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mlobsters · 8 months ago

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supernatural s15e7 last call (w. jeremy adams)

this bit with eileen is cute

DEAN It means I got to... I got to get out of here, okay? I just... I got to... I'm gonna take a drive, clear my head. SAM Alone? DEAN Yeah, you know, you and Eileen, you guys are having fun. I don't want to spoil that, you know? SAM Yeah, go, go. Clear your head. Eileen and I have stuff to do. DEAN Yeah, I'll bet you do. Yeah? Hmm? SAM It's not like that. I-I-I meant looking for Chuck and Lilith and... DEAN Sure. Got it. Um, okay, but if, uh, things go your way, just make sure you put the sock on the door so I know.

throwing a love interest at sam real fast out of the blue and i'm like hey wait slow down what now? and i mean, we're not completely blindsided, they set up the flirty thing between them before she died and all. but having her pop back up, sam turned into a witchy genius and finished rowena's spell licketysplit, magicked up her a fresh body and now they're getting drunk at night and making hangover breakfasts in the bunker in the morning. that's a lot. and dean bolting out of there too to stay busy and let them be alone. anyway, solo hunt and lying about it, that always goes well

i dunno, man. i'm having a hard time believing dean would be okay with dumping his cell off no questions asked just walking into this bar

i don't think i'm in the right mindset to watch dean flirting and gallivanting living his swayze road house dreams

next day, not sure it's improved (i've been sick [stomach variety] coming up on a week, i am so tired of this) but maybe i can get it done anyway.

i gather this dude christian kane must be a music friend too since i guess they have a bandmate in common, steve carlson? i tried to watch leverage but it didn't grab me, i think it made it through a season or so? and funnily enough, the music kind of put me off 🥴 the cheesiest of heist music

i watched the trailer for road house from 1989 (because apparently there's a new road house (2024) with gyllenhall) and wow. something about bouncing people in pleated pants. i probably would have enjoyed it when i was teenager but i think i need the modern sensibilities of the remake if i'm gonna enjoy a big ridiculous action movie that focuses on just punching the shit out of each other :p

the tone of this scene where sam's about to kiss eileen is just weird. the music is kind of.. mushy wistful, like the mushy music theme but different. and there's a lot of awkward exchanging of looks. and then sam gets clued in what eileen's talking about. i'm just really not picking up what they're putting down. but get a big dramatic interruption with cas popping back in.

also fucking netflix and its caption placement is consistently awful.

CASTIEL Good. I've been thinking about that gun, the, uh... the Equalizer? When you shot God, it fired a piece of your soul.

his SOUL. sure. SURE

DEAN Man, so I don't think I've seen you since Sammy was in college.

gotta tally up all the hunters they mentioned he worked with while sam was in college. think richie too? sure there's others

from 3x04 sin city SAM Not too bad. How do you two know each other? DEAN You were in school. RICHIE It was that succubus, in Canarsie right?

CASTIEL No, but I am sure I can't heal the wound. Maybe I can probe it. SAM Probe it? CASTIEL Study it, see if it can lead us to Chuck.

jamming his fist into sam's chest rooting around for his non-existent soul, sucking the leftover angel grace out of his neck with a needle, what's a little probing of a soul wound from god

DEAN Okay. One, three bottles of Jaeger is nobody's friend, and "B," they were twins.

may have just yelled, BRO! DAMNIT! lol i thought we were done with the 1, B (A, 2) thing that drives me up a WALL whenever it comes up because i can't find the paul reiser mad about you reference to him doing it despite being quite sure that he used it a lot in that show

LEE Whoa, no, they were not twins. They were triplets, uh, and we split them up fair and square.

dean and dudes and triplets.

from 10x01 black DEAN Okay, see, the deal was we howl at the moon -- no time stamp, no expiration date. CROWLEY We've howled. We've bayed. We've done extraordinary things to triplets, all of which have been massively entertaining. I will treasure our Flickr albums forever. But now it's time for us to accept what we are and go back to work.

DEAN Trust me, uh, bigger doesn't always equal better. Besides, who's gonna look out after the little guy? God certainly isn't. LEE Damn, brother, that's dark. DEAN Yeah, it's been a rough, uh... it's been a rough decade, Lee.

understatement of the century

(wiki)

The band at Swayze's Bar is a band made up of the Supernatural crew called The Impalas that has played together for many years. Here they are called "The Texas Impalas" and are made up of Perry Battista, Tracy Dunlop, Dave Webb, Cam Beck, and Chris Glynn Jones.

that's neat. i'm glad at least we got some dean singing that wasn't intentionally cringey. i feel like this episode is fan service, but dean/jensen is the main fan in question lol

SERGEI Small thing. CASTIEL What is it? SERGEI Sam is... dying.

of course he is! he's almost dead or actually dead CONSTANTLY. jesus.

and dean's buddy acting shifty, of course. also rolling my eyes that they had this friend insist that the car was raptured based on no info

SERGEI Ah, well, there you go. Most wounds want to be healed, to be whole. But this, this wound is different. It goes down to his very soul. But also out into the world. From what I can tell, his soul, it's connected to something or someone somewhere. Except, as you probed deeper, you forced the soul to stretch from Sam's body to... EILEEN Where? SERGEI I don't know. But now it's like a rubber band. If it is stretched too far, too long, pop, it snaps, and Sam dies.

LOL sure. they've destroyed my suspension of disbelief i just can't haha and castiel's face made me laugh

and now cas just had supposedly bobby?? watching this rando's niece so he could threaten with killing her to get what he wants? sure!

LEE Well, not the old me, anyway. I wasn't kidding about Arizona. What that thing did to that family, those kids, it stuck in my head. If evil like that exists in the world, then guys like you and me, we ain't ever gonna win. The best we can do is just have a little fun. The last Hunt I did, the one right around here, I found something.

very logical and sense-making

LEE You don't, Dean? I am you. I'm just you that woke up and saw that the world was broken. DEAN Then you fix it. You don't walk away. You fight for it.

dean-o gets to remember the lesson that he does actually care and is willing to fight even if it's unclear what's god pulling strings vs his distinct choice

LEE Why do you care so much, Dean? DEAN Because someone has to. LEE Well, then... I'm glad it was you.

uh huh. insert another eyeroll lol. ugh. i'm being an asshole but they lost me :p

SAM Dean, Chuck is weak. I think we can beat him. I think we can beat God.

okie doke. team free will whatever dot whatever, back at it

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 15x07 #spn clip #jeremy adams #christopher lennertz #tim wynn #spn musical score

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because-of-a-friend · 3 years ago

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Enemies to Lovers!Jeonghan

MASTERLIST

One day I will come up with titles for my works lol.

Hi Hannah!!!! Thanks for requesting! I loved doing this one! I went ahead and went with Jeonghan cuz I feel like he fits this trope best! Sorry you had to wait so long, this particular fic got deleted like... three times so it was a struggle lol. I hope it’s what you were looking for!

I hope this is a good one, I’m realizing I get real insecure about my writing anytime I’m not doing a bulletpoint or reaction fic, so I don’t feel great about this time. Also I only started recently putting actual detail into my kiss scenes and idk how I’m doing with those???? Like do they seem ok??? Also I feel like I make it so obvious that I am such a sucker for SVT having cute nicknames for siblings, friends, partners, etc in fics lol. Anyways...

Also, I really said: Jeonghan... but in different types of lighting

Remember I don’t own the gif! Link to OP is right there if you want to go give the creator some love!!!

Word Count: 5.2k

Warnings: Mentions eating, reader is using female pronouns (I will keep things gn unless you request differently), I think that’s it, pls let me know if I missed any

You’re not sure exactly how it happened. It was probably just an instance of getting off on the wrong foot, that led to more awkward interactions, giving both of you the wrong impression of each other. You knew this, you could rationalize it all. You were well aware that all it would take was one “I think we might have the wrong idea of each other” conversation and it would all be over. You could easily fix it all, but…

But his stupid smug face. The sarcastic jokes. The never-ending pranks that were not as funny as he thought they were. His ridiculous arrogance. His overall unapologetic nature towards all of it.

You couldn’t help but hate Yoon Jeonghan.

*****

“I don’t know, Wonnie…” you say uneasily over the phone. In previous years, you’d go over to the dorm without hesitation. You loved spending time with your brother and many of the other boys. But ever since you had officially met and begun interacting with Jeonghan…

“C’mon, [Y/N]! I bought that new game you were talking about! We can play it together on my gaming system!” Wonwoo began to persuade. You knew you’d give in; you always did. Your brother was far too sweet a person and far too comforting a presence to reject. The question was how long did you want to argue with him about going to the dorm.

You sighed, accepting defeat early to save time, “I’ll head over there in a bit.”

