#because i physically do not have the capacity to stick with things that could benefit me

[deepfriedseagullfeet]

been nearly on the verge of hyperventilating all afternoon because i dont know what i should be doing with my time, like genuinely i struggle so much with sticking with things its fucking ridiculous. i want to focus on my shop but i physically do not have the capacity to care somedays. i wish i could draw every day and have the desire to draw all the time but i keep going into month-long art blocks with very short reprieves. im too annoying and uncharismatic for youtube, i dont know what im doing with tiktok, i hate my retail job, i dont want to work another soulless job though so i cant leave, im not in school im not doing anything productive or fulfilling and nothing is making me happy at all and ive been struggling with this problem for YEARS and its NOT GOING AWAY. i cant stick with any skill and i have 0 motivation to do anything consistently. i dropped out of school because of this and i dont know what to do to fix it

[positivelybeastly]

Have you ever wondered if Hank would be better of without the X-Men?

So, this is an interesting question, and I hope that this answer is similarly interesting - mostly because it starts, like most interesting answers, with, it depends!

I think that when Hank was just first starting out as an X-Man, as a member of the Original Five X-Men, it was a genuinely good environment for him.

Yeah, he was a seventeen year old involved in superheroics far beyond his logical grasp, but it was very much to his benefit that he was with people who understood what it was like to be ostracised for powers and gifts that you were granted by birth, that you struggled to control, that you had to hide to get by.

He wasn't really, truly fulfilled as a normal high school/college student - he kept having to hide just how brilliant he was, both physically and mentally, for fear of sticking his head up above the parapet and being kicked back down. For all his flaws as a mentor, Professor Xavier was an intellectual equal (at first, anyway) for Hank, someone who could meet him on that level and engage with and nurture him.

And it really can't be understated just how good it was for Hank to make friends his own age, because he really just did not have that many of them beforehand. I can name one, Jennifer Nyles. That's it.

So Bobby was obviously an amazing anchor for him, and Scott and Warren ended up being good, stable friends who, at least at that juncture, were good influences on him, keeping him focused - I also think that Warren, especially, would have been a very stabilising presence for Hank, as the only other physically mutated mutant he had seen up until that point (not counting Bobby, who can turn his Iceman form on or off).

Once he'd gotten over his thankfully brief period mooning over Jean (fuck off, Bendis), they ended up becoming extremely good friends, too - their shared emotional sensitivity and capacity for compassion and love made them really good friends, which is something you see come back quite a bit in the 90s and in New X-Men.

It's also telling that it's when he leaves the X-Men here, he ends up fucking up his life fairly quickly, falling into bed with a Secret Empire spy and turning himself furry in a fit of intellectual hubris - he needed them to occasionally drag him out of the lab and remind him, hey, Hank, the rest of the world still exists! If he'd had Bobby, Warren or Jean present to keep his head screwed on, he genuinely might not have done such a dumb thing to himself - or if he had, he would have been with people who could've helped.

Where it gets a lot muddier is when it comes to X-Factor in the 80s and then just the X-Men from the 90s all the way up to, well, now. The problem is that Hank is . . . Hank is really useful. He's often the heart of the team, so he's the guy that a lot of people come to for advice about their problems, or, at the very least, someone who feels the need to care for people who are having problems (you see this a lot in New X-Men, where he's constantly taking it upon himself to be there for people).

But he's also the big guy AND the smart guy - he's, like, three parts of the Five Man band group archetype all in one, which is honestly why you see him almost constantly on the flagship X-Men teams, like X-Men Blue in the 90s, the New X-Men in the early 00s, the Astonishing team in the mid 00s, etc, he's just useful on a team.

But the problem is that Hank has a really hard time looking at a problem and saying, no, I can't solve it, or, no, I don't have the time to do that, or, no, that's not something to do with me. He's just not wired that way. He's inclined to help. He's inclined to try. He's inclined to study and poke and prod and heal and learn. He's been like that since he was a child, when he was dismantling bus engines on the school lawn - this happens because that, that happens because this, because because because - he wants to know. He wants to solve.

So, what happens when you give him problems he can't solve?

He tried so damn hard to fix the Legacy Virus. He tried so damn hard to fix the Decimation. He threw himself into the problems, he pushed himself to his limits, he did things he knew he shouldn't be doing, he put himself in danger, he put others in danger, he didn't think clearly - because I need to solve the problem. I need to help. I need to fix this. Because if I can't, no-one can.

And the problem is, on the X-Men, that's generally true!

There is no-one on the X-Men who can do what Hank can do! The instant the news came in about the Decimation and just how real and far reaching it was, who did everyone look to? They didn't look at Cyclops or Emma Frost or Wolverine for solutions, they looked at Hank, and he thought, well, if I can't do it, who can?

Genuinely, back in 2005, who stood a chance of fixing the Decimation? Look at the X-Men rosters. Look at the list of the 198. Who the fuck can solve this? Maybe Mr. Sinister? MAYBE? And that's if you trust him to?

And that pressure is just so ugly and unpleasant and crushing for Hank, because Hank is a social butterfly. He loves to talk to people, he loves to make people laugh, he loves to get vocal, repeated affirmation that he's good, that he's a genius, that he's loved, that he's cared for, because he's so frightfully insecure and anxious and dysphoric. And the instant that you shut him in a lab or send him out on a mission by himself, it's like you're setting a pressure cooker on the highest setting to see how long it takes before it bursts. He needs a social life.

Even when the X-Men spurned him after the failed intervention (which, fuck, that could be its own post), they STILL had to go back to him! Ororo Munroe, goddess of the elements, mistress Storm, the leader of the X-Men, told Hank that she was contemplating giving him to S.H.I.E.L.D for crimes against time and space and nature in Uncanny X-Men #600. And yet, the instant the M-Pox happens, who does she turn to?

She turns to Hank. Poor, dependable, unable to say no, Hank.

You see it even again in Rosenberg's Astonishing X-Men. Havok doesn't know who to talk to about his weird dreams and tech problems, so who does he go to? Does he talk to anyone at the Xavier Institute? Does he talk to an Avenger?

No, he goes to Hank. Who's living a completely normal, happy, academic life at Harvard. He's trying to heal Banshee from the Apocalypse infection. He likes to eat Portobello Patty Melts.

Within five minutes, Reavers turn up and start shooting up the place, and Hank loses his job.

Because Havok, like every other X-Man, has a learned pattern of behaviour - if you have a problem, go see Hank. He'll fix it.

Suffice it to say, this is not a good thing for Hank. No wonder he fucking cracked. No wonder he just started losing it. No wonder the version of him we see in Battle of the Atom has lost his wits. He has to be the doctor, scientist, biologist, mechanic, engineer, armchair psychologist, pathologist, linguist, chemist, physicist, pilot, athlete, genius, to basically an entire community of people.

By this point? Yes, Hank would absolutely be better off without the X-Men. Hell, I feel like he was better off without them from 2009 onwards, where you can see an appreciable difference in how happy he is to be working at S.W.O.R.D versus how he is at the Jean Grey School or on any of the X-Men teams he joins after that point.

This also highlights why he's so different on the Avengers and Defenders, why he's so much happier and goofier and light-hearted - it's not just because his boyfriend Simon Williams is around (though that certainly helps), it's because they usually have, like, four geniuses on a team at any one time, and it lightens the load. He doesn't have to be every genius under the sun, he can afford to just be the big strong guy and take it easy a bit. The positive reputation and public affirmation that comes from being an Avenger versus an X-Man certainly doesn't hurt, either.

There's also a weird, distorting effect that Hank's years away from the X-Men has caused - he was one of the original X-Men, so he has tenure and prestige, and he's generally one of the oldest around, so he knows what he's doing, but he also missed out on a very long period of time for the team (1974-1991) where a lot of very strong friendships, like Kurt-Logan-Piotr, Jean-Ororo, etc, formed, so he doesn't have that bond with them.

There's a distance.

Everyone knows Hank, but not everyone knows Hank. There is such a clear, defined difference between how someone like Scott or Jean talks to Hank, versus how someone like Kitty or Ororo does. I really don't think it's a coincidence that if you look at who's around when Hank is dying in All-New X-Men, it's mostly people who know him but don't really know him - it's Logan, it's Ororo, it's Kitty - so when he says he's fine, even as his heart is bursting in his chest, they believe him. They don't know how to tell if he's really fine or not. If that had been Jean, or Scott, or Warren, that would not have happened.

But what about Bobby, you cry!

What fucking about Bobby. The guy has the emotional sensitivity of a brick, and I'm firmly of the opinion that he and Hank stopped being truly close friends during the Utopia era, when Hank tried to emotionally confide in him about his PTSD and Bobby just told him to sit and spin on it. You compare how they are in Defenders and X-Factor or 90s X-Men with how they are during the JGS era, and it's night and day clear that they're not close anymore.

But that's yet another discussion, for another time.

TD;DR: the X-Men were a good place for Hank initially, but as time has gone on, and the mutant community's problems have become increasingly more dire, they've become a profoundly toxic environment for him. He doesn't have fun, he doesn't have many close friends there, and they treat him more and more like a utility as time goes on. When we get our resurrected Beast back in a few months, I hope he goes back to the Avengers and never returns.

[marshmallowprotection]

Ooooh matchups? I'm curious, if you don't mind!

I look like MC if she had green eyes and glasses. I don't go out much due to asthma and an orthopedic issue that causes pain sometimes, but I like to stay inside.

I enjoy playing videogames most, reading non-fiction, and drawing is a fun hobby too, though I mostly stick to sketched things instead of full works. I love to write poetry too sometimes. My favorite hobby is self teaching languages. I've always wanted to get into computer science and coding, but I'm too scared and not confident enough to know where to start.

I usually keep to myself to have fun. It's what I've always been used to. I don't have any siblings and I struggled a lot growing up with bullying. I was kept close to home with helicopter parents (with good intentions of course, considering my school experiences) and so I never really learned how to socialize.

I didn't have any friends my age, and when I DID talk to other kids, I could never... connect? I always felt different, always walking on eggshells watching what I'd say or how I acted, always wanting to be a people pleaser but never be myself, anything just to be wanted by someone. It never really worked out.

Now that I'm in college (I'm studying ecology!), I have this social freedom that I never really got as a kid. My freshman year I had no idea what I was doing. Something more social than high school? (Which I attended not one single dance or event for in all four years (I was doomed.)) My parents told me they just wanted me to finally be happy and to have good experiences. I didnt know how to do that. If I couldn't please my parents in the social department, I could do what I do best- be a study hermit and an obsessive perfectionist at the sacrifice of my physical and mental health. If I could be perfect academically, I'd be worth something as a child then, right?

...

It took a year to learn that that was a big mistake too.

I'm... getting better with that. Slowly but surely.

After some therapy, I'm learning to open up more. I've made a decently large group of friends (I have no idea how). I'm getting used to being involved in things now, and go out on outings, and have conversations.

I'm still too scared to do some things, and I'm still a bit too buried in my perfectionist study issues, but all this new stuff feels nice for once, despite it all being so foreign.

I'm still finding out who I am, so this description of myself was probably a bit vague, but I figured it's worth a shot nonetheless. Sorry if long, I get carried away writing a lot of the times ;-;

I match you with...

Jumin!

You're somebody who doesn't quite understand the rest of the world. It's not a bad thing, it just means you have difficulty seeing the ways that people adapt and communicate. In some ways, it gives you a bit of a benefit because you don't see the bias or the conflict that can arise in relationships. In other ways, it makes you feel like you're behind schedule and that you're not working fast enough to be at the point that your social peers are.

Once you've learned not to compare yourself to others, you don't need to worry about a thing. All you need to do is go at your own pace and find people that understand you the way that you are. In that sense, that's why the perfect choice for you is somebody you like Jumin. You probably wouldn't believe it but he struggles with the same thing. His upbringing kept him from interacting with other people in most capacities. He may be able to seem like he is an expert at communication, but that isn't really the case. People don't understand him the way that he can understand them. There might be a feeling of similarity in that for you. You might find him to be a kindred spirit. Somebody who knows where you're coming from when you feel you're most vulnerable. He gets it in a way that nobody else ever could.

That's why you'd feel the safest with him. There's no rush to be anybody or anything. You just get to be yourself with him and he the same with you. There isn't a push to communicate or be something you're not. You get to talk about the things you love and see what makes the other person tick. He is also someone who enjoys being a homebody, but it's even better now that he has the right person at home. It doesn't feel as lonely when he looks over from the book he's reading to see that you're sitting there with him. It's almost poetic in a way. Maybe you'll enjoy that with him just as much as he does with you.

[onsomekindofstartrek]

There’s an article going around about a professional romance author who was locked out of her google drive for an unspecified violation and lost 22,000 words of work that way.

And like, yes, that’s kafkaesque and yes, Google is acting abominably. The spokesperson that is quoted in the article should lose her job if she really took the attitude that the author is claiming she did. And there should be legal protections and liability insurance for this kind of thing happening to professionals who depend on online services for their livelihoods.

But at the same time this is a professional person who is inarguably showing poor backup discipline with work files, and while I wouldn’t say it to her face, I don’t think it should be controversial to say that this should be a cautionary tale.

If you have something you don’t want to lose, even just for personal reasons, and especially over the long term, there is a minimum backup discipline you should follow. And I would argue that if it’s worth anything at all, that minimum is “3-2-1.”

3: three separate backup copies of your data BESIDES the operational one.

2: two different kinds of media: yes, this could be cloud and flash sticks, or it could be flash sticks and burning to DVD (yes, I know that’s old fashioned but no, I really mean it.) This way if you accidentally erase a flash drive, you have a DVD that you’re not going to erase. If you lose access to a DVD drive you have a flash stick. If you use hard drives, you should also use flash media, in case something happens that physically ruins your hard drives like falling, heat or magnetic pulse. It could happen.

And finally, 1: you should have one backup offsite. If your house burns down and you just had three on-site backups, they could still all be ruined. And to be honest cloud storage is a slam dunk for this. It’s multiple copies and likely a different type of medium (being stored in multiple copies on hard drives) and it’s offsite. But if you ONLY use the cloud and get locked out because of corporate bullshit, then you’re just as fucked.

My recommendation for non-techie people? Have two hi-capacity flash sticks or maybe a flash stick and an external hard drive. Keep one flash stick on your keys so that if your house burns down while you are away, you have a backup with you. And then also back up to the cloud. Do all three at the same time, as often as you make a change to your files that would be impossible, time-consuming or emotionally challenging to do again.

For technologically savvy people, I swear by having an on-site raid SSH/rsync server with mirroring (which satisfies two or more of the three copies) and also using the cloud. That satisfies the whole thing with added benefits, as far as I’m concerned; it’s a lot more convenient than using multiple physical media that you have to connect to your computer every time you back up, and rsync is a very efficient way to back up files, since it only transmits what’s been changed, not the entirety of files that already exist in the backup.

Don’t for the love of god become the next victim of google’s digital plutocracy, and don’t for the love of god lose your only pictures of your loved ones or your life’s work in a house fire.

[thetinypsychologist]

MOTIVATION VS SELF-DISCIPLINE

When studying, most people try to find motivation thinking that this will get them through their study session, or they will see their failure as a result of a lack of motivation. But motivation isn’t always what we need - what do you do on the days you have no motivation? This is why we need self-discipline.

MOTIVATION VS SELF DISCIPLINE

Motivation - a willingness to do something. It is the set of psychological forces that compel you to take action. A goal or reward that you look forward to that will encourage you to study - while this is useful, what happens on a day when you just don’t feel like studying?

Self-Discipline - making yourself do things you know you should do when you don’t want to. Being trained to routinely study regardless of how unmotivated you are - this is what will get you out of bed on a day you don’t feel like studying.

So if motivation is ‘why we should do something’ - self-discipline is more ‘what to do next’.

HOW TO BE SELF-DISCIPLINED

Make a commitment with yourself that you will make studying as your habit. This is super important. Commit yourself to make this as your new habit. Don’t half-ass any of these suggestions or any other suggestions that other people give. Don’t give yourself silly, illegitimate excuses in the process. For this, you can do it by remind yourself on what your long-term goals in life are. Or if they don’t sound rewarding enough, remind yourself what failure feels like/ could feel like.

Set yourself a routine and stick to it

Never have a zero day - 10 minutes is better than nothing!! Do flashcards from your bed or watch youtube ted talks if you can’t physically study. This will help help develop a routine and make it easier for you to cope. Also, by studying everyday your brain will know that the content you are learning should be stored as long-term information so this will benefit you in the long run! However I do want to stress not to force yourself if you don’t have the capacity / energy for it. Take care of yourself too.

Avoid long breaks. Unless you know that taking an hour long break means only an hour, then you can ignore this. But fo the majority of us, once we’ve taken a while out of studying it can be hard to get back into it again. One minute you’re taking a 20 minute break for a snack and some phone time and the next thing you know you’re on Youtube and four hours have passed! To avoid this, try stick to shorter breaks - five or ten minutes for a snack break, toilet break and to check any phone messages. A good method to try for this is the Pomodoro Method!

Build on your productivity, not your failures.

If you come from a past of procrastinating and now feel motivated to change and discipline yourself, do NOT try to do everything at once. Start things slow and in steps.

Set yourself smaller deadlines for your goals like monthly and weekly deadlines - e.g. if you are doing a project, due 27th June, set personal deadlines, like have the introduction written by the 8th, have your literature review written by the 15th, have project complete by the 25th. 

Break down the things that you must do into smaller, concrete activities and put those smaller activities in that to-do list; allocate specific time periods to do each smaller activities and put it the to-do list as well; set an alarm reminder for each smaller activities. Say you have to study for English on Tuesday, because for whatever reasons you just decided to dedicate your time this Tuesday to study English. However, I’d suggest that you break down that specific activity (or “daily goal”) before putting it in your to-do list. So, instead of just putting “study for Physics”, try putting “read and highlight Chapter 9″, because putting very general/broad activity like “study English” can actually make you too confused on where and how to start doing it, and make you very prone to distractions in the process. 

Know your limits. Self-discipline isn’t doing as much as you can until you break - it’s about having control, knowing what you can realistically manage and getting that done.

Give yourself rewards! I love to have something to look forward to as I get work done! This means mixing motivation and self-discipline. I tell myself after this lecture I can have an animal crossing break or check some messages etc. 

Track your progress – don’t forget to put a checklist on your to-do list after accomplishing a task. It would relieve your stress a bit and motivate you to continue doing the remaining activities on your to-do list. 

