself that I actually do know how to do full-stack web programming. I still struggle to draw the line between relearning something because I don’t think I really know it, versus learning something for the expansion of knowledge.

How do I deal with it?

Firstly acknowledge that you have impostor-related thoughts Awareness is the first step to changing how you think and how you act.

How does impostor syndrome look like in a school/college setting? Examples include

You refrain from asking questions because you think other students/TAs/the professor will think you’re dumb;

You don’t respond to questions even though you kind of know the answer but you always think your answers aren’t right enough or that they’re simply wrong;

You don’t participate in discussions because you feel that you won’t add any value; or

You prevent yourself from having an opinion because you feel like you have no right to have one.

Reframe your thoughts

Think of their possible effects Do these thoughts help or hinder me? Will anything useful come out of thinking this? Acknowledge that not speaking up may mean slowing your team down or depriving your classmates of potentially valuable insights.

Separate fact from feeling Are they factual or simply a misinterpretation of my environment?

Differentiate feelings of fraudulence from feeling like an outsider Does my work show that I’m incompetent or is the fact that I’m the only female in a team of males/POC in a team of Caucasians make me think I’m inferior?

Stop comparing yourself to other people You might think something along the lines of “there are already so many people who can do what I do but so much better, so what’s the point in even trying?” However, remember that these people were once where you were, and taking even the smallest of actions could help you get to where they are.

Be more forgiving with yourself

Rethink perfection Not everything has to be perfect. Even if you have high standards, not achieving those standards doesn’t make you any less worthy.

Reframe mistakes and identify areas of improvement It’s okay to be wrong or not to know everything. Think of mistakes as learning opportunities and indicators of gaps in your knowledge/understanding of something, as opposed to a negative measure of your self-worth. Being wrong doesn’t mean you’re fake; it just means you have more to learn.

For example, previously I would only answer a question in class if I was at least 90% sure that was the correct answer. That’s a high threshold, and I don’t think it’s very useful for helping me learn and grow. Over the course of a year, I’ve managed to lower that down to I’d say around 60% (50% with coffee lmao).

Collect positive experience

Remember and reflect on praises Think about the efforts you exerted to help you achieve something and the positive responses you garnered when you finally achieved it. Remind yourself of the words of encouragement other people have told you, no matter how small. You could even keep a folder/document/journal to look back on when you feel like a fraud.

Heck, sometimes I feel like my posts aren’t useful or my designs are terrible, but then you guys tell me such kind things and I think, maybe I’m not as bad as I thought.

However, while it’s good to remember the good words people have said, don’t work just for the sake of praise. Focus on the value of the work itself and not the validation that comes from it.

Focus on providing value

Focus on what you can say Instead of thinking about what you don’t know, focus on what you do know and what you can say. Even if what you say isn’t entirely correct or relevant, it’ll get others around you thinking.

Remind yourself that holding back is like robbing the world of your ideas There’s always some value in your words, even if you don’t initially think so. How that value affects the world or other people may differ. For example, when you put forward an idea/thought in a discussion, it could be that

If there were parts that were incorrect, other people might have had the same misconception and are more than happy for the clarification;

Again, if there were parts that weren’t correct, they might not have had the same misconception but now realize that there is a way in which the subject can be misinterpreted, thus allowing them to have a more comprehensive understanding of the subject; and/or

It’ll stimulate further thinking and discussion and raise more questions, especially if other people wouldn’t normally think what you just thought. Then other people could bounce off your idea and form an equally great one.

Take action You won’t feel as much of a fraud if you’re doing something that brings you a little closer to achieving your goals or that adds value to your work.

However, be careful not to overwork yourself. Every time you start doing something, pause and think: is this really important to my progress or am I just trying to prove myself?

Instead of working on too many things, do something outside your comfort zone each day no matter how small. Once you do this, focus on quality (your growth) instead of quantity (the number of things you do).

Also, for those of you who fall into the ‘expert’ category, this also means practicing just-in-time learning, i.e. learning things when you need it, not just to comfort yourself.

I hope that was helpful, and please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions/comments/suggestions :)

[traumatized-motherfuckers]

CPTSD and Core Beliefs (Your lens, built on traumatic fuckery)

Alright, so you know I have this Patreon thing that I try to make worth your while in return for your economical help. One of the benefits is the good ole’ monthly ask me anything. And I love it. Because the questions are great. And they push me to dig into topics that I was procrastinating. This month’s AMA is a particularly good one! A question that needs to be addressed, anyways. So it’s perfect. Let’s aim for two birds with one stone.

Our good friend Cassie - you know her by now - asks, how do you identify core beliefs and start to change them? Which is a very simple and very complicated question.

  So, to take a step backwards, what she talkin’ bout?

  Well, one of the internal issues that complex trauma sufferers have to rectify is their belief system. Between our core beliefs and our inner critic, we have a lot going on in between our ears to keep us downtrodden and destitute.

  We’re talking about what I call Fucked Up Core Beliefs here… which are your trauma-born core beliefs. Again, called FUCBs because when you discover them, you’ll likely whisper to yourself, “wow, that’s actually really fucked up.” These sentiments are like the lenses that you surgically stitched onto your face several decades ago in response to your upbringing, as your little mammal brain tried to understand its place in the global hierarchy and how to be chill about it.

 The framework you built from your early development and beyond, that all information still filters through today - both on the way in and on the way out of your head. The words that stream through your brain consciously or subconsciously to shape the ways you appraise… everything. Yourself, your life, your past, your future, other people, and everything that happens in between.

  So, essentially, talking about the ways you interpret your existence and the collected pool of knowledge from where you make decisions, and therefore the ways you act. If this is starting to sound like a big deal - it is!

But it don’t come with a big flashing sign. The Challenge

These beliefs are challenging to figure out because:

  One, they were adapted early on in your life in an effort to understand the circumstances around you or directly downloaded from the sentiments expressed in your environment. When you were first establishing your perspective of the universe and trying to figure out how to navigate it based on the clues presented.

  Plus, the harder part is… because of the early adoption, you’ve already accepted the idea for so long that it doesn’t even seem like a “belief” to you - you’re not choosing it and it’s probably not apparent to you - it’s just the secret narrative running in your head that corrupts all later data. Not cognitive thoughts that you’re directing on purpose. You probably don’t have recollections of the time before you believed such and such to question what you believe - these ideas are solidified in your head with as much certainty as the alphabet.

  So, you might believe you’re a worthless piece of shit as a function of the neglect and abuse you experienced, a way to explain the mistreatment to yourself from a young age… OR you might believe you’re a worthless piece of shit because mom, dad, sister, and society directly told you so. But either way, many years down the line, it’s difficult to pinpoint either of these originating factors as memories fade or to even question the validity of the thought… or to even notice the thought.

  Two, if your family of origin was always repeating the same sort of thoughts and you later associate with people who make you comfortable to be around (i.e. probably have some similar views of the world), you have nothing to compare your beliefs to.

  Your environment teaches you what’s normal. There’s no reference for what is and isn’t healthy, fair, or functional if everyone is drinking the same kool aid. And, unfortunately, in traumatic environments, folks seem to congregate around the fucked up beliefs to protect them with a mutual unspoken agreement. Accept the accepted narrative of the group or be outcast. The same story is replayed on repeat from all ends of your social circle, so why would you even begin to think there’s another way to look at things?

So, if mom, dad, cousin, uncle, grandma, neighbor, peer, teacher, and media are all telling you the same reality exists, how would you ever even begin to have the wherewithal to think otherwise? The thought probably never crosses your mind. The sky is blue, grass is green, and the world is a miserable place where everyone is trying to take advantage of you.

  Three, again, I cannot over-express how insidious, subtle, and generalized these things can be. Fucked up core beliefs affect how you see and process everything. Again, like lenses or an instagram filter permanently applied to your corneas. So, there’s not necessarily one life-effect linked to one-FUCB for easy detection or one event that will cause a clear-as-day defined belief to come shooting to the top of the pile. More like, you very slowly realize you have an unhealthy view or twenty about yourself and the world that have sorrrrrtof impacted every single area of your life now that you spend years considering it.

  Thinking you’re a worthless piece of shit, for instance, has led to you taking low-level jobs with chaotic schedules, living with an abusive partner, and settling for living in the same environment with the same behavioral patterns that you’ve known your entire life. It’s also allowed you to give up exercise, eating right, staying sober, and trying to make any life-improvements. Why bother spit polishing shit? And here you are, wondering why you feel awful about yourself and don’t enjoy anything you’ve created in your life.

  But. It’s not that simple to sort out, or else we would have done it already. You probably haven’t ever purposely considered how commonly this impression is operating below the surface of your actions. Realizing that the belief “I’m a worthless piece of shit who deserves nothing” and trying to change it would be like pulling out the wrong Janga block - everything it has been supporting suddenly comes tumbling down and you’re left with a real fucking mess to rebuild from the bottom up. And, to top it all off, no one ever even taught you how to create a sturdier structure in the first place.

  Fourthly, from some of my own learnings, I’ve come to the conclusion that the core belief, itself, doesn’t even have to present itself at any point to be making a difference in your life. They are so deeply ingrained in my brain that my thought center just naturally uses them as a jumping off point, without even directly touching on the words that might ping my brain as unusual. Just like we can subtly detect risks in our environment that set off our warning bells without ever creating a conscious thought to go with the arousal, I feel like I can apply a core belief to my world without ever noticing the accompanying stream of consciousness.

Sometimes I feel like fucked up core beliefs have become so accepted over time that they’re feelings more than cognitions. As if they’ve become so reflexive through repetition that you have muscle memory - an intuitive response that bypasses your logical brain recognition threshold and jumpstarts shittily-related thoughts… and those will actually register on your thinking scale. But at that point, you accept the novel-feeling thought and never note that it was actually spawned by a very old recording.

  Which is to say, you might have to work on identifying your fucked up core feelings before you can get to the thought deeply buried underneath. Taking a meta break from the episode to tell you, I’ve never thought about that so thoroughly before. But Fucked Up Core Feelings definitely sounds like a solid description of my world. I guess we also have FUCFs to go with our FUCBs from now on. Anyways.

  With all of this in mind, I’m sure you can start to see why these fucked up core beliefs are a big problem. Hell, if you’ve listened to this podcast for more than a few episodes, you’ve definitely heard that I’m still challenged by my own. Like, when I say that I’m freaking out because no one should listen to me and I feel like an imposter - I believe that I’m not good enough to share information with people. That I’m too flawed to even express myself. This is a problem for, say, podcasting. Or, living. And I have to fight it all the time.

  Long story short.

  Your core beliefs are sneaky, they can be comprehensive, and they are hardwired into your brain as your default system for analyzing everything on the planet. Again, kind of like looking for goggles strapped to your face, but in reality you had lasik surgery about 30 years ago.