Wonwoo gives a small cry of victory, “Ok, I’ll have Gyu make extra ramen.” Wonwoo abruptly hangs up the phone right after, leaving you in silence to groan in regret of your decision.

You immediately straighten yourself out, though, trying to put yourself in a mindset of determination. What were you thinking? Just because you and that asshole didn’t get along meant you couldn’t go see your own twin brother without feeling uncomfortable? Screw that! If he wanted to keep the peace then he was going to have to start watching where he stepped around you.

*****

You knocked loud and clear on the door of their dorm, knowing that with thirteen people living inside, it was usually too noisy for them to hear someone signal their arrival. To your relief, Seungcheol opened the door just moments after you knocked and greeted you with a warm smile followed by a hand sneaking into your hair to ruffle it, “Hey there, kiddo! How’s it hanging?”

“Just fine,” you tilt your head down slightly in his direction as you pass him to enter the dorm. “How are things here?” As soon as you ask, your ears are met with the noise of someone dropping something in the kitchen, followed by Seungkwan crying in alarm.

“Same as always, I supposed,” Seungcheol sighs, but his smile doesn’t fade. “I think Mingyu and Wonwoo are already in the computer room, if you want to go ahead and see them!”

“Ok, thanks Cheol!” you call as you both rush off in different directions, him towards the kitchen and you towards the small room that would provide you solace from the possibility of having to see Yoon Jeonghan.

You were determined not to let things go how they usually did: you with your mouth clamped shut as Jeonghan spoke whatever teasing words he had saved up for you, and the most you can do to fight back is by rolling your eyes and finding any way to get away from him.

This time, you would still avoid contact with him, but if it happened, you’d speak your mind and not care what he thought, since that’s how he treated you.

But there was no sign of him or anyone else as you walked to the computer room. You could hear Mingyu and Wonwoo yelling and cheering at the game long before you opened the door. It was pitch black inside, the piercing light of the screen making you squint your eyes.

The two men inside both turn immediately to check who offended their dark space with the soft, yellow light from the hallway.

“Oh [Y/N], you came!” Mingyu beams up at you. You nod, matching his bright expression.

“How’s the game?” you ask simply, looking up to your brother.

“We like it so far,” Wonwoo’s smile is wide, he always gets excited about new games, whether they’re good or not. He leans over to grab a can of some sort of energy drink before gulping it down. “We left some ramen for you over there on the table. Eat first, then I’ll let you have a turn.”

You roll your eyes, though Wonwoo was only mere minutes older than you, he found those moments to be enough leverage to order you around and act like you should be dependent on his care. There were times when he even referred to himself as “oppa” to you and insisted that you do the same.

Most of the time you let it slide, especially when you weren’t in the mood to argue. However, there were times when you’d pull out the “We’re the same age,” “Even if you’re older, I’m smarter,” or “Don’t boss me around when I’m more mature than you” cards at the drop of a hat.

“Can you at least turn on the LEDs while I eat?” you ask, tip-toeing in the darkness towards the table at the back end of the room. You hear a click before a soft blue glow fills the room, finally giving you a clear view of your path. You pull the bowl of ramen towards you as you sit and resist the urge to comment on how little they left you. The dorm was filled with food anyways, you could find more later if you got hungry again.

Wonwoo and Mingyu begin to eagerly tell you what they like about the game as you eat. You listen happily, feeling safe in the presence of your brother and friend.

Then of course…

“Hey you two, Cheol wanted me to remind you that we have to get up early tomorrow,” you can’t help the sour expression that comes over your face as Jeonghan enters the room to speak to Wonwoo and Mingyu. “Oh, hey there cutie, I didn’t know you were here!” His smirk makes you sick.

“Don’t call me that,” you say bitterly into the nearly empty bowl.

Wonwoo looks nervously between you and his bandmate, well aware of the dislike you have for him. He’s grateful that you’ve always kept it so civil, but still feels bothered by the unrest between you.

Jeonghan lets out a little giggle in response, and Wonwoo feels a tug in the pit of his stomach, he wishes Jeonghan wouldn’t be so hard on you sometimes. He knows his hyung doesn’t mean anything by it, but you…

You feel your heart sink as Jeonghan steps fully into the room, striding to sit across from you at the table. You can only stare in wonder at his audacity as he slides the bowl towards himself and finishes off the ramen in one bite.

“I was eating that,” you try to keep your tone measured, attempting to keep within the balance of standing up for yourself but not starting any drama that would affect the boys.

“Go make more if you’re hungry, then,” Jeonghan says casually, making your anger positively flare.

You don’t even give your brother the chance to mediate, jumping up from your place and leaving the room, wanting to be anywhere but around that prick.

*****

“You’re leaving already?” Mingyu pouts at you.

“Gyu, I’ve been here for hours,” you laugh, stretching out your fingers as they start to prick from pain of slamming into a keyboard for so long. You had returned to the computer room but only after Jeonghan left. Part of you had wished you had done more to confront him; another part was glad you didn’t start a fight and put Wonwoo in an awkward position. “Besides all of you, as well as me have to get up early tomorrow, it’s already late. I need to get back home.”

“You can stay here,” Wonwoo was quick to offer.

You shook your head at him, “Then I’ll just have to get up even earlier, I’ll go back to my place.” Wonwoo nods almost reluctantly, standing to walk you out.

All of you run into Joshua on your way to the front door, he turns out to be the only one smart enough to ask how you got there.

“Oh, I took the bus,” you say slowly, knowing this is about to cause issues.

“Well, the last one would have already stopped running by now,” Mingyu says looking at the time on his phone.

“I’ll give you a ride,” Josh offers immediately.

You bring your hands up to shake them back and forth, “No, no, I can find a way home, you all need to go to bed.”

“[Y/N],” Wonwoo speaks up immediately in that stern voice you hate but also can’t help but listen to, “let Josh take you home. It’s either that or you stay here, I won’t have you walking around alone at night.” Wonwoo waits a moment to gauge your expression. He finally nods affirmatively, before speaking directly to Joshua, “Take her home, please.”

Joshua nods before walking off to grab his keys. You and Wonwoo send Mingyu off to bed. Once you’re alone, your brother pulls you in for a tight hug. “Do you want me to say something to him?” he asks lowly.

You shake your head, “I don’t want to cause any problems with you guys.” You sit in silence for a moment. “Come and stay over with me sometime, I miss our sleepovers.”

Joshua comes back and Wonwoo pulls away, “Thanks, hyung. Please get her home safe.” For the second time that night, your hair gets ruffled before your brother disappears to go off to bed.

The ride home with Joshua is comfortable. He speaks kindly to you and makes you smile.

You begin to wonder how amongst all these angels, there exists a person like Yoon Jeonghan.

*****

Wonwoo used the new game as leverage to guilt you into coming over quite often in the following weeks. You hadn’t realized how much you had limited your time at the dorm until you started going consistently once more. It was nice being able to spend time with the boys again. You hated that Jeonghan had become such an unbearable presence that it affected your relationship with the rest of your friends.

But ever since you had started to stand your ground and talk back, he had finally begun to avoid you. You supposed it was only fun for him when you sat there and took it.

It didn’t stop the two of you from bickering when you saw each other, but now both of you preferred to avoid each other instead of Jeonghan seeking you out to tease you.

The following weeks of visiting were fairly comfortable. Whenever Jeonghan wasn’t around, you got to spend plenty of time with the other boys and your brother. Plus, the new video game was even better than expected.

Jeonghan’s presence slowly became uncomfortable in a different way.

Instead of being smug and overbearing, he became strangely quiet around you. His facial expressions became more serious as he sent genuine glares your way before letting out bitter remarks and going on his way.

It made you even angrier.

Who the hell was he to torture you all this time and then act like a kicked puppy when you finally fought back???

Your anger and his bitterness slowly escalated the tension between you two. Although they were happening less frequently, the arguments between you became more serious and almost hurtful.

Whatever, you told yourself, he could do as he pleased, you wouldn’t let it affect you anymore.

*****

You stared down at your phone screen. Why? Why did it have to be here, while you were at the dorm?

The call was only five minutes. They didn’t even do it in person. Of course, they had warned that because of hard times, there’d be lay-offs soon. But they couldn’t even do it in person? And all you got was a simple “Sorry, come collect your things on Monday”??? You were a hard worker, passionate about the job, more efficient than most of your coworkers and this is how they treated you???

A part of you could’ve guessed, many of the employees your age had gotten in because of nepotism. But you didn’t want to believe that they’d just brush off all your years of hard work just to avoid stepping on the toes of higher-ups who had relative connections hired at the company.

You squatted against the wall of the hallway, still too in shock to move.

So, you simply sat in silence, for what seemed like forever.

“You good?” you had never felt worse than the exact moment his voice reached your ears.

“Go away,” you said sternly, knowing you’d be crying soon.