Remove distractions from your study space! Personally, if my phone is out and I notice a notification…I’m gonna check it. It’s human nature! So to combat this, I use apps like Forest that force me to stay within the app while I study. If I know I might get hungry during a study session I’ll keep a little snack by my desk so I don’t have to get up and somehow find something else to distract me.

Just do it isn’t that easy. I find to get myself in a ‘work boss’ mood I need to feel good about myself so I put on a nice outfit and maybe some eyeliner and hype myself up so I know I can do my tasks and get stuff done! It feels so much better than lazing in my pyjamas trying to study.

Be patient. It’s going to be a rough journey, it’s going to be hard but you’ve got this! Take it one step at a time. Start off by completing one task a day, then move to two, then three, and the next thing you know, you’ll have a regular routine where you will constantly be ticking off your to-do list everyday! But remember to be kind to yourself, know when your body is not in the right state of health to study and don’t force it. Only force yourself to a limit, you’ll know when to stop and that’s okay. Just try again when you feel better! Your health is much more important!

[robininthelabyrinth]

Good Help - chapter 2 - ao3 link

-

Despite the circumstances of their first meeting, Meng Yao mostly appreciated A-Jue for his quick mind and fearlessness – and, yes, occasionally for his towering height that made grabbing books from high places infinitely easier – rather than his muscles, however impressive they were. In fact, after the first few weeks, he had very nearly forgotten that A-Jue was a guard of the inner hall.

The assassination attempt put an end to that oversight.

It wasn’t that Meng Yao hadn’t anticipated such an attempt, nor that he hadn’t taken precautions. He was careful to take his meals in the communal kitchen at unexpected hours and tested even the snacks he kept with him before consuming them, and naturally avoided any unsupervised hallways or attempts to lure him outside, but he had underestimated the enmity that greeted his appointment: he had not thought that they would launch a direct attack.

The perpetrators entered his office as petitioners, posing as clerks for an influential merchant, and launched the attack just as they were settling into the rhythm of negotiations. They were hoping to catch him distracted, which they did, but Meng Yao had always had good instincts; he realized what was happening the first moment they moved. He was out of his chair and reaching for the flexible sword he stored around his waist almost at once, already calculating how many injuries he could incur and still be able to fight back enough to preserve his life – he just needed to survive until the guards came in, unless they’d somehow gotten rid of those, in which case he needed to run –

The calculations proved unnecessary.

By the time Meng Yao’s hand reached the hilt of his blade, A-Jue was already in front of him, catching one assassin the chest with a vicious palm strike and knocking him into the path of another, turning fluidly to slam an elbow into a third.

He didn’t even draw the saber that hung low at his waist, just knocked aside the assassin’s swords and daggers with his bare hands and then beating them with his fists and feet.

Meng Yao stood there for a moment, blinking, and by the time even his quick-moving mind caught up with everything the assassins all were unconscious or paralyzed, the merchant was on his knees begging for mercy and swearing to his ignorance, and A-Jue was standing there, frowning slightly at one of the still-twitching assassins like he was considering going in for more.

“Why didn’t you draw your saber?” Meng Yao asked, both because he was curious and because it was a better reaction than saying I forgot you could do that or I thought I’d be facing them all on my own again, or, even worse, thanks.

“I thought you’d want them alive to question them,” A-Jue said, blinking at him – he had the same expression of good-natured puzzlement as he did any time Meng Yao corrected him, whether as to his calculation of accounting errors or underestimating the malice inherent in mankind, which remained a subject of recurrent disagreement. “Was I wrong?”

“Not at all,” Meng Yao said, and felt once again the thrill of power when A-Jue nodded and called for other guards to enter and remove the bodies, although he crouched by each one first to check them over for any suicide pills or arrays that might interfere with an interrogation. His professional detachment and efficient resolution of events was truly suitable for a guard of the inner hall, the finest of Wen Ruohan’s soldiers; there could be no complaints.

There was something truly delightful about having a powerful man at your beck and call, Meng Yao reflected, and wondered briefly if A-Jue had been sent his way deliberately as a plant to infiltrate his confidence. It seemed unlikely, given the random nature of their meeting, and certainly A-Jue didn’t fit any of Meng Yao’s known pre-existing preferences, other than in terms of bedpartners. And yet he grew suspicious, if only because A-Jue suited him so very well, just right in every way…

Meng Yao spent the next three days conducting a series of covert tests to see if any information was being leaked from his office through A-Jue, but there was nothing. Ultimately, he was forced to conclude that A-Jue might actually just be – like that.

Straightforward and blunt, fearless in both speech and action, decisive and capable and yet willing to take orders from Meng Yao, never judging him for his birth but respecting him for his abilities…

Good help, he reminded his suddenly over-active libido. Hard to find. Don’t ruin a good thing.

It was hard to remember, though. A-Jue was just the sort of man Meng Yao liked when he went for men: handsome and powerfully built, well-born or rich or both, stern and unyielding in demeanor, the sort of man for whom life generally went the way they wanted. The sort could easily get a girl, even one of good breeding and appropriate lineage, merely by snapping his fingers. The type of man that might tempt even a practiced whore.

Meng Yao liked to break those types of men.

It was a trait he shared with Wen Ruohan, and one of the ways he had managed to get the Emperor’s attention – that first job he had taken had been in the Fire Palace, the Emperor’s torture chambers, and he had worked out a considerable portion of his anger and anxiety through the torment of his enemies, defined liberally as anyone who insulted his mother. He’d matured since then, growing calmer, but he still liked to put proud men on their knees and make them service him, to rub their faces in the fact that he was the one with the power, to make them crawl and plead and cry for him. Though he supposed for someone like A-Jue – he wouldn’t need to break him, really.

It’d be enough to see him bend. Willingly, for him.

And yet, if Meng Yao did that, wouldn’t A-Jue start to flinch from him and turn away from him – seek to preserve his injured pride by fleeing Meng Yao’s presence, the way so many others before him had? It would make working together much more annoying, and A-Jue was perfect the way he was.

Almost irritatingly so. If only A-Jue were more inclined to make errors, Meng Yao would feel freer to take advantage of him.

“Have you ever thought less of me because of my parentage?” Meng Yao asked one evening, apropos of nothing, when A-Jue was already exhausted and more than a little wild-eyed from having to review every single one of the reports on wheat yields in their northern provinces as part of Meng Yao’s random audit of the files.

“I mean, Jin Guangshan’s a waste of space, but you’re nothing like him, so not after the beginning,” A-Jue said automatically, then scowled at Meng Yao when he started laughing. “What? Give me a break, I didn’t know you then! How was I to guess that you’d actually be competent? Or – not awful?”

“I was,” Meng Yao said with dignity, even if his lips insisted on twitching, “referring to my mother.”

“But you hate it when people talk about your mother,” A-Jue said blankly, then shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, is this some sort of mind game? If so, can it wait until tomorrow? I’m going to dream in wheat prices.”

“It can wait until tomorrow,” Meng Yao agreed, pretending to be solemn. He wasn’t sure if he was more amused at A-Jue’s ridiculous perspective on things or the fact that he seemed to think Meng Yao was not awful simply because he’d indulged him a few times when he was being especially insistent on doing things the soft-hearted way.

“You’re making fun of me again,” A-Jue grumbled. “I don’t know why, but you are. Fuck you.”

The next day, Meng Yao asked A-Jue if he’d ever been to a whorehouse.

“Yes, while on campaign,” A-Jue said, blinking rapidly as if he were trying to hide something, or more likely not think of something. Either he’d had a bad experience or he thought Meng Yao was going to cut off his balls for admitting it.

Which he wouldn’t, of course. There was nothing wrong with the better sort of customer, and Meng Yao felt certain that A-Jue would have been that sort, could imagine him sitting in the corner with a jar of wine and a blush until he was coaxed upstairs and then paying too much for the privilege, after...but it was cute that A-Jue worried about such things.  

Meng Yao put a friendly hand on A-Jue’s shoulder – the man flinched, briefly, but quickly mastered himself, just as he did any time anyone touched him – and said in his best sugar-sweet sympathetic tone that he hadn’t had to use on anyone in ages, “Did she touch you in a bad place?”

“The honored viceroy can go fuck himself any time he damn well pleases,” A-Jue said, and he had no idea how much Meng Yao would like to ask him if he’d prefer to do the honors himself.

“Do you know any other curses, or is it just variations on the term ‘fuck’?” he asked instead, thinking good help, good help, good help. “I know at least three dozen involving farmyard animals, if you’d like to learn.”

A-Jue’s laugh was in no way like a braying donkey, no matter what Meng Yao pretended to insist.

-

“Have you considered the benefits of a regular routine of physical exercise?” A-Jue asked.

Meng Yao glared at him.

“I’m just saying,” A-Jue said. “It would make your life easier.”

“Shut up and help me get down from up here,” Meng Yao hissed – A-Jue had taken care of the vicious snarling creatures that had somehow gotten loose, an obvious follow-up assassination attempt now that the poisoning he thought he’d identified in a late-night dessert had been demonstrably unsuccessful, even if A-Jue had insisted that they were just “sweet little puppies” and Meng Yao was “overreacting”.

“I’d be happy to help train you, if you’d like.”

“I’m far too busy,” Meng Yao said with what little shreds of dignity he still possessed. “I do three times as much work as you do, I don’t have capacity to running off to go wave a stick in the air multiple times a day like some people.”

A-Jue grinned at him, utterly unmoved, and Meng Yao huffed, rolling his eyes at him.

“If I agree,” he said, with no intention whatsoever of agreeing, “will you finally show me your saber?”

If there was innuendo in there – well. He was only a man, after all.

“Perhaps one day,” A-Jue said. “It’s not a privileged I give to everyone.”

Meng Yao tried to parse whether that was flirting. He couldn’t quite tell.

“Well, your saber is very large,” he said, probing. “Maybe you should take it out more often.”

“When I take out my saber, someone dies,” A-Jue said, and – probably not flirting, then. “I wouldn’t want to accidentally skewer you.”

Possibly very strange flirting? Meng Yao wouldn’t put it past A-Jue.

“Yes, well,” he said, straightening his robes and settling back into professional mode. “You have fun with your exercise, but leave me out of it.”

A-Jue escorted him back to his office first, conscientious as always.

Once he was gone, Meng Yao rang a certain bell and summoned Sisi, whose freedom was probably the best investment he’d ever made – she’d merged into the palace staff without leaving so much as a trace behind, acting as though the other girls were her sisters and she’d been there forever, and she was more than willing to report on everything she learned.

Also, she’d retained enough of her looks that everyone thought that Meng Yao only summoned her for sex, making A-Jue’s occasional disappearances for training purposes the perfect time for Meng Yao to meet with her without suspicion – he’d given up most of his paranoia surrounding A-Jue, but that was no reason to share all of his tricks.

Besides, he wasn’t sure he actually wanted A-Jue and Sisi to meet.

“When you’re done fucking him, can you share?” Sisi asked after she put down the tray of snacks – buns and a pot of tea, all of which she sampled before his eyes in the name of sharing food. “Man like that deserves to be common property.”

“I’m not whoring him out,” Meng Yao said, a warning in his tone, and Sisi sighed dramatically.

“Tell me you’re at least having a good time with all those muscles,” she said. “Someone ought to be.”

Meng Yao rolled his eyes.

“Where’s the trouble coming from this time?” he asked, deciding to elide the issue entirely. “I keep hearing whispers and people look nervous, the way they do before some sort of trouble, but neither gentry nor merchant class seem to have produced anything out of the ordinary, and I can’t imagine it’s the farmers again after last time.”

“You’re looking out, you should be looking in,” she said.

“The Emperor’s court?”

That could be a serious problem. Any political turmoil that happened within the Nightless City would have ramifications well beyond it.

“His harem,” Sisi said, her face alight with the pleasure of gossip. “Word’s come back from the south – turns out that the Emperor took one of the Imperial Consorts with him for his trip.”

Even Meng Yao’s eyebrows raised.

“And with the Empress in seclusion, well…”

It wasn’t as though the Empress had a strong maternal family as a backing – no one even knew what her surname was – but she’d been there for years and years, practically part of the décor. Replacing her with one of the Consorts would be…a change.

The Nightless City hated change.

“Could you ask to see her?” Sisi asked. “Just as proof of life…”

“I could,” Meng Yao said, because technically he had authority over everyone, “but I won’t. Why would I invite trouble for myself? I’d have to explain to the Emperor why I interfered with his harem.”

“Good point,” Sisi said, although she looked disappointed.

“Which Consort?”

“The rumor says A-Sang,” she said. “The one that likes to carry scholarly fans.”

“A-Sang? Really?”

“I know! We all thought that the Emperor didn’t even like A-Sang – everyone agrees that A-Sang never got any imperial visits before this; the Emperor never spent a night in A-Sang’s rooms, never even shared a meal, nothing. But why else would he take A-Sang with him on a months-long journey?”

Why indeed. The Emperor remained as unfathomable as ever. Meng Yao wondered briefly if Wen Ruohan really had murdered the Empress in her seclusion, faking her presence with a note…still, it seemed implausible. Why would he bother?

“I heard a rumor once,” he said instead. “About A-Sang.”

Like all good spies and shit-stirrers, Sisi was immediately at full attention – she knew that Meng Yao was not inclined to gossip for the pleasure of it, the way she was, and therefore he would only volunteer information if he intended for her to spread it.

“A-Sang is the Empress’ family,” Meng Yao said, and Sisi’s eyes went wide. “Younger sibling.”

Younger brother, he thought, though he didn’t say anything – he didn’t actually know for sure. It was hard to tell. Wen Ruohan didn’t lock away his wives the way some men did; on the contrary, he enjoyed bringing them out for celebrations to show them off. But the Empress was invariably veiled, swathed in silks without a hint of skin showing, always seated in her chair as if she were kneeling in penance, never moving; Meng Yao, who only saw her from a distance during the celebrations, sometimes almost thought she might not have legs. In daily life, she sometimes attended the Emperor’s court, but always remained seated behind her veils and sometimes even a screen, little more than a silhouette from which, rarely, notes emerged but no voice ever did.

Naturally, if the Empress preferred to be veiled, that meant the other wives had to at least pretend to follow her lead. And that meant veils and concealing clothing, even if some of them interpreted the concept rather loosely, with sheer veils and even sheerer clothing, meant to entice – A-Sang fell somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, wearing a veil that revealed his eyes and clothing that allowed him flexibility of movement without too much restraint, and while he was slender and delicate, Meng Yao was moderately certain that he was indeed male.

Not that it mattered.

Wen Ruohan had never much cared about that.

“Amazing,” Sis breathed. “So all these years, the Emperor has been refraining from touching A-Sang out of respect for the Empress, and now the little sister wife has finally made her move…”

Meng Yao had said none of that, but it served him to muddle the waters a little, mostly to see who would try to clear it up. Not that it could be, as his information about their familial connection was accurate – gleaned from a careless comment by Wen Ruohan himself, no less – but it interested him to know who would try regardless.

“Go,” he said, and Sisi left, all but floating, and it wasn’t long before A-Jue returned, all shiny with sweat and exertion, looking incredibly fuckable.

“You worked near the harem, right?” Meng Yao asked him, mind still focused on the bubbling little scandal that he just knew would become an issue that could wreck his thus far successful regency. “Do you have any connections there?”

“Not really?” A-Jue said. “Most of the wives are scared of me.”

Typical.

“Is there something you’d like me to find out for you..?”

“No need,” Meng Yao said. He’d never met anyone less well suited to be a spy than A-Jue. “But it may be an avenue of future threats, so keep it in mind.”

“I’m not going to let anyone from the harem harm you,” A-Jue said, oddly fierce. “Not anyone. Don’t worry.”

[atruththatyoudeny]

Happy 28th! I’ve read so many awesome fics this month! Make sure to check them all out. As always, all my love to all the authors in this fandom ♥

➻ don't want to fight you | starryharry | enemies to lovers - enemies to friends to lovers - pining - mutual pining - angst - fluff slow burn - no smut - 124k Louis hates that it’s familiar. He hates that sparring Harry is familiar because they train together. He hates that he even has to spar Harry at all, because Harry is good. Louis wonders what his life would be like if him and Harry didn’t hate each other. He can’t picture it, really. The incessant bickering that often turns into real arguing, the nasty looks, the eye rolls, the middle fingers. It all feels very necessary at this point. Or, the one where two fighters can also be lovers because routines are never permanent.

➻ we are ghosts amongst these hills | louisgaynkles | Soulmates - reincarnation - historical - slow burn - angst - fluff - 84k Harry spontaneously buys a house in Yorkshire because the universe, or fate, keeps leading him to it. What he didn’t know, is that his new house comes with a past that seems to be mysteriously tied to his own life. Before he knows it he finds himself travelling back in time, stuck in the middle of a century old love story. Featuring Louis as a farmer with a passion for gardening, Zayn as the heir to the local manor, Niall as a pub owner with a secret, and a truly underappreciated Liam. Based on Mariana by Susanna Kearsley

➻ through the wheatfields and the coastlines | thepolourryexpress | farms - cowboys - angst - implied/referenced homophobia - implied/referenced gun use - humor - smut - 53k “You’re not from around here, are ya?” Hot Cowboy asks, tracking his little lamb with his eyes. Louis frowns slightly, having thought he was doing pretty well at not sticking out like a sore thumb. It’s not like he’s not from around here — it’s not his first summer he’s spent at his grandparents'. But he supposes that the Manhattan city lifestyle that he’s used to is always going to shine through. “I’m visiting family for the summer,” Louis explains, cheeks a little pink. “Trying to get some work done without distractions.” Or, alternatively, the one where Louis needs inspiration, and a certain cowboy and his lamb are the perfect distraction.

➻ An Irrationally Strong Bond Between Two People | jishler | dystopia - friends to lovers - angst - first time - 18k Before The Advancement, most human lives and careers were plagued by irrationality and a lack of productivity. This was largely the symptom of what scientists refer to as “interpersonal passion,” which included two separate (though often conjointly occurring) phenomena: “love,” and “sex.” “Love” was a pre-Advancement word which referred to an irrationally strong bond between two people, which caused its sufferers to prioritise their fellow “lover,” as well as the integrity of the malignant bond itself, over vital things such as workplace productivity. Taken every two weeks in pill form, The Drug immediately removes interpersonal passion from the human psyche. Children’s friendships do not have the capacity to develop into full-fledged “love” since they are not yet adults. Every person over eighteen takes The Drug gladly, grateful that it allows them to be productive, clear-headed, and rational members of society. A few weeks before Louis’ eighteenth birthday, Harry and Louis fall in love. (Based on the book Louis writes in indiaalphawhiskey's Our Lives, Non-Fiction.)