  So, if you aren’t constantly on the lookout for core beliefs and actively working against your pre-programmed ways of assessing yourself and the world around you… they will get out of control, cause a fair amount of avoidance and defeat, and set you back several steps in your mental health management… plus, potentially your entire life, if you make any big decisions out of this unhealthy mindset. Which you will, because that’s how the brain works. I’m almost certain that you have some experience with this already.

If you ever think things like: The world is a dangerous placePeople are cruelI’m not good enough I’m not smart enoughI’m not enoughI’m brokenOther people don’t like meThere’s something wrong with my personalityI’m not allowed to… (live like others, have nice things, be happy)I’m not one of those people who… (has money, has good luck, gets what they want)Shit is just harder for meNothing ever works outLife is always hardI can’t.

Then you’ve had some fucked up core beliefs floating around in your head.

 These are some super broad ones for the sake of demonstration, so don’t disregard highly specific beliefs that might relate to your particular circumstances or upbringing.

  If you haven’t ever noticed yourself thinking these big shitty picture things… check again in all your deepest nooks and crannies. I think a lot of us TMFRs operate from some version of the narratives above - plus, much worse. Like I keep saying, these beliefs might not be in your conscious thoughts, so much as they’re directing the show from behind the curtain.

How do we pull it back? Discover the beliefs ........

Keep reading or listen up at t-mfrs.com

https://www.t-mfrs.com/podcast/episode/532f2b1c/core-beliefs

[thebittyrecoveryjournals]

I have a few bitties in my home and they're my family, but I recently took in a new one (a Sansy) after a lady at the local post office decided she no longer wanted him. Even though I always make sure he knows he's loved like the others, he has serious separation anxiety and I can barely have a bath without him having a panic attack if I take too long. I love the little guy, and my other three try their best to keep him calm, but it hurts me to see him like this. What can I do to help him?

Hm, he’s a Sansy? A lot of anxiety of any kind is unusual for that type; they’re usually very chill and unbothered.

So, you said this is pretty recent, right? A few weeks, a couple months? It’s possible this is a temporary thing, but separation anxiety in adults can point to an anxiety disorder.

If this goes on for more than six months, I’d suggest making an appointment with a psychologist to see if that might be a possibility. Anxiety disorders going untreated will only result in more and more anxiety, so, if he doesn’t seem to be doing better after the six-month mark, it might be something deeper.

(Obviously I’m always here to make appointments with, but I know there are other psychologists in the area who aren’t Bitty-specific! So if you do need to make an appointment, you can schedule one with me or I can give you a reference to someone else.)

However, separation anxiety in adopted Bitties specifically might be a temporary issue because of new surroundings. Who knows how long his old owner had him? He’s probably used to his old home and is clinging to you because his surroundings now are unfamiliar.

So, for temporary things to try until he feels more comfortable in his new home, I do have a few suggestions!

Sit him down and gently talk to him about the anxiety. Don’t push, but ask if there’s anything in particular that he’s anxious about. (Common scenarios that people with separation anxiety think of include being afraid that he might get hurt, that you might get hurt, etc. anytime you’re away from each other.) Identifying those things might help him understand why he’s getting anxious, and if he understands why, sometimes it’s easier to talk him down by reminders that it’s anxiety, those things aren’t likely to happen.

Relaxation techniques especially if the anxiety involves physical feelings like heart beating faster, erratic breathing, shaking, etc. Some techniques I think might help him are breathing exercises, counting, and interrupting the anxious thoughts. When either of you notice him starting to become anxious, get him to a quiet room to help him practice these things. Breathing exercises are particularly effective when one places a hand on the chest and one on the stomach, takes a slow, regular breath, and watches the way their hands move on their chest and stomach as they breathe. Often focusing on breathing like this can help lessen the physical feelings of anxiety, which can be a huge help. Counting is pretty much what it sounds like ― when the anxiety spikes, have him count out loud to 10. If the anxiety is still there, try another set and have him count to 20. Counting is good because it’ll give him something to focus on other than the anxiety, and it’s a great technique when you’re out and about since it’s easier to do than some of the others. Interrupting the anxious thoughts works in a similar way, to break the train of thought the anxiety is riding on. There are a lot of different ways to do this; breaking out into a silly song or telling jokes, focusing on a better thought (like something he’s looking forward to later or a nice memory), or reading a book.

Keep a routine if you’re able to, or as much of one as you can. Waking up, having meals, and doing outings at the same time every day is one of the best ways to help him feel secure. Once he settles into a routine, it becomes familiar, and he’ll start to relax and feel more comfortable. It also helps to show him that you might leave at a certain time, but you also come back at a certain time. That can be a comforting reminder that might help lessen his anxiety.

Guided exposure and facing the fear. Whatever he tells you he’s afraid will happen is probably not going to happen, but anxiety isn’t logical. So it usually helps quite a bit to actually ‘prove’ that what he fears isn’t going to happen. Now, you definitely don’t want to do this without warning, but after talking to him and reassuring him that you won’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do, exposure is an incredibly effective way to help gradually lessen the anxiety. Start with little steps, like walking away to the other side of the room and staying there for a few minutes. He’s almost certainly going to experience anxiety, and the idea is for him to ‘sit with’ those distressing feelings and ride them out. Once the anxiety starts to lessen and he feels almost ‘bored’ by it, he can start to understand that his fear isn’t going to come true, because it didn’t happen during the exposure. You can slowly escalate the steps, like going into a different room for a few minutes, leaving the house for a few minutes, etc. etc., until he gets to the point that he can successfully manage his anxiety whenever you’re out of sight.

Imagining exercises, if he’s not quite ready for the exposure. This is similar to the exposure, but instead of actually exposing him to your leaving, you’ll help him through imagining it. As if he’s watching a movie that involves whatever makes him anxious, visualizing it in his mind is sometimes the first step before actual exposure. It’s not a real situation, but it still allows him to experience the anxiety and stay with it until it starts to come down.

Teach your other Bitties some of these techniques, for sure, if they’re willing to learn! Having someone else around who can help, whenever you’re not there, is often a big comfort. He might think you’re the only one who can help him because the separation anxiety is centered around the two of you, but if one of the other Bitties can utilize the techniques you’re using with him, he might feel better about you not being there, because he’s still with someone ‘safe’.

Make use of praise when he successfully gets through an anxious situation! You can praise him, or he can actually give himself some praise. Things along the lines of “I’m proud of you for getting through that” from you or telling himself “I was brave for doing that and I should be proud of myself” or getting a special treat after doing something that made him anxious are powerful tools. Praise often makes people happy and reinforces that whatever they did was positive, motivating them to do it more. Lots of cuddles after a stressful situation also doesn’t hurt!

Being patient even as you try these things is also key. This kind of stuff surrounding lessening his anxiety is a skill, and it takes practice. If the two of you don’t practice it whenever the anxiety crops up, even once he starts to feel better, it’s a ‘use it or lose it’ kind of deal.

You should start to see improvement in a month or two, if this is a temporary situation! If he doesn’t seem to improve in six months, definitely make a psych appointment; separation anxiety after the six-month mark can be indicative of a bigger anxiety disorder, and often medications are the best way to get those under control initially.

Hope this helps! Let me know how things work out. 💚

[quicksilversquared]

Scream to the Trees

Marinette is tired of pushing her emotions to the side all of the time. It's important not to get akumatized since she's Ladybug, but it's getting harder and harder to shove her feelings back in the closet and lock them away. It's only safe to let her emotions out when she's outside of Paris, but that's not possible- or is it?

After all, the Horse Miraculous exists.

(written post-Startrain and pre-Chat Blanc/finale, so not canon with those #whoops)

links in the reblog

Marinette was starting to struggle.

Most of the time, she liked being Ladybug. Sure, there were things that she could do without- having her life interrupted because of akuma attacks and having to scramble to make up work and try to explain to her parents and teachers and friends why she hadn't been where she was supposed to be was a huge pain for sure- but Marinette had to acknowledge that her life had improved since becoming Ladybug. She was more confident now, braver, more comfortable with herself and with grabbing opportunities as they came. Marinette had noticed herself becoming a lot more athletic since becoming Ladybug, too, and that was plenty appreciated, too.

But Ladybug came with a lot of responsibilities and a lot of pressure. There was the pressure to save the day during every akuma attack, ramped up even more when Chat Noir was taken out or was late to a battle. She had to be a superhero, and a public figure, and a role model. There were interviews and public events that she was expected to do, and it was important to seem put-together and on top of things at all times, not letting on any weaknesses. Ladybug had to not let on any personal information and do her best to debunk or mislead anyone who got too close to the truth. She had to not lose her temper during interviews- it didn't reflect well on her- and do her best to not upset anyone during the interviews. Civilians always expected her and Chat Noir to save them even when they completely failed to evacuate an area just because they wanted to see the akuma and the superheroes, even though both of them had mentioned multiple times during interviews that the continued presence of civilians was both distracting and dangerous.

And being Ladybug also meant that Marinette could not, under any circumstances, get akumatized.

Which- well, it didn't sound like getting akumatized would be pleasant, so it wasn't as though Marinette would want to get akumatized, even if she weren't Ladybug. The gap in akumatized people's memories, the guilt, the confusion- none of it sounded like fun. But people got akumatized because they had been able to react to something. They were allowed to feel upset, to feel mad, to feel betrayed or embarrassed or disappointed. Sure, it would be better to be able to feel without being turned into a raging monster- and most of the time people could, Hawkmoth didn't go for every upset person in Paris- but Marinette couldn't risk it herself. She had to push her emotions down, lock them away, and keep going, as though everything was just fine, even when it wasn't.

Forcing her emotions away was starting to get really, really old. It was also getting harder and harder to do with every passing day, and there had been some close calls recently. Some really close calls. And they had been justified, but she was Ladybug, and unlike everyone else in the city, Ladybug could not get herself akumatized without dire consequences.

So naturally, Marinette sought out Master Fu for advice, taking the trek across the city to his new apartment.

"I see," Master Fu murmured thoughtfully once Marinette had told him everything, doing her best to battle down her frustration as she recounted the number of times that she had had to force her emotions away so that she wouldn't be a potential target for akumatization. "Controlling one's emotions is an important skill and one that some people could certainly stand to improve on, but emotions are human and it is not healthy to never allow yourself to feel. Bottling it all up will only result in explosive results later, but while you're in the city, it would be too dangerous to let yourself give in to emotion."

Marinette nodded, pushing down her frustration even more. She knew this already and while it was nice to get reassured that getting upset wasn't a character fault and it wasn't a good idea to always be repressing, she wanted ideas.

Support was helpful, but she needed a solution.

"So what should I do, take a train out of Paris every time I get really upset about something so I can yell at some trees?" Marinette asked despite herself, the sarcastic edge slipping in despite herself. "That doesn't seem very practical."

Thankfully, Master Fu didn't appear upset, instead giving her a small smile. "No, not very. But you have just given me an idea." Pushing himself to his feet, Master Fu headed over to his gramophone and opened it, pulling out the Miraculous Box. "I would recommend a multipronged approached, actually. First of all, identify the source of discontent and address it so that it cannot continue to cause you harm. What about the situation is upsetting you? Otherwise, all other solutions will only help momentarily."