“Geez, forgive me for asking,” Jeonghan responds before turning to walk away. He stops abruptly after you sniffle. “So, you’re not ok?”

“No offense, Jeonghan,” you say hating the way your voice is shaking, “but you are the last person I want to speak to right now.”

There’s a heavy silence for a long moment. You silently pray that he’ll just leave. “Do you want me to get your brother?” he asks lightly.

You shake your head, “No, I don’t want to ruin the mood. I’m going to go home, just tell him I had a stomach ache.” You push yourself up and begin to walk briskly towards the door.

To your surprise, Jeonghan reaches out to stop you. You stare at his hand wrapped around your arm and wonder if you’ve ever even allowed him to touch you before. “It’s already late, let me give you a ride.”

You pull his hand off of you, “No, thanks.” You grab your coat and start to dig around in your purse to make sure you have all of your belongings.

“[Y/N],” Jeonghan’s voice rings clear in your head despite your brain feeling fuzzy. You don’t want to look at him. Who is this person that’s showing concern and speaking kindly? You don’t like it. It feels fake. It feels like a predator playing with a wounded prey. You’re just waiting for him to laugh or make a remark or do anything to make you feel worse than you already do.

But Jeonghan simply grabs the keys laying on the front table, grabs your arm once more, and leads you out to the car.

*****

The ride is suffocatingly silent. You wished he’d at least turn on some music to cover up the sound of your crying, but you remained in the quiet. You rolled down your window and stuck your head out, letting the warm night air and sound of wind comfort you. Since you were turned away from him completely, you didn’t see Jeonghan glancing over at you throughout the drive.

You couldn’t have left that car faster when you finally pulled up to your apartment.

To your dismay, Jeonghan also gets out, apparently intent on walking you up.

“You don’t have to-” you start but abruptly stop when he gives you a look telling you an emotion you don’t quite understand.

Jeonghan finally speaks when you’re riding the elevator up to your floor, “I don’t really mean it, you know.”

“Mean what?” you say weakly, starting to feel the exhaustion from crying so much.

“When I talk to you like that… I mean when I’m… rude,” he trails off, running a hand through his hair. “Usually it’s just teasing, but obviously I went too far with you. And I didn’t realize it until you started showing how upsetting it was for you. I should’ve known before that, though.”

“You seemed ruder after I started talking back,” you say, confused.

“I was just being petty and defensive. I kept telling myself things like: It’s her fault, isn’t it? She should have made it more clear from the beginning that it was upsetting her. How was I supposed to know? But that was just me being immature, I should’ve just talked to you.”

“Is that an… apology, Yoon Jeonghan?” you ask, letting yourself be a little smug.

For the first time, you get a genuine smile out of him, “Maybe.”

There’s more silence for a second.

“It’s a two-way road, though,” you say finally.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“I mean, I could have also come and talked to you instead of letting things escalate,” you say. “I played some part in all of this… unpleasantness. You can’t entirely blame yourself.”

Jeonghan smiles again, reaching out to ruffle your hair the way Seungcheol always did. Then he takes a dramatic deep breath and rolls his shoulders, “There! That feels better, doesn’t it? We can finally be friends!”

You roll your eyes in a playful manner, but you feel it too, a weight has been lifted.

*****

Wonwoo showed up at your door in the middle of the night that night. You took one look at his frantic face and groaned, “I told Jeonghan I would tell you myself.”

“You should have told me immediately!” your brother pouts as he passes you to walk into your apartment.

“I didn’t want to worry you so late, especially when all of you were having a good time. I was going to tell you tomorrow,” you close the door behind him. You watch as he turns on the TV and starts picking through your pantry. “Hmmm, yes it seems quite clear that you came here out of concern for me,” you can’t help but use a sarcastic tone.

Wonwoo sends a glare your way as he grabs snacks and settles on the couch. You sit next to him, grabbing your fair share of the food. You try to keep your attention on the show, but the feeling of Wonwoo staring straight at you is distracting.

“I’m fine, you don’t have to worry,” you sigh.

“Really? Because Jeonghan described you as an emotional wreck,” your brother scoffs.

“I was just shocked and upset. I’ll be ok. I have a good resume, I can find a new job,” you insist.

“I keep telling you, you don’t have to work-”

“I don’t care how much you make,” you interrupt. “I’m not going to depend on you. It’ll just make trouble for both of us.”

“Will you at least let me help out if there’s any problems before you find a new job?” Wonwoo kicks at your leg.

“Like I would even tell you if I was having trouble,” you return his kick.

“You just can’t help but be difficult,” your brother complains quietly.

You let the sound of the show take over the room for a few minutes. “I do have good news,” you finally speak up, wanting to give your brother some peace of mind about something. “Me and Jeonghan made up. We figured it out.”

Wonwoo bolts upright with a grin on his face, “Really??? It’s really all good now?”

“100%,” you say, unable to stop yourself from pinching your brother’s cheeks, finding his excited expression cute.

“Let’s celebrate soon then! We can have a big gaming party with all of the boys!” You agree to your brother’s proposal. You feel content in this moment, knowing you’ll wake up in the morning in an uncomfortable position, immediately kick at his legs and tell him to get his stinky feet away from you.

*****

Your time at the dorm increases with the weight of you and Jeonghan’s rivalry being gone. You’re enjoying getting to know him as a friend instead of constantly walking on eggshells around him. Going to visit the boys is once again a happy and comfortable experience.

You hadn’t realized how much Jeonghan had affected you until you two had worked things out. The world felt light again and you could breathe, no longer in constant worry of possibly ruining things between your brother and his bandmates.

You hoped things would remain without complications for a long time.

*****

“Seungkwan, you should come with us!” you begged. “The carnival only comes once a year; you can’t miss it!”

“But it’s so crowded and there are screaming kids everywhere,” Seungkwan complains.

“Oh, whatever,” Soonyoung interjects. “You love it every time we go.”

Seungkwan gives Soonyoung a look that has you laughing through your mouthful of ramen. “Oh, shoot,” you say feeling liquid start to dribble down your chin. “Can I get a napkin?”

“Here’s one,” you hear Jeonghan’s voice as he enters the room. You reach out to grab the napkin as Seungkwan and Soonyoung continue bickering. But instead of handing it to you, Jeonghan extends his hand not holding the napkin towards you. His fingers come to lightly touch your chin and turn you towards him. Jeonghan wipes your face with the napkin himself, taking the time to make sure it’s really all clean. “All better,” he smiles at you, running his thumb across your chin to check its cleanliness one last time.

As Jeonghan walks away, you turn to see if Seungkwan or Soonyoung saw what had happened. They were still arguing, though. The boys showing you physical touch or affection wasn’t really all that uncommon. But for some reason, the way Jeonghan had grabbed your chin just now… Why was your heart beating so hard?

*****

You couldn’t stop yourself from dragging Wonwoo all over the carnival. It was nice to get out in this environment, the lights, the laughter, the food, the games, the rides. You wanted to do everything, but not before you looked at all there was and took in the spectacle.

You could hear all the boys laughing excitedly behind you, you knew they’d want to try everything as well. You shook your head at Seungkwan’s bright expression, you couldn’t wait to play the ‘I told you so’ card later.

The night was a blur. All of you ran from games to rides to snacks and then all over again.

You couldn’t help but stop completely in your tracks as you passed a booth with a giant stuffie of your favorite animal as a prize. Your fascination with the plushie doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You want me to win it for you?” Jeonghan’s voice is suddenly speaking right into your ear. You jump after realizing he was right behind you. You grip your cotton candy a bit tighter and shyly nod. The way Jeonghan grins at you fills you with warmth.

You watch him walk over to the booth. His light hair and pink shirt were illuminated by the soft glow of the surrounding lights. Jeonghan takes his wallet out and hands some bills to the vendor. You step up closer to stand next to him as he plays the game. He laughs as he chats back and forth with the vendor. You watch in awe as Jeonghan clears the game, no problem.

“Anything from the top shelf!” the vendor exclaims happily.

“That one please,” Jeonghan points right at the stuffie you had been staring at.

“It’ll be a wonderful memory for your girlfriend,” the vendor smiles as he hands the prize directly to you.

“Oh, I’m-”

“Of course!” Jeonghan interrupts you almost instantly, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and starting to pull you away from the game. “We’ll cherish it for a long time! Thanks for the game!” The vendor waves kindly as you two walk away. After a moment, Jeonghan pulls his arm off of you, “Sorry, sometimes it’s just easier to agree than explain, you know?” You nod in agreement. “Wait a second,” he stops you by putting his hands on your shoulders and standing in front of you. Before you can ask what’s wrong, his hand comes up towards your face as it had earlier that day. He quickly swipes his thumb across your lips before pulling to back to show you remnants of your cotton candy. “Do you always eat this messily?” he grins and then, to your surprise, puts his thumb in his mouth to clean it off.