➻ And When It's Time | larryftnoctrl | Soulmates - soulmate-identifying timers - 6k Louis wants a soulmate, Harry loves his free will. They don't exactly go hand in hand. Prompt: AU where you have a countdown on your wrist for when you're going to meet your soulmate and if you miss it the time will reset. Louis/Harry keep having awful luck and always are missing their time until one day they don't. Maybe the other one is scared/has anxiety about meeting their soulmate? Maybe one time they're in a relationship so they intentionally miss their time? Who knows! But they finally meet :D

➻ made for lovin' you | cuddlerlouis | a/b/o - enemies to lovers - hate to love - soulmates - hurt/comfort - angst - fluff smut - 53k “I’m in,” is all Louis receives. He blinks a few times, making sure he’s reading this right. “For real?” he asks, just to be a hundred percent sure. “Yes,” pops up. “How do you wanna pursue?” The alpha adds, like he’s on a special mission or something. “I’m gonna call us a cab to go to mine. Once I know it’s here, I’ll leave and join you there,” Louis explains. “I’ll text you to go around five minutes before it arrives, so it doesn’t look suspicious, and our friends don’t notice us leaving together.” “Noted.” So Louis does, and ten minutes later, he’s sat in the backseat of a cab, next to Harry Styles, the person he hates the most but unfortunately still finds attractive. They’re on their way to fuck in Louis’ flat. Splendid. - Or the one where a quick, horny decision ruins Louis’ summer plans, but may also lead to unexpected discoveries. Featuring the road trip of dreams, misunderstandings, and a bit of fate.

➻ deFENCEless | solvetheminourdreams | neighbors - enemies to lovers enemies to friends to lovers - gardening - fluff - humor - banter - no smut - 27k "I moved here first," Louis says with finality, crossing his arms over his chest. Harry shoots him an unimpressed look before leaning forward, leaving only a tiny gap between them. "Then get the fence first," he whispers, lips a mere inch or two away from Louis'. When Louis butts heads with his new neighbor who loves to garden a little too much, all he can do to protect his yard (and heart), is keep on building up his fence(s).

➻ Canyon Moon | delsicle | a/b/o - werewolf - soulmates - childhood friends - friends to lovers - arranged marriage - mutual pining - hurt/comfort - angst - 41k For as long as Louis has remembered, he has been promised to be mated to Harry, his best friend and the future pack alpha. But Louis’s heart belonged to the forest and to the hunt more than he could ever imagine it belonging to Harry. Then Harry’s father dies in a violent accident, and Louis’s future alpha disappears on the wind. An A/B/O Lion King AU

➻ only guilty of loving you | sweetrevenge | a/b/o - strangers to lovers - blind date - soulmates - fluff - angst - mutual pining - smut - 22k After Harry gets set up with his co-worker's alpha friend Louis, he's expecting some pleasant conversation, free dinner, and maybe a new friend. What he doesn't expect, however, is that Louis' arrival in his life begins a life of crime Harry never knew he had in him. A You've Got Mail!AU with a twist.

➻ 'Til Everything Changes | lovelarry10 | a/b/o - older characters - brokend bond - loss - falling in love - fluff - implied mpreg - smut - 57k Harry’s nose twitched as he caught a scent on the breeze, one that sent a shudder through his whole body. His eyes closed subconsciously, and he lost himself in the heady scent, the vanilla top notes, and the more woody undertones, making every hair on Harry’s body stand on end. That was how Harry discovered this man was an Alpha. “Jaz, Harry, this is my Uncle Louis. Lou, this is my girlfriend Jasmine, and her dad Harry.” "Lovely to meet you,” Louis grinned, leaning in and kissing Jasmine’s cheek quickly, a respectful Alpha gesture. Harry held his breath as Louis stuck out a hand, taking it almost reluctantly, certain the Alpha would pick up on his own scent and the nerves flowing through it. “Hi, Harry.” “Hi,” Harry said, his voice low and raspy, still affected by Louis’ scent. “Nice to meet you.” ~~~~ Harry’s an Omega who has been alone for too long. Louis’ an Alpha who is scared to find love again. Thanks to the meddling of Harry’s teenage daughter and her boyfriend, the two seem destined to meet, and it might just change everything they thought they knew about their lives. Will they find what they didn’t realise they’ve always wanted in each other?

➻ Mind Over Matter (You Under Me) | youreyesonlarry | ice hockey - hurt/comfort - angst - fluff - major character injury - pining - unrequited love hospitalization - smut - 74k It’s dark outside when Harry finishes practice for the day. -------- Prompt 21: Harry stopped playing hockey (after 10 years of a professional career) because of a severe injury. The dream he worked so hard for vanished in the blink of an eye. His family insisted that he had to go to physical therapy, even if it only helped his health. Cue to personal assistant Louis, the most efficient and kind PA one could hire

➻ Rooms on Fire | softfonds | a/b/o - actors - famous/famous - friends with benefits - secret relationship - 34k Ten years ago, Louis helping Harry through a heat was the start of a romance that ended in heartbreak. Now, Harry's marriage is over thanks to his husband's very public infidelity, and Louis is fresh off a Golden Globe win. The last thing they both expect is to be cast in the same movie.

➻ Stumbling Into Your Arms | sunshineandthemoonlight | a/b/o - strangers to lovers - college/university - fluff - 7k Suddenly, Harry’s nose was brushing against Louis' neck, where his scent was overwhelming. Harry jerked his head to the side and took a deep breath of air, trying to clear his nose of Louis’ scent. ‘Don’t get slick, don’t get hard, don’t get slick’, he repeated to himself in his head, like a mantra. Louis and Harry are university students heading home for the holidays. Harry quickly becomes enraptured by the attractive alpha standing across from him in the train carriage, who has a heavenly scent and a gentle smile.

➻ Little by Little | nonsensedarling | mpreg - non traditional a/b/o - exploring sexuality - exploring secondary gender norms - gender identity strangers to friends to lovers - mutual pining - fluff - slow burn - 65k Harry Styles is an omega who works at the London Planetarium, has lived in the same flat for ages, and is happy enough on his own. When he gets home from his first (horrible) attempt at dating in years, a new pregnant neighbor knocks on his door after smelling his cooking. He and Louis quickly become close, but their friendship gets complicated when Harry begins questioning who he is and what he likes. Or Harry discovers figuring out who you are is more complicated than a potato metaphor.

[sunsetcurvecuddles]

Hello you told me not to hold back so I’m gonna be ANNOYING feel free to ignore indefinitely until you’re feeling it but I’m gonna send you like a bunch of prompts cause I can’t sleep and am stalling finishing my own fic.

First one: Bobby (obviously), Reggie or Luke or friends I don’t even care, tea and blankets

lol hi have a rebuke cuddle-puddle disaster, also available on ao3 here. warning for swearing and very vague allusions to physical child abuse.

i guess we belong to each other | reggielukebobby | 1.8k words

--

Luke has his guitar in his lap and his writing notebook by his side even though it's late at night. He's playing his acoustic, so that he has no chance of stirring Bobby's parents from where he's sat in their studio, and though he'd never admit it to anyone, it's cold enough that he's found one of Alex's hoodies in the back of the studio, a black one Alex never wears any more, and he's bundled up in it to try to fight off the chills. He regrets storming out earlier this evening — not because his parents might be worried, he's still too mad at them for that, but because he misses his own warm bed in a house with central heating.

But it's late, and he doesn't want to bother Bobby, who's already been generous enough as it is (and is exceptionally grumpy when he's woken in the middle of the night). So Alex's old hoodie, smelling vaguely of the dusty studio and distantly of Alex, will have to do.

A noise distracts Luke from his writing. Something outside the studio, maybe an animal, but it sounded like footsteps. Cautiously, he draws his guitar closer, running through what he could say if it's Bobby's parents, his heart suddenly rabbit-fast in his chest.

A head pokes through the door.

Luke's shoulders drop with relief.

It's Reggie.

He looks a little scruffy, not like himself, because usually Reggie pays such close attention to his appearance, fusses over his hair and colour-codes his outfits and shaves with the precision of a professional painter. But he kinda looks messy, which makes Luke's stomach feel even colder than the air around him.

“Oh! Hey, man,” Reggie laughs, putting on a big smile, and it'd fool anyone else — Reggie's too experienced at this for his own good. “I didn't know you'd be here!”

“Hi, Reg,” says Luke, sounding a little distracted even to his own ears as he carefully looks Reggie over. He's not walking like he's been hurt, and there are no visible injuries. So that's something. Jesus, Luke wouldn't know what to do if Reggie turned up here with a fresh version of the bruises Luke sometimes catches him trying to hide. “You, uh — you good?”

“Yeah, for sure,” Reggie agrees easily, saunters into the studio and slumps down on the couch next to Luke. The relaxed way he moves soothes Luke's worry somewhat. “The house was just — ugh. You know how they can be.” Looking over at Luke, Reggie adds, “Hey, isn't that Alex's hoodie? I was wondering what had happened to that.”

“Hey!” Luke sputters, a little defensive. “He didn't, like, loan it to me or anything, it was just here! I found it.”

“It is cold,” Reggie concedes, pulling his flannel a little tighter around him. “Wish I'd brought my jacket, but it was in the kitchen and I didn't wanna. I dunno. Didn't wanna get in the way.”

Luke nods, puts his guitar to the side so he can press up against Reggie's side. Hip to hip, his cheek on Reggie's shoulder, links their ankles together and puts an arm over Reggie's stomach. Almost automatically, Reggie links his arms around Luke in turn.

Honestly, Luke was intending to steal some of Reggie's body heat, but after Reggie's walk outside and in such a thin layer, he thinks Reggie's probably leeching his own. Luke lets him go ahead; Reggie seems to need it more than he does.

They sit for a moment, both unusually quiet, huddling and not talking. Not so much for a lack of things to talk about, but more because any topic that comes to Luke's mind feels insurmountably complex and emotional. There’s so much stuff he can't tell Reggie — so much stuff Reggie isn't telling him. So they sit together and try to create some warmth without the need for disclosure.

Until there's another set of scuffled footsteps outside.

“Not Alex too,” Reggie sighs, at a whispered volume so that the newcomer can't hear him, “he squirms so much in his sleep, man, I can't share this pull-out with him again.”

Luke muffles a laugh with the back of his hand, but he can't help worry it's Alex, too. Things have been... okay, he thinks, with Alex's folks since he came out, but he also knows Alex hoped for better. Suspects there are things Alex isn't telling them (so they all have that in common).

But it's not Alex. Preceded by an armful of blankets that he's almost tripping on, Bobby staggers in, still in his pajamas and with his eyes almost all the way closed. “Luke? It's fucking freezing, I thought I'd—” He stops when he gets far enough in to see Reggie on the couch too. “Oh, shit.”

“Hey, Bobby,” says Reggie, voice a little nervous. “I hope it's okay that I—”

“Shut up,” Bobby grumbles, and dumps the whole pile of blankets on top of Reggie. “You guys are stupid. You're both out here, in the freezing cold, and neither of you come wake me up?”

“We didn't want—” Luke starts, at the same time as Reggie insists, “You were sleeping—!”

“Idiots,” Bobby growls, rubbing his eye with his sweater paw and yawning. He looks stupidly cute, like a little kid. “You're idiots, and I hate dealing with you. I'll be back.” Turning to leave the studio again, he turns back and adds, “Hurry up and burrito yourselves in those blankets, I swear to god. And Luke, isn’t that Alex’s hoodie?”

“He left it—!” Luke starts, but Bobby’s already gone, leaving Luke with Reggie, cackling at him.

—

By the time Bobby returns, Luke and Reggie have folded the couch out into its bed form, and are snuggling under the several blankets, giggling together as they talk about how grumpy Bobby had been.

“We should have woken him up,” Reggie snorts, “I think then he would have been less pissed.”

“I would have,” Bobby agrees, sounding somewhere between menacing and amused, as he reappears over them. His hair is all shaggy in his face. He's carrying a teapot. And cups. “Sit up.”

Luke does right away, Reggie pulling himself up a little slower. Bobby sits cross-legged at the foot of the couch-bed, tucking his socked toes under his own legs to keep warm, and pours them each a mug of what smells like peppermint tea. Suddenly, Luke can't imagine anything better in the world. When Bobby offers him a cup, he takes it eagerly, wrapping his cold hands around it and enjoying the steam wafting up to his face.

“Wow,” says Reggie softly, eyes wide, “thanks, Bobby.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Luke echoes, letting out a sigh as he takes his first sip.

“Forget it,” Bobby says, a little bitey. Luke knows it's because Bobby hates being seen as nice, so he doesn't take it personally, and he knows Reggie won't either. He has his own cup, which he drinks as though it's done something to offend him, scowling off into the corner of the studio. Reggie nudges Bobby with his foot from under the layers of blankets, and a tiny smile tugs at Bobby's mouth as he nudges Reggie back with his elbow.

After the cup of tea, Luke feels better. He feels warmer on the inside, now, and sleepy too. Reggie is starting to get that dopey, slow blink that shows he's on the verge of sleep as well. Bobby clears his throat and holds out a hand, beckoning for their empty cups. Luke and Reggie hand them over.

“Okay,” says Bobby, after a pause. “G'night, guys.” He goes to stand, but Reggie leans forward and catches Bobby's sleeve.

“Would you stay?” he asks, as if he can't help himself, as if on sheer impulse, but he doesn’t look embarrassed afterwards.

“Reg!” Luke says, a little startled. “It's cold out here, he won't want—”

But he sees Bobby's face, and he stops himself. Because he can see it in Bobby's eyes. That he does want. He’s Bobby, so he won't say it, his mouth pressed into a thin line, his gaze fixed on some point behind Luke and Reggie's heads, but Luke has known Bobby for too long to miss something this obvious, no matter what else Bobby can hide from him.

“That being said,” Luke backtracks hurriedly, “it would be warmer with you here, Wilson. I'm happy to be a leech.”

“That's all I'm good for, huh?” Bobby snorts, but he's already setting the mugs down on the floor near the side of the bed, already shuffling the teapot down there too. He hops up for a moment, and Luke wonders where he’s going, before he realises Bobby is just switching off the light. When Bobby comes back, he pauses, like he's not sure where he fits, and Luke and Reggie make eye contact for only a second before they move apart, leaving a space in the middle.

Bobby looks even less sure of himself, eyebrows knitted, jaw tight. His hands flex and one of them twists in the hem of his sweater. Luke gets it. It looks too much like it's on Bobby's behalf, like they’re doing it to make space for Bobby. Bobby’s always had trouble accepting anything that seems like it’s for his own benefit.

“I already sucked all Reggie's warmth up,” Luke explains.

“Yeah,” Reggie agrees immediately, and Luke loves him, “and you're warmer than Luke anyway, man. I wanna huddle with you. As a penguin, you would be my first-choice huddle-buddy.”

Bobby barks a laugh. “The fuck? What does that even mean?” Finally, he wriggles his way under the blankets in between them, and rolls his eyes when they both throw limbs over him right away, twining legs and arms together and resting cheeks on his chest.

“Like, if we were penguins. You know? In the winter?” Reggie says, like this is totally obvious and self-explanatory. “If I was a penguin, I'd be looking for the Bobby-penguin in the winter huddle to stick close to.”

“Aaand I'm at my capacity for dumb shit,” Bobby says, closing his eyes pointedly, but it's a scam, because his hands come to run through Luke and Reggie's hair. “Goodnight, morons.”

“Goodnight, Bobby,” they chorus. This close, Luke could almost brush noses with Reggie, has to try to focus his eyes to keep Reggie from getting blurry. Reggie sticks his tongue out at Luke just a little, and Luke grins back, links his fingers with Reggie’s over Bobby’s stomach, rubbing over Reggie’s knuckles until Reggie’s fingers don’t feel so much like icicles. When Luke uses his free hand to tug the neckline of Alex’s hoodie up over his nose, the familiar smell of the third piece of his heart soothes him right down.

The feel of Bobby’s fingernails on his scalp makes Luke’s eyelids flutter, and before he knows it he’s dopey, the world feeling blurrier and safer and cozier. Honestly, more like home than his own house would have. He no longer daydreams of returning to his own warm bed. Instead, he feels the way Bobby’s chest rises and falls with his breaths, pushing his and Reggie’s joined hands up and down. If he listens closely, Luke can hear Bobby’s heartbeat, familiar and steady.

Maybe the cold isn't all bad.

--

other prompt fills here :)

jatp taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @queenmolina @nickalicious @bi-reginald @malecacidd @burntchromas @jughead-is-canonically-aroace @cinnamonstickrayofsunlight @chickwiththepurpleguitar @fairylightsandrainydays @joyandthephantoms @fighttoshine @michelangelinda @queenofthequillandink 

[wearesorcerer]

Creativity versus Cheating

You may think I’m beating a dead horse about this, but given the number of really stupid takes on this website, I think it needs to be said. With examples! And stories! And ~*fun*~!

A Definition of Cheating

In the end, my erstwhile conversant antagonist mentioned “cheating”. This is a childish way of asserting your disdain for the conversation, but Venomancer has never been a good interlocutor. (This is me being petty and spiteful, but I do have a point here.) “Cheating” gets thrown around a lot as a complaint for why something shouldn’t be allowed. However, to cheat, you have to do three specific things:

Break a rule. Your action has to violate a rule entirely; it can’t simply bend the rule.

Acquire an unfair advantage. Because it required breaking a rule, no one else can benefit from the action you have taken. However, the action still works within the system of other rules to give you some benefit.

Break trust. If you break a rule without intending to do so, it’s a mistake. If you get an unfair advantage but didn’t mean to, it’s a mistake. Cheating has to violate the trust in a system of rules, which demands there be intent behind it.

I point this out because, as I mentioned before, spellcasting in D&D has a very, very long history of people complaining that it is too powerful. Spellcasting. Magic. Seemingly breaking the laws of physics. Magic may or may not itself be cheating (if real, depending on whether or not it actually violates the rules of existence), but its very existence in a codified rule set frequently causes problems, particularly with people who don’t want to play magic-users. The bones of these arguments litter spell descriptions across the editions: feather fall can’t slow down a weapon (so probably not a guillotine blade), magic missile can’t target objects, and other odd bits of wording that make you scratch your head all trace back to some questionable use of a spell.