Marinette nodded, but she couldn't help but be a bit doubtful about that. She had been trying to address the whole Lila problem, but it hadn't done anything but backfire on her. No one would listen to her when she called out the really obvious discrepancies in Lila's stories, Alya only called her jealous, and Lila upped her (not-very-subtle) assault on Marinette's character. And sitting back- well, at this point it wasn't really an option, because Lila was the kind of person to take advantage of any opening or weakness and run with it.

"I recognize that that can be hard and in the heat of the moment, it can be almost impossible to come up with a solution," Master Fu continued. He lifted up the box and carried it over to Marinette, setting it down on the floor before sitting back down on his pillow and pressing the buttons to open the Miraculous Box. "So I would like to propose an idea that incorporates your suggestion. Perhaps taking a train wouldn't be practical, given the amount of time that it would take for you to get safely out of Hawkmoth's range, but something a bit more instantaneous might be more fitting."

Marinette gasped in realization as her mentor reached for one particular drawer. "The Horse Miraculous! Of course! I can just make a portal out to the countryside to vent, then come back when it's safe. But..." She frowned, determined to not let herself get carried away too soon. "I would still have to get away from wherever I was and come over here, and I don't know how practical that would be, either."

Master Fu smiled at her, removing the Horse Miraculous from its drawer. "You misunderstand me, Marinette. I have let you borrow the Horse before in case you needed it, and I am letting you borrow it again. All you will need to do is find a private place in which you can use Voyage and know where you want to go. That, and ensure that you have enough food to recharge Kaalki prior to vanishing off to the countryside. It would not do for Ladybug to get stuck in the countryside, several hours away from Paris."

Marinette let herself feel the first tendrils of hope. With that new information... "This could help during battles, too! I always worry about Hawkmoth trying to track me back to your apartment when I have to come get more Miraculous, but if I have Kaalki- I can just make a portal and hop through!"

Her mentor looked impressed. "I had not thought of that, but you are most correct! Having you holding on to the Horse will be exceedingly helpful in a variety of ways, then."

"I'll just have to be really, really careful with my bag now," Marinette added, a small frown flashing across her face. "I've had a lock on it ever since Lila decided to plant an answer key for a test in it- same with my locker- but I don't want to accidentally leave my bag open one day and have her try to steal the Miraculous." The thought of Lila with a Miraculous, and in particular one that would give her unhindered access to any locations she could think of, was terrifying. "Maybe a combination box would work, so I don't have to carry a key."

"It is unfortunate that your classroom isn't secure enough for the Miraculous to be fine in your bag, but perhaps the extra security measures are for the better," Master Fu agreed. "You don't want anyone to see the Miraculous box by accident and put two and two together. And it would be easier than ever for someone to do, with the Ladyblogger's post about the Miraculous crest."

Marinette winced at that. Somehow- even though Alya had managed to make the connection between the designs on a variety of different historical objects, even though Alya prided herself on being super up-to-date on all things Miraculous- Alya had not managed to figure out the connection between her Ladyblog post exposé and the akumatized sentimonster that had appeared less than 24 hours later, destroying the rock sculpture that had only just appeared at the Louvre.

Or maybe she had figured out the connection and had just refrained from telling Marinette, considering how much pushback she had gotten from Marinette about the whole trying to figure out Ladybug's identity thing.

(Marinette didn't believe for a second that Alya had actually stopped trying to figure Ladybug's identity out. Maybe she wasn't being as public about it anymore, but Alya was definitely still super-curious and not so easily dissuaded. Next time Rena Rouge came out, Ladybug was going to have to drop some seriously misleading "accidental clues" about her identity.)

"I do not blame you," Master Fu assured Marinette. He pressed the box with the Horse Miraculous in it into Marinette's hand. "Keep it safe, but do not be afraid to use it whenever you feel the need. You need to be able to get your feelings out- to actually be able to express your feelings when you become upset- and this should help. And Tikki, make sure that Marinette actually uses the Miraculous," Master Fu added to her kwami. "We want to encourage healthy expression of emotions, we just want to ensure that it's done safely."

Tikki nodded, ducking her head. "Of course, Master Fu."

"Come to me if you need anything more," Master Fu told Marinette as she tucked the Miraculous carefully away in her bag, locking it after the box was safely inside. "And one more thing- be sure to have your Akuma Alerts on whenever you leave the city. Tikki may be able to provide you with something for your cell phone so that no matter where you go, you'll still be able to get service."

"Of course, Master."

"Good." Master Fu smiled at her. "I hope it helps, Marinette."

"I'm sure it will," Marinette assured him. She was already feeling more relaxed, knowing that she could leave the city for a bit instead of having to repress her emotions all the time. "Thank you."

  It only took three days before Marinette had to use the Horse Miraculous for the first time. Chloe's birthday had come and gone over the weekend, it seemed, and her mother had gone back to New York only a couple days prior. Because Chloe was Chloe, she was determined to take it out on her classmates. And in particular, Marinette.

Marinette was very, very glad that she now had locks on both her school bag and her locker. Maybe she had to deal with snide comments from Lila and exasperated looks from Alya, but there was very little doubt in her mind that, had Chloe been able to get at her things, something would have been destroyed.

Again.

As it was, Chloe had been trying to push Marinette around and get a rise out of her, and Marinette had pushed right back. And then once again, Ms. Bustier pulled Marinette, not Chloe, out of the classroom to talk to her.

And once again, Marinette's frustration was rising. Giving Chloe good role models wasn't helping, and it never would. Chloe had had examples of how to behave properly for years, with other classmates and teachers and her butler and the other hotel staff, but she simply didn't want to. Why would she, when she got rewarded for being the city's biggest brat? And why should the teachers be expecting Marinette to be that role model for Chloe, when Chloe had bullied Marinette for years? Why did they want her to just lie down and take the abuse, as though that would make things better?

So for once, Marinette didn't censor herself. She didn't bite back her thoughts, pushing them down and away like she usually did. The only way that Chloe was going to stop bullying was if an adult actually stood up to her for once, instead of trying to smooth everything over.

And then, before Ms. Bustier could try to argue or reason with her, Marinette turned and stalked off to the bathrooms. Maybe this wasn't a great time to take a trip out to the countryside- after all, Marinette had already missed a fair bit of class thanks to akuma attacks- but akumas didn't care about when it would be a convenient time for them to show up. She was upset now, and so she would have to miss one more class.

"Really, Chloe just needs to be sent out of Paris!" Tikki exclaimed, sticking her head out of Marinette's bag as she dashed for the bathroom. "She keeps doing stuff like this and upsetting people, and everyone is too worried about upsetting her to do anything about it!"

"You don't have to tell me that," Marinette said grimly, heading into the girl's bathroom and making sure it was empty with a quick glance before dashing for a stall, hands already fumbling for the lock on her bag. "Unfortunately, I don't think that Chloe's father would go for that idea. Kaalki, let's gallop! Voyage!"

Marinette had done her research beforehand and had picked out several possible places in France that she could go for her out-of-Paris relaxation. Her criteria were rather simple, really, and all in the name of safety, comfort, and maximum benefits.

Marinette's retreats had to be somewhere out of the way, where no one could see the portal or see her come through it and then detransform. They had to be somewhere with decent weather, so that she wouldn't spend the entire time shivering and then end up returning to Paris too soon. And to be most effective, they had to be somewhere where Marinette could relax, meaning no noisy industrial sites or mining areas or train stations nearby.

Thankfully, the Horse's power didn't have limits on distance. That meant that Marinette could completely bypass the urban sprawl around Paris to get to green countryside and soaring mountains. So she did.

And once she popped through the portal and it snapped shut behind her, Marinette let loose with a frustrated yell that echoed off of the trees, letting out all of the anger and annoyance and why won't the teachers do ANYTHING? that had built up.

It was a lot. And as soon as it was out, Marinette practically slumped to the ground, her throat already a little sore. There had been a lot of pressure built up, and getting it out...

She hadn't realized how wound up she had been. Weeks and weeks and months of repressed emotions and suppressed reactions and trying to walk the thin line between not causing unnecessary conflict while also trying to stand up against injustice.

Trying, of course, being the operative word. It was hard for her to actually have any sort of lasting impact when the teachers and principal and sometimes even her other classmates were so focused on smoothing things over that they completely undermined her.

It. Was. Maddening.

So what if Chloe got upset and got akumatized? How was that any worse than letting Chloe upset others, over and over again? She had caused more akumas than Marinette cared to count, and pretty much every last one of them had been because Chloe had deliberately upset the person. Accidental akumatizations from Chloe- if any existed- were far and few between, and the deliberate ones had just gotten more frequent after Queen Bee started showing up.

Ladybug had allowed Chloe to keep using her Miraculous in the hopes that having to deal with some akumas would make the bully think twice about being cruel to others. Instead, she seemed to think that if she made enough akumas, she would get to come out more often.

Maybe it would be a pain to have to find and train in another person, but things had gotten to the point where she didn't want her superhero team at all associated with Chloe. Marinette didn't want Paris thinking that she was excusing Chloe's behavior, and frankly, having to fight alongside her longtime bully could be emotionally exhausting sometimes.

"That was quite the scream!" Tikki commented as Marinette released her transformation, letting both kwamis out into the cool forest air. "Has it helped?"

"I feel better, yeah," Marinette admitted, settling herself a bit more comfortably on the ground. There was still a rock digging into her leg. "But yelling at the trees doesn't solve anything. I mean, it felt good to be able to actually do, but it's not going to change Ms. Bustier's mind about actually punishing Chloe when she misbehaves." She scowled, nails digging into her hands as the reminder of the injustice came back. "All she's going to do is tell me to do better! Aren't I already trying enough? Doesn't anyone else in the class have any responsibility, or is it all magically supposed to fall on me?"

"It does seem rather unfair," Tikki agreed, but it fell on deaf ears. Marinette was continuing her rant, now on her feet and pacing.

So Tikki sat back and waited, absentmindedly weaving herself and Kaalki flower crowns to wear. There were plenty of options to choose from in the field, and it was so relaxing but also allowed Tikki to keep an eye on her Chosen, who seemed content to rant to the trees about everything she had been keeping trapped inside so that she wouldn't get akumatized.

It was a lot. Next to Tikki, Kaalki listened, apparently enthralled by the gossip.

"Your teachers do not seem to be interested in creating an environment that would reduce the number of akumas created," Kaalki commented when Marinette slowed, apparently running out of things to say. "Which is unusual, considering that akuma battles can be quite disruptive and dangerous. One would think that the possibility of being akumatized would be extra incentive to really crack down on bullying." She snorted, tossing her mane. "Bullying is not fabulous."

"Tell that to Chloe." Marinette let out a long sigh, scowling at the sky as she fiercely wiped away a stray tear that had started making its way down her cheek. "She seems to think that every time she makes someone cry, it's an achievement. That it's something to laugh about."