You stand there, frozen, unable to really comprehend what just happened as Jeonghan walks away towards the other boys.

“For the second time today?” Soonyoung is suddenly standing next to you.

“So you did see what happened earlier!” you exclaimed, hitting his arm lightly. “It was weird, right?!”

“Can’t tell yet,” Soonyoung replies cocking his head to the side and putting his hands in his pocket. “Sometimes Jeonghan is just sort of naturally flirtatious. But I’m not sure about you. I figured since you two didn’t get along at first, it’d take him awhile to warm up to you at that level. He seemed to get comfortable with you quite quickly.” Soonyoung turns and shrugs at you after his words.

“You’re no help at all,” you say emotionlessly. There’s a pause before both you and Soonyoung slowly look at each other and laugh at your quip.

You decide to brush off your new concerns about Jeonghan and enjoy this night with the boys. The vendor was right, it was a good memory, and you’re sure it’d last you for your whole lifetime.

*****

You hate yourself a bit for it, but you once again seem to be avoiding Jeonghan. He had made you so nervous that day, and the way your heart pounded… You didn’t want to get sucked into having a silly crush on him if he wasn’t actually trying to flirt with you.

No, from now on, interactions with Jeonghan would be friendly but short and appropriate.

You were stupid to think he wouldn’t notice.

It wasn’t long before there came a night when Jeonghan insisted that he be the one to give you a ride home. You couldn’t help the way your nerves spiked at his determination to be the one to take you. You knew he most likely wanted to talk to you about your sudden distance from him.

The ride itself was nice, Jeonghan rolled the windows down for you, remembering that you enjoyed the warm night air of summer. You talked comfortably with one another. Jeonghan was always able to make you smile so easily.

You couldn’t stop yourself from staring at him. He was just wearing a t-shirt and sweats but… His blonde hair being illuminated in the moonlight as he ran his hands through it and his bright smile as he laughed...

He really was beautiful.

Once again, Jeonghan came with you to walk you to your door. And once again, he finally spoke up in the elevator, “You’ve been avoiding me, sweetheart.” Your heart drops to your stomach at the nickname. “Is everything ok? Did I do something to make you mad again?”

You quickly shake your head and pull your hands up to shake them as well, “No! Not at all!”

“You sure?” he insists.

“Yoon Jeonghan, you really don’t think I’d tell you if you did?” you say.

He giggles, “Yeah, that’s true. You’d let me know the moment I messed up, wouldn’t you?” The elevator dings and opens up to your floor. You and Jeonghan step out together. “Is everything else ok, then? You don’t start avoiding people for no reason.”

You nod as casually as possible, “Everything is great.” Your tone isn’t convincing and Jeonghan nudges you. “I guess, I just got… nervous? I mean one moment we were like enemies and then the next we were suddenly really… close, and-”

“I made you uncomfortable?” Jeonghan’s voice is slightly panicked.

“No, you did nothing wrong! It’s all on me, I just got caught up in my emotions and-” you stop abruptly when you realize what you were about to do.

Jeonghan nods quietly as if to say he understands, but what it is he understands, you’re not sure. “Is it ok for us to remain close, or do you want me to back off?”

“I don’t want any more distance between us, but…” you trail off.

“But, what?” he prompts you again.

“I don’t want to get the wrong idea about anything…” you say, finally reaching your door.

Jeonghan watches as you slowly unlock your door and push it open, “You haven’t gotten the wrong idea about anything.” He avoids eye contact when you look up at him.

You’re shocked by his forwardness. But once he voices his thoughts out loud, you once again feel the feeling of a weight being lifted.

Jeonghan gestures for you to step inside, catching your arm once you fully pass him. He pulls you back to him, close enough for him to lean in and leave a quick kiss on your cheek, “Night, babe, I’ll see you later.”

You stand there, completely still, staring at your door that had shut closed in front of you. You can feel heat rise from the tip of your toes all the way up to your ears. You finally let yourself fall into a squatting position, covering your face with your hands, and letting out a squeal.

*****

Jeonghan invites you to meet up outside of the dorm. It’s a cute little coffee shop at a quiet part of the city. You’re already sitting when he walks in. Maybe one day, you won’t be completely caught off guard by his beauty… but today is not that day.

His whole person is bathed in the glow of the early morning light as he approaches you, the softest, most genuine smile gracing his face.

“No, don’t get up,” he says when you try to leave your chair, “I need to go off and order anyways.” Jeonghan leans down to kiss your forehead firmly. “I just wanted to come say hi first,” he whispers, holding your face close to his.

Your first date sets a wonderful precedent to the rest of your relationship. Jeonghan gets your heart racing with flirty comments and sweet touches. But he also makes you feel calm and content, easily keeping a smile on your face. You just feel… good throughout it all.

You insist on walking him back to the dorm, since they had schedules that day.

“So, we’ll be doing this again?” Jeonghan asks hopefully, as you reach the front door.

“Definitely,” you nod enthusiastically up at him, wondering how you had ever managed to despise the man that made you feel so whole and happy.

Jeonghan looks utterly happy and a tiny bit nervous as he stares down at you. His hand reaches up to brush back your hair before settling firmly against your face. Jeonghan looks at you so fondly as he leans in. His lips connect to yours… so softly… so sweetly. You can feel his nose nudge against your face to push it into a preferred position. He pulls back slightly after every little kiss to let out laughter so sweet, it sounds like it should be coming from the mouth of an angel. But he’s never far away for long, reconnecting to you quickly every time. You let him take the lead, allowing his lips to take care of yours, giving them the sweetest kind of attention. He pulls back for a moment longer to nuzzle his nose against yours, an action that has you gripping his shirt to keep him close. His hands keep themselves entertained by running across your face or through your hair.

He’s going back in to kiss you once again when he front door of the dorm opens, leaving you caught in the act. Wonwoo stares at you two for a long moment before making a single comment that causes you and Jeonghan to laugh.

“You know, when I said I wanted you two to have a better relationship, this isn’t exactly what I meant.”

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ruby-whistler · 3 years ago

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This is targeted at your dream apologist post, just to be up front. Just wanted to give my two cents in on some of the stuff w/o doing a whole rebuttal, since… I don’t really want to lol. To start off, I had an issue with how you framed the beginnings of Lmanberg. How Lmanberg formed wasn’t colonizing, it was just independence from the greater dsmp from a set of members that disliked the way things were ran by Dream (and by more direct extension, the rest of the dsmp citizens, namely sapnap.) Dream was protecting his power, not any kind of attachment made to the server, I’d argue, becuz in the end the way he relinquished control was by gaining more; by getting leverage over one of the original members, Tommy, via taking his discs.

Another thing, you shouldn’t be angry at ppl for not feeling sympathetic for a character that’s done such heinous things against other characters. You’re more then welcome to feel bad for him yourself, but no one else has to. After watching the whole of Tommy’s exile arc, it’s very clear to see the Dream was cruel and horrible to a child that hardly deserved it. Dream was dehumanizing to Tommy. Making him put all of his self earned items into a hole every visit and promptly destroying it all, telling Tommy that his friends don’t miss him, blowing up Logstedshire after finding Tommy’s secret room (that he hid from Dream to stop him from destroying it) filled with Tommy’s resources for escaping, not even allowing him to leave, these aren’t the actions of a good person put into a hard place, or a person with trauma dealing poorly with said trauma. That isn’t justifiable. Dream shouldn’t be allowed to hurt and inflict trauma onto another person becuz he has trauma. What he did to Tommy and to his friends (saying he didn’t care about them, saying he only cares about Tommy’s discs, Sapnap even had that sad moment of “you don’t think he meant it did you?” which. Yknow. Look between the lines methinks) was awful and doesn’t have to be forgiven by either the victims or the fans of said victims.

My opinion on the prison stay is…. I don’t really care lol. I definitely do see it as he deserves it, because what he did to Tommy was horrific. I don’t have any real sympathy for an abuser, especially one that does shit that I’ve had done to me before and done against a character I relate to heavily. So. Sue me if I think that Dream should have his shit rocked. Ignoring that Dream had very clear reasons as to why he was put into the prison and the fact that many characters have reasons to hate his guts and also not feel sympathy for him is…. Definitely the Dream apologist mantra. Noah fence ^^

One last bit since this ask is getting real long, but it was narratively cathartic to see Dream actually receiving punishment for his actions. Cathartic quite literally means “psychological relief through strong emotions” so. Yeah. Sorry ppl were getting it mixed up with catharsis, but there’s the word they probably meant to use. Didn’t realize it would be such a crime to mix up two very similar words but what can you do with a younger audience.

This isn’t meant to be an attack, or mean, so I’m sorry if I’ve been a little passive aggressive in my wording, but to be fair. Your post was as well ^^ Cant wait to hear your response, if you feel like giving one.