And yet, it’s not just spells that result in this. Take this conversation from 2006 (D&D 3.5) between a player whose character was a “bareknuckle boxer” Fighter (no idea why he couldn’t have played a Monk) and a DM who was a bit paranoid about getting the run-around from players:

Player: “Can I use Sunder attempts to break opponents’ bones?”

DM: “Hmm... I don’t see why not. However, if you do that, that leaves it open for me to do the same.”

Player: “Y’know, I don’t like that possibility. I’ll just not.”

This is a creative use of established rules to get an advantage. However, it’s not cheating by a long shot: the player is avoiding breaking any rules, the DM approves of the mechanic, and the advantage isn’t unfair because literally anyone can make a sunder attempt (and plenty of monsters can do it better than this bareknuckle boxer could).

You may note that this is the exact same issue as was brought up with the create water in lungs example: the advantage isn’t unfair because others can use the same tactic (this is in fact the poster’s complaint) and the DM had to approve it, meaning either it didn’t violate rules as written (see next) or the DM employed Rule 0 (”the rules are guidelines; tweak or discard them as you wish”). What is “unfair” is that magic users can do this but others cannot; but that’s the same as any class-based issue and is the complaint that’s been leveled at magic users the entire time. But let’s stick with the unfairness at hand: it’s not unfair to other magic users and the DM allowed it, ergo it’s not cheating.

Mistaken Readings: Breaking the Rules but Not Getting a Significant Advantage

Now, here’s the catch. The create water example would vary between editions. I can tell you that in third edition it was against the rules for create water or other conjurations to create objects inside of a creature, while in 5e it requires an open container (lungs themselves are not and the passages into lungs have several ways of being closed specifically to keep water out). All you have to say is “that’s not how the spell works in the rules” and you’re good. But that wasn’t the point of the post, so I’m going to drag it some more.

A great example of such a misreading is a story the bareknuckle boxer player told me of a druid he’d played in high school.. It was the habit of his previous DM to incarcerate his PCs and strip them of all their gear to see how they’d escape from said predicament. My friend’s druid specialized in wood shaping and took Eschew Materials (feat: ignore material or focus components of negligible cost), so he cast goodberry to create some plant matter, then entangle to grow it and wood shape to retrieve the guard’s keys and unlock his cell. Had he a window or were the cell close enough to the outside, he probably wouldn’t have needed the goodberry spell in the first place. As we pointed out to him, though, goodberry didn’t work that way at the time: it wasn’t a Conjuration effect that required berries as material components, but a Transmutation effect that targeted them (making them into healing potions that also filled you), so there were no materials for him to Eschew. This was a key (but subtle) design mechanic to limit the power of a druid, who had no ability to conjure non-creature plants.

Here’s the fun thing, however: 5e’s version of goodberry works exactly the way the player thought it did in 3.5 (save that it’s still an effect of the Transmutation school instead of Conjuration). Any druid worth their salt who likes using plant shaping spells should prepare goodberry if for no other reason than to ensure that they have access to plants. (Sadly, there’s no Eschew Materials equivalent that I know of, but you could find a Divine Focus and hope for the best. Or maybe there is an equivalent that I just don’t know about.)

But here we get into another flaw in the argument: even if it’s not how the rule is supposed to work, it doesn’t exactly grant an unfair advantage. Yes, a druid needs plants to cast a lot of their spells, but not all, and a druid with wood shape (a 2nd-level spell at the time) would be a minimum of 3rd level (I know they were higher because another player was a wild shaper, but let’s just go with that). A 3rd-level druid had a base of 1 2nd-level spell (wood shape) and two 1st-level spells (entangle and goodberry), meaning that if this character had been 3rd-level, he’d have used up all three of his non-bonus spell slots just to break out of a jail cell. (Reminder: cantrips were not at-will in 3.5.) Now, given that I know they could wild shape, I must note that the minimum level for that (5th) would have given him base spell slots of 3/2/1 (not counting cantrips), so he’d still have used half of his spells just to get out of a jail cell.

At that level, though, he could have just shapeshifted into a baboon (Str 15), black bear (Str 19), or a snake (Medium constrictor or Small viper) and gotten out (breaking the door down or slithering through a gap), using a single use of a mechanic to escape and prepare himself for combat. But he didn’t. And his story is better because he didn’t.

And this is where the create water and lungs thing comes back. In the end, if it had been allowed, it would have been a save vs. death. But casters already have plenty of ways of killing creatures at first level -- and often more than one creature at a time, whereas this would have likely only worked on one. Sleep is a great example of an early save or die spell: if the creatures fail their saves, they are now helpless and open for coup de grace-ing (decapitation, stabbination, whatever). Color spray in 3.5 is far and away better than in 5e in this regard because it also makes creatures go comatose, though it doesn’t scale well. (Neither does sleep, for that matter.) Burning hands is an AoE damaging effect. I can go on.

The point is, even misinterpretations of spells tend to run afoul of how cost effective their use is.

In the end, Clerics don’t wander around filling people’s lungs with water because that’s wasteful. You worry about enemy characters trying to kill you in a game about killing things?

Where Rules Mongering Kills Fun

The biggest reason I hate these complaints is not that they make it more difficult to kill things in a game that’s always been about killing things, but in that they try to stamp out any out-of-the-box use for spells. And I mean any.

At the tail end of the Summer of 2005, when I was starting undergrad, another friend of mine recounted tales of a gnomish caster he had played. Two spells featured: dancing lights and Tenser’s floating disk. He had been trying to intimidate some NPC, so rode in on his floating disk and proceeded to use dancing lights to create the image of a humanoid getting disemboweled. Clearly, dancing lights cannot do that: it can create up to four lights or the outline of a single, vaguely humanoid, glowing form. However, if we’re stuck on the dancing lights part, we’ve missed the point: as a gnome caster, he could have done the same thing with silent image anyway (if he had it; I don’t recall what class he was or why he chose dancing lights). No, the issue is with Tenser’s floating disk. Per the spell description:

You create a slightly concave, circular plane of force that follows you about and carries loads for you. The disk is 3 feet in diameter and 1 inch deep at its center. It can hold 100 pounds of weight per caster level. (If used to transport a liquid, its capacity is 2 gallons.) The disk floats approximately 3 feet above the ground at all times and remains level. It floats along horizontally within spell range and will accompany you at a rate of no more than your normal speed each round. If not otherwise directed, it maintains a constant interval of 5 feet between itself and you. The disk winks out of existence when the spell duration expires. The disk also winks out if you move beyond range or try to take the disk more than 3 feet away from the surface beneath it. When the disk winks out, whatever it was supporting falls to the surface beneath it.

It has a range of Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels), meaning you can direct it to hover anywhere from 0 to 25-75 ft. (1-20th caster levels) from you. If you weigh less than 100 pounds (gear included), at first level you could sit atop it and move at your normal speed. This would accomplish two things: let you ignore terrain problems that require you standing in a square (pressure plates, difficult terrain, etc.) and look really cool but in a fairly typical way for a mage. Since you’re a caster, you’re going to be in the back in marching order, meaning that you’re probably not going to be the one to activate a trap, and your spells have decent range, meaning you don’t have to worry too much about difficult terrain. (This wouldn’t protect you from lava, for the record: remember your convection!) At most, it would let you cross a body of water -- unless the DM said that the surface of the water didn’t count as the surface beneath the disk, which is fair. So minor is this ability that the Elocater prestige class (Expanded Psionics Handbook) gets an equivalent merged with a better version of the levitate spell as a constant effect at first level in addition to a feat and an improvement to previous casting (well, manifesting) ability.

And you might think that all of that’s so minor that surely no one would have complained about it, yet there’s evidence to the contrary. Pathfinder came up with the Magic Trick feat to allow you to do exactly this, but only if you’re third level, pay the feat tax, and put skill points into Fly. Y’know, for the thing that the rules as written would let a light character do at first level and most characters do at second by just casting the spell. Fifth edition won’t let you do it at all: the disk disappears if it comes closer than 20 feet to you (20 ft. is an awfully long distance between you and what amounts to a pack mule you’re leading).

Now, it’s not always that way. 5e’s mage hand is now de jure able to manipulate objects, whereas it wasn’t clear in 3.5, but that’s probably because open/close got folded into it. But for every positive like that, you get two negatives from vociferous people who can’t stand it when other people don’t use spells in specific, pre-defined ways.

In the End...

At the end of the day, having a fun story to tell about how you did something unusual that occurred to you on the spur of the moment and which somehow worked is far and away more important than playing this game like it were a video game, with each spell doing only one thing. And that’s not just coming from me or the people I’ve played with; that’s coming from decades of player stories, fan works, pop culture references, and even D&D novels.

The OP in that old post said that if you can’t abide by their overly narrow, strict interpretation of the rules that maybe you shouldn’t be playing 5e. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t want to sink to their level, but I think I will: if you can’t stand people being creative, you ABSOLUTELY should not be playing a role-playing game of any kind. You should stick to video games and board games. Or Fourth Edition.

[niuxita21]

Duuuuuude I care about your msh2 thoughts a lot!! Please keep them coming! But damn that ending can go in so many ways and I’m fkn praying it all wasn’t just queer bait. Do you think Ana and Mariana could possibly be endgame at some point? You know considering their age difference and what not… I feel like that’s gonna be a thing they talk about idk idk!! What are your expectations for s2? I’m very excited and also very scared lol. 

Hey, Anon!! I’m so happy to have other people to talk to about this show instead of just shouting my thoughts into the fandom ether, lol, so please do stick around! 

Weirdly, of all the things I’m worried about for next season (mostly COVID protocols making the scenes feel stilted/the physical contact sparse), I’m actually not worried about the show suddenly acting like Ana and Mariana having feelings for each other was some fever dream and actually never happened. I feel like, THEY put it out there, you know? It wasn’t some last-minute change that came about because fans were screaming at them to make them canon and they wanted to appease them, this was genuinely the story they wanted to tell from the start (I mean, they played fucking “Flotando” in a scene between them all the way in episode 1, lmao. They always knew that’s where they were headed). Obviously, no one can say with certainty that anything in this life will or will not happen, but IDK, from all that I’ve seen onscreen, they haven’t given me any reason to doubt. 

(It’s interesting that you mention the age difference, because I agree that it’s another element to their relationship, but at the same time they’ve mentioned it maybe twice all season, to the point that it’s easy to forget about it. If they really wanted to drive home the point that it’s An Issue, they would’ve had characters constantly remarking on it, especially Elena when she called Mariana out on being in love with Ana, like, “Dude, she’s twice your age!” or something (I don’t actually know how old Ana is supposed to be). So that also leads me to believe it might be a source of conflict or it could just as easily be ignored, who knows. Personally, I find it sexy, but that’s just me and my weakness for older women.)

As for my expectations, beyond wanting them to actually commit to the story that they’ve presented to us (and, again, I find it very hard to believe that after leaving things where they did, they’ll pick up trying to pretend nothing happened, If it were pure subtext, maybe, but as it stands, going back on it would be even more of a stretch), I’m pretty flexible as to the how of it all. I really enjoyed/was pleasantly surprised by everything they did with them this season, so I know that they have the capacity to get the narrative beats right. I’m also super excited to see the moment Ana remembers/is told about her love declaration to Mariana, because I’m DYING to see how she’ll react and how her journey towards accepting those feelings plays out, and, if I’m allowed to dream for a bit, I would also love to see some jealous!Ana and sprinkled moments of UST/longing. I’m a simple gal, lol.

I get it, though. It really sucks that our first reaction is to be scared because we all have trust issues or past trauma with f/f storylines, and also because, when something seems too good to be true, we inevitably start fearing it might be ruined. But IDK, season 2 is still a way away, so in the meantime I’m just gonna bask in the perfection that was this season and the fact that this is an actual real show that I got to see with my own eyes and that my ship was really, actually made canon. And from everything we’ve seen this season, I feel like the show has more than earned the benefit of the doubt.

[rookisaknight]

Raf Tanager, meet Hope County

⤘⤘⤘There’s a new Deputy in Town⬽⬽⬽

So as a side benefit of getting into this fandom again with a brand new gender and a brand new vibe: a brand new deputy. Excited to introduce you all to my boy, they were developed for a joint Deputy au with @ophiebot​ (who will do this for their Deputy Elijah Rook if so inclined). Not exactly reinventing any wheels here, but this time its about the indulgence.

FYI, Molly is still extant, but her story I think has been explored in my brainspace as much as it needs to be. 

➷The Basics

1. Give their full name, and describe them or post a picture! (Height, build, hair, eye, and skin color, etc.)

Rafael "Raf" Tanager (birth name REDACTED). 5'4", prone to chub but hardening up with the frequent exercise, solid build. Freckles on cheeks that darken as time goes on. Short hair kept red by some truly obsessive hairdye upkeep, which is harder than you might think. Hazel eyes. Burns and shrapnel scars around the eyes and mouth.

2. How old are they?

24

3. Sexuality and gender?

Bisexual, transmasc genderqueer. She/they/he but a preference for they/he when he doesnt trust the person using them.

➵Pre-Game

1. How did they end up at the Hope County Sheriff’s Department? How long have they worked there?

Raf grew up closer to Missoula, but he’s still a Montana native. They’ve been at this for around 8 months, pretty much right out of graduating college. Even they honestly aren’t sure how they ended up here, just the latest in a series of adrift jobs after graduating, taken primarily to avoid any potential financial dependence on their  family. Probably would have resigned soon were it not for. Everything.

2. Relationship with Pratt, Hudson, and Whitehorse?

Pratt: Used to hate his guts. The teasing felt too much like flirting for their comfort and he was honestly kind of a bully. Now its trickier. He's pathetic in a way that’s hard for them to be around, as awful as that is, because it hits too close to home.

Hudson: Had a massive crush on her for most of their early days that pretty much went out the window post Eden’s Gate. They still try a little too hard to impress her though.

Whitehorse: Intellectually, they resent his passivity since it means a lot of Eden’s Gate ended up falling in their lap and he’s STILL insistent that maybe they should have left it alone when they’ve all had months to realize why that was a bad idea in the first place. Emotionally, well, they’re maybe a little in need of a father figure or two.

Elijah Rook: The former Rookie. They were quietly a little intimidated by him prior to all this and that’s never fully gone away, but they’ve now been able to witness more of his dorky side that makes it a little harder to take him seriously. You try chaperoning this guy from one end of Hope County and considering him at all frightening.

3. Do they have an education?

They have a MASTERS and its never relevant to anything because its a humanities degree, specifically the classics. Part of the reason they’re a little adrift currently, there was no easy dismount out of college. Just a hell of a lot of debt.

4. Where are they from? Did they speak a different language there?

Missoula, or close enough to it. They picked up some Latin and Greek from their degree. The Latin comes in handy more often than you’d think, what with the cult stuff, but the reading material is a real bummer.

5. Is there anyone outside the valley that might have come looking for them?

They’ve never had many friends in college and high school that could outlast physical proximity and they basically ghosted their family since that was easier than coming out to them at a certain point. So no, no one they want to find them is looking.

6. Did they have a religious background of any kind?

His father is a preacher, and while there’s some baggage there they would still describe themselves as broadly religious. Or at the very least superstitious.

➷Inside Hope County

1. What was going through their head when the helicopter went down and during the subsequent chase?

The crash was honestly the easiest part. That was just panic. The chase was the hard part. The helicopter exploding ended up catching them in the face, leaving them with burns and scarring that would remain for the rest of their life. She's lucky she wasn’t blinded. Still, he was forced to stumble out of the woods in intense pain and bleeding out. Had it not been for Elijah they definitely would have been taken then and there.

2. Were they afraid of Joseph and Eden’s Gate? Angry?

Terrified. Not just because of what they’ve done but because Raf knows intuitively that he's susceptible to it. As early as their first encounter they have a hard time breaking the hold Joseph gets on their mind. Even though they’re conscious of HOW they’re being manipulated, its hard to resist it.

3. Did they trust Dutch?

At that point Raf would’ve happily taken literally anyone who seemed to know what they’re doing and wasn’t holding a gun to his head.

4. How did they feel about their team being taken by the cult, did they count them as lost, did they want them back, did they not care?

Absolutely the nightmare scenario: people’s lives depending on them and their ability to be decisive. Had it not been for Elijah they probably would’ve high tailed it out of there and tried to find someone higher up the authority chain to deal with this mess. Still, just abandoning them all didn’t sit right with him either, and by the time they’d liberated Fall’s End even he had to admit he was there by his own choice.

5. How did they take to the idea of being part of, if not leading, the resistance?

Again, Raf doesn’t really do well with people depending on them. Alone. they probably would have found it a lot more miserable, but Elijah significantly helped lighten that load for them in terms of having a direction. They’ve found out they’re accidentally pretty good at working with a variety of people and can even be inspiring without meaning to. Still, in their ideal world they would’ve been left alone, or at least remained a foot soldier.

6. Which companions did they recruit, and who did they travel with the most?

All guns for hire were recruited, but Sharky and Nick were their go-to’s, Sharky for personal reasons and Nick for air support. Grace was usually the adult supervision when Nick couldn’t make it but. To be frank Raf's aim isn’t great and it drives Grace a little nuts on prolonged missions. She’s tried teaching them but it never really seems to stick.

7. Did they have time to find romance amidst the chaos? How did they do it?

Sharky. That relationship was a bit of a cold opener  (and don’t bother, Sharky already beat you to that joke). After getting their face fucked up during the escape they’ve had a pretty healthy aversion to fire and explosives, making his recruitment a little harrowing. Still, Sharky's sweet in his way, makes them laugh and breathe a little easier when the pressure gets to them, and operates on a pretty similar brainwave. They’ve been joined at the hip since their first few months in Holland Valley. They’re both a little on the codependent side, but really, who are they to complain.

8. Feelings about Joseph?

Joseph taps into a lot of vulnerabilities inside of Raf intuitively. The absence of a strong support system, the loneliness, the fear, the directionlessness, the relationship with their own spirituality, it all provides him a unique entryway into their psyche that he is exactly the kind of person to exploit. As a result, he tends to fixate on them over Elijah, usually to their detriment. Still, that connection can sometimes go both ways, and there are things about Joseph that Raf understands which even his brothers never fully do.

