#im a switch so they all become switches by proxy of me writing them

[stunt-lads]

Negan sex 🙏

Yes!!!

Negan getting pegged or rawdogging someone

Negan being in subspace or forcing someone else to submit

Negan consenting or not consenting

Negan being kinky or vanilla

Its all so good and I have written so much about it

[the-s1lly-corner]

Creepypasta au ramblings

Including some ideas, headcannons, potential plot stuff, ect ect

Gotta get the brain juices flowing and written down somewhere

Okay so. Admittedly, I haven't really been working on the au that much, due to my hyper fixiation on the owl house taking up my brain. And that'll likely still be the case with the upcoming finale so.. yeah!

Anyways, with what I have now;

I already know this is going to be a written collection of various connected stories; as opposed to a comic <\3

If my experience with making comics in the past says anything to me, is that it'll crash and burn before any of the juicy stuff happens.. and I'll get burnt out incredibly fast

Only downside to sticking to a written format is that a lot of these characters have redesighs <\3

Not big ones, most carry their basic look that just about everyone knows

Save for Kagekao and Laughing Jill

Good news is, Kagekao, as of now, doesn't have a role.. yet.. maybe.. again, I'm still figuring out the overarching story

Bad news: Laughing Jill is actually a huge roll in one of the side plots (more on that later). She still holds the same basic design elements as her canon design has: black and white clown gal

Only difference between the real design and my take is that Laughing Jill is a funky ragdoll; and she's small because.. yk, she's a doll. Can literally fit inside a decent sized backpack (again, will elaborate on this later)

Though of course I suppose I could just

Describe her as small

(I'm dumb and writing this as I think)

Moving on

I also want to do different plots and side things that all either connect to larger story, or show different perspectives and such; maybe each chapter switching from one characters POV to another

And I already have a long term plot! For... two specific characters

I want there to be a side thing where Jane is trying to hunt down Jeff and put an end to him for

Well

You know

Offing her parents

Along the way she stumbles into Jill, and the two team up to find the dude; along with Jane trying to balance her goal and everyday life. Because unlike most of the other characters, she lives a very normal life otherwise... when you don't look at her past. She has a job, she lives in her own apartment, she's gotten her education. Other than gunning for Jeff, she has no interest in taking the lives for others. So with Janes chapters it'll likely follow both settings/sides of her life

Speaking of settings

Locations

I don't know where exactly it would take place; country/town wise.. it may be spread out across different areas since itd be odd if all these creatures and stuff were living in the same place; gotta dispurse them or people will just. Leave the area

Yk?

But as for like

Actual places that the characters will be interacting in will be anywhere from towns, woods, eft ect

And yes

Because this is a mix of fanon and canon

The slender mansion will be in this au

Although probably not in the way most people interpret it; it won't really be a safe house for every creepypasta character buuuuut im still working on the way i should execute it

Probably make it a hotel of sorts; for most characters its not a permanent home. Be it they dont wish to stay, or they arent welcome there

Moving on, Im gonna write masky/tim and hoodie/brian the same way i do in my silly imagines and hc posts; treat the proxy as a separate personality from the person. Each having their own set of morals, behaviors, and memories; not too dissimilar to how MH shows them off IIRC

Though these versions of them are a mix of MH and CRP since I enjoy both renditions, as a fan of both materials. Plus I feel like if this did become something, a few of yall would be upset if i didnt have them... plus theyre fun to write

Speaking of characters that 100% wont be in the au, for various reasons, are:

Ticci Toby: because I just don't really jive with him like i used to, and the character has more or less been ruined for me by others.... though theres a chance he MAY appear, its just HIGHLY unlikely

Clockwork: she just makes me uncomfortable

Off*nderman: do i really need to elaborate on why I'm not adding him?

Really those are the main 3 I have beef with, but

Yeah

Anyways

Yeah idk what else to type but

!!

Hopefully I'll have more ideas cooked up soon

[jameswrites]

On Trauma and my voice

I lack subtlety online, even as I have tact out the ass. I’ll be as obnoxious and bold as I want, but when it comes to telling someone that I do not like something, suddenly I pull the brakes, put on the special gloves, and make sure I phrase things as kindly as possible--as long as I believe that they will be respectful of my existence as a person.

My mom says something shitty to me? (She can’t anymore, I have let her out of my life, but this is a thought game.) I might say something shitty back, just as boldly as she is “subtle” in her cruelty.

Mom: I think boys would like you better if you grew out your hair. That’s what you want since you’re “gay” right?

Me: You look far better when you’re not talking, but here we are.