Alright, so first as a quick disclaimer, I’m going to out a summary of the original post’s points, just to ensure that we’re on the same page;

The post does say:

- don’t dehumanize c!Dream because it continuously hurts people who relate to and/or sympathize with him, also dehumanization in general is an inherently wrong mindset

- don’t attack people who sympathize with him because he’s a victim of abuse besides other things

The post never says:

- you cannot hate c!Dream and not sympathizing with him is wrong

- the things c!Dream has done are to any degree excused

- don’t dehumanize c!Dream because he’s a good person

- people who dehumanize c!Dream are real life abuse apologists

If you read the post and didn’t get these points from it, i advise you to reread it as I made pretty much all of these abundantly clear.

I don’t know why you’d start talking about L’manberg, but sure; I never said it was colonization. I said some people who have had their country colonized relate to him because he had his home torn apart and is desperate to return it back to its original state. This is a completely valid reason to relate to him as it is a pretty big part of the character.

Dream wasn’t protecting his “power”, because he didn’t actually have any power on the SMP besides technically owning it. Before L’manberg, all he’d do is walk around, fix creeper holes and the prime path, jump into conflicts and end them if they got too pointed - he even fixed Tubbo’s house once after Tommy burnt it down, he got unfairly mugged by Sapnap and Tommy because he had weaker armor etc. He never used his position as landowner unfairly and was on the same level as any other member; his only concern was too keep the community united and semi-peaceful. Of course he had an attachment to the server, it had been his home for months, maybe more on the SMP timeline.

Do you genuinely think listing the bad things he did is going to do anything to my empathy or the empathy of other c!Dream fans?

I saw the entirety of the exile arc live, and I saw what was happening, and I hated it, and I hated c!Dream. Yet I’m sympathetic to him when he goes through a similar situation, perhaps because I’m not a biased hypocrite.

I never said c!Dream was a good person. Saying “these don’t look like actions of a person with trauma” doesn’t make sense to me because, as you said later on, it isn’t justifiable either way. I’m not saying anyone has to forgive him. You don’t need to forgive an abuse victim for their prior actions to recognize their situation is messed up. You’re making up points to fight against in your rebuttal that I never actually said.

I’m not saying “don’t dehumanize c!Dream because he’s a good person”. I’m saying “don’t dehumanize c!Dream because he’s a person and dehumanization is wrong” and “people who relate to him shouldn’t be hurt or harassed”.

He didn’t even do “terrible things” to his friends, by the way. Tommy has said like five times that he doesn’t care about anyone but the discs but when he said that isn’t true his friends believed and forgave him. Dream says it once while something that matters to him is being threatened, so that it doesn’t get destroyed, and suddenly he’s hurting his friends (double standard methinks). As if he didn’t repeatedly try to help them and care about them up until that point and they abandoned him even despite his prior actions. He did things that might’ve hurt them, but that doesn’t compare to the amount of things he did for them. Saying he doesn’t care is blatant mischaracterization.

If you think (fictional) people who have done bad things deserve to be horribly abused and have their basic human rights violated, you know what, you do you. Be a fictional abuse apologist, be as bad as the people who say c!Tommy deserved it, go on. I disagree with you however, and I’m sure many people who are actually sensitive and care about/relate to fictional abuse victims (I have seen many c!Tommy apologists say the torture is awful and he doesn’t deserve it, thankfully) will disagree as well, so why should I care about your wrong opinion? If you’ve dehumanized him and are failing to see you’re incorrect and hurting people, bad for you. You’re just proving me right that this is a very real problem that this community has to do something about.

#tw abuse #tw torture #abuse apologism #c!dream neg #(in ask)#discourse #my asks #crit anon

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chacusha · 4 years ago

Text

I just want to talk about one of my favorite Quodo scenes. You know, as I do. So S2 E18 Profit and Loss, for all that it’s focused on a one-episode love interest for Quark (and a romance with Natima so intense that it makes Quark very uncharacteristically be willing to risk his life and even give up the bar for the sake of pursuing it), it has some really amazing Quodo scenes. In particular, it has a really lengthy conversation between Quark and Odo that features some great things like (1) establishing important aspects of both of their characters and their relationship, (2) lots of intimate leaning over each other and casual touches, and (3) a flirtatious and shippy dynamic.

Let me walk through the whole scene because there’s a lot to analyze here.

The scene opens with Quark coming to talk to Odo about the urgent need to release Natima rather than handing her over to the Cardassian government who will execute her. Quark tries multiple tacks, all of which fail:

First, he tries to make the appeal that releasing the Cardassian dissidents would lead to a better, brighter Cardassia, which obviously Odo doesn’t buy. Quark doesn’t care about that.

Quark immediately pivots to spinning that change as one that would lead to him getting more profits -- more plausible, at least, but Odo is still skeptical. In response, knowing that Odo doesn’t find benefiting Quark financially to be a worthy cause, Quark impishly says, “Now Odo... don’t allow my greed to keep you from doing the right thing.” Here he’s making a small appeal to Odo’s moral system rather than Quark’s.

But that’s not the reason why Odo was skeptical. He’s skeptical because Quark isn’t being honest about his motivations.

“I know you better than you think, Quark.” - Moment #1 in this scene where the long history and enefriend relationship between Quark and Odo is highlighted.

Odo prompts Quark to bring up the third and more honest consideration: that Quark is in love with Natima. Odo asks Quark why he didn’t just say that from the start, which prompts Quark to go into a long rant about how Odo is incapable of understanding his feelings while Odo listens awkwardly: “What was I supposed to say? That I love her? That I would do anything for her? That without her my life would be meaningless. Sure, I could say those things, but what good would it do? How could I expect you to understand? You’ve never had those feelings. You don’t know what it means to really care about another person. You’ve never been in love. You’ve got all the emotions of a stone. (pause) No offense.”

None is taken, because that is the image that Odo has carefully crafted for himself, which doesn’t in actuality line up with who he is, but he’s happy for others to believe that is how he is like. So even though Quark realizes how harsh his words are and walks it back, Odo is not offended, but nor does he find it entirely convincing either. It’s one of this scene’s many ways of illustrating the conflicting moral codes between Quark and Odo: Quark may view doing things out of love as legitimate, but he knows that Odo can’t enter into that mindset.

(It's not text, but Quark's speech could also be read as Quark expressing his frustration that his own attempts to court Odo have ended in failure -- Quark angsting that he is barking up the wrong tree, so to speak.)

Quark then tries a fourth tack: Making an exchange instead of putting forward logical arguments and appeals. He begins to offer information on the various deals he’s involved in ("Listen to me, Odo. You do this for me, and I promise there'll be no more secrets between us") -- this momentarily catches Odo’s interest -- before Quark chickens out and instead offers information on Rom’s activities instead, which is, well, worthless, lol. Odo isn’t interested in your brother, Quark, he’s interested in you. Quark does have something of value to Odo but he’s not willing to offer it up because, well, he's just not THAT good of a person.

Seeing this fourth try has failed, Quark then makes a fifth appeal:

Quark’s fifth try involves directly leveraging Quark and Odo’s relationship and involves Quark asking Odo to do this as a personal favor to him. Here is moment #2 where Quark and Odo’s longstanding relationship is highlighted, with Quark turning what Odo said earlier back on him:

(Technically, Odo didn’t say he knew Quark better than anyone else; he said he knew Quark better than Quark thought. But Quark is speaking the truth in any case.) Quark actually just spells out their relationship a bit anviliciously: “Sure, sometimes we’re on opposite sides, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t close. I never told you this, Odo, but I consider you as dear to me as my brother.” Again, Odo is unimpressed given that Quark literally just tried to sell out his brother. One can’t help but feel like Quark’s fifth appeal failed for the same reason his fourth one failed: Like with the fourth appeal, Quark began to show some vulnerability here which actually interested Odo, but chickened out at the end. He did have something valuable to bargain with (his relationship with Odo) but wasn’t willing to pay the price it would require (being fully open and vulnerable with Odo about the value of that relationship) -- instead, he deflects at the last moment with something joking and ironic.

Finally, Quark makes his sixth and last appeal. “Odo, look at me. Look at me. I’m on my knees. I’m begging you. I don’t care why you do it. Pick any reason you want. But please, let Natima and the others go.”

On his knees, he makes the Ferengi gesture of supplication. With this attempt, Quark does two things: One, he sacrifices his pride for the first time by openly begging -- in his other appeals, he protected his pride by couching it in logical appeal, anger/disapproval at Odo, irony, or jokes. But here, for the first time, he displays humility, desperation, vulnerability, etc. Second, he lets Odo pick the reason, which allows Odo to also intervene without having to lose his own pride.