Tikki exchanged a look with Kaalki. She was a little shaken, really. Marinette had been upset before, but she had never been allowed to let herself really feel that emotion all that deeply before, not while Tikki had known her. The closest she had seen was during their close calls with akumas, but that- it wasn't anywhere near the level of distress and frustration that Marinette was at now.

"And Master Fu said that I should 'identify the source of the distress and address it', but it's not like I haven't tried!" Marinette continued, another tear streaking down her cheek. "I've pushed back against Chloe, but then I don't get any adult support when she retaliates! Instead, if the adults do anything, it's to scold me for not 'being the bigger person' and 'leading by example'! What else am I supposed to do? It's not like not fighting back will make it any better!"

"The teachers need to improve," Tikki agreed. "You've said before that they seem to favor Chloe, and I can see where you're coming from with that now. Ms. Bustier is so focused on helping Chloe that she's lost sight of all of her other students."

Marinette nodded. The tears were falling freely now, and while Tikki would normally be alarmed, they were well out of Hawkmoth's range and she remembered once hearing Nooroo talking about how therapeutic and relieving it could be to have a good cry. "Unless whatever problem there is is being caused by someone other than Chloe, and even then she just does the dumb hug-and-make-up approach."

"If she tries to do that with you and Lila, I hope you do the same thing that you did today," Tikki told Marinette. She had seen Lila over the past few weeks, and Tikki wouldn't deny that she was a bit alarmed. If Lila got close to Marinette, she would no doubt whisper threats or try to plant something on Marinette to get her in trouble. "Just tell her no and walk away. I know it's hard to stand up to adults, especially ones who are supposed to be protecting you, but if Ms. Bustier gets pushback from her best student, maybe she'll be forced to reflect on if those techniques are actually accomplishing what she wants them to."

"I don't want to have to! I just want to go to school, learn, and hang out with my friends, not have to- to wage a battle every time I leave the house!" Marinette's voice was turning more and more upset. "Why can't I get that? Why do I have to be always fighting in my civilian form, too? Aren't akumas enough?"

Tikki couldn't answer that. It was awful and unfair and the burden for keeping Chloe and Lila under control shouldn't fall on Marinette as much as it did, but she didn't want to say anything and give Marinette false hope.

Hopefully things would change soon and for the better, but why would they? Marinette had pushed back and complained before, abet not to the same extent, and only had been ignored or told that she had to do better. Maybe her going missing for- well, however long it would be- would shake Ms. Bustier enough to take Marinette's complaints seriously, but Tikki wasn't going to count on it. Not when nothing had changed when Chloe had gotten probably half of the class akumatized before.

An hour had passed by the time Marinette had gotten her emotions out and calmed down again enough for her to feel safe returning to Paris. That meant that school had let out for lunch by that time, so Marinette just portal-ed herself into a closet in the library before heading straight home.

She was met by a disapproving mom at the bakery's front counter. Apparently Ms. Bustier had called the bakery to report Marinette for talking back and then vanishing for an hour. In her newly relaxed state, though, Marinette was able to clearly tell her mom what had happened- what Chloe had done, what Marinette had said, Ms. Bustier's response, and Marinette's response to that and her decision to take some time to herself to calm down so that she wouldn't get akumatized.

(She didn't tell her mom that she had magically left the city, though. That would have been hard to explain.)

Needless to say, Mrs. Cheng was still ticked, but this time her ire was aimed at Ms. Bustier.

"If you can tell your dad to send someone out to man the counter for ten minutes, I think I'd like to call your teacher back and have some words with her," Mrs. Cheng told Marinette, her jaw tense. "I understand it must be intimidating to have the mayor's daughter in her class, but that's no excuse to not at least try to correct Chloe's behavior and to punish others instead. I had no idea that it had gotten so bad, but if that's the response that Chloe gets from the teachers when she acts up, it's shouldn't be a surprise that she's gotten worse." She huffed. "And it's not like her father is the president. Mayors hardly have that much power over the school system."

"Has your mom gone over to the school to talk to them before?" Tikki asked as Marinette practically skipped up the stairs to make her lunch. "It sounded like she really meant business."

Marinette shook her head. "No. I think they figured that the teachers must be giving out punishments behind the scenes, instead of interrupting class. After all, when they were growing up, their teachers would punish the bullies and support the bullied, not- not the other way around."

"And now they're really realizing what's truly going on," Tikki finished. She landed on the counter, watching Marinette as she started pulling out the ingredients for a toasted sandwich. "And I... Marinette, I've come to the realization that I have behaved somewhat poorly myself recently."

Marinette nearly banged her head on the counter door in her rush to straighten up and stare at Tikki. "I- what are you talking about, Tikki? You haven't behaved badly at all."

Tikki shook her head. "But I have! It's been rare for the stakes to be so high, like they are now. Most times when we're battling an opponent, it's perfectly fine for my wielders to get angry or upset or frustrated- and they should! It's frustrating to have to set aside your normal life to deal with threats! People argue and get upset! My Chosens tend to be like you, where they're big advocates for justice and what's right, and it's frustrating and upsetting when something isn't fair or just and you can't do anything about it!" Tikki took a deep breath before pressing on. "And this time, it's not safe to do that, not with Nooroo's powers on the other side. Nooroo has only been taken once before, and that was only for a short while."

There was a pause as Tikki composed her thoughts, and then she pressed on before Marinette could interrupt. What she had to say was important, after all, and she didn't want it to go left unsaid.

"I worry- no, I know- that I have gone too far with my focus on that danger. It's important, sure, but Ladybug is not an emotionless robot. You have trials and troubles of your own, and they are valid. You shouldn't feel like Marinette's troubles are less important than Ladybug's, and I- I think I was pushing it to that point. Looking back, there have been far too many times when you were upset about something perfectly understandable and valid, and instead I focused entirely on you needing to put those emotions aside because Ladybug can't get akumatized. Which is still true, but I could have been more understanding in my approach."

"I understand-" Marinette started, but Tikki held up a paw. This wasn't the time for Marinette to be endlessly forgiving, brushing transgressions from small to large under the rug with a gracious smile. Some things had to faced, and this was one of them.

"It is easier now, of course, with the option to escape and emote as much as is needed, to get upset and face that. But I- I have lived for eons. I know that it's not healthy to let emotions stay bottled up, and yet that's what I was encouraging! Maybe you wouldn't have been able to have the kind of breakdown that you did today, but I could have been more proactive about thinking up other solutions! And I don't want you to argue with me about that," Tikki added, because she knew Marinette and she knew Marinette would. "It's just- my promise to you is that from now on, I will do my best to do better. I will do better. Ladybug is important, but I can't let myself lose sight of Marinette in the process."

  Clearly having Mrs. Cheng give a piece of her mind to the school had had an impact. Marinette didn't know what her mom had said to her teacher, but Ms. Bustier had stopped cutting Marinette off entirely when she was standing up to Chloe (and Lila, too, which was interesting), instead cutting off the fight when the other person was trying to argue back. There were no more remember-you-need-to-set-an-example looks, either, which was a relief.

Still, it was early yet, and her teachers' behavior wasn't the only thing that could make Marinette upset.

Marinette's second trip out to the countryside happened about a week after the first one, and had been more of a precaution than removing herself from any actual danger. Alya had been gushing about one of Lila's most recent lies and then had gotten annoyed at Marinette's refusal to eat lunch at school so that she could "get to know" Lila better so that she "could stop being jealous". It was something that happened so often that all Marinette really felt at that was annoyance, but, well, it was their lunch hour and it was nice to be able to sit in a meadow of flowers over a gorgeous mountain lake and freely express her frustrations with Alya's Lila obsession to Tikki and Kaalki.

Besides, the amazing view was really calming and inspiring, and Marinette returned to Paris a whole lot more relaxed and refreshed than she had left it.

"Okay, so normally I would frown upon unnecessary use of a Miraculous, but I think I might need to reassess my definition of unnecessary," Tikki admitted as Marinette packed her backpack for afternoon classes. "I feel a lot better after having that break, and I can tell that you do, too. I'm not saying that we should hop out to the countryside every day, but I don't think anyone will really mind it if you don't just use it for emergencies."

"We'll call it general mental health improvements," Marinette said with a giggle. "And I don't think Kaalki will complain- she was playing in the flowers as much as you were!"

Tikki giggled as well, looking far more like the cheerful, positive kwami that Marinette had gotten to know at the start of their time together than she had been recently. "A break is really nice. And you have the akuma alerts on your phone, so we can get back to Paris in a moment if we're needed."

Marinette tried not to look too amused. Clearly Tikki had really liked getting out of Paris. She wasn't going to complain, though, because it was really, really nice to be able to get away from things for a bit and not have to always be monitoring herself and her emotions. Away from Hawkmoth's akumas, Marinette could get frustrated and yell and actually face her emotions and come away stronger for it.

She hadn't come up with any long-term solutions, not yet. Marinette had tried the obvious- calling out Lila's lies, trying to bring the obvious contradictions and falsehoods to Alya's attention, straight-up questioning if Alya had done any verification of facts- and none of them had worked. But she was still trying.

Trips three and four- well, they were pretty similar to trip number two, where Marinette could have moved past her feelings but had appreciated the ability to actually grumble and vent first and besides, it was easy enough to grab her lunch and vanish off to the mountains or a forest for an hour to eat. Trip five was mostly just because Marinette had an entire Saturday where she didn't have anywhere that she needed to be, because the girl squad was hanging out with Lila, and it was so much easier to get her homework done without distractions when she was hanging out in a field instead of sitting at her desk, surrounded by projects and books and magazines that she had yet to read.

Trip six for much the same reason was interrupted by an akuma that had Marinette rushing to return to Paris, and trip seven was really just an extension of the sixth trip because she had forgotten to gather up all of her school things in her hurry to get back to Paris.

"Your energy has improved," Master Fu commented when Marinette headed over to his apartment for a lesson. He was smiling as he ushered her in. "Has having the Horse Miraculous helped, then?"

"Very much, Master Fu," Marinette assured him. She ducked her head, finally feeling a bit sheepish for the first time. Since Tikki and Kaalki had both been fine with and had even encouraged hopping out of the city to relax in the countryside, even when Marinette wasn't actually all that upset, she had maybe taken advantage of the Horse's powers a bit. While Marinette had certainly felt better ever since she had started escaping Paris and relaxing under the trees, surrounded by birdsong, it probably wasn't quite what the old Guardian had had in mind when he gave her the Horse Miraculous to use. "It's nice to be able to get out of the city and be able to actually face my emotions instead of shoving them away."

"And we've found that just relaxing out in the countryside helps out a lot, too," Tikki added, floating out of Marinette's purse and looking as sheepish as Marinette felt. "Even if, uh, nothing in particular happened. Or if it was just something small."