These are extremely real things that I, someone who was abused physically, emotionally, and financially (thanks for the lack of monies, even though now my credit ain’t so great!) by her as an adult, have said to and about her and others like her who have lost all good will. I have been that blunt and cold in my cuts to her after years of casually accepting her subtle jabs at my personhood.

But if a friend was like, “Hey, you look really good with long hair! I hope you keep it for a while.”

I’d be like, “Fuck yeah, me too thanks for noticing!

Because, after realizing that compulsory short hair isn’t a facet of masculinity and I don’t have to tolerate that shit, I started to grow out my hair and shave my mustache so I just have a beard and long curly hair.

But if a friend said something like: You’d look bad if you shaved your mustache.

I’d not know what to say. Because that has happened. My kid gloves went on, and suddenly I was swimming, because every bone in my body wants to react as I would with my mom because I FOUGHT FOR YEARS to be able to snap reply when someone is horrible to me, but this is a friend and someone I like and not someone who is abusive, so why does this feel so bad and--BREATHE-- should I say something? Do I bother? Does this make them someone I should put a mental red flag on? Do I just suck it up and let it go?

And sometimes I don’t say anything. It festers, but I put it out of my head as best I can.

And sometimes I do say something. And if they react like, “Oh! I’m so sorry!” then it’s fine.

And if they turn the blame onto me, it’s a definite red flag up, but I can move on, let it be.

And sometimes that just keeps happening, wave after wave of me gently bringing it up until one day it all spills out and I am not gentle anymore. I react like I might with my mom, or worse, if it’s particularly bad.

And then, gosh golly, I’m the bad one, aren’t I? I’m the one who just suddenly went “crazy” even though I have months of documented attempts to peacefully, despite my fears and anxieties, try to solve the issues of being insulted low-key and high-key by a friend. Over and over. I have pages and pages of conversations and hours spent working with my therapist and others on how to best be a good friend to a guy who just needed me to help him understand how he was messing up, exactly when it happened, in exactly the way he could understand it, or else it wasn’t enough.

And when I lost my cool, he used that as justification to become dangerous. To say I triggered him. Into threatening me with violence.

So for the last almost 2 months I have had to stay with him in this house, him moving about at 2am just being a loud noisy fucker because he can, because what can I say about it?

And I have PTSD flaring up all the time, and I try my best to just say well he’s leaving soon. But soon feels like months away, even though recently we found out it was supposed to be today. And then he switched it, made it August 1. 

It’s funny, my rapists, plural, are people I can put in my mental trunk and lock away until I am ready to deal with thoughts about him, but just as I am going to sleep some nights, he starts stomping around upstairs. I hear him all the time, even when he’s not there. My other roommates move about, and sometimes I fear it’s him, at my door, about ready to break in and try to make good on his threat for compliance.

He beat his stairs hard enough and with enough obvious intent (followed by, he did it so he wouldn’t throw things about and beat me, while he stood by the top of the stairs with me there at the top of them and his hands up by my shoulders, as if to toss me, until I called for help and he backed off) and. I lost track of that thought. I lost track of everything.

6 Weeks of this. 6 weeks of college.

College is sincerely the least difficult thing in my life right now and that’s so fucking funny to me. For every research paper that I find bullshit, for every film fucking analysis that I hate, I hate it because I have to be in my room with him above me, able to make noise on the stairs every time he moves about, in a way that my brain constantly IV drips adrenaline into me for, as if he’ll burst through the door and tear through my chest, alien burster style. My heart certainly pumps like it thinks that.

A summary of a conversation with a friend about this man I used to consider like an older brother:

i cant express how much i hate him rn

like, i

i find it hard to breathe a bit when i think about him and i just got reminded by god only knows what

like, my therapist is sincerely like, "James, I think you need to pull back" and im like "when he leaves i will, but rn im on constant all the triggers, every time im home, for weeks on end"

and they were like "that's something you ahve been through before with jen"

and i laughed

and was like "when's the last time you felt i wasn't safe to leave without a bit more time with you? when's the last time i cried the entire session, or at all?"

and they were like "well, i think it'll be healthier if you can hide him away in your mind for a bit" and im like

"yeah, you're right. right now i cannot do that. i cannot trust he's not going to try something, because he has shown himself to be vindictive, cruel, and petty. and dangerous."

and they just, they werent wrong and also i cant just

turn off my flight or fight or freeze

and if i had when it all happened, i might have been at the bottom of the stairs on my back those months ago

when he leaves, itll be better

but hes not gone and im still so so fuckin shook

and i hate him a lot

like

ill peel back that at some point and understand the nuance

But until then, my flight, fright, fight, freeze, it goes on and on and on until I feel like my heart might stop or run away, because I just can’t do either myself right now.