The reason Odo picks in the end is (what else) justice.

"Justice," Quark says. "That was going to be my next suggestion."

And then (after being on his knees begging, etc.) Quark slowly gets to his feet, and it’s framed like this:

THIS. IS SO. SUGGESTIVE.

I’m... I'm dying. Definitely a "getting shit past the censors" moment.

Anyway, moving swiftly along, now that Quark has gotten what he wants, it's back to the old light-hearted and flirty dynamic they always have. Now assured Odo definitely isn't doing this as a personal favor to Quark, Quark gleefully declares himself debt-free to Odo. He hugs him and Odo pretends to dislike it.

The scene ends with Odo asking how Quark plans to sneak the dissidents past the Cardassian warship hovering outside DS9. By the way he asks the question and is able to guess just by Quark's mischievous smile, Odo already knows the answer, bringing the episode back full circle from its opening where Odo was investigating Quark for having an illegal cloaking device.

Yeah, bickering, casual touching, their cat-and-mouse relationship, flirtatious dialogue, even Odo grudgingly letting Quark get away with crimes because they're a reluctant team with aligned interests now -- it's all here.

Anyway, I love this scene because it's an extended look at how Quark's moral system and Odo's don't really line up with each other (Quark valuing things like love and profit and not valuing abstract things like justice or order, and vice versa for Odo) to the point where it's actively hard for Quark to convince Odo to do something he's inclined/sympathetic to doing anyway. At the same time, they also have some shared interests (in Quark's dealings, in their relationship with each other) while being engaged in a complex dance where neither of them can quite acknowledge it. For example, Odo says he will release the prisoners solely out of his own sense of justice, but if so, why did it take Quark begging him to move him to act? Before Quark came to his office, he was reading a detective novel, suggesting that Quark's appeal is at least one part of Odo's decision to act, despite what they both say. But it serves Quark's purposes to let this slide ("So, you're not really doing this for me?" "That's right." "Then I don't owe you a thing. Thank you!") and let Odo keep his pride, so he does.

Anyway, I just love how much Quodo there is in an episode that's entirely dedicated to Quark's love for a different woman entirely. That's how powerful the relationship between these two is.

#quodo #star trek: deep space nine #ds9 #ds9 quark #ds9 odo #quodo meta #oh god I wrote an essay #I meant to write this earlier but I wanted to make a gif of that moment #👀

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exeggcute · 4 years ago

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Would you mind elaborating on your job search experience? I found your sankey chart really interesting and informative!!

Did you get something related to your degree?

In my experience most job applications I hear back from turn out to be spam or BS. Which is SUPER exhausting and SUPER disheartening. What are some warning signs you have learned to look out for that something is sketchy or exploitative or scammy?? Thanks for anything you’re willing to share 🥺

yeah for sure! I'm glad you liked the chart, tracking my job applications in a spreadsheet finally paid off lol.

I may be a bit of an outlier in the typical millennial experience of Job Search Hell (at least this time around) because I finally managed to get a foothold in my field and have pretty concrete experience for a specific job title that (1) has consistent hiring demand, albeit with a fair amount of competition among candidates and (2) was already remote-friendly prior to the pandemic so it's somewhat easier to scour job listings when you aren't restricted to your immediate geographic location. (granted, the wider selection of remote roles to choose from is somewhat offset by the fact that everyone else in the applicant pool is also unrestricted by location, so you have more choices but also more competition. the ratio likely evens out overall). I exclusively applied to (or considered) remote roles, but there's a handful of on-site jobs in my area (at least in the Before Times)—though those only crop up sporadically and are also hypercompetitive.

for context, my 2018-2019 job search (immediately after graduating college) spanned nine miserable months, although not continuously; I had three separate false starts where I quit a shitty internship, quit a shitty online job, and got fired from an in-person job, but over the course of those nine months I probably sent in like four hundred applications total and had about a dozen interviews, most of which were fucking bananas. nearly all of these job applications were for in-person roles, and I was applying for stuff pretty much at random—unlike this last time around, when every single job I applied to (or was approached to consider) either had the same title as my last role or was functionally identical in terms of job duties but had a slightly different name. all of this is *related* to my degree, broadly speaking, but in practice almost nothing I studied in college applies directly to my job. it's a weird situation because you can technically major in this exact field (or enroll in certification programs for it) but very few people do. having SOME kind of degree is pretty much a requirement (undergrad at a minimum, grad school is nice but not necessary unless you're really specialized), but having a BA in english or communication is about as common as having a BS in comp sci or engineering. (literature major here.) the preference for a BA or BS varies between company and specific sub-industry (more specialized roles generally prefer people who have a degree in that particular area), but once you have a few years of experience under your belt people stop caring for the most part.

getting my foot in the door with experience was 100% the most difficult part of this—and honestly, was the main differentiating factor between this job search and the last. I did have some pre-graduation job experience that I was able to leverage at the end of my nine-month search that landed me my last job, but I didn't figure that out until way too late in the game. it's not a one-to-one analogue with what I do now, but it was close enough that I figured out ways to classify it as relevant experience and boost my "years doing X role" number from 0 to Not Zero. (the "you need experience to get experience" paradox is only solved by a bit of creative reframing, lol.) once I had that purported experience under my belt, I was able to get a job that gave me actual tangible experience, which blows the whole thing wide open on future job search cycles.

which is all to say: there's nothing wrong with twisting things a bit for your benefit, so long as it's not something that'll bite you in the ass later. reframing particular skills or experience to suit a potential role is a workable strategy as long as you know you're actually capable of doing the things that role requires. don't lie about knowing how to build rockets if you’re applying to a job at NASA.

the spam shit is way too common with job applications these days, whether it's outright fake listings or vaguely scummy shit masquerading as a cool place to work. specific red flags vary, but some things I look out for:

job listings that don't clearly name the company you'll be working for. exceptions obviously apply, like if you apply through a specialized job board or staffing site that anonymizes its clients, but if a listing just says it's an "exciting opportunity" or "fun workplace," it's probably not. if there is a name, google it.

check out glassdoor ratings from past employees. if a place has a really shitty rating or reviews that consistently mention egregious shit in the workplace, you're better off saving the effort. certain places will also have ratings from applicants and interviewees, which might give you more insight into whether it's worth looking into.

anything that requires you to pay the employer for the privilege of working there.

for writing gigs specifically: any freelance gig that requires you to submit fully-completed work but doesn't guarantee that they'll pay you for each submission, only the ones they approve, and you won't know if it's approved until after you already wrote it. content mills suck across the board but these are the worst of the worst.

general corporate bullshit speak like "work hard, play hard," "fast-paced environments" where you "learn on the job," any indication that you'll "always be in a working mindset" or that "you're never truly off the job," or job listings that make it sound like you'll be doing completely random things on any given day with no consistent job duties.

any place that lists "free coffee" under a list of employee benefits. it doesn't sound like a big deal, but I swear it's a huge red flag... if cheap instant coffee is their best shot at convincing you it's a good place to work, it's gonna be a nightmare.

#sorry this was WAY longer than I expected it to be #also if you're searching right now best of luck!!!

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himbeaux-on-ice · 4 years ago

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How long di Babcock even last on NBC, a week? lol I don't think he should have been given another chance, but hopefully if he is still awful he gets kicked out sooner then he did on the NHL teams. I'm going to hope they are keeping a close eye on how he treats the players. Also i'm extremely curious on how the Canadian gold medal team felt about him especially the superstars, i.e, Crosby, Toews, Bergeron, Price and others

I swear to god I never even saw him on tv lol, he cannot have been at it very long. That always struck me as an odd choice even outside of his reputation as an abusive boss, because I never got the impression he would make a particularly magnetic and engaging TV personality. Good riddance!

I’ll put my further thoughts about your latter question under a cut, for the benefit of those who don’t want to read or think about Babcock or his verbally abusive workplace tactics.

Re: the Olympic teams and their thoughts on him, I think back to something one of the guys on the SDP said when discussing exactly that (right around when the news broke): “you can put up with almost anybody for a few weeks, if you know it has an end date”.

He was probably still a hardass with the Olympic teams and perhaps played a few mins games, but they were probably all largely approaching it with the mindset of “Okay, I may not like this guy’s approach very much but I only have to deal with him for the duration of training and competition, and then I’m outta here for 4 more years.” You’ll buckle down through almost anything for that, and once you get your gold medal that will paint the whole experience with a rose-tinted “it was worth it” kind of hue. (Not excusing anything here, just speculating on the mindset of the athletes).

Think of it like a having an smart-but-an-asshole professor for one rarely-offered elective class you really wanna take, vs having a shitty abusive boss for “until one of us gets fired” number of years — you can push through the class with that professor for a semester and complain about him to your friends, but that boss fucking with your head every day is going to grind down you down horribly, especially when you know the only way it ends is if one of you quits or is fired, neither of which seems likely. One of those things is way more traumatic and mentally impactful than the other.