9. Feelings about the other Seeds?

John: They have a unique capacity for antagonizing him. Probably because as an oldest child themselves they know exactly how to jab at the youngest child insecurities. Still, that relationship didn’t stem any deeper and he focused his energies a little more on Elijah. Still, they have him to thank for the Sloth scars on their arm, thanks for that. They’re starting to run out of unmarked skin.

Faith: Faith, meanwhile, was a little more directly focused on Raf, partly because her region was the first time they had to operate a little more on their own. For personal reasons, Elijah wasn’t particularly able to engage with the Bliss. Meaning if Burke was ever going to get saved Raf had to be the one to go in there, again and again. Faith, like Joseph, can tap a lot of that loneliness that Raf has, as well as some gender and sexuality stuff Joseph can’t touch. Suffice to say Sharky had a pretty good reason for being as overbearing as he was during those months, even though he was eventually able to do the job. As a side note, they haven’t had access to their ADHD meds for MONTHS and it doesn’t help when the cult drug is the first thing to make your head feel clear in a while.

Jacob: Jacob was utterly uninterested in Raf and the feeling was mostly mutual. He doesn’t really get him or what he’s about, just knows that the county would be better off when he was put down. Transition goals, though (don’t tell Staci they said that).

10. How did they handle having to kill animals and other humans? Had they done it before?

Animals yeah, you don’t live in Montana as long as they did without hunting occasionally. People....well. You can get used to it.

11. Which canon ending did they choose in-game, and would you have changed the ending at all?

Resist. I wouldn’t. Raf might.

➷Personal

1. Favorite weapon(s)?

They usually prefer to show up to spots early and lay traps, try to minimize the direct combat involvement. When it can’t be avoided though, their pistol isn’t ever far and neither is a hunting knife.

2. Stealth or firepower?

Stealth, one hundred percent. Sharky and Eli are here to do the firepower.

3. How did they spend their time, when not fighting peggies?

A lot of bad movies with the boyfriend and a LOT of poker, one of their more unknown talents. Resistance isn’t gonna fund itself.

4. Where did they live during the events of the game?

Wherever there was a bed they could fall into. Their little trailer they’d been living in prior to all this got absolutely decimated while they were healing up on Dutch’s island.

5. Any other facts you want to share about your Deputy!

He’s got almost supernatural luck to the point that a couple of their guns for hire have gotten superstitious about bringing him to certain events. Including fishing. The catch just always seems somehow a little better. Also he’s privately obsessed with the 1998 recording of Cats and is terrified of anyone finding out.

[keyofjetwolf]

If Fareeha could not, ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT, for whatever reason, do any kind of military service with her life, Overwatch or no, what do you think she would do? Do you think she could find happiness with it?

First of all, poor Pharah. The hell happened to set up this premise? WHAT DID ANA DO THIS TIME

Even if she fights this always and forever for the rest of her life, she’ll find something else to do in the meantime, SO.

Given the option, Pharah will absolutely have to do something she views as meaningful and helping the world in some capacity or another. I think, too, she’d need a physical job, just sitting behind a desk all day every day is unlikely to leave her feeling that she’s DONE something. Basically, I can’t see Pharah finding a lot of satisfaction as a bank branch manager or something.

Doc and I have talked before about Pharah as a fitness instructor, and I do think it’s an easy place to see her. Particularly the high level stuff, the Boot Camp classes where it’s as much drill sergeant as it is anything. I question the long-term happiness she’d find with it, though. I think she could talk herself into sticking with it for a while by focusing on how she’s helping people reach and maintain their peak performance, but the small scope of it all will eventually overwhelm that. Sure, she’s challenging maybe a couple hundred very fit people, but what does that really mean in the shadow of all the world’s suffering?

For the long term, then, I think Pharah would need to move toward something like Overwatch, only without the battle elements and outside of governments and militaries. I think she’d thrive with something like the International Red Cross, Direct Relief, Doctors Without Borders (particularly if Mercy’s left Overwatch too), organizations like that, who focus on areas in the world where help is desperately needed. Pharah’s organizational skills and leadership are hers, not the military’s, and she’ll take them with her wherever she goes. I have trouble thinking of any organization that wouldn’t benefit tremendously from having her join them. I could even see her taking her experiences with these and building something new, that fills in the gaps and is far more efficient. BECAUSE YOU KNOW SHE’LL HAVE THOUGHTS ON THESE THINGS VERY QUICKLY. So, all the humanitarian aid, all the helping to make the world better, just without quite so many guns.

If this is the route she can go, I think the happiness and satisfaction would come with it. But if that’s too similar to Overwatch, if you’re looking for her to take on a more civilian role, then I think fitness instructor, but with a healthy side of, say, volunteer firefighter. I think she’d struggle to feel fulfilled, at least consistently, but there’s always also reorganizing entire libraries in her off-time.

[felixmaxwell317]

anarchy and the individual and the society

what is anarchy?

anarchy is a form of social organization which exists when everyone is equal in rank there is no hierarchy...

what is hierarchy?

hierarchy is a form of social organization where ranks are apart of the social order design...

what about sociology based on anarchy?

sociological freedom is based on anarchy. when there is no social organization then there are nothing to curb the freedoms of the individual and this exists naturally because the laws of any government or society are simulatory. this means that if you move to another country where the laws are different what does that mean about social organizations on earth? the laws which exist in any government are not actually so real, they are simulated... essentially, people are consenting to a sort of pretend world. the pretend world is called the society. everyone votes and creates some laws and then everyone agrees to pretend, to act like the laws are real and then social standards are created. another way to understand what it means that governments are simulatory is to consider the nature of any human laws in the jungle. our human laws do not extend to rule over the animal kingdom. animals kill each other all the time and eat each other and run around like criminals, the whole animal kingdom is based on murder and survival. where is the law there? it’s not being simulated there. the animals don’t have kind of capacity. at a certain level, they are not criminals for killing other animals all the time... it’s just the way things work in the jungle if the carnivores are to survive.

because the governments which exist were created by people, it means that there is a sort of inherent freedom which exists beyond the laws which have been laid upon the land.

when there is no social organization everyone is considered equal because there are no social hierarchies. no one is more powerful than anyone else because social positions and roles like employee and manager do not exist when no one has organized. so what does that mean about organizations? organizations are born from non-organization.

before there is a business, before there is every an employee or manager... the roles do not exist. it takes people who naturally equal to cooperate to create the simulation of these roles in reality.

what is simulated reality?

simulated reality is when beings get together to do things which requires various forms of agreeing to a set of conditions which do not arise naturally in the real world beyond the scope of the social situation.

so if when i go to my home where i have all the same freedoms as the employee or manager, what does that mean about the social structure of a business?

does it mean it’s artificial?

yes.

so if a business’s social organization is artificial then what does that mean about a government or military?

it means that since you have all the same rights as any police officer or politician or military officer then those social organizations are artificial and simulatory.

what does that mean about personal freedom and true social identity in the system of a civilization?

it means that everyone originally before social organizations are created and participated in have all the same rights and are all militarily the same.

this means that before a police officer trains to become a police officer they are inherently the same as any other human being.

same sort of physical body with flesh, bones and blood.

so, then if that role is acquired then that means the sort of authority which a police officer wields is relatively artificial. it’s kind of pretend.

what happens in europe for an american police officer?

they do not have the same authority around those people and in those social organizations.

so, what does that mean inherently about their authority in america?

it means it’s entirely artificial to the degree that it exists relative to any human beings natural freedoms.

it also means that it’s relatively real because certain freedoms must be protected. police fill that role and are supposed to, by design, honor the free society we live and honor the inherent free rights every human being has.

so then if the police role is acquired and then also relatively artificial then that means that beyond the stage of the socially organized simulated society, everyone has the same military rights.

who will give anyone military rights?

people.

how does anyone get the power to do that?

that requires laws which require politicians and all that is done, in our society, democratically by voting.

even the police chief does a sort of voting with their team by hiring the new police officers.

so, the military power comes from democracy and this physically manifested ideological object originates from the truth of the absence of social organization.

that is to say that where there are no other beings making up social organizations and social orders, i have certain freedoms which are inherently mine. everyone does.

so, then does that mean that truly, every individual is technically at the same military level beyond the simulated culture of any military order?

yes.

if you have the potential to become a military entity in the participational consent based society, then does that mean that you have that potential inherently?

yes.

why?

because you are already your own military entity, naturally.

if you are allowed to legally defend yourself then what does that mean about that sort of freedom?

it’s a martial freedom, and to defend yourself you would have to exercise martial power by physically attacking another being.

what’s the difference between using one’s own fists, or a stick or a gun?

one owns their own body which is a physical geometric object and strikes and guns exist outside of the body. ownership of these objects exists in a different sort of existential sphere.

one can come to acquire a stick legally.

and the same goes for a gun. it’s possible to acquire a gun legally.

what’s the difference between police and the civilian population?

police have a title which is defended with guns.

military entities hold titles which are defended with guns.

the guns are effective because they are very effective martial tools.

so, without any guns can the police really operate?

well, a bunch of people could get together and play dress up and maybe some people would listen but maybe some people wouldn’t.

maybe some people would react martially and tell those people to get a job instead of infringing on the rights of others.

would that be a crime naturally? for a select group of people to martially patrol the society?

possibly.

so then given all of this true information, what does that mean about the society naturally?

it means it’s all pretend. it’s all people playing dress up.

and for good reasons, to fulfill goals in the society...

the police have the potential to do a good job. the fulfill the role of the general protector.

anytime we want to we can call the police if there are any problems and that’s a pretty good service we can benefit from in the society but just because it can be beneficial doesn’t mean that it’s totally morally acceptable considering the anarchistic nature of what it means to inherently have individual freedoms.

this is why anarchy is important to understand.

another way to understand that anarchy is fundamentally foundational supporting social organizations like democracy is to consider a democratic event.

at a business everyone wants to order food for lunch so they take a vote.

a true democratic event.

before the choices are made the votes determine the outcome by the majority of the votes there is no definite order or rule about what is to occur because the votes have not been collected and the machine of democracy has yet to come to function and operate. (and in this situation we can consider it to a majority rules type thing because that’s natural to democracy even though it’s not exactly the cornerstone of democracy and either majority rules or minority rules is the true nature of democracy because it’s rooted in value balance determination or that is to say that the rules of the democratic situation could be oriented any way because of the nature of the object being of a participatory design)

because of this function of processional sequence what exists is inherently based on machine like function or that is to say that conditions must be met before the social construct can operate.

so, fundamentally, the conditions are relatively artificial.

anarchy is inherent because in any social situation which requires social participation and cooperation the inherent rights of the individual always exists regardless of the nature of the social organizations and conditions of the social contracts which are operating like a machine made of consensual social interactions.

so, in the situation of the voting on a food choice, if everyone has the same right to put in a vote and anyone can choose to eat or not to eat whatever the group gets, what does it mean about the social construct of collective voting?

it means it takes the freedoms of every individual beyond the reach of the group to cause democratic functions to occur.

so then... what does that mean about the authority structures in our world?

is any police officer actually more powerful than any civilian?

no. not inherently... inherently everyone is their own independent social entity and consequently because of the conditional requisitions about the freewill to preserve security, everyone is their own private military entity.

is any military entity actually more powerful than any one else?

no. not inherently... inherently everyone is their own independent social entity and consequently because of the conditional requisitions about the freewill to preserve security, everyone is their own private military entity.

so what does that mean about the artificial social constructs which exist as apart of our society?

it means they are operating at a level which actually violates the inherent rights of the free individual.

if a european police officer can shoot an american police officer because the american police officer has infringed upon the natural laws of europe what does that mean about the martial situation which exists between the two relative social roles we know as the martial entity and the citizen?

it means that the entire government which is protected by a social organization which violates natural freedoms is criminal organization.

it’s also relatively necessary because we’ve got to have a group of people to protect the rights of everyone in the society and only because we are to survive as living beings who have to maintain homeostasis.

maybe everyone would dress up like police if we didn’t need chefs to cook the food which everyone has to eat.

our society only has varying roles because we are to do things and have various social constructs within the human culture which exists to serve the population as a civil society.

so, since we have to have these various professionals... people to cook the food, telephone repair people and television cable installation specialists... we have become upon ourselves as social entities who have inherited social necessities in the form of a relatively free society full of possible social roles to serve as... and for the sake of the social machine called the society...

but the necessity of these social roles in our world do not leave room for social corruption which is essentially moral corruption when human rights are being considered and socially simulated in the society...

the socially simulated nature of the military establishments which exist are blatantly addressed in the constitution wherein we have a sort of relatively artificial legal document which recognizes the natural human right to overthrow the government...

our country was founded on anarchy... that is to say we have become upon this society by the avenue of anarchy.

the founding fathers were under british rule.

that was the hierarchy.

the founding fathers understood something natural about human rights and social organizations.

they understood that it’s all simulatory and just some people getting together to agree on stuff and then take actions in the world.

so, if the founding fathers engaged their natural military rights which included brandishing weapons and interacting martially with other military entities... what does that mean about our inherent rights in relation to what we can call the establishment.

it means we are as free as we are and have always been.

anarchistic freedom is a fundamental philosophic element of our existential condition which is that we are living beings with certain objects which we inherently own.

we own our bodies and we own our fundamental social titles.

one of our social titles when a social organization is present is that of a citizen or a sort of social entity which is not engaged martially with anyone.

another social title is that which is rooted in potentiality and thus we are private martial entities because we have the right to defend ourselves and to perpetuate our survival.

a web developer when hired by a company defines themselves as such even when they are off the clock because they are employed, or that is to say they have acquired employment, and that is to say they are holding the position of their employment even when they are not working when they are at home because that is the transcendental ethereal nature of what it means to work for a company conditionally in a free country.

so, we have to respect anarchy in our world because as intellectual individuals who are free and have our own freedoms to consider and care for it is entirely important to understand the basic nature of social organizations.

so, what does it mean to be an anarchist?

well, what does it mean to a free individual who wields the ability to participate in a democracy?

it means that one has accepted the truth of their social predicament which is relatively integrated with other social constructs...

being an anarchist just means that one is interested in honoring that which is most inherent about freedom and fairness.

is it virtuous to identify as a sort of political figure who supports the freedoms of the individual?

yes.

and if it is virtuous to identify as a sort of political figure who supports the freedoms of the individual then one can consider that sort of political entity a sort of anarchist because that is where individual freedom comes from.

what does the word individual mean?

it is a word which represents, or points to, a figure which exists separate from multiple people, and this philosophical ideological and sociological representational figure is a real sort of entity in the real world, and in society...

the society is an amalgamation of individuals.

groups of people are based on the amount of people that are involved in the assembly of the group.

three people are made of three single people.

if one person walks away the structure assumes a different form.

part of the structure has dissolved.

then we only have two people in the group.

now the whole thing is totally different, the value which is a defining aspect of the form has become altered. this is fundamental to understanding the nature of the form.

the group is made of individual values which all equally contribute to the equation.

so what does that mean about the individual in relation to a group?

it means that each individual is fundamentally integral to the nature of the form, the group, such as the form is a construct which requires many single parts to even exist at all.

if there was no people would there be any society?

no.

societies need people to exist.

so what does that mean about the existence of societies?

it means that the society depends on the people to exist.

we do not depend, exactly, on the society to exist.

relative and with respect to standards of living, we can say that dependence on society is just based on the nature of what we can call our socially conditional standards of societal participation.

the theater shows films and if we want we can participate in that part of the societies culture but is it necessary to our survival.

an artist might say so... and this is a respectable notion considering the nature of the transcendental function which art and the arts fulfill for human beings as we intellectual forms who benefit from the appreciation, consumption and production of art such that our neurochemistry responds well to art and to the degree that it is evolutionary assistance of and in the act of administration of dopamine, serotonin and endorphins.

that aside, considering the situation from a purely survivalist point of view in the materialistic, physiclist consideration of what it means to be a human being that is physical entity...

we only really depend on society for food and shelter.

we could get those things on our own, and so this form of dependence is also simulatory and artificial.

so, even if we were to consider the nature of our dependence upon society as a grounds for which to posit that our dependence on the society to survive may or may not directly require us to lend our freedoms to the artificial social construct which is the society, we can say that we do not actually need depend on the society to survive such that if it’s possible for animals to survive without legal documents like laws and artificial authority constructs like the military industrial establishment then we can understand and acknowledge a sort of inherent truth about our condition and to the degree that we are mammals.

a sort of... animal.

a very evolved animal in that we are scientifically classified as a sort of one... a sort of animal.

and we’re good at doing what we’re doing, which is the perpetuation of cultural stereotypes and that is to say that the roles and general forms in the society are so general that they are, have become, defined as stereotypical.

in any city there are all the same social roles.

and some of these social roles become upon the obligations orientated as legal within the parameters of the socially simulated society machine wherein labels, or intellectual definitions, determine the nature of the procession of civil machine processes.

that is to say that in our society there are relative legal obligations upon which social roles stand to depend upon if their social function is to be preformed in the civilization.

what is the nature of the legal circumstance of the various roles which are occupied by individuals in our society?

legal contracts are dependent upon the fulfillment of conditions to be considered either legal or null...

that is to say that fundamentally, what can be considered as legal or null is based upon the requisitions for either status and in regards to civil liberties, a decent amount of authority establishments could possibly be considered in violation of the fundamental anarchist platform for by which individual freedoms can be said to rest upon such that military organizations are to preserve the nature of the free individual.

another way to say that is, military organizations are to uphold the principles which have come to form them and these principles are the principles which are integral to the whole social organization object.

and it’s also good to consider the role of the military or any military institution.

the purpose of the military is to protect the citizens of the country, to perpetuate peace and to keep the peace and because peace is essential to the functioning of the healthy society such that when the security of the people is supported then survival occurs and when communal survival is occurring it occurs by collective participation, by cooperation.

so, what is being protected?

individuals?

if individuals are being protected then their entire rights should be being protected as well.

and what are the naturalistic rights of the individual beyond the nature of any social organization?

one of them is a right which entitles an individual to be, technically, a private military entity.

so, and then, naturally, if the social contractual obligation of the police or any military entity, is to protect the population, then their legal status is determined by the nature of their fulfillment of whatever general condition of the general social contract and in this case, the condition is directly related to the protection of civil liberties...

so, what is actually legal in any social organization based upon the fundamental philosophical platform for by which sociology can be understood and conceptually observed through intellectual consideration?