Master Fu considered them and Marinette watched him, suddenly anxious. Was she going to get scolded for misusing a Miraculous? She doubted that he would take the Horse Miraculous away from her, since it was so important that she not get akumatized and that was their best way to prevent that right now, but it was very possible that she would have to seriously cut back on the number of trips she took outside of the city. But what if he did decide that she hadn't been responsible enough with the second Miraculous and took it away and-

"I don't see any problem with that," Master Fu said at last. "There are parts of me, of course, that disagree. After all, I had the instruction to never use the Miraculous for anything except things like battle and healing drilled into me during my time at the temple and, well, what happened there only drove the message in deeper. But there are many ways to consider health, both mental and physical, and if leaving the city to do your homework in the countryside helps ease your burden and clear your mind... well, Kaalki doesn't mind, or she would have said something. And I assume that you would have told me if she had said something."

"Kaalki likes it," Tikki assured him hastily. "She's been encouraging it, even! We've been researching different places, because she so likes exploring- not outside of France, because we don't want weird charges coming up on Marinette's phone bill, but cool places in France that are away from people enough that no one will see the portal."

Marinette just nodded, relieved. She had been so, so worried that he would think that she was abusing her powers, but if Master Fu thought that her less-than-necessary trips out of Paris were okay, then...well, Marinette wasn't going to question it too much. They had been making her feel better for sure, and the landscapes that she was seeing...

Well, Paris was inspiring, there was no doubt about that. The gardens and skylines and architecture and history and shops and general fashion were all a huge source of inspiration for Marinette, but they could only go so far. Streams and meadows and forests and waterfalls and mountains...

It was a new environment, really, a break from Marinette's normal, and now she was itching to create a tank top or a dress that would flow like her new favorite little stream. And maybe traditional florals weren't exactly Marinette's thing, but flower-inspired embroidery or watercolor patterning could be.

"So I would continue as you are," Master Fu told Marinette. "Obviously the most ideal situation would be for you to not need to leave Paris in order to not become akumatized, but if eliminating the source of your stress is proving too difficult or you simply find that you relax better outside of Paris, then that is understandable."

Marinette nodded, exchanging an excited look with Tikki. Now that they had their permission, she wouldn't feel vaguely guilty anymore every time that she used Voyage when she didn't need to. If Master Fu thought that it was okay and even healthy for her to leave the city regularly, then that was all the permission she needed.

And just like that, the burden on her shoulders eased a little bit more.

  Plagg could tell that Ladybug's mood had improved dramatically over the past couple of weeks, despite things at school not really changing that much, as far as he could tell. Once he talked to Tikki, the reason became obvious.

Letting Ladybug hop outside of the city using Voyage to let off a bit of steam? Genius. And it sounded like Ladybug was using the Horse just for fun, too, just to relax, which... well, she deserved it. Also, it was about time Tikki let up on her insufferable gotta-be-all-about-duty, no-fun-allowed attitude.

But that wasn't the point or even a concern at the moment, because his kid's father had pushed too much, demanded too much, and then was far too cold to Adrien over a very small mistake. That had gotten Adrien frustrated and overwhelmed and upset, and now he was in serious danger of getting akumatized.

Ladybug couldn't get herself akumatized, because then there would be no one to purify the akuma. She was crazy tactical on top of that, and even Master Fu pulling in all of their backups probably wouldn't be able to match her sheer brainpower and creativity when it came to fighting and setting traps. And if she couldn't get her Miraculous safely sent off with Tikki before the akuma took over, then there was the possibility that Hawkmoth might get the Ladybug Miraculous. That was bad.

But Adrien- Chat Noir- getting akumatized would be bad, too. Ladybug relied on her partner a lot, even if Adrien sometimes didn't realize it, and she had never fought him properly. Whenever he was being controlled by an akuma's powers, his fighting was a bit held back. It was muted. There was still him somewhere in there, subconsciously holding back just enough that Ladybug could get that opening she needed. If he was akumatized...

That subconscious hold-back would be overridden. On top of that, Adrien's guilt at getting akumatized...

He already felt bad enough when he couldn't make an akuma attack because he legitimately had no way to get away from his civilian duties, or when he got hit by an akuma's powers and couldn't be there fighting by Ladybug's side. Plagg didn't even want to think about how bad Adrien would feel if he got akumatized.

Which meant that right now, Adrien either needed to be calmed down really fast or removed from the situation entirely before an akuma could find him. Plagg didn't want to take over Tikki's previous role as Kwami of Repressing Emotions, which meant that he needed to go for the second option. Which meant that they needed Ladybug to use the Hose's portal to get Chat Noir out of Paris, ASAP.

So Plagg focused all of his energy and attention inwards for a minute, sending an urgent message to Tikki to have her and her horse-ed up Chosen come to the Eiffel Tower ASAP and to Voyage Chat Noir off to the countryside immediately. As soon as the message went through and Tikki sent back an affirmation, Plagg spun back around on Plagg.

"Up, up, transform and get to the Eiffel Tower now," Plagg demanded, tapping Adrien's shoulder. If they didn't move and Hawkmoth wasn't out of town, he had no doubt that they would be seeing a purple butterfly soon enough. "C'mon kid, up."

Adrien rolled over from where he was lying face-down on his bed and regarded Plagg. "Is there an akuma?"

"No, but you gotta get out of Paris before any butterflies come after you and Ladybug's got the Horse. C'mon, she's on her way, let's go!"

Thankfully, Adrien didn't protest any further. He transformed and ran for the Eiffel Tower, just barely landing on one of the upper beams when he was tackled from the side, off of the tower and through a portal. He and Ladybug landed in a bit of a tangle in a meadow bordering a forest, and for once Chat Noir didn't get distracted by their position, rolling off of Ladybug at once and making a dash for the trees. Once he was in a ways, he detransformed.

"You can go hang out with Ladybug," Adrien told Plagg once the kwami spiraled free. His voice sounded a bit choked. "I just- I need a moment to myself."

"Of course." Plagg hesitated a moment, then zipped back out towards the light. Horse-bug was still in the middle, her back against a large, rounded boulder. She had already pulled out a notebook and was working on homework, it looked like, or at least she was trying to. The concerned looks that she kept sending the trees probably made it a bit difficult to actually get any work done.

"'Sup, Horsefly!" Plagg said cheerfully, zipping around the rock and perching on Ladybug's shoulder. She startled but, to her credit, didn't immediately start screaming or scramble away. "Whatcha up to?"

Ladybug's glare was positively poisonous. "Horsefly?"

"Yeah! 'Cause you've got the Horse Miraculous, and flies are bugs, right? And normally you're Ladybug, so..."

Her expression went flat. "I'm setting Tikki on you. And you're not getting any cheese bread. Ever."

Plagg blinked, then promptly went backpedaling. "It was just a joke! It's not like I've been calling you that regularly or anything, ha-ha, that would be dumb, I definitely wouldn't do that. And that name wouldn't fit anyway, you're very refined and elegant and everything and horseflies aren't at all, so, uh, yeah! Just a joke, don't set Tikki on me, please don't withhold the cheese bread, you're fantastic!"

Ladybug did Not Look Impressed. Plagg...supposed that he couldn't blame her. Before he could make another stab at smoothing things over- he didn't want to lose his access to Marinette's cheese bread before he could even get it- a rather feral scream ripped out of the woods. The two of them startled, whipping around to stare at the trees. After a moment, though, Ladybug let out a snort of laughter.

"I did exactly the same thing when I first came out here," she admitted, settling back against the rock and releasing the Horse portion of her transformation. Classy glasses perched on top of her nose, and she pushed them up onto the top of her head. "Just screamed and screamed until I went hoarse to let all of the stress out. It builds up so, so much, more than I realized. And then once I could just scream my head off..."

Humans had strange stress relief mechanisms, Plagg decided, but he supposed Ladybug's reasoning made some sort of sense. He had seen Adrien scream into his pillow a couple of times to blow off a little steam before, and this was, well, a lot of steam.

"I can see why you pick spots that aren't near any hiking trails or roads," Plagg commented as another muffled scream made its way through the trees. It didn't sound scared or in pain, though, so he figured that Adrien was still doing fine. Physically, at least. "I think you might alarm some people with the screaming. I'm surprised that my kid isn't trying to muffle it, actually, he's usually the sort to suffer in silence when people who aren't me are there." The I was worried that he would be worried about you judging him went unsaid.

Plagg knew that Ladybug wouldn't judge Chat Noir, of course. They were partners and Ladybug could sympathize with too many expectations and scream-inducing stress, obviously, since she had the Horse Miraculous for this exact reason. But Adrien tended to hold his cards close to his chest even with his friends, which, considering his father, wasn't really a surprise. Plagg had seen Mr. Agreste shut down his son's feelings too often to really feel any surprise when Adrien put on his poker face even in front of his friends, opting for the path of least resistance instead of pushing back in any way.

"I could tell that he was upset," Ladybug said after a pause, her voice quiet. "I mean, he was practically screaming it with every line of his body. And...there was an akuma headed for him, when he was on the Eiffel Tower. I got it and purified it before it could make contact and so that it wouldn't fly off and get someone else when we vanished, but that- it was just way too close."

That was too close. Maybe Plagg could get his kid to join Ladybug on her more regular excursions to the countryside to get some relaxation and regular tree-screaming in. That wouldn't solve the problem of Adrien just having an awful father, but it might buy them enough breathing room to be able to not attract an akuma the next time that Gabriel Agreste was an awful person.

Or maybe he should say the next time that Gabriel Agreste was an outstandingly awful person. After all, the elder Agreste's baseline state of being seemed to be awful.

"It wasn't a great day," Plagg admitted. "And I'm not going to over-share, 'cause my kid would get mad at me and I don't want him to start hiding his emotions from me, too, but he would probably benefit from getting out of Paris every so often, too." He snorted, derisive. "If his handlers allow any time in his schedule, that is."

Ladybug looked troubled at that, which probably meant that Plagg had said too much in his annoyance with Adrien's father. Hopefully she wouldn't poke at that too much, at least not when Chat Noir was around.

"I have a friend who always seems to have things scheduled," Ladybug said, and Plagg tried not to react because, uh, that was his kid. Ladybug was getting a little too close to the truth for comfort. "Even when he has a gap in his schedule, whenever he tries to fit in something with us, his father schedules something for him instead. I'm honestly amazed that he's not been akumatized over that, because it has to be upsetting."

"Uh-huh," Plagg said, because what else could he say? Then his ears perked, pointing towards the woods. The screaming had stopped, which probably meant that Adrien had gotten the anger out of his system and had moved on to sadness, which also meant that Plagg should go check in on him and help Adrien work through his feelings. Which admittedly wasn't exactly his strong point, so... "Say, how has Tikki been recently? Still trying to get you to see everyone else's point of view, or...?"

Thankfully, Ladybug shook her head. "We've come to an understanding that there's a time and place for that, and it's not when I'm upset about something. We still talk about other people's points of view, of course, because understanding where people are coming from can help create long-term solutions, but it's not an excuse for their behavior and doesn't invalidate my feelings."