I also think it’s worth pondering the fact that Babcock seems to have been (and probably still is) very at putting on one face for certain people he wants to view him a certain way, and a VERY different face for others. Abusers of all stripes are often great at that. The way he treated and interacted with superstars (such as those you named) who were on a special appointment to the Olympic team (ie people with fame, an established league presence, and clout, who are doing something prestigious and desirable but also not make-or-break for their careers), was probably very different from how he treated rookies and average roster players (and arena staff) on NHL teams where he had lengthy secure contracts. Sure he might have been a very well-respected coach with a prestigious record (at that point), but those guys you listed are the faces of franchises, even back then when they were younger. They were coming into those Olympic situations with a lot of name recognition, and were also surrounded by other more established older stars at the time who were even less likely to put up with any shit (you think big-name older guys like Martin Brodeur, Scott Neidermeyer, Jarome Iginla, Joe Thornton etc wouldn’t have just laughed in his face if he told them or anyone else on that 2010 team to go make a list?)

The power dynamic would be significantly different in those situations, and I think he lasted as long as he did in high-profile roles because he knew exactly who he could and couldn’t push around, knew where that line was. The Mike Babcock those superstars dealt with on the Olympic teams was probably still not their favourite person they ever met and worked with, but likely did not treat them the same way he did people whom he had significantly more long-term leverage and power over. And they were probably willing to suck it up and deal with someone who probably mostly came off to them as a harsh-but-effective coach, if only in a very short term setting for a very desirable goal.

The Olympic training process is also a lot more publicized, scrutinized, and overseen by external powers (such as Hockey Canada, the IIHF etc) than the average NHL locker room, even at big franchises like Toronto and Detroit. There’s a lot more people to answer to and a lot more people watching everything that goes on, and every GM who has lent a player to that team has a stake in watching how they are treated physically and mentally so that they return to the NHL in peak form. In an NHL structure, the coach basically only answers directly to the team’s GM and President, but my understanding of the Olympic teams is that there’s a lot more cooks in the kitchen, ie a lot more people who might witness shitty behaviour and say “Hey, Mike, what the fuck?” And I think he is absolutely smart enough to have been aware of that and probably adjusted himself to polite company accordingly.

All that said, the experience for the Olympic stars was probably notably different from how he treated the players under his control in Toronto and Detroit. Still, I certainly also would like to know what all of them thought about him all the same. What did they know and not know? What did they see and perhaps overlook? I think this league would have to undergo a truly seismic upheaval of norms for that conversation to happen, but if it ever does, I’ll be listening.

#asks #anon #mike Babcock #tagging for those who have filters for that shit lol #this is all strictly opinion #// abuse #// verbal abuse

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bigskydreaming · 5 years ago

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LOL so I’m gonna say something that a lot of people are gonna HATE, because of what it does to the usually preferred canons or headcanons of how Dick goes to live with Bruce after his parents die.

But there is one more reason that I prefer the juvie origin for Dick, beyond what I’ve said in the past, and its that....

There is no possible way for Dick to go straight to living with a single billionaire in his early twenties RIGHT after his parents died, or even just a week or two after that....unless Bruce abused the FUCK out of the system himself, in order to get Dick in his house.

And I don’t see any reason why Bruce would go to the lengths of bribes or calling in ‘favors’ that would be needed to expedite the OBSCENE amount of bureaucratic red tape he would need to navigate before any judge would let him become a minor’s sole guardian - especially considering he undoubtedly had no paperwork or had undergone any of the interviews or visitations or hoops demanded of prospective foster parents BEFORE they take in their first kid....

Unless he really truly had reason to believe that every viable alternative to him greasing the wheels like he HAD to have, in order to get Dick there with any kind of swiftness.....like, I honestly don’t see a mid-twenties Bruce Wayne, with his myriad of issues and his own self-image, honestly thinking that he’s SUCH a better candidate for taking care of this traumatized eight year old kid that he’s going to cut any corner he possibly can to speed up the process....unless he was utterly convinced the alternatives were so much worse.

Like say, if he found out that the system had decided the best thing for Dick was to be tossed into juvie.

I mean....the process for fostering a kid, becoming a legal guardian, ANY which way you go about that....its not as simple as just, signing a few papers. No matter WHO you are, UNLESS you leverage that ‘who you are’ bit to get people to step on the gas to a degree far beyond anything they’re supposed to allow.

It takes TIME.

And even in scenarios wherein Bruce takes Dick in as a kind of witness protection while Zucco is on the loose - first off, that’s far more unrealistic than even the juvie take because like....the police HAVE protocols for that sort of thing. They don’t just hand over a kid to the first civilian who steps up and volunteers.

Honestly, the canons and headcanons where Bruce just ‘arranges’ for Dick to come stay with him almost immediately after his parents’ murder....like, they honestly skeeve me even more than the juvie thing, because of how matter of fact people are about it? Y’know? Like nobody seems to see anything wrong with the idea that a billionaire just, with zero prior experience or qualifications just says “oh I’ll take this boy home with me” and everybody goes “yes sir, well you’re a billionaire so if you want him, you got him,” like....it treats Dick like a toy. That’s not how things work, and its not how things SHOULD work....and most importantly IMO, I can’t fathom Bruce thinking that he’s the best option for Dick to such a degree that he’d break all the rules in order to get custody that fast. For that matter, if he really could arrange all that, in spite of the way the process is supposed to go, then shouldn’t it beg the question “why couldn’t Bruce pull similar strings to ensure Dick could stay with the circus, the people there who clearly loved him and wanted him to stay?”

And honestly, I kinda feel like the way people have reduced that whole process to the shorthand of “well Bruce is the good guy and we know with the benefit of hindsight that he’s Dick’s dad in every way that counts, so of course Dick has to end up living with him, so why NOT quicken the process to just a few days”....like, I feel like that actually contributes a lot, albeit unintentionally, to this tendency to take Dick for granted both in universe and out of universe, because it lends this air of like...’only the destination matters, the end result.’ Which is usually how Dick gets screwed in most cases....because people only ever look at the end result of his stories, the last position he ends up with...and completely fail to consider any of the steps in between that happened along the way, and all the things that might have happened alongside each of those steps, that lends important context to his final position in a given story.

Like this idea that well Dick has to end up with Bruce, that’s the part that matters, so its not really all that important how or why.....I feel like that really has a lot to do with how it so often gets just accepted at face value that Dick’s the one in the wrong for keeping his distance from Bruce at later points in life, or for leaving the manor, or for digging in his heels with stuff....because it all loops back into this mindset that “everyone knows Bruce loves Dick, the best place for Dick is in the manor with Bruce, ergo, everything else - like how he comes to live with Bruce or his reasons for storming out of the manor - are semantics, irrelevant details, etc.”

Except...they’re not.

And so again, as an example like....you can’t really just cut out the entire process of Dick coming to live with Bruce...because it really, truly, EXTREMELY doesn’t make SENSE for Bruce to get custody that fast without having SOME kind of leverage.....and it similarly doesn’t make SENSE for him to think he’s so clearly the most qualified person to take in this traumatized kid (no matter how much he empathized with him), that he would circumvent the system he USUALLY is so militaristic about upholding as much as he possibly can, while still being a vigilante. And that last bit sure doesn’t feel in character for Bruce, from that particular angle.

UNLESS.

Unless he’d discovered the system had MASSIVELY FUCKED UP with Dick, and he no longer trusted it with him whatsoever....and so THEN he took matters into his own hands, and did whatever necessary to get custody of Dick ASAP - realistically helped along by the MASSIVE leverage Bruce would have had at his disposal if he threatened to publicize what they’d done to this eight year old orphan.

THAT, to me, feels far more realistic, and far more in character for Bruce....and it at no point takes for granted any of Dick’s own personal journey along the way, or renders it irrelevant or an unnecessary detail.

Idk, maybe its just me, but I’ve always been super uncomfortable with the level of detail fandom puts into fleshing out Jason and Tim’s backstories (and with precedent established by his taking in Dick, any of his later kids would have had very expedited custody arrangements....but that makes it MORE likely that the FIRST kid and the process of gaining custody of him would include hoops that later kids’ stories wouldn’t), while at the same time, hollowing out Dick’s origin story to a barebones outline of ‘well his parents died and then this and this happened and then he lived with Bruce and became Robin and happily ever after until he hit his teenage years and developed an attitude problem.’