what is legal is full observation of the rights of the individual and to the degree that every individual in the social organization is exactly equally free and to the degree that all hierarchical privileges are afforded to all individuals inherently in the system as per the perpetuation of the truth of the anarchistic platform for by which individual freedoms rest upon.

something to consider now is, what is socially tolerable and morally acceptable in terms of social contractual obligation corruption?

certain forms of the society exist naturally in a sort of exploitative way such that the individual is sometimes at the participatory whim of whatever general social construct machine that which the individual is interacting with and or in...

and what does it mean to be with, considering this orientation in terms of philosophical spatial relativity, and or in, and in terms of boundary form determinations upon that which is contained?

if i have an apple, my existence and immediate situation is not altered that much... i am with the apple.

if i am inside of a bank to withdraw money, then i am a sort of customer there. a part of my identity has changed socially because i am to play a role, and in this situation the role played is a bank account owner who is to withdraw some amount of money from my bank account.

most of the time, when things are inside of other things circumstantial situations change...

so, are individuals inside of a social system or are they with a social system?

is the society, by the terms we have come to define, naturally containing the individual or is it a product of individual cooperation and naturally relative and such that the society is with the individual.

what are the relationship terms by which the entire situation is orientated about?

is the situation mutualistic?

is the situation parasitic?

is the situation symbiotic?

were the situation mutualistic, there would be total respect of natural boundaries which have exist inherently.

so, what sort of society supports the hypothetical pure virtuous list of conditions wherein fundamental individual freedoms are preserved and respected?

monarchy is certainly not the answer, unless the king or queen is entirely benevolent and the rule of the kingdom respects all the rights of the individuals.

in an anarchistic system of social organization, the power of the social organization is delegated evenly to every individual as a result of the lack of social role power imbalance in terms of violations of the inherent rights of the individual wherein there is no hierarchy and hierarchy defined as social organization where in ranks of authority exist relatively to each other and with various power status.

so, is democracy a nature emanation or product of an anarchistic social system?

yes, because anarchy is based on the respect of the social organization conditions which are established in perpetuating individual freedoms beyond the nature of social organizations and their possible variations.

anarchy is when the human being breathes the air around the community composed of many human beings and is bound by the environmental situation to observe that all human beings have the same ability to do so and when one keeps to oneself, everyone can continue to breath and live.

it is entirely possible for someone to cut off the airway of someone’s throat with their hand or some foreign object, but when one respects the truth of the anarchistic platform for by which individual freedoms rest upon... no crimes are committed because all respects are being honored by the virtuous individuals who have become about each other in an ancient sacred way... virtuous individuals who have become upon each in the form of a group, a collective of free individuals... people... human beings...

when we, as a society, behave by the principles which perpetuate personal freedom, we are observing and honoring the anarchistic platform for by which individual freedoms rest upon... the platform for by which our individual freedoms rest upon...

various forms of social organization work because they are designed to operate social constructive machinery but it doesn’t mean they are all the best.

empires, democracies, republics, monarchies and even anarchies...

what of them?

what is a social organization of any use to me?

of what importance is a social organization system to me?

how important is it?

the importance can be said to depend upon the degree to which i value anything about the relative legal status of the rights of the individual in any society...

or, when i go to the grocery store with my coupon for half-price on ten pizzas what will i feel as a customer whatever way the event door swings?

i’m supposed to get half-off on these pizzas.

i should get the whole ten pizzas for half-price. i have the coupon. it’s the companies corporate policy. they told me with the advertisement from the public newspaper that i could purchase a large amount of pizzas for half-price.

is the nature of civil liberties like that?

is like purchasing pizza for half-price with a coupon from a page next to the funnies?

sort of.

the circumstantial situation about which the civil liberties are orientated is relatively more important than how many pizzas i can from the grocery store.

civil liberties do not have an expiration date.

civil liberties are inherent rights upon which societies are to be built upon and with and not the other way around.

how can we know this philosophically?

the group is composed of individuals and the value is determined by the presence of however many individuals.

so, the individual is fundamentally the foundation of the poly-form which is a multi-dimensional construct.

in one sense, the group is a single entity... all of the twelve people with the coupon at the grocery store for the half-price pizza deal are all archetypally the pizza coupon people on that day and at that time...

and all of the people in the society are the card holders of the individual freedom card which is just as good as a coupon, and better because our freedoms can never expire.

so... at what point will this legal issue be addressed by the society?

when can we look at the date and time on the historical clock and tap our watches, to say... “well, i guess it’s about to look at that legal status concerning the nature of... the structure of establishments which perpetuate cultural authority  stereotypes...”

and then, when will the laws of our free country come to be about the observation of these inherent human laws according to the anarchistic platform for by which individual freedoms rest upon?

do we as citizens of a country have any responsibility to be interested and or invested in this endeavor?

because of the nature of group sociological obligation in terms of the perpetuation of cultural stereotypes, we have an immediate obligation to preserve the free rights of individuals in our society because we have become upon the situation of being in a community of individuals wherein respects are being had...

as an anarchist, or through the lens of anarchy, or considering the anarchist platform for by which individual freedoms rest upon... are we or is anyone really obligated to do anything?

perhaps not, when one is not integrated into a social organization system...

but we are people who are intellectual political entities who make choices in our lives by the meter of virtue to the degree that we are respecting the truth of our human condition as best as we can because we are to and we are to because is our obligation to such that, and since, we are about each other relatively in a group type fashion...

in a group, the natural mechanics are to preserve, according to the anarchist platform for by which individual freedoms are resting upon, the individual rights of everyone in the group and because we are about each other to the degree of socially organization participation...

we are interacting with each other.

we don’t have to do this by the anarchist platform...

but when we do, we come to respect each other as we are respected because we have come to respect and acknowledge the anarchist platform because it most fundamentally supports the philosophical principles of individual freedom.

as an individual, one is not necessarily obligated to do anything in any situation... but when one considers the machine like nature of social organization and the importance of human life and standards of living, we can as intellectuals come to the agreement that respecting each other is a good idea, and a good practice...

to refrain from infringing upon the rights of others is to respect the rights of others, and it’s natural to say that by the principles which the anarchistic platform for by which individual freedoms are resting upon generate for oneself to the degree of social freedom, that if those rights are acknowledged as existing for everyone who is an individual then we are to naturally respect those rights because the of social obligation which others have put us in the situation of coming to respect since they have inherent free rights as well.

to infringe upon the rights of another person would be to exercise and abuse a form of power, which is a form of hierarchy.

so, to respect the anarchistic inherent free rights of others is to be in true accordance with the fundamental principles of anarchy.

or that is to say, there is nothing artificial about acting in accordance with the truth...

and that is to say that artificial in terms of sociality is defined as that which is not entirely true, or is in some way fake...

is the truth fake or is the truth real?

technically, the truth would be real in this analogy.

if i have a fake apple which is made of styrofoam, is it truly an apple?

no.

only a real apple from a real apple true can be considered and defined as a real apple if we are considering the truth.

so, when we are talking about the truth we are also talking about that which is real.

when we are talking about civil liberties and the socio-linguistic truth of our human social condition about which the group is to be fashioned as mutualistically as possible in relation to the individual, we are talking about that which is inherently legally real.

we are communicating about the real laws of the human condition.

is anarchy about any laws?

well, is anarchy about any circumstantial conditions?

yes.

the condition is that there is to be no delegation of power in ranks.

there is no imbalance of power at any level.

is that like a law?

well, technically a law is a sort social construct which is to serve a function the collective interest of the body which produces it.

and in a true anarchistic system, hierarchy would be “against the law”. it would not be allowed in an anarchistic system because that social system the power is not delegated by rank.

and also, what would it mean for an anarchist to infringe upon the rights of another person? are anarchists free to do whatever they want to? are anarchists allowed to violate the fundamental anarchistic principles according to their own principles?

this depends on the nature of the definition of what anarchy means to any individual.

anarchy could mean that there are no laws and one can do whatever they want to, including the infringement of rights upon any individual.

anarchy could mean that there is no government.

but what does anarchy actually mean?

anarchy just means there is an absence of hierarchy.

even if anarchy was definitionally orientated about the precept that there is no government, upon which principles is this concept founded on?

the “no government” version of anarchy is based upon the idea that no form of social organization can rule over the individual, or that the individual has absolute freedom.

if any individual has absolute freedom and then that means all individuals have absolute freedom.

so, can an individual infringe upon the rights of another who has the absolute freedom to do anything?

well, is that a form of government to infringe upon the rights of another?

to govern is to exercise authority, and in terms of social interaction, to impose one’s will upon another is a form of social boundary imposition which is a form of government.

so, technically, even if every anarchist has the absolute freedom then no social harm can occur because there can be no government and where there is no government there are no social impositions and no infringements of any rights... including anyone who might choose to identify as some other socio-political orientation besides an anarchist.

so... we are back to square one...

and there is a different between absolute freedom and absolute authority and absolute freedom without government and absolute authority without government.

these four socio-political ideological objects are all relatively similar and also entirely different.

the concept of absolute authority to the degree of being able to infringe upon the rights of others is authoritarian, morally corrupt, socially unacceptable in terms of what it means for a group to function mutualistically, is unfair and is a form of an abuse of power.

anarchy does not mean anything about criminal activity or authoritarian corruption and abuse of power.

anarchy means everyone is free and everyone respects each other.

anarchy means there is peace and there is to be peace.

anarchy is a social organization system which is orientated about the perpetuation of the freedom of the individual which in turn comes to produce and preserve peace because where there is no hierarchy there is no imbalance of power and all persons are defined as equal social entities.

and where all freedoms are respected and there is no infringement of any free rights, then there is no violence which is a form of a power imbalance and then there is only peace.

and peace is beneficial to the individual in terms of physical survival and the perpetuation of the evolutionary agenda which is based on health and the homeostasis of the organism.

by the anarchist platform for by which the individual freedoms rest upon, all forms appear to abide by peace and total systematic beneficially occurs where peace is perpetuated.

such is the miracle of the inherent philosophy upon which freedom appears to rest upon and support.

we must be in some good universe of virtuous order for our natural logic and reason transports us to an intellectual destination wherein we find the truth we would most benefit from.

if one were spiritually inclined one might reason that the actual metaphysical objects of which philosophy comes to ideologically form, survey, inspect, dissect, construct and consider are of such a divine nature that we are most certainly close, dimensionally, to the one holy god being which supports the existence and to the most righteous degree that fundamental freedom occurs at the arrival to the conclusions of considerations of thee...

also, naturally, considering the nature of logic and form definitions, one would arrive to conclusions of that which was contemplated by the nature of considering that which is whatever is being considered...

that is to say, if i think about an apple i will eventually reason that apples are good and healthy to eat and beneficial to me and my heart will be glad at my conclusions which are rooted in their metaphorical soil...

and i already know that apples are good to eat because i learned of the beneficial qualities of the fruit in school.

and i already know that anarchy is good because after becoming attracted to the philosophy by the nature of it’s psychologically rewarding maxims which entertain and support principles of freedom and fairness and truth and virtue, i have studied and reasoned about the principles of anarchy and have happened upon most fortunate conclusions.

fortunate conclusions which support ideological precepts plainly enough and directly so, that my adolescent spiritual inclinations concerning sociology appear to me now entirely correct and to the degree that the pursuit of virtue has brought me to the intellectual doors of personal philosophic satisfaction after having inspected the nature of the socio-ideological object which exists inherently as the supra-social machine... the anarchy.

here i have made quite the appreciable frame for the virtuous social platform...

and then, it is also important to realize the virtuous and beneficial nature of hierarchy.

anyone can become a doctor but it takes years of dedication to learn how to preform procedures correctly, and with life at stake, to preserve the health of living beings.

in a hospital, the nature of hierarchy is totally beneficial to any individual who is to or is seeking the services of the medical community.

so, if there are nurses who know a certain amount of medical information and then doctors who are hierarchically above and with more authority than the nurses, what does this mean about virtue, beneficially and peace?

if the intellectual anarchist wages everything on the intellectual platform for an appealing and compelling ideological system, such that anarchy is, then what is one in the face of true reason concerning anything to be considered?

is, in this society, an anarchist a sort of intellectual stereotype attracted to the social personality aesthetic which promotes the wildness of the rage of the socially conscious activist intellectual?

or is an anarchist a socially transcendental sort of entity who exists peacefully in the world for the sake of the integrity of their own virtue and for the sake of the community?

and for the sake of cultural identification and proper labeling of the stereotypical individual in the society as cultural archetypes are to be considered... most anarchists just want to make sure there are enough trees on the earth for everyone to breath well.

are anarchists violent window smashing, molotov cocktail throwing, intellectually violent, character judging, destroyers of the society for sake of wild violence and throwing around a bad attitude?

no.

anarchists are peaceful intellectually motivated free-thinking people who have the interests of the common person at heart... at heart the anarchist has the interests of the common person.

how natural it is that the intellectual and philosophical inheritance of the sociological form happens to be happening upon the anarchist then?

entirely and absolutely in terms of that which is ever forthright.

wherefrom are the organizations of social bodies to ever arise and after what and therefore by whence, upon sequences of what sort is the original ground upon which all that is to be formed socially?

the truest answer is that from an absence of organization does any social form become assembled.

that is to say that before the book club started in the neighborhood there was an intellectual need for one, and from the absence of that social organization arose the design and manifestation of the neighborhood book club.

and that is to say, anarchy is historically the grounds upon which civilization has become about itself to happening in the world... for out of mountains and monarchies, and deserts and the emptiness of primitive man’s initial social tendencies considerations eventuated themselves to become about occurring on the historical map wherein we find ourselves now... inheriting the world around us as a story built upon the free actions of any individual and the evolution of social theory which brings us now to the acknowledgement that anarchy is in fact the basis of hierarchy.

is anarchy fundamentally chaotic?

in a field of grass it’s all the same to them, every blade does it’s job and it all works out. they’re not voting about how green it’s got to be. they act according to the program they are designed to preform by and everything works out.

as human beings... our program, our basic program is designed to maintain homeostasis and as intelligent living beings we understand that what is good for us fundamentally as human beings, as all human beings physical bodies must maintain homeostasis, then that good is good for others. through our compassionate logic and by the avenues of considerations about objects arrived to by sympathetic and projections of empathetic human phenomena, we know what we’re supposed to do. we’re supposed to be good because it’s good to be good.

so, what is exactly chaotic or dangerous about living by a set of values which arise as a result of intellectual reflection upon and about the principles of anarchy?

there is nothing chaotic or dangerous about that social style of the conduction of one’s own self. all the avenues of anarchy, true to it’s ideological form, lead to peace and beneficial functions of the society.

why is anarchy associated why chaos?

in any highly complicated information based system chaos will eventually cause disorder which would eventually cause the destruction of the construct.

to a highly informed intelligent and educated anarchist, chaos is a possibly way to accomplish the virtuous goal of destroying the establishment.

what about our society is so immoral and or corrupt that it’s destruction appears to be so over-due and the most morally responsible event anticipatable?

the society, and any society, which temporarily operates may or may not have aspects which violate fundamental human rights and in terms of positions of authority, hierarchies possibly violate those free rights of the individual automatically.

what about in a hospital?

that appears to be different, the function of the doctor naturally constitutes the hierarchy to be necessary because only an educated doctor can preform the jobs of a medical professional. people’s lives are stake there.

what makes the most sense of all this? it’s got be one or the other? can it be both, anarchy and hierarchy, together?

whatever makes the most sense in actuality is whatever makes the most sense, not just what is easiest to digest or think about...

and anarchy and hierarchy can exist peacefully together. they do in the hospital. the doctor respects everyone rights and also has a sort of authority which can only be acquired by going to college to become a doctor and then by going to medical school.

what about the tools of oppression which operate in our society  to create simulated environments which perpetuate the violation of human freedoms like the family unit?

what inherent freedoms are gained or lost as result of the maturation of the human being in terms of progression of age?

none.

every human being is technically entirely and absolutely free for their entire existence and such that one is oneself for the entirety of their existence and their fundamental freedoms always exist for them.

so, what does this mean about the legality of certain laws in our free society concerning minors?

and what does the stereotypical hierarchical social construct of an imbalanced power model called the family unit do to a society?

what happens when the entire society is classically conditioned and psychologically programmed as children and into adolescent youth to operate about an artificial social system of authority power types?

who knows but naturally, as a psychologist one could say that a sort of repression might occur...

in the society which is composed of individuals, where are the parameters coming from?

the parameters of the social construct come from individuals and groups of individuals.

it’s all relatively artificial unless the construct is in exact consonant harmony with what is most inherent to the absolute freedom of the individual.

what has occurred is a form of anarchistic repression.

repression of the anarchistic individual with the induction of the hierarchical oppression system called the family unit.

in what ways can anyone benefit from morally corrupt imbalanced power structures as social organizations?

or another way to consider that idea is in what ways are authoritarian dictatorships beneficial to the individual as a developing human being?

most people would say that there are no forms of authoritarian dictatorships that would ever come to benefit the individual.

so, why do we have a whole society which functions around the accomplishments of the family unit?

are families good?

families can be good but by what conditions?

if the parents and children are satisfied then no one gets punished and peace is had in the home.

and some families operate democratically... everyone votes on dinner or where to go for vacation or what to watch on television.

but what about the anarchistic rights of the free individual as one is a human being?

anarchistic meaning with no hierarchy.

when there is no hierarchy there is no imbalance of power.

hierarchy exists only when there are ranks of power which fundamentally violate human rights because the delegation of authority rests on a socio-ideological system which puts second the absolute authority of the individual to the conditions of the social organization.

so, what happens when a society is classical conditioned around and about and up on anarchistically repressive social constructs?

well, if people’s fundamental rights are violated and to degrees which put their safety and rights at risk then what will happen to their sense of individual confidence and their individual confidence itself?

what sort of social tendencies will come into existence when everyone has been turned into a square? defined by stereotypes and personally offensive authority archetypes?

will the society come to ever design a most free social construct when everyone has been classically conditioned by what we can call identity repression?

what has been repressed about the individuals identity?

what has been repressed is the fundamental fact that they are actually entirely within their legal right to control every aspect of their existence and beyond the reaches of the family unit, or any social organization for that matter.

all systems of control must become questioned by the free individual who is interested in preserving their freedom and participating in the progression of the society.

including the family unit as a hierarchical social institution...

the family unit as a hierarchical social institution was only ever generated from the evolutionary world of the animal kingdom because babies cannot survive without the care of the parents and the care of the community.