So I take this, this inability to pull back the fear and anguish and adrenaline, and I motivate myself to write it into my fiction, to peel back my Liam main character, to let him be filled with the pain as a literary proxy for me. He’ll suffer at least as much as I do, and far far more.

And he’ll get a happy ending.

This whole story will be about a happy ending.

Everyone will get what they need, even the ones who are so horrible, so scary, because behind them, there’s a person, and if that person can be reached, perhaps there is hope.

But I will not be writing HIM into this. Because while characters like my jackass parents will be in this story, in small amounts, people who so recently have hurt me don’t get their happy ending here, they can move into something else, feel something else, read something else. There is nothing here for them but ashes in the wind, folks.

[lucyariablog]

7 Productivity Killers for Marketers and How to Fix Them

If there is one thing on my mind this year, it’s how we, as marketers, are getting our work done. Not to mince words, but how we work seems broken.

I see the issues with the way I work. All. The. Time.

I want dedicated time in my schedule to create, but I get interrupted or – when I do have time – I can’t seem to focus. Here are just a few common scenarios. 

I have an organized list of blog post ideas – and many half-finished articles – but I still scramble to meet deadlines.

My days are filled with scheduled and unplanned phone conversations that result in more ideas – but the more I talk, the less time I have to act.

When I do sit down to do actual work, I am interrupted with pings from IMs or phone calls.

When I struggle with something I’m writing, I check email to see if anything to add came in.

Many marketers I talk to can relate.

We spend so much time responding to immediate needs that it can feel exceedingly difficult to produce something meaningful. Many people wear their busy like a badge of honor, but how much are we truly doing to move our businesses – and our personal selves – forward?

I recently read Deep Work by Cal Newport (highly recommend), and it was an eye-opener. It offered ideas for so many productivity issues I have been grappling with. While many of Cal’s examples hail from academia and tech, there are lessons for marketers who are overwhelmed and who are looking for time to create necessary, great work, even if it is not urgent.

Here are some favorite aha moments on why marketers are having such a tough time being productive – and what we can do about it.

Lacking strategy

It’s no surprise that people aren’t productive if they don’t know what they should do – and how their work will positively impact the business. Cal calls this “The Principle of Least Resistance.” He explains:

In a business setting, without clear feedback on the impact of various behaviors to the bottom line, we will tend toward behaviors that are easiest in the moment.”

In short, if you are feeling unproductive, it could be because you don’t know where you should spend your time.

If you feel unproductive, it could be you don’t know where to spend your time, says @michelelinn. Click To Tweet

A better way: (We say this one all the time.) Document your strategy. If you aren’t certain where to start, seek these three must-have items to help your editorial and marketing teams work their best:

Who can you help the most? (This is the same question as audience, but the semantic change shifts your focus to who you can help instead of who you are targeting.)

How will you help your audience in a way that no one else can? (This is your content tilt.)

How do you define success – and how will you concretely measure this?

Are you thinking, “This all sounds great, but I’m not the person responsible for our strategy.” Or maybe something else is stopping you? Joe Pulizzi recently called out the most common excuses people have, so start here if needed.

Switching from task to task

We all know multitasking ultimately makes you less productive. But, even if you can avoid multitasking, many of us are plagued with going from meeting to meeting or answering whatever issue comes up when it arises.

Cal talks about the term “attention residue,” which Sophie Leroy coined in her 2009 paper, Why Is It So Hard to Do My Work? As Cal explains,

When you switch from some Task A to another Task B, your attention doesn’t immediately follow – a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task. This residue gets especially thick if your work on Task A was unbounded and of low intensity before you switched, but even if you finish Task A before moving on, your attention remains divided for a while.

A better way: This may sound counterproductive, but I have been letting my brain rest in between tasks – and trying not to constantly jump from one thing to the next. For instance, when I am out of the office, I make an effort to not look at my phone and to become comfortable with silence and quiet. While you may wonder how this helps, it’s letting me build the discipline to turn off – and not always be looking for the next new thing where I need to shift my attention.

Giving in to distraction

I think we can all relate: We’re faced with a difficult task. We put it off and prioritize other work we can get done. But, when we do find the time, we can’t get into our groove and focus. Maybe we overthink the topic or simply feel stuck.

Instead of pushing through, we check email, Twitter, or Facebook to see if anything new needs our attention. (Hint: Nothing typically needs your attention right then, but it’s a great way to feel like you are feeling productive.)