"Fantastic. Can you detransform, then, so Tikki and I can go talk with my kid?" Plagg asked hopefully. "I'm not very good at the talking stuff, really, and playing comic relief only goes so far."

"Of course!" Ladybug detransformed in a flash of pink sparkles, then settled back against the rock. "Take your time. I'm not needed anywhere, and I want my kitty feeling his best. It's really helped me to come out here, and it would be great if Chat Noir gets to have that, too. "

"Thank you, Ladybug!" Plagg told her, grabbing Tikki's paw and tugging her along towards the forest. "You're fantastic!"

Hopefully he and Tikki could help Adrien work through some of his frustrations and misery. Plagg hated to see his Chosens upset, and Plagg didn't want to see Adrien akumatized, either. It would be best, of course, if Gabriel Agreste just vanished off of the face of the earth with Hawkmoth not far behind him, but barring that happening, Plagg would have to content himself with just getting Adrien happy and in a healthier place mentally. The improvement that Ladybug had made recently was incredible, and if both superheroes were doing better, Plagg suspected that that would result in exponentially happier superheroes.

After all, a happy, rested, relaxed superhero was a focused superhero, and a focused superhero meant that their partner wouldn't be forced to pick up the slack in order to keep fighting, and that meant a less stressed partner and a stronger partnership. On top of that, if the superheroes were spending more time together outside of battles in a relaxed environment, then maybe they would be clear-headed enough to come up with plans for taking down Hawkmoth for good.

Maybe Plagg still didn't understand the whole screaming at the trees thing, but, well, if that could get Paris' superheroes back to their old, relatively relaxed and not-at-risk selves, then he wouldn't question it.

[joanaflbarbosa]

How Therapy Works: What it Means to "Process an Issue"

People are often advised to go to therapy to “process” some issue. But what does “processing an issue” actually mean? And why and how does this “processing” help?

For starters, we may define “a process” as a series of actions or operations taken toward achieving a particular end. “To process,” hence, is to perform a series of operations on something in order to change (or preserve) it—processing milk to make cheese or yogurt, for example. In therapy, these operations are performed through the therapist-client interaction, and they may take several forms.

First, processing an issue in therapy may mean working to place it inside a coherent life narrative. We experience our life as a story, of which we are both protagonists and narrators. And we make ourselves known to others in this manner, too. If someone wants to genuinely get to know you, giving them a list of facts and numbers describing you will not suffice. They will want to hear your story. For human beings, processing information involves organizing it in narrative form.

In this framework, shocking or traumatic events damage us by disrupting our stories, mangling our established narratives of self and the world. They do this by refusing to fit into our established narrative (“This is not me; this can’t be happening”) or by flooding and overwhelming it (“I can’t stop thinking about it; nothing else matters”). To “process an issue” in this case is when therapy helps us to either integrate the traumatic event into our life's narrative or pull our story out from under the weight and confusion of the trauma.

Second, processing an issue in therapy often means bringing past events or habits into present consciousness and analyzing them using our current tools and knowledge, resulting in fresh insight. One reason this is helpful is because difficult events often lead to avoidance. Places, emotions, and memories associated with the traumatic event are avoided, and thus they fail to undergo the constant reevaluation and examination that would have updated their meaning in light of new knowledge and experience. Thus, the meanings of these difficult events remain frozen in a past perspective. This means that the only reactions in our repertoire regarding these events are our original ones, which by now may be dated, ill-fitting, or suboptimal. If a dog bit you when you were 4 years old, leading you to hate dogs and carefully avoid any contact with them, whenever you do finally encounter a dog, you will have the terrified reaction of a traumatized 4-year-old, which you no longer are; likewise, the dog you are responding to is the one from your childhood, not the one in front of you now. Such a rigidly disproportional reaction is, by definition, neurotic, and neither healthy nor helpful.

Another example: Children often experience their parents’ divorce in real time as somehow their fault, and thus may harbor guilt and self-doubt related to the event even many years later. Observing the events of a divorce from an adult perspective allows the client to realize that their parents’ divorce was not their fault, and that the childish expectation that their behavior could somehow have mended their parents’ rift was both developmentally understandable, even inevitable, but also factually incorrect, even absurd, when viewed from the perch of the grown-up perspective.

“Processing” in this context often includes not only updating and reexamining the meaning of old memories and emotions, but also developing a new language with which to describe, experience, and understand the past and present. Moving from a language of powerlessness (“I’m a victim”) to a language of resilience (“I’m a survivor”) is one example. Moving from self-demeaning, perfectionist language (“I made a mistake; I’m stupid, deserving of punishment”) to a language of empathy and self-nurture (“I made a mistake; I’m human, deserving of compassion”) is another.

A third way to understand the notion of “processing an issue” is through the prism of cognitive developmental theory, specifically the seminal work of the pioneering cognitive theorist Jean Piaget. According to Piaget, the child is akin to a scientist, exploring her environment and experimenting with its properties in order to gain an understanding of the world and its laws. As the child experiments with objects, she learns about the character and attributes of reality itself. The child thus develops cognitive “schemas,” the building blocks of her mental architecture. Piaget defined a schema as, "a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning."

In other words, schemas are organized ways of interacting with the world. Through experience, our schemas over time become increasingly numerous, at once larger and more specific, and they help guide our movement in the world. Having acquired a "restaurant schema," for example, allows me to know how to behave and what to expect in any restaurant, even one I had never visited before. Because I have a "party schema," I know a party when I see it, I know how to behave at a party, and I have a set of party-related expectations by which to evaluate whether the party was any good.

According to Piaget, schemas develop through two cognitive processes: assimilation and accommodation. We assimilate when we use an existing schema to understand novel information. Accommodation happens when the new information cannot fit our current schema, and we must then adjust our schema to fit the information. My “mammals” schema may easily assimilate a lion glimpsed for the first time. But upon encountering a whale, I may need to change my schema to accommodate this new information. If your wife gives birth to a new baby boy, assimilating him into your "male family member" schema will be easy. Yet if your adult daughter decides to transition to become a man, then you may need to accommodate your old "male family member" schema to include transgender persons.

From this perspective, processing an issue in therapy amounts to an effort to assimilate and accommodate new information, to improve our ability to understand and move in the world more seamlessly and effectively.

Fourth, processing an issue in therapy requires that we engage it, think and talk about it. In doing so, we are practicing de facto exposure with regard to the emotions attached to the issue. Exposure is a therapy technique that lets a client face up to a scary or uncomfortable situation. The goal of exposure is to achieve physiological habituation, psychological mastery, and behavioral skill. Physiologically feeling your emotions and remembering your memories will result in nervous system habituation and, with that, lower anxiety. Psychologically confronting difficult memories will lead to a sense of agency, courage, and achievement. Behaviorally learning to feel, identify, express, and discuss one’s emotions will lead to improved communications and interpersonal skill. Moreover, with exposure, the client learns new associations regarding the issue at hand. (Through interacting with dogs, I begin to associate them with playfulness and companionship rather than with the pain of the initial attack.)

Processing in this context can be viewed as a way to familiarize a person with unfamiliar territory. When we process an issue, we learn the terrain, thereby becoming less afraid of it and more able to navigate within it.

Working for many years in this area, the influential psychologist Edna Foa has proposed that fear is represented in memory as a cognitive structure, a program to escape danger (e.g., you see a lion; your heart races; you run away). The fear structure however, may in the course of one’s life become faulty, acquiring inaccurate associations between benign stimuli and exaggerated fear response (e.g., you see a lion at the zoo; your heart races; you run away). In Foa’s system, emotional processing, achieved through exposure practice, involves activating a person’s fear structure and then introducing new information that is incompatible with earlier faulty associations (e.g., hanging around the lion’s cage is safe; your heartbeat will eventually come down; you don’t have to run).

Fifth, processing an issue in therapy means bringing the issue into the light of another’s benevolent attention. Such interpersonal light is often, as it were, the best mental disinfectant. We are social animals, and we define ourselves, and our circumstances, in part by others’ responses. For example, if you kill your enemies in socially approved ways (say, by becoming a soldier and going to war), then you become a hero, but if you kill your enemies in a way that is not socially approved (you poison your nasty neighbors), then you have become a murderer. It’s all about how others see and judge what you have done. Receiving a 5 percent raise at work will make you feel good, but only until you find that all your coworkers have received a 10 percent raise. Your mood is determined not by what happens to you, but by how it compares to the experience of others. For good or bad, social connectivity is our foundational psychological currency. As Alfred Adler argued a long time ago, in the human psychological calculus, social connection is akin to health. Social isolation is akin to illness.

The engine of therapy is the human connection at its core. In this context, processing an issue means communicating it inside a safe, supportive interpersonal space. A secret loses much of its power to paralyze and poison us internally when shared with others who are capable of resonating with our experience, accepting and understanding it. In the act of discussing difficult matters, we become less alone, less opaque to ourselves, and thus less fragile. We manifest and build our strength when we express and own our weakness.

In sum, therapy may help you “process” a difficult issue by helping to place it inside a coherent life narrative; by reviewing past events using current tools and knowledge; by adjusting your cognitive schemas to include new information; by helping you confront previously avoided uncomfortable feelings in order to increase your competence in managing them; and by bringing the issue into the light of another’s benevolent and empathetic attention, thus reducing shame, fear, and isolation.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/201801/how-therapy-works-what-it-means-process-issue

[reading-writing-revolution]

Heather Cox Richardson

December 29, 2020 (Tuesday)

There is definitely a feeling of change in the air. For all his continuing insistence that he won the 2020 election, Trump is a lame duck.

Today’s complicated fight in the Senate over the one-time stimulus payment of $2000 illustrated that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), not Trump, now controls the Republican caucus. Trump originally refused to sign the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, the bill that contains the coronavirus relief measures, because he claimed he objected to its meager $600 stimulus payments. Six hundred dollars was the amount his negotiators had demanded, but he suddenly said he wanted them to be $2000. Democrats in the House jumped on Trump’s demand for the higher payment and they passed a measure on Monday to increase the payments.

Trump had attacked the bill largely because he is angry at McConnell and Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD) (a whip keeps party members in line behind the party leader) for acknowledging Biden’s victory in November. He was trying to illustrate his power by refusing to sign the bill at all. But Sunday night he gave in without winning anything. Yet, he continued to say he wanted higher payments. The House was happy to give him what the Democrats had wanted all along; today, Trump lost the showdown in the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced the measure, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) killed it. This enabled the two embattled Republican Senate candidates from Georgia both to support Trump and to claim they wanted higher payments, all without actually having to vote for the higher payments. McConnell bested Trump all around: he had no intention of raising those payments no matter what Trump tweeted... and he didn’t.

Trump’s influence in Washington is waning in other ways, too. Yesterday, the House repassed the National Defense Authorization Act over Trump’s veto. Trump claims to object to the bill for a number of reasons, including that it will require that military bases currently named for Confederate generals be renamed, but this is the measure into which Congress put the Corporate Transparency Act I wrote about a few days ago. It will undercut the country’s plague of so-called shell companies, which enable money laundering and other criminal activity because they are owned and operated in secret. The new measure will require that all owners and operators of such companies be clearly identified.