all of the animals, which are even considerably less civil than the human being, raise their children with care and well.

and the family unit can do a good job... at raising an individual but what is the truth of the conditions of the socially contractual situation called the family unit?

by what conditions is inherent human freedom actually being preserved in the society with the family as a legally respected entity and to the degree that human rights are violated with the corrupt hierarchical imbalance of social authority?

what’s going on with the whole spanking thing?

what’s going on with the whole verbal lashing thing?

why is that acceptable?

is it acceptable?

i don’t think so. what other social organizations allow for the assault of human beings and especially when all the members have not even consented to participating?

none and because it’s illegal.

parents from one family cannot go to another house and perpetuate cultural illusions by enforcing their authority on anyone, parent or child...

why?

because that would violate the other families fundamental rights and freedoms.

so where does the power of the parent come from?

it comes from the idea that because the parent gave birth to the child that the parent sort of owns the child.

well, is this actually true?

technically, no. the child is absolutely free.

how can we understand that the child is absolutely free?

well, once the child becomes an adult and can exercise their true freedom which exists inherently as they are a human being it is upon the maxim actual which is that they have inherent freedoms because they are a human being. not because they are an adult. both are true but most fundamentally, one’s freedom is their own because they are a living human being.

adult or minor has nothing to do with anything at all when considering the nature of the inherent rights of human beings.

so, the society must come to respect this reality.

and it’s not that difficult.

any human being is absolutely free regardless of age.

that’s easy.

so, could families exist in ways which the law can recognize and maintain as totally mutualistic in terms of power structures and authority types?

sure. it’s just a design wherein everyone in the social organization has the same power and because they are all human beings.

if the parents have to care for, feed and clothe the child then are they also responsible for respecting and promoting their fundamental human rights?

yes.

is it the actual responsibility of the parents to raise the child and care for and feed and clothe the child?

well, a person can take their child to a foster home and then the people who work at the foster home will take care of the child.

so, the dynamic of the family relationship can change and the authority structure can change...

but why does the child need the authority figure?

why is that when the people in power come to give their children away to the foster home that the adult is still the authority figure?

they weren’t before.

just because they are caring for them now doesn’t mean that violations of human rights can come to be acceptable.

if it would be a violation of human right for the foster care people to impose their authority on the child when they are in the good and healthy family home then what makes it right for them to impose their authority on the child when that other supposedly real power structure comes to crash down when they are given to the foster home?

and what would happen if the laws changed to include the minor in the society in the same way as the adult is?

a child might become president.

there might be entire blocks of child societies.

they would be able to do anything adults do... which includes drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and gambling and eating as much candy as they want and staying up to whatever hour of the night or even into the early morning and to be able to call anyone they want on the telephone and order as many pizzas as they want to.

it’s their right. they are a human being.

should children be allowed to drink beer?

well, should adults be allowed to drink beer?

if adults are, are they drinking beer because they are over twenty one or because they are free human beings?

could be both...

why does anyone care if the minors drink alcohol?

once anyone turns twenty one they can become as inebriated as anyone else who is twenty one or older.

why does it matter?

is it just so that children can stay in their sober mind for as long as the education institution comes to indoctrinate them around and about and up on philosophically immoral power imbalance hierarchy systems to perpetuate the machine of society?

maybe... what happens when someone drinks beer? they become more confident and full of their own self-power.

what happens when someone smokes cannabis?

they become high, and self-reflective and more self-aware and they develop and progress psychologically, emotionally and socially... cannabis users are nicer, happier, calmer and more relaxed than most other people in the society who do not consume cannabis.

cannabis users are more in touch with their own personal authority.

so, maybe even alcohol isn’t allowed to be consumed by anyone in the society until all the social programming is done. until the psychological classical conditioning is done.

so maybe the only people who care about minors drinking alcohol are the people who interested in the perpetuation of philosophically immoral social organizations which operate by imbalances of power as hierarchies...

maybe the children should be drinking so much alcohol everyday, but who is anyone to say anything about anyone’s alcoholism...

are adults allowed to become alcoholics?

sure. as long as they don’t commit any crimes against anyone else they have committed no crime by consuming alcohol every day.

and also, just because droves of children might become raging alcoholics, if they were liberated legally as they should be according to the philosophical constants of the fundamental anarchist platform which supports individual freedoms of human beings, doesn’t mean that the society can violate anyone’s freedoms based on the discrimination of age.

and maybe the minors would not all become raging alcoholics if they were liberated...

maybe they would continue to go to school and become successful...

i don’t know but their individual freedoms have to be respected since they are human beings.

does the success of the society really depend on our operating an oppressive system which violates fundamental human rights?

and does the success of the society really depend on the corrupt classical condition of the population on a mass scale so they are intellectually tuned to a belief system which perpetuates corrupt social organizations like hierarchies?

well, is the psychological health of the individual to be considered fundamental to the psychological health of the society which composed of individuals in the form of a group?

yes.

the collective psychological health of the group is determined by the psychological health of the individuals who comprise the group.

so then is it a good idea for everyone to be repressed and classically conditioned by systems which violate fundamental human rights and then for those repressed classically conditioned individuals to come to rule the society?

most likely not.

most psychologists would say that that idea is not good for society.

most psychologists would say that mass repression of the inherent authority of the individual by the institution of the family unit is relatively destructive to social progression...

and again, a family unit design would be possible to function within a set of conditions which support the inherent freedoms each individual naturally holds as an existential being...

so, in reality it is not the emotional entity which is the family unit insofar as families are just bundles of loving relationships that is the criminal here... it is the hierarchical structure which is criminal because it violates fundamental human rights and also plays a large part in the deep classical conditioning of the individual to be permissive of corruptions of authority in the society.

is it legal?

and technically legal considering the nature of the language construct environment of the american legal system?

should it be legal for the institution of the family to exist as a legally binding type of socially organized entity within the society? and considering the nature of the fundamental violation of human rights, the family should only really exist conditionally and does in our country.

if a parent or two parents are found guilty of having committed crimes against a child, then the parents either go to jail or the state takes the child to a foster home and allows the child to find new parents.

but the question of the moral legitimacy of the legal status of the social organization entity which is the family unit is based on the philosophical fundamental truth which is that a human being holds, inherently, all of their rights for all of their existence.

the illusory social simulation imbalance of power and authority hierarchy construct called the family wherein the parents hold a majority of the authority and the children are the subjects of the parents is of such a sort that the possible psychological and behavioral programming upon the free individual might be counter intuitive to the progression of the society insofar as the society is composed of intrinsically free individuals...

also, considering the legal nature of any economic object and any economic entity within the legal system of the united states, every part of the economic system is respected as much as it is and to whatever degree, all parties considered.

the minor is apart of the economic equation and comes to become transformed into an adult and because of this there is a fundamental legal status appropriate for the minor to be recognized with and as...

what is that status?

that status is equal to the adult.

what is the difference if a child purchases a large soda or if an adult purchases a large soda?

nothing. the amount of soda is the same and the price is the same both times. the tax is even the same.

so, why is there a sort of legal situation which permits all the prices of everything to be the same for everyone but the civil liberties are essentially different and such that the minor is secondary to the adult in the society in terms of privileges and influence.

or, as an adult who is fundamentally free with or without the society... what have i been given by anyone in terms of legal right or freedom?

nothing. i inherently have my own freedom because i am a human being. my rights in the society exists as my own because i am a free individual.

so, how can the society operate in such a way which violates our fundamental understanding of our own freedoms which are inherently ours?

well, it has only operated criminally up until this point...

the liberation of the minor in society in necessary for social progression because of the socio-psychological machinery which comes to operate in the society as a result of the classical conditioning of the population at a mass scale and it’s criminal nature, and such that human rights should not be violated based on discriminations of any sort, and because when all of the individuals of the society are no longer growing up repressed and oppressed by immoral hierarchical social organizations and institutions the operations of the social machinery will be such that true freedom of the individual will be expressed archetypally in the design of the social architecture and occurring phenomenally as human beings have their natural freedoms respected by the society.

[lucyllesheltonroi]

12 Things I Stole From People More Successful Than Me

Throughout my entire life, I’ve been fortunate enough to have read 100’s of books written by people who are a lot more successful than I am.

People like Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, billionaire investor Charlie Munger, Founding Father Ben Franklin, NBA legend Kobe Bryant, modern-day Stoic Ryan Holiday, and many more.

This has exposed me to thousands of new insights and practical ideas for living a better life. And let me tell you something…

I’ve happily stolen and applied every single piece of advice these people have kindly given away in their books.

Whether it’s building better habits, elevating my level of happiness, or earning more money, these ideas have greatly benefited my own life.

So to make these ideas easier for you to benefit from, here are 12 of the best and most unconventional ideas I’ve shamelessly stolen from people who are a lot more successful than I am.

I hope you enjoy it!

1) Pare Down The Number of Decisions You Make Every Day

Every single day, you make thousands of decisions: Should I hit the snooze button or not? What time should I leave for work? Should I exercise today? And if so, what time? The list goes on and on. Some of these decisions are important, but most are trivial.

Unfortunately, researchers have found that, as humans, our capacity to consistently make well thought out decisions is finite.

What this means is that when you use your brainpower earlier in the day deciding what to eat for breakfast, for example, you’ll consequently have less of it later in the day when you have to decide if you should have that piece of cake or not. As a result, you’ll most likely give in and decide to eat the cake. This is what’s known as decision fatigue, which is the psychological condition where making a decision in the present will reduce your decision making ability in the future.

John Tierney, coauthor of the New York Times bestselling book “Willpower,” says,

“Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket and can’t resist the dealer’s offer to rustproof their new car. No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue — you’re not consciously aware of being tired — but you’re low on mental energy.”

Simply put, every decision you make uses up your mental energy. So in order to save your mental power for the important decisions of the day, you have to learn to reduce the number of decisions you make on a daily basis either by automating them or delegating them.

By doing this, you’ll find yourself becoming significantly less stressed, more productive, and overall happier.

2) Tear Up Your To-Do List

Here’s an important piece of advice: Success is never achieved by the person who does the most things every day. Instead, success is always achieved by the person who does what is most important every day.

This is why to-do lists can oftentimes do more harm than good. Why? Because a to-do list is essentially everything you think you need to do, not everything you ought to do.

It may feel good to check off a lot of small, unimportant tasks from your to-do list, but a to-do list tends to just obscure what’s really important.

So what do you need instead of a to-do list? You need a success list.

In the book “The One Thing,”​ Gary Keller, founder of the largest real estate company in the world, says,

“To-do lists tend to be long; success lists are short. One pulls you in all directions; the other aims you in a specific direction. One is a disorganized directory and the other is an organized directive. If a list isn’t built around success, then that’s not where it takes you. If your to-do lists contain everything, then it’s probably taking you everywhere but where you really want to go.”

Not everything matters equally. Having clean windows may seem important for you to do, but it doesn’t help you achieve success. They only distract you from success.

So the next time you create a to-do list, don’t make your to-do list in random order. Instead, take a few extra minutes to list everything on your to-do list in order of priority and then focus on only doing the 3 most important things on your list.

3) Turn “Have-To” Into “Get-To”

At one point in my life, I constantly struggled to build new habits. But here’s a simple idea that helped me overcome this: Don’t view your habits as challenges. Instead, view them as opportunities.

In the book “Atomic Habits,” habit building expert James Clear says,

“We often talk about everything we have to do in a given day. You have to wake up early for work. You have to make another sales call for your business. You have to cook dinner for your family. Now, imagine changing just one word: You don’t “have” to. You “get” to. You “get” to wake up early for work. You “get” to make another sales call for your business. You “get” to cook dinner for your family.”

This may just seem like semantics, but it’s actually a crucial component for building new habits and improving your life. By simply changing one word in your life, from “have-to” into “get-to,” you start to see building habits like going for a run and reading every day as a privilege rather than as a burden.

For instance:

Don’t tell yourself “I have to go running today.” Instead, tell yourself, “I get to build endurance and get fast today.”

Don’t tell yourself, “I have to read today. Instead, tell yourself, “I get to learn from the most intelligent and successful individuals who ever lived today.”

Don’t tell yourself, “I have to write today. Instead, tell yourself, “I get to impact thousands of people for the better through my thoughts today.”

Learn to reframe your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks. Doing this is a fast and easy way to reprogram your mind and to make intimidating and burdensome habits seem more attractive.

4) Use People’s Favorite Sound

Do you wish you were more likeable? I mean, who doesn’t? Even people who say they don’t care about being liked by other people still care about being liked.

And they should… You know why? Because being liked by others is extremely important when it comes to both your career success and personal relationships.

Luckily, there’s a simple technique you can use that can have a huge positive impact on how others perceive you. In the classic book “How To Win Friends and Influence People,” Dale Carnegie interviews the late American politician Jim Farley on his secret to being a more likeable and persuasive person.

What was his secret? Amazingly, Farley would go out of his way to remember the names of everyone he met. In fact, Farley could remember the first names of 50,000 people!

This is definitely impressive, but why is remembering and using people’s names important? There are two reasons: First, when you remember someone’s name, it makes that person feel respected and more important. However, when you don’t remember someone’s name, especially when they’ve told you their name multiple times, it can make that person feel slighted. Second, when you actively use someone’s name in conversation, it makes that person feel more engaged and interested. Unsurprisingly, Carnegie says, this is because “a person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Remembering and using someone’s name is a very subtle, yet powerful way to win people over. So the next time you meet someone and you want to quickly win their favor be sure to remember their name and use it often in conversation.

5) Look At People’s Feet

When you’re having a conversation with someone, how do you know if the other person is engaged in the conversation, disinterested, or just uncomfortable to be there?

Typically, most people will look at the other person’s facial expression to try to get a sense of how that person feels.

Unfortunately, the problem with this strategy is that people are really good at changing their facial expressions in order to mask how they really feel.

Luckily, there’s a better strategy. According to the book “What Every Body Is Saying,” former FBI agent Joe Navarro recommends that in order to tell how someone feels, you should look down at their feet.

Navarro says that out of all our body parts, our feet are the most honest parts of our body.

For example, let’s say you’re talking to someone and their facial expression makes it seem like they’re engaged with you, but their feet are pointing away from you. Navarro says this is a bad sign. This can mean they’re ready to get out of the conversation immediately or that they don’t feel comfortable being there.

If, however, their feet are pointed towards you, then Navarro says that’s a good sign. This can mean that they feel comfortable talking with you or that they’re enjoying the conversation.

So the next time you’re standing and talking with someone, look at where their feet are pointing. You’ll discover some of the most revealing nonverbal information from that person just by looking at their feet.

6) Mise En Place

In the culinary arts, professional chefs have a term they use called “mise en place,” which is French for “put in place.”

Essentially, chefs don’t start cooking until everything is, literally, in its place: their instruments and spices are organized, everything is clean, their ingredients are pre-chopped, their ingredients are pre-measured, etc.

Mise en place helps chefs reduce the friction they experience in the kitchen. As a result, chefs are able to cook better meals with far less effort.

This is a simple concept that helps chefs cook better, but it also extends outside of the kitchen.

In the book “Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick,” professor and habit researcher Amy Wood recommends using mise en place to build better habits.

Like professional chefs, Wood recommends trying to reduce the friction needed to do your desired habit.

For instance:

If you want to eat better, then prepare healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals in advance.

If you want to exercise in the morning, then lay out your workout clothes the night before.

If you want to read more, then put a book on your bed.

If you can reduce the friction for the positive habits that you want to build, then it won’t be as hard for you to build life-changing habits into your life.

7) Don’t Be A Donkey

When Tim Ferriss asked Derek Sivers what advice he would give to his younger self for his book “Tools of Titans,” Sivers gave one of the best pieces of advice in this entire 700+ page book: “Don’t be a donkey.”

In this book, Sivers tells a short story about a donkey who is both equally hungry and thirsty. Fortunately for the donkey, there’s a stack of hay a few feet away from him on his left side and a pail of water a few feet away on his right side.

But here’s the thing: Because the hay and water are equally as far, the donkey can’t decide whether he should eat the hay first or drink the water first. Paralyzed by indecision, the donkey eventually falls over and dies from both hunger and thirst.

Sivers says,

“A donkey can’t think of the future. If he did, he’d realize he could clearly go first to drink the water, then go eat the hay. So my advice to my 30-year-old self is, don’t be a donkey. You can do everything you want to do. You just need foresight and patience.”

Therefore, if you have 10 things you want to accomplish over the next 10 years, just know that you can definitely achieve those 10 things. But all you have to do is simply dedicate yourself to one thing for a year. And then dedicate yourself to the next thing for another year. And so on. However, if you try to do all 10 things at once, then you’re going to end up like a donkey and not achieve anything. Don’t be a donkey.

8) Stop Using The Number 7

Whenever you don’t know if you should say no to something, simply rate it on a scale from 1 to 10. However, there’s one condition: You can’t use the number 7.

This strategy comes from Tim Ferriss in his book “Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice From The Best In The World.”

Why does Tim Ferriss say you’re not allowed to use 7? Because 7 is too safe of a number. 7 doesn’t commit to anything.

If you rate something a 7, there’s a good chance you’ll feel obligated to say yes to it when you shouldn’t.

Whereas, if you rate something a 6 (terrible) or an 8 (exciting), it’s a lot easier to quickly decide whether or not you should even consider it.

The benefit of making decisions this way is that it forces you to make a decision.

This is a method you can use for anything, whether it’s deciding if you should buy a specific book, go to a conference, or have a coffee chat with someone.

Don’t be scared to have an opinion. Stop playing it safe. Make a decision.

9) Be A Whiner

Mark Cuban is a huge whiner. But that’s exactly why he’s so successful.

When Mark Cuban was in high school, for example, he whined about not being able to take business classes. So he decided to take classes at the University of Pittsburgh instead.

When Mark Cuban was hanging out with his friend, they both whined they couldn’t listen to any hometown sports in Dallas. So they decided to start AudioNet.

When Mark Cuban was sitting in attendance at a Mavericks basketball game, he whined that there wasn’t enough energy or entertainment. Cuban thought he could do a better job. So he decided to buy the Mavericks.

In his book “How To Win At The Sport of Business,” Mark Cuban says,

“I’m sure there have been many other things I have whined about in the past, and many more that I will whine about in the future. What I don’t understand is why so many people think whining has a negative connotation. I don’t. Whining is the first step toward change. It’s the moment when you realize something is very wrong and that you have to take the initiative to do something about it… People who don’t whine are punching bags. They just go about their days, their jobs, their lives, knowing there is nothing they can do to change a darn thing, so why say a word? They see no reason to whine because they know they are incapable of effecting change. Call me a whiner any day.”