A better way: While the urge to check email or go online won’t necessarily dissipate, train your brain to focus on one task for a time. You need to practice turning off all distractions and doing one thing without stopping.

I often refer to the Pomodoro technique, which is a common method of working for 25 minutes, taking a five-minute break, and then repeating the process. This is a great approach if you are trying to create something or tackle a particularly thorny issue.

I also find success training my brain by reading 20 minutes of a non-fiction book each day. I started this habit last month when I swapped reading with checking email first thing.

While this may sound crazy, I find that this mini-exercise in concentration not only inspires my writing, but it also trains my brain to stay focused. It’s expected that my mind may start to wander, but I don’t stop reading – or give in to the temptation to do something else – for at least 20 minutes. Surprisingly (or not), on the days when I don’t make time to read, I find my mind wanders more easily and I give in to distraction.

Reading for 20 minutes is a concentration exercise that trains my brain to stay focused, says @michelelinn. Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Train Your Brain for Content Marketing Greatness

Being accessible

As a manager and someone who tries to be a helpful colleague and industry peer, I used to put a lot of value on being accessible. While there is something to be said for being available, it’s draining and makes it difficult to have control over your day. What you set out to accomplish simply doesn’t happen. While unscheduled conversations may be helpful, do they need to happen right now?

A better way:  I used to consider myself available if I wasn’t on a phone call. Now, I’ve flipped and my default is “unavailable.”

Cal, who hails from academia, suggests having “office hours.” As he and many others have discovered, “people will usually respect your right to become inaccessible if these periods are well-defined and well-advertised, and outside these stretches, you’re once again easy to find.”

Wanting to appear busy

We have all done this: We shoot off a few emails first thing or late at night so people know we’re working. Or we constantly check email during the day so people think we are at our desks. Again, Cal explains:

If you send and answer e-mails at all hours, if you schedule and attend meetings constantly, if you weigh in on instant message systems … within seconds when someone poses a new question, or if you roam your open office bouncing ideas off all whom you encounter – all of these behaviors make you seem busy in a public manner. If you’re using busyness as a proxy for productivity, then these behaviors can seem crucial for convincing yourself and others that you’re doing your job well.”

A better way: Put boundaries on your work life – and prove your worth by what you produce instead of how quickly you answer emails. While I used to value constant connection, I now consider it a hindrance and wish more people would make it a point not to check email so frequently.

Prove your worth by what you produce instead of how quickly you answer emails, says @michelelinn. Click To Tweet

Sharing too much

Another seemingly productive task is sharing your ideas with coworkers. I immediately related to Cal calling out an exceedingly common practice of sending – and getting – emails that simply say, “Thoughts?”

Yes, as the sender, this practice gets the emails out of your inbox, but it can take a lot of time for the person on the other end to decipher and respond. And, what you are thinking is often on a different train of thought than what spurred the sender to forward something in the first place. At times, a train of fruitless emails ensues, and, even if you do find an agreement, should this item even be a priority?

A better way: I often think back to these words of wisdom from Robert Rose who talks about the time and care it took to send interoffice memos 20-plus years ago. Given that process, you only sent a memo when you had something important to share. But now, we share more because it’s easy. But is this truly the best thing for your teams? I challenge you to think about what you are sending via email. Just because you can, should you – and should you send it now? Will this help your coworkers do their job better or will this send them down an unproductive path?

Ideally, your team would have a central place to store ideas that don’t need immediate attention but which you don’t want to lose. But, if this resource doesn’t exist, batch your ideas for people and share them at regular intervals so you can prioritize what needs to happen when.

Not prioritizing projects

Another productivity killer related to lack of strategy and sharing too much is not prioritizing your most important projects. For many of us, it’s easy to come up with ideas, and, to an extent, brainstorming has this aura of productivity to it. It feels like you are doing something even though nothing concrete is delivered.

Lack of strategy & not prioritizing most important projects are #productivity killers, says @michelelinn. Click To Tweet

A better way: I recently shared some ideas on how to get control of your ideas and be systematic with how you knock them out one by one. Agile marketing is an even more rigorous approach to identifying and working on your most important tasks first. It’s something I am learning more about this year, as I think it will be a boon to productivity. Andrea Fryrear, my go-to person for Agile marketing, recently answered common questions about this increasingly popular approach.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

7 Ways Limitations Can Boost Your Content Creation Productivity

10 Ways to Save Time in Creating Content

I’d love to hear from you. What is killing your creativity (i.e., driving you crazy with your process)? What other ideas do you have for working more efficiently?

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/02/productivity-killers-marketers-solutions/