Like, there’s just something very....unsettling about how much fandom has romanticized the idea that this billionaire with a quite frankly TERRIBLE public reputation, like this is a guy who has DEDICATED himself to appearing totally irresponsible as far as the rest of the world can tell.....and just....being like ‘oh hey, no big deal about this guy of all guys just being like hey I see you have an eight year old orphan there, howzabout I take him off your hands for you’...and fandom’s like....swoon. Y’know? I mean yes, WE know Bruce is a superhero, WE know that years of cute Batman and Robin and father and son bonding would lie ahead of those two after that.....but...ANY scenario in which Gotham is like....yeah we see no problems with just letting Brucie Wayne take a traumatized orphan home to live in his big old manor with him....like..yeah.

I mean, even as I’m typing this out, I’m thinking that yeah, there is something to be said for streamlining the process in the name of escapism, so that there’s a smoother, easier transition for this poor kid and he doesn’t have to go through so much.....BUT like at the same time, its one thing when we’re talking cute fluff stories and others when the angst is clearly a focal point of the story and yet the story STILL romanticizes this....Daddy Warbucks swoops in to save little Orphan Annie and like, this is definitively treated as like....nobody should be raising objections to this or being like wait a second....

Because the latter feels less like its being done in the name of escapism and more, like....in that sense I was talking about where it all loops back to how often Dick gets reduced to a prop within his own narratives like...things happen because they HAVE to happen, not because like....he’s a person going through things that inform the choices he makes and the things that happen from there, yknow?

Or maybe its one of those things where its like....I feel like that story is one that’s meant for a different time, at this point? Like, there WAS a time when the billionaire swooping in to take the poor orphan off to live in a manor was the kind of escapism people were looking for, but we do live in a different time now where I think most of us would agree like...wait, a decision that big deserves more than being treated like the billionaire just stops in to shop around for an orphan to accessorize with, kinda?

Idk, I feel like I’m not explaining this well, the precise reasons this disturbs me so much, which is why I’ve never posted about this particular angle before, but its been on my mind a lot lately, so maybe it makes more sense than I think it does here? LOL.

*Shrugs* Idk, I just honestly do feel in the long run and in the big picture, Dick’s personhood is ironically better preserved in the scenario where he was definitively stripped of it by an uncaring system and thrown into the last place he should’ve been....with Bruce then, upon discovering this, moving heaven and hell to see that personhood or awareness of personhood, more accurately, restored to Dick, no matter what it took, even if he had to do it himself. Because again, I also think that there’s a heeeeell of a lot of hubris in Bruce thinking that he was equipped to care for this kid right off the bat....and its not even that I don’t think he is (because I think Bruce really was a good father to Dick in their early years, and the majority of their problems arose later, when Bruce was unable to reconcile that this kid he’d once thought himself so alike to was growing into a man with his own ideas and choices that Bruce couldn’t understand or relate to).

Again, I think its more that I don’t truly see BRUCE actually having that degree of confidence that he’s truly a good fit for taking care of Dick, not being more worried that all his issues and his focus as Batman would be a deterrent....unless he had an external kick in the ass that made him feel like no, I don’t trust this job to anyone else at this point, so I HAVE to be up to the task myself, its that simple.

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gurguliare · 6 years ago

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ooh ooh. can you dvd commentary "the wine we fought for" from "Are you a masochist, Schonkopf?" to "Schonkopf felt a fleeting moment of pity for that one other person, whose life and honor the firebombing must have saved"?

MY PLEASURE, THANKS. sorry this is super long because you picked a fresh ‘un.

“Are you a masochist, Schonkopf?” he said.

“Who, me?”

I obviously love Yang and Schonkopf’s stupid conversations in-show for a lot of reasons, but one is that Yang is a little less sure of his footing around Schonkopf than e.g. academy friends (and has reason to be!), so he puts more effort into actively turning the tables when he’s uncomfortable. He also spends less time playing dumb, I think because he finds Schonkopf’s incitement-to-revolt genuinely worrying and doesn’t want to give it any quarter—Schonkopf seems willing to take anything less than a flat denial as encouragement, so this makes some sense. Actually, Schonkopf might take encouragement from a flat denial, which is presumably why Yang always hears him out first, to make a point out of “it’s not that I don’t trust you enough to share my secret ambitions, it’s that I trust you and I DON’T HAVE SECRET AMBITIONS.” I also like that Yang’s efforts to wrongfoot him often work, at least a little, although he’s a recovery artist. But his recoveries involve digging himself deeper in/showing more of his hand, as far as personal investment is concerned.

“Well, take this. I can’t imagine you’d enjoy seeing me paired off. It would offend your sense of justice—and rightly so. How can a man like me go courting?” With his free hand he drew a line across his neck. For the guillotine? “As for your other demands… If I seized control of the government, your life would become very boring. Subduing the populace, night raids—for a man of your talents, it’s a snore. We’d never go to war again. And yet you go on asking me to take up the mantle of power.”

I do think Yang kind of equates “Schonkopf urging dictatorship upon me” and “Schonkopf meddling in my love life.” Which is interesting, because… in some ways the show wants to set up the desire for a happy private life and the pressure to seize power (and protect himself) as opposing drives in Yang’s life, but obviously for Yang himself they both represent an unconscionable turn toward self-interest—toward self-interest and away from his obligation to, uh, all the people he’s blown up. I don’t know that Vermilion is really about Overcoming The Guilt so much as it is discovering a little humility; in targeting Reinhard and proposing to Frederica he’s slightly overriding the control freak instinct that says “you hold the ultimate power here and will fuck everything up personally.” But it’s charming to me when people are like “??? why doesn’t Yang ignore the order for the sake of the greater good,” when it’s made pretty explicit that if Yang were following his idea of a straight consequentialist agenda, he wouldn’t fight Reinhard at all…….. Well, and there’s more to it than that, because part of Yang’s brand of consequentialism is trying to force himself out of the headspace that believes perfectly informed decisions can ever be made by fumbling individuals. Still.

That said, I feel “your job would suck under the Yang Regime” is a pretty compelling argument and one Schonkopf should lend further consideration

“You’ve confused me with yourself,” Schonkopf said, after a pause. “A man so afraid of being bored, he closes his eyes to everything that might disappoint him.”

Yang blinked. But Schonkopf had warmed to his subject. “Now, me—though it might involve some personal sacrifice, I would find matters to interest me in your dictatorship. And if you were in love… ‘Yang Wen-li, laid low by passion!’ I admit, you’re not a natural. Is there any part you’re a natural for? But as we’ve discussed—you’re not a bad student.”

The most unrealistic part of this fic is the idea that this would in any way strike Yang as an odd or unprofessional thing for Schonkopf to say. But as I discovered while editing this scene, there’s actually no line weird enough that it DOES make sense as a trigger for Yang’s realization. I made the sort of boring decision while writing that… characterization-wise I am okay with Yang moving things along here, on the basis that Yang is interested in letting off some steam and has entered into that kind of self-soothing mindset he’ll increasingly show on the road to Vermilion. And I think if Yang were going to choose any time to hit on Schonkopf, or better yet blindside Schonkopf by arbitrarily declaring Schonkopf to have hit on him, it would certainly be as part of a high-level deflection away from one (1) question he doesn’t want to answer about Frederica and/or himself as a person who experiences positive desire. In this case actually it wasn’t a question, it was just Schonkopf suggesting he reach out to a grieving friend. Yang: What? No!!

Yang is also kind of the Aslan of LOGH in that whenever a person comes to him about a third party’s possible crush on him, he’s like, “no, I’m going to tell you about your crush now. no one is told any incriminating details but their own.”

He leaned forward; and for once, Yang didn’t shrink away. Emboldened, Schonkopf wiggled his fingers in Yang’s face, invoking the spirit of a fairy godmother over a pumpkin. Yang moved his head to one side and squinted. “Are you making a pass at me?”

With the body language I did want to convey that Schonkopf has overshot his normal careful boundary-testing, partly because he’s feeling “vulnerable” about the one-sidedness of his investment—that’s part of what him ordering the autopsy under his own authority and then feeling weird about it is supposed to set up, though I don’t know if it works.

It was natural to lower his hand. It was natural to smile pedantically, as if letting himself in on the joke.

I’m happy with this line because for me it immediately evokes OVA Schonkopf’s whole face situation.

“I can’t say I’d thought of it. But for you, Admiral, I would make an exception…”

One question that it might be reasonable to address, now that I’ve gotten into it about all these… characterization considerations, for a very short and unimpassioned relationship upgrade scene… is why I didn’t just have Schonkopf initiate. And the answer is, because Schonkopf is a cowardly opportunist! Of sorts. I mean, he’s not Yang-level, but we see with Katerose how unwilling he is to go out of his way to do anything that might involve inconvenience for him, and I don’t think he’s so attracted to Yang he’d consider it worth the risk. Maybe. I mean, in general he’s not the sort of person who “risks” things for sex. It depends how you picture both FPA culture and the culture within the military, but I think especially in the first half of the show Schonkopf doesn’t seem confident