10) Take Sabbaticals From Your Work

If you ever feel like you’re experiencing creative roadblocks in your work or that you’re feeling burnt out, it’s probably time to take a sabbatical.

What’s a sabbatical? Sabbaticals are mini-vacations from your work, which are meant to act as a detox from your daily routine so that you can recharge and get back to work better than before.

In the book “Show Your Work,” best selling author and creative Austin Kleon says,

“The designer Stefan Sagmeister swears by the power of the sabbatical — every seven years, he shuts down his studio and takes a year off [to rejuvenate and refresh his creative outlook.] His thinking is that we dedicate the first 25 years or so of our lives to learning, the next 40 to work, and the last 15 to retirement, so why not take 5 years off retirement and use them to break up the work years? He says the sabbatical has turned out to be invaluable to his work: “Everything that we designed in the seven years following the first sabbatical had it’s roots in thinking done during that sabbatical.”

Stefan Sagmeister is only one among thousands of successful entrepreneurs, creatives and VCs who rely on sabbaticals to feel refreshed.

Taking a sabbatical, whether it’s for a week, a day, or even just a few hours, is a great way to cultivate new ideas, to experience fewer creative blocks, and to avoid burnout in your work.

11) Never Ask For Someone’s ‘Opinion’

If you ever want to ask someone for input about an idea you have, then never ask for their “opinion.” Instead, always ask for their “advice.”

The differential phrasing might seem minor, but in the book “Pre-Suasion” psychology and marketing professor Robert Cialdini says that asking for ‘advice’ can have a significant positive impact in getting other people to provide you feedback as well as getting other people to want to work with you.

Why? Because when you ask someone for their ‘advice,’ this puts the other person in a togetherness state of mind, which helps increase the other person’s desire to support whatever you’re asking them for advice on.

Asking for their opinion, on the other hand, puts the other person in an introspection state of mind, which makes them focus more on themself and not on you.

So whenever you’re seeking input from your customers, peers, or even your boss, it’s worth asking them for their “advice.”

“The novelist Saul Bellow once observed, “When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.” I’d only add on the basis of scientific evidence that, if we get that advice, we usually get that accomplice.” — Robert Cialdini

12 Practice What’s It’s Like To Be Poor

For many of us, we constantly worry about not having enough money. We fear what life will look like if we can’t afford the things we think we want and are forced to live on just the bare necessities.

But oftentimes this fear paralyzes us and keeps us from being as happy and successful as we could be.

But instead of constantly worrying about what might go wrong if you were to get fired from your job or your business was to fail, why not rehearse what each potential fear-inducing moment would be like before it ever happens?

This is a psychological technique known as “fear rehearsing,” which is where you regularly microdose yourself with the worst case scenario as a way to desensitize yourself to your fears.

In the book “Letters From A Stoic,” the great Stoic philosopher Seneca says,

“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: Is this the condition that I so feared?”

For 3 to 4 days, wear the same outfit every day. Eat a lot of instant oatmeal, ramen and/or rice and beans. Drink only water, cheap instant coffee or tea. Reduce the amount you spend on groceries and personal care in half. Forego any form of entertainment or leisure that costs money. Walk or take public transit everywhere. Turn off your TV. Take cold showers. Sleep in a sleeping bag. Only read books from your local library.

That’s it. That’s as hard as it gets. By doing this, you’ll realize just how independent your well being is from money. And once you understand this, it becomes easier to take “risks” and to push through your fears because you know that even if you were to experience a huge financial setback, you would still be completely okay.

People will think you’re resilient but actually you’ve just practiced the hard times as preparation.

[onlineindus23]

ONLINEINDUS - Pakistan English News, Latest Pakistan News

Maybe the biggest and most inescapable issue in a specialized curriculum, just as my own excursion in schooling, is specialized curriculum's relationship to general instruction. History has demonstrated that this has never been a simple obvious connection between the two. There has been a ton of giving and taking or perhaps I should state pulling and pushing with regards to instructive arrangement, and the instructive practices and administrations of schooling and custom curriculum by the human instructors who convey those administrations on the two sides of the isle, similar to me.

In the course of the last 20+ years I have been on the two sides of training. I have seen and felt what it resembled to be a customary standard instructor managing specialized curriculum strategy, custom curriculum understudies and their specific educators. I have likewise been on the specialized curriculum side attempting to get normal schooling educators to work all the more viably with my specialized curriculum understudies through altering their guidance and materials and having somewhat more tolerance and compassion.

Moreover, I have been standard normal instruction educator who trained ordinary schooling consideration classes attempting to sort out some way to best work with some new custom curriculum instructor in my group and their custom curriculum understudies too. What's more, conversely, I have been a specialized curriculum incorporation instructor barging in on the region of some standard training educators with my specialized curriculum understudies and the alterations I figured these educators should actualize. I can disclose to you direct that none of this give and take between a custom curriculum and normal training has been simple. Nor do I see this pushing and pulling turning out to be simple at any point in the near future.

All in all, what is custom curriculum? What's more, what makes it so exceptional but then so unpredictable and questionable here and there? Indeed, custom curriculum, as its name proposes, is a particular part of training. It asserts its heredity to such individuals as Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (1775-1838), the doctor who "subdued" the "wild kid of Aveyron," and Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936), the instructor who "worked supernatural occurrences" with Helen Keller.

Extraordinary instructors show understudies who have physical, psychological, language, learning, tangible, and additionally passionate capacities that go amiss from those of everyone. Unique teachers give guidance explicitly customized to address individualized issues. These instructors fundamentally make training more accessible and available to understudies who in any case would have restricted admittance to schooling because of whatever inability they are battling with.

It's not simply the instructors however who assume a job throughout the entire existence of a specialized curriculum in this nation. Doctors and ministry, including Itard-referenced above, Edouard O. Seguin (1812-1880), Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787-1851), needed to enhance the careless, frequently harsh treatment of people with handicaps. Unfortunately, instruction in this nation was, as a general rule, careless and oppressive when managing understudies that are distinctive in some way or another.

There is even a rich writing in our country that depicts the treatment gave to people handicaps during the 1800s and mid 1900s. Tragically, in these accounts, just as in reality, the fragment of our populace with handicaps were regularly restricted in prisons and almshouses without respectable food, attire, individual cleanliness, and exercise.

For an illustration of this diverse treatment in our writing one requirements to look no farther than Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843). Furthermore, commonly individuals with inabilities were frequently depicted as scoundrels, for example, in the book Captain Hook in J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan" in 1911.

The overarching perspective on the creators of this time span was that one ought to submit to setbacks, both as a type of submission to God's will, and in light of the fact that these appearing mishaps are at last planned to one's benefit. Progress for our kin with handicaps was rare as of now with this perspective pervading our general public, writing and thinking.

All in all, what was society to do about these individuals of adversity? Indeed, during a significant part of the nineteenth century, and from the get-go in the 20th, experts accepted people with inabilities were best treated in private offices in provincial conditions. An out of the picture and therefore irrelevant sort of thing, maybe...

Notwithstanding, before the finish of the nineteenth century the size of these establishments had expanded so significantly that the objective of recovery for individuals with incapacities simply wasn't working. Foundations became instruments for lasting isolation.

I have some involvement in these isolation approaches of schooling. Some of it is acceptable and some of it is slightly below average. I have been an independent instructor on and off over time in numerous conditions in independent homerooms out in the open secondary schools, center schools and grade schools. I have likewise instructed in various specialized curriculum social independent schools that completely isolated these grieved understudies with inabilities in dealing with their conduct from their standard companions by placing them in totally various structures that were in some cases even in various towns from their homes, companions and friends.

Throughout the long term numerous specialized curriculum experts became pundits of these organizations referenced over that isolated and isolated our kids with incapacities from their companions. Irvine Howe was one of the first to advocate removing our childhood from these gigantic foundations and to put out occupants into families. Lamentably this training turned into a calculated and down to earth issue and it required some investment before it could turn into a practical option in contrast to systematization for our understudies with incapacities.

Presently on the positive side, you may be keen on knowing anyway that in 1817 the primary specialized curriculum school in the United States, the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb (presently called the American School for the Deaf), was set up in Hartford, Connecticut, by Gallaudet. That school is still there today and is one of the top schools in the nation for understudies with hear-able inabilities. A genuine progress story!

Be that as it may, as you would already be able to envision, the enduring accomplishment of the American School for the Deaf was the special case and not the standard during this time-frame. What's more, to add to this, in the late nineteenth century, social Darwinism supplanted environmentalism as the essential causal clarification for those people with handicaps who digressed from those of everybody.

Unfortunately, Darwinism made the way for the genetic counseling development of the mid 20th century. This at that point prompted much further isolation and even sanitization of people with inabilities, for example, mental hindrance. Sounds like something Hitler was doing in Germany additionally being done well here in our own nation, to our own kin, by our own kin. Sort of alarming and unfeeling, wouldn't you concur?

Today, this sort of treatment is clearly unsatisfactory. Furthermore, in the early piece of the twentieth Century it was likewise inadmissible to a portion of the grown-ups, particularly the guardians of these debilitated youngsters. Hence, concerned and furious guardians framed support gatherings to help carry the instructive necessities of youngsters with incapacities into the public eye. General society needed to see firsthand how wrong this selective breeding and disinfection development was for our understudies that were unique in the event that it was truly going to be halted.

Gradually, grassroots associations gained ground that even prompted a few states making laws to ensure their residents with incapacities. For instance, in 1930, in Peoria, Illinois, the primary white stick law gave people with visual deficiency the option to proceed when going across the road. This was a beginning, and different states did in the long run go with the same pattern. As expected, this nearby grassroots' development and states' development prompted enough tension on our chosen authorities for something to be done on the public level for our kin with inabilities.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy made the President's Panel on Mental Retardation. Furthermore, in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson marked the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which gave subsidizing to essential training, and is seen by backing bunches as extending admittance to state funded schooling for kids with handicaps.

At the point when one ponders Kennedy's and Johnson's record on social equality, at that point it most likely isn't such an unexpected discovering that these two presidents likewise initiated this public development for our kin with incapacities.

This government development prompted segment 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. This ensures social equality for the handicapped with regards to governmentally subsidized establishments or any program or movement accepting Federal monetary help. Every one of these years after the fact as an instructor, I for one arrangement with 504 cases each and every day.

In 1975 Congress authorized Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), which sets up a privilege to state funded training for all youngsters paying little heed to inability. This was another beneficial thing in light of the fact that before government enactment, guardians needed to generally teach their youngsters at home or pay for costly private schooling.

The development continued developing. In the 1982 the instance of the Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, the U.S. High Court explained the degree of administrations to be managed the cost of understudies with exceptional necessities. The Court decided that custom curriculum administrations need just give some "instructive advantage" to understudies. Government funded schools were not needed to amplify the instructive advancement of understudies with incapacities.

Today, this decision may not appear to be a triumph, and actually, this equivalent inquiry is indeed coursing through our courts today in 2017. Be that as it may, since its getting late period it was made

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Maybe the biggest and most unavoidable issue in a specialized curriculum, just as my own excursion in instruction, is custom curriculum's relationship to general schooling. History has demonstrated that this has never been a simple obvious connection between the two. There has been a ton of giving and taking or perhaps I should state pulling and pushing with regards to instructive strategy, and the instructive practices and administrations of schooling and specialized curriculum by the human instructors who convey those administrations on the two sides of the isle, similar to me.

Throughout the last 20+ years I have been on the two sides of instruction. I have seen and felt what it resembled to be an ordinary standard instructor managing custom curriculum strategy, specialized curriculum understudies and their particular educators. I have likewise been on the specialized curriculum side attempting to get ordinary schooling instructors to work all the more adequately with my custom curriculum understudies through changing their guidance and materials and having somewhat more persistence and sympathy.

Besides, I have been standard normal training educator who instructed customary schooling consideration classes attempting to sort out some way to best work with some new specialized curriculum instructor in my group and their specialized curriculum understudies also. Furthermore, interestingly, I have been a specialized curriculum consideration educator barging in on the region of some standard training instructors with my custom curriculum understudies and the alterations I figured these instructors should execute. I can disclose to you direct that none of this give and take between a custom curriculum and normal instruction has been simple. Nor do I see this pushing and pulling turning out to be simple at any point in the near future.

Anyway, what is custom curriculum? Furthermore, what makes it so extraordinary but so intricate and disputable in some cases? Indeed, custom curriculum, as its name recommends, is a particular part of instruction. It guarantees its heredity to such individuals as Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (1775-1838), the doctor who "restrained" the "wild kid of Aveyron," and Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936), the instructor who "worked supernatural occurrences" with Helen Keller.

Extraordinary instructors show understudies who have physical, intellectual, language, learning, tactile, as well as passionate capacities that stray from those of everyone. Unique instructors give guidance explicitly custom-made to address individualized issues. These instructors fundamentally make training more accessible and available to understudies who in any case would have restricted admittance to schooling because of whatever handicap they are battling with.

It's not simply the instructors however who assume a job throughout the entire existence of a specialized curriculum in this nation. Doctors and church, including Itard-referenced above, Edouard O. Seguin (1812-1880), Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787-1851), needed to enhance the careless, regularly harsh treatment of people with handicaps. Unfortunately, training in this nation was, usually, careless and oppressive when managing understudies that are distinctive by one way or another.

There is even a rich writing in our country that depicts the treatment gave to people handicaps during the 1800s and mid 1900s. Unfortunately, in these accounts, just as in reality, the portion of our populace with handicaps were frequently bound in correctional facilities and almshouses without fair food, apparel, individual cleanliness, and exercise.

For an illustration of this distinctive treatment in our writing one necessities to look no farther than Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843). Likewise, ordinarily individuals with incapacities were regularly depicted as scoundrels, for example, in the book Captain Hook in J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan" in 1911.

The overarching perspective on the creators of this time-frame was that one ought to submit to setbacks, both as a type of dutifulness to God's will, and on the grounds that these appearing disasters are eventually proposed to one's benefit. Progress for our kin with incapacities was difficult to find right now with this perspective saturating our general public, writing and thinking.

Anyway, what was society to do about these individuals of incident? All things considered, during a large part of the nineteenth century, and from the get-go in the 20th, experts accepted people with handicaps were best treated in private offices in country conditions. A no longer of any concern sort of thing, maybe...

Notwithstanding, before the finish of the nineteenth century the size of these organizations had expanded so significantly that the objective of restoration for individuals with incapacities simply wasn't working. Establishments became instruments for perpetual isolation.

I have some involvement in these isolation approaches of training. Some of it is acceptable and some of it isn't all that great. I have been an independent instructor on and off over time in different conditions in independent study halls openly secondary schools, center schools and grade schools. I have likewise instructed in numerous specialized curriculum conduct independent schools that completely isolated these disturbed understudies with inabilities in dealing with their conduct from their standard companions by placing them in totally various structures that were here and there even in various towns from their homes, companions and friends.

Throughout the long term numerous custom curriculum experts became pundits of these establishments referenced over that isolated and isolated our youngsters with incapacities from their companions. Irvine Howe was one of the first to advocate removing our childhood from these immense organizations and to put out occupants into families. Sadly this training turned into a strategic and commonsense issue and it required some investment before it could turn into a reasonable option in contrast to regulation for our understudies with inabilities.

Presently on the positive side, you may be keen on knowing anyway that in 1817 the main specialized curriculum school in the United States, the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb (presently called the American School for the Deaf), was set up in Hartford, Connecticut, by Gallaudet. That school is still there today and is one of the top schools in the nation for understudies with hear-able handicaps. A genuine progress story!

In any case, as you would already be able to envision, the enduring achievement of the American School for the Deaf was the exemption and not the standard during this time-frame. Furthermore, to add to this, in the late nineteenth century, social Darwinism supplanted environmentalism as the essential causal clarification for those people with inabilities who digressed from those of everyone.

Tragically, Darwinism made the way for the selective breeding development of the mid 20th century. This at that point prompted considerably further isolation and even disinfection of people with incapacities, for example, mental impediment. Sounds like something Hitler was doing in Germany additionally being done well here in our own nation, to our own kin, by our own kin. Sort of unnerving and unfeeling, wouldn't you concur?

Today, this sort of treatment is clearly unsatisfactory. What's more, in the early piece of the twentieth Century it was additionally unsuitable to a portion of the grown-ups, particularly the guardians of these crippled kids. In this way, concerned and furious guardians shaped promotion gatherings to help carry the instructive necessities of kids with incapacities into the public eye. General society needed to see firsthand how wrong this selective breeding and disinfection development was for our understudies that were unique in the event that it was truly going to be halted.

Gradually, grassroots associations gained ground that even prompted a few states making laws to ensure their residents with incapacities. For instance, in 1930, in Peoria, Illinois, the primary white stick statute gave people with visual deficiency the option to proceed when going across the road. This was a beginning, and different states did at last go with the same pattern. As expected, this neighborhood grassroots' development and states' development prompted enough tension on our chosen authorities for something to be done on the public level for our kin with handicaps.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy made the President's Panel on Mental Retardation. Furthermore, in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson marked the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which gave subsidizing to essential instruction, and is seen by backing bunches as extending admittance to state funded schooling for kids with incapacities.

At the point when one contemplates Kennedy's and Johnson's record on social liberties, at that point it most likely isn't such an unexpected discovering that these two presidents likewise led this public development for our kin with incapacities.

This government development prompted area 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. This ensures social equality for the impaired with regards to governmentally supported organizations or any program or movement getting Federal monetary help. Every one of these years after the fact as a teacher, I for one arrangement with 504 cases each and every day.

In 1975 Congress authorized Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), which sets up a privilege to state funded instruction for all kids paying little heed to incapacity. This was another beneficial thing on the grounds that preceding government enactment, guardians needed to generally instruct their kids at home or pay for costly private schooling.

The development continued developing. In the 1982 the instance of the Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, the U.S. High Court explained the degree of administrations to be managed the cost of understudies with uncommon necessities. The Court decided that specialized curriculum administrations need just give some "instructive advantage" to understudies. Government funded schools were not needed to boost the instructive advancement of understudies with inabilities.

Today, this decision may not appear to be a triumph, and in actuality, this equivalent inquiry is indeed circling through our courts today in 2017. In any case, since its getting late period it was made