This will likely impact the Trump family, which uses shell companies.

There were other rumblings today that Trump’s post-presidential life might have some sticky places. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has hired forensic accountants to help investigate Trump and his businesses. This investigation is a criminal investigation. New York Attorney General Letitia James is in charge of a civil investigation into Trump’s businesses.

But the big thing which showed momentum is moving away from Trump is that President-Elect Joe Biden is forcefully criticizing the Trump administration for its failure to plan for distribution of the coronavirus vaccine.

With more than 330,000 Americans dead of Covid-19 and infections spiking, Biden today noted that the Trump administration has fallen behind on vaccine distribution. The effort got off to a poor start as the administration delivered fewer doses than it had promised and initially blamed Pfizer for a “miscommunication,” only to have Pfizer state that it had “millions of doses” in a warehouse but had received no information about where to send them.

The administration promised to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of December, but yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that it had administered just 2.1 million doses in two weeks, although that number is likely somewhat low because of lag times in reporting. At the current rate, Dr. Leana S. Wen writes in the Washington Post, we can expect to achieve herd immunity in 10 years.

The administration at first refused to share information with the Biden camp about distribution, claiming there was a plan, even though, when finally part of discussions in early December, Biden said “[t]here is no detailed plan that we've seen, anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container, into an injection syringe, into somebody's arm.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar responded that Biden’s claim was “nonsense.” “[W]e have comprehensive plans from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention working with 64 public health jurisdictions across the country as our governors have laid out very detailed plans that we’ve worked with them on. We’re leveraging our retail pharmacies, our hospitals, our public health departments, our community health centers.” Azar said the distribution process was being “micromanaged and controlled by the United States military, as well as our incredible private sector. We do hundreds of millions of vaccinations a year. We’re leveraging the systems that are known, and that work here in the United States." Azar assured Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that, as soon as the vaccines were approved, the government would be shipping them “to all of the states and territories that we work with. And within hours they can be vaccinating,”

It turns out Biden was more right than Azar. The administration planned simply to get the vaccines to the states, and then leave to them the problem of actually getting the vaccines into people’s arms. But state Departments of Health are strapped for money after trying to manage the pandemic for nine months, and had been allotted only $6 million apiece to make the distributions happen. (The new Consolidated Appropriations Act that Trump just signed has significantly more money in it for distribution.)

“The Trump administration’s plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind,” Biden said today. “As I long feared and warned, the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should.”

Finally stung, Trump tweeted tonight that “It is up to the States to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the Federal Government. We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states. Biden failed with Swine Flu!” (Biden was not in charge of the Obama Administration’s response to H1N1 in 2009, which broke out three months after Obama took office.)

Biden promised to invoke the National Defense Production Act, a law that permits the president to require companies to produce goods at the same time that it guarantees them a market for those goods, to speed up the production of supplies necessary to distribute the vaccine quickly. “I have directed my team to prepare a much more aggressive effort, with more federal involvement and leadership to get things back on track,” he said.

But he warned that we are behind and, breaking with the Trump administration, warned that things are going to get much worse before they get better. The spike in infections along with the fallout from holiday gatherings means we will see high case numbers in January and high death tolls in February. It will be mid-March, he warns, before we see improvement. “The next few weeks and months are going to be very tough, a very tough period for our nation — maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic,” Biden said. “I know it’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth.”

“We are going to get through this. Brighter days are coming,” Biden said. “But it’s going to take all of the grit and determination we have as Americans to get it done.”

[inscapeblog]

Is there significance in Subcultures in Design? - Sahriel Nicole Sicat

1. Introduction 

I have chosen Subculture in Design; this essay will contain arguments on why sub-culture in design is important and the influences that sub-culture has on design. The way I will achieve this is to define subculture and provide examples from research resources. This essay will also contain information on how subculture has influenced design over the years and how it affects design solutions today. Examples will also be provided to explain further and give proof of sub-culture within the design field, with brief descriptions on how it has changed the design and how it has either improved or not improved from the before and after processes. This essay will be concluded by summarising the information and what sub-culture is defined as in my own words

2. Defining Subculture in Design Subculture is defined as number of cultures that has derived from one main culture. 

There individuals share characteristics and interests within these subcultures that have been influenced from its origin. According to YourDictionary.com, subculture is described to be a group of people that have created a culture that contains different beliefs and values from the consensus; something that does not typically align with its wider culture. (Yourdictionary.com, n.a). Bashin (2020) defines subculture as groups that hold values and norms that deal with politics, cultural and sexual matters; he goes on to say that subcultures are an integral part of society as they give balance to certain issues or situations. Bashin (2020) states that characteristics of subcultures cannot ideally be defined or made into list form because the definition of subcultures itself are changing all the time. Although it is known that subcultures are not particularly easy-going when it comes to who represents them and who are suitable for these groups; their overall identity and who embodies it is important. Grimell College’s (n.a) piece on Subcultures and Sociology: Characteristic of Subcultures, covers the general overview of the characteristics of subculture, other points that would define subculture characteristics would be: - Share different meanings. This means that although the identities or values of a subculture are different from another subculture, their practices could be similar or done for similar meanings. - Shared identity. This pertains to the feelings of members within these cultures; Grimmel College (n.a) mentions that people would feel some disconnect but having or being part of a particular subculture, even without physical interaction, made them feel more at ease and like they had more to their individual identities. - Resistance. This mentions three dimensions in which subcultures can take place or engage in. The first dimension can be active or passive, in the sense that it will take the intentions of the subcultures into account. The second dimension or micro level depends on the direction that the subculture is taking their perspectives. The third dimension or macro level happens when issues are being directed to those within political positions or dealing with political issues that are aimed towards the subcultures. - Marginalization. Marginalization happens to subcultures because of their unique traits and personalities that do not exactly fit in with those in the dominant or origin cultures. All these points briefly explain the characteristics of subcultures; it gives a vague overview of how these groups get categorized into subcultures.

3. The significance of Subculture in Design in identifying and solving a design problem 

Subcultures in design shows major significance because the community of designers can be said to be or contain its own subcultures, for example you get graphic designers, fashion designers, architects and so much more. If you had to think of it in this way, subcultures can create communities for individuals to feel more comfortable in their interests, as they are able to share it with others who share those interests or values. “We can therefore conclude that graphic design is a communication form that utilizes the visual aspect of communication to transmit certain ideals or to stimulate particular feelings and emotions from its audience.” (UK Essays, 2018) Good Therapy (n.a) speaks about how subcultures can affect mental health; although this is a broader topic, it can still apply to the field of design. I say this because designers are put under a lot of pressure, this can be due to deadlines, time constraints, any mishaps that may occur during the planning and the execution processes. All these factors can aid to stress and can cause further issues that deal with mental health or health in general. Good Therapy (n.a) continues to say that within subcultures, communities are formed and people use this as an outlet or a place to feel more comfortable with themselves. This gives them reassurance in their interests, making it known that they are not alone and there is a place for them within society. If you had to put subculture in design within the context of how it has affected design over the years, then I would say that its significance still applies. I say this because design is influenced by traditional and culture, the styles and colours take a lot of inspiration from what is occurring around us. If dominant culture can influence our way of design and visual imprints on the world then so can subcultures; design can evolve and cater to any demographic it chooses, if done correctly and with the right message and/or intentions. Batagoda (2019) writes about the importance of looking at cultures and subcultures when designing. Some of these points are: - Understand which countries you are doing work for and where the clients live in. - How do graphic design trends change in the countries that your focus groups are? - How the visual language change from country to country? - What is the cultural impact of the country on its design? - What are the most common colours used in the designs? - Understand common font faces, native fonts and how the visual hierarchy is present in the design. These questions are good to ask when you are designing for a client; taking into consideration things such as, the demographic within the area you are planning to design for, their age, ethnicities, needs within that area or community and more. Thinking about the overall personality of a country and how they represent themselves within design projects is important because this is a form of communication to the public, it needs to have a clear message but still appeal to the interests and values of subcultures.

4. Examples of successful application of Subculture in Design in spatial design 

How the Great Recession influenced a decade of design 

Figure 1: Sarah Lawrence for Vox (2018). Photograph. Vox. This image contains two sets, one of minimalistic style and white being the staple colour, the other half shows a more renaissance scene with duller colours, heavier furniture and very elegant design finishes. 

Brooke (2018) wrote an article for Vox on the influences the Great Recession has had on design over the years. She specifically points out minimalistic design and states that the concept of minimalism is to purchase less but better things. I believe that this can be seen in the image comparing two different styles but they still share characteristics in the fact that furniture pieces, lighting, colour and finishes play a significant role in achieving a simple yet put together spatial design. The term to buy less but better things came from a brand called Cuyana, they wanted to encourage their customers with this phrase and with the recession in mind this was an action that become an impulse during the aftermath of the recession. (Brooke, 2018) Within this image you can see the similarities that have been applied when you think of the “buy less but better” phrase. Each space has their own colour palette but they both stay true to its main choice of colour, this makes the space look cleaner and open. The styles of design are true to the era they fall part of but you can easily distinguish that fact the modern-day minimalism holds a crisper style; the edges are clean and everything looks very bright; modern minimalistic design relies a lot on natural light and also using pieces within the space that won’t distract from the overall harmony of the area. If we look at what it is being compared to, the older design style has more rounded furniture pieces and finishes; they also contain a lot more detail but is focused on statement pieces of the room, such as the fireplace, it has intricate designs carved onto it which makes it stand out but it does not take away from the overall aesthetic. Design experts weigh in on the changing face of retail design 

Figure 2: Shweta Parida (2018). Design experts weigh in on the changing face of retail design. Image. Commercialinteriordesign. This image is of as store, it contains a flight of stairs which leads to a section of display areas for products. 

When we take into consideration of the changes within the economic and how it functions now and how it did in the past, the wants of customers have changed drastically and is still changing. To change the space of retail stores to accommodate customer needs and wants again, Parida (2018) writes about Architectual guidelines and the inclusion of technology when it comes to shopping. Parida (2018) continues to say that buildings would have to change their structure to allow more space or passageway for customers to feel more comfortable when trying to adhere to guidelines of current situations. If we look at modern adaptions and compare it to methods from the past, technology is a large step into change and how shopping can be achieved, whether it be from physically going to the mall or doing it online. Technological advances for retail spaces can also be applied to actual stores within shopping malls. Design aspects on buildings would look at aspects like spacing, lighting, audio and other visual elements that would be the most effective on creating impact on customers. (Parida, 2018).

5. Conclusion 

Based on the evidence provided in the previous section of this essay, I would say that the significance of subculture in design is important and still applies to how and what we design today. I say this because, it is evidence that characteristics or styles of design that we call modern, can easily be spotted in designs from the past. We are able to identify that they have been influenced by art movements, clothing trends, economic changes, the people within certain communities and so much more. Taking this information into account, the evolution of design can be considered a subculture itself.

[lachlann-macnab]

BDRP 2020 QUESTIONNAIRE

Your Name: Jean

Characters: Lachlann “Launchpad” MacNab

Pick one of your characters and talk about their growth. What about their story has surprised you? What are you proud of? How have they changed from their original inception to now?

Well, Launchpad is relatively new so he’s still pretty much the same as I envisioned him from the start-

-though I’ll admit that the idea of him having an enormous crush on Seamus/Scrooge was a surprise. I think it only took a couple of little chats with Sav and familiarizing myself with Seamus’ story for him to go “yes!! that’s the one I love!! let me at him!!”.

The funny thing is that it just kind of happened but also has a degree of canonicity to it; Granted, Ducktales ‘17 (the canon that got me into the Duckverse) didn’t delve a whole lot on the relationship those two have...but Ducktales ‘87 does and it’s fucking beautiful. 

But I didn’t know that! I was just familiar with the newest canon -exploring the relationship led me to the older canon and I absolutely love it! I love the way the older version of LP is equal parts silly and capable and I try my best to express that nice balance on my interpretation.

And I wouldn’t have found that sweet spot if it hadn’t been for Sav and Seamus!

Pick another character (or the same character if you only have one) and talk a little about where you WANT them to go. What are your plans for them going into the new year?

Oooh man, this is probably going to sound rude of me, but I want someone to call Launchpad out on his shit.

He is a happy-go-lucky man, he is positive, he does think the best of everyone right from the start, he is honest with that, but there’s also a degree of performativity to the way he interacts with people: he is a people pleaser and he’s also someone who avoids problems/confrotation when possible.

That leads to him having a hard time actually voicing what he thinks when things were serious. Launchpad will default to what he thinks is the most noble/the best option even if he actually hates it. He tries his best to be a reliable dude, but that pushes him to his limits every now and then -and he hates it, but will do it anyways.

I’d love for someone to notice that and point out his marthyr complex to him, or how hypocritical he can actually be when noone is looking. 

Jun did an amazing job at that, with the whole Moon Market incident and that is part of why I love his characterization and- I could rant about how Jun and LP are actually similar, yet different, but I won’t.

Someone please bitchslap my idiot son and tell him to be honest with his feelings, maybe get him to confront his feelings of inadequacy, maybe get him to actually face his problems instead of running away from them, kthanxs.

Pick a thread or a plot that you’re proud of and talk about why you loved it.

I have three threads I absolutely love, each for different reasons:

*Cleanliness is next to... with Jun: Jun called my idiot son out on his ‘noble man’ act. Jun was not impressed with his efforts and pushed him to an actual mini-meltdown because Launchpad didn’t know what to do or say to try and make things better: Launchpad is so used to having his way around people that the moment someone was inmune to all his tricks he...lost it. Big time. And I loved it.

*Untitled with Eilonwy: Both of them clicked instantly and- oh, man, I can’t really express what I feel about it, but:

Launchpad feels an actual, honest, connection to Eilonwy in various ways: both of them are a little bit weird, both of them are learning, both of them were kind of kicked out their comfort zones, both of them love adventure, both of them are fearless (in different ways), but there’s also a curious father-daughter dynamic to them. Eilonwy lacked not only a father figure but also a general actual caring adult one and I guess that’s part of what draws her to LP, while LP is a naturally caring man who also, (betweem the two of us), loves feeling like a good-ish role model instead of the dude people tell you to avoid because he’s an idiot, he loves looking out for people, he loves being understood -and Eilonwy, surprisingly, understands him without even trying. 

They are so very sweet, they just clicked and both of them learn new things with the other: both about themselves and the world. And I love it.    

*Dressed to the nines with Seamus: a.k.a “the one in which Sav let me go absolutely fucking ham”: It began with a chat about the need of gratious fanservice involving Seamus wearing (and getting out of) a suit -but soon became something else thanks to the Halloween task.

We soon got the ball rolling and Black Annis happened in a stupidly organic way (her very modus operandi, I discovered kind of late during the creation, ties way too well with the thread’s title itself and I’ll never get over it), and the mix of terror and action just naturally pushed the rest of the plot into the catharsis Seamus needed after all the stuff he’s been through.

The thread gave us the opportunity to write some mindless comedy, some yearning, some tenderness, plenty of gore, blood, trauma, legit PTSD, then back to tenderness and silliness -while also mentioning and showing a good deal of the things that have made Seamus the man he currently is, with the pretty and the ugly of it.  

I just think it was an amazing character exploration for both Seamus and Lachlann, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I love Sav’s writing, I love Seamus’ characterization, I love how naturally it all evolved, I love how Sav can casually bring something up while plotting and the thing just clicks into place, I love how we just kind of understand where things are going or where we want them to go. Sav’s just amazing at brainstorming and general writing and I feel really, really lucky to have the chance to write with her.

I have no choice but to stan, really.

 And I could go on and on about how the thread pushed both Seamus and Lachlann towards some big character development, but I really don’t want to rant -so I’ll leave it like this.

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 strengths and talk about why you think it’s one of your strengths.

Gee, that’s a difficult one. I guess my strongest suit as of now would be Launchpad’s voice as a character -and I’m not only talking about dialogue.

I think everyone that has read any of my threads has noticed by now that the flow of the narration is an extension of how Launchpad himself feels and thinks: it’s chaotic and emotional, it can get self-conscious and snarky when he, himself, can’t, it brings some exposition while not breaking the simple, chaotic rythm of Launchpad per-se.

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 areas of improvement.

This is way easier for me to pinpoint, hah! I definitely need to work on the length of my posts: I know seeing paragraphs upon paragraphs upon paragraphs can make people tired or make them feel intimidated to interact. 

I also need to work on organizing Launchpad’s chaotic thoughts. The narration does get long-winded and sometimes the progression from point A to point B is way too chaotic -so much so that actually erasing it all would make no impact on the overall narration. 

Pick one of your plots, or even just a character, and come up with a list of 3-5 “mentor texts” where you can look for inspiration or research, then write a short (2-4 sentences) why you picked those texts. 

Not texts per-se, but I think a good way to get a feel of Launchpad’s general vibe is to watch “Top Duck” from Ducktales ‘87 and/or “The Duck Knight Returns” and “Double-o-duck in: You only crash twice”; Those episodes do an amazing job in expressing his insecurities and passions.

Now, leaving the source material behind, I think a book he resonates with is “Oh, the Places You'll Go!” by Dr. Seuss -it’s fun, it’s simple and it has an overall heartwarming message: It kind of captures that sense of wonder, discovery and positivity Launchpad both has and wishes to offer other people. 

Another inspiration of sorts for Launchpad is Ferry’s “Parties are for losers” series: First of all, I’ll admit I’m a sucker for the Strugatsky brothers and СТАЛКЕР, so it’s no surprise I’m in love with Ferry’s interpretation of the story; I see a little bit of LP in KT’s story, but also in Yura’s and, surprisingly, in Olga’s. 

PAFL’s setting is different, yet similar, to the Soviet sci-fi original: it deals with some disenchantment, it’s far from idealistic, it’s rough, but it’s also full of wonder and adventure: there’s big risks, but there’s also a good deal of things that make things, if not better, a little bit less miserable for the characters -and sometimes that something that keeps them going is other’s presence. PAFL is, for me, the inspiration for adventures that aren’t always glamourous, simple, or happy, taken by characters that are far from perfect, that have the odds against them, that carry a whole lot of baggage and, yet, prevail.

And, finally, a last inspiration for Launchpad, my lovable idiot son, comes from probably the place one would expect the least: God of War (2018).

I’m also a sucker for God of War, sue me.  

I know it may seem bizare, but the message of the game just clicks with LP -and before you start wondering how in hell Kratos could possibly inspire Launchpad just let me tell you: he doesn’t. Because it’s not about Kratos I’m refering to when I talk about that story! I’m actually thinking of Mimir!

I love him so much.

Mimir’s role on the game is multifacetic: he brings exposition and ocasional comedic relief, sure, but I see him as the heart of the interactions between Kratos and Atreus (Kratos’ son, for those who may not know). Kratos is emotionally repressed and keeps to himself a lot while Atreus is a bundle of joy, energy, curiosity and someone that doesn’t think ‘because I say so’ is a valid answer to things; Kratos and Atreus clash during the first part of the game even when they love one another in their very particular ways.

In comes Mimir.

Mimir(’s head) joins the party and takes upon himself to act as a bridge between emotional distant father and young naive fearless son and...things start working for the three of them! Kratos starts understanding Atreus! Atreus slowly understands his father’s worries and needs! They begin the story as (almost) complete strangers but by the end they have an actual bond thanks to Mimir’s constant pushing and interventions: Mimir is soft with Atreus but bold with Kratos, the man knows when to joke and throw some riské comments for the chaos of it, but he’s also the first to offer words of comfort and understanding. 

The man becomes part of the family even when he isn’t related to them by blood, even going so far as to give a ‘no, take me instead!’ when presented with the opportunity by a pair of enemies, even when his whole story tells us that he thinks of the idea of dealing with those people (won’t say who, because spoilers) as worse than death -the man hates the mere idea of going back but doesn’t hesitate a second to offer himself as a sacrifice for his new family.

And, damn, that’s what I base my interpretation of Launchpad on. He’s not a part of the family per-se but he constantly acts as a bridge between the youngest and more idealistic parts of it and the jaded, older, tired one; He’s happy to be comedic relief but will also sit and give anyone a pep talk when absolutely necessary -he knows his limitations but keeps trying and offering his best for those he cares about. He tries to be the heart.

I’m emotional about a disembodied head, don’t touch me. Play God of War (2018), it’s fucking amazing.

And now, a wishlist!: 

I’m...actually up for everything and anything, really. I’d love some adventures, but I also love the more mundane interactions, I love the heavier topics but also the silly moments. 

I guess, as I said before, the one thing I’d really love is for someone to push Launchpad to be honest about his feelings. Also a plot about him either considering to or actually flying again -those, however, will happen in due time and I have no rush to make ‘em.

Why do you RP?

Short explanation?: I love writing and reading.

Longer explanation?: I love writing and reading, I love complex characterizations, I love exploring new ideas and seeing how little plot bunnies become full fledged plots and/or character explorations or bring some character development, I love how that creates a domino effect with the rest of the cast. I love to see things happen: I love watching from afar as other’s characters learn lessons, create and conect-

-also, I write and read all day, everyday: that’s my job. I do script revisionism and organizational comunication. During work hours I have to check the flow of words, tones, and overall intentions; I have to do my best to make sure someone’s idea fits the box, but RPing gives me the opportunity to take the box and toss it out of the window. RPing gives me the chance to write freely, to write silly, to be imperfect and not worry about going from A to B or dealing with a checklist or tones, intentions or other’s ideas. 

It’s just freeing. And that’s why I do (and love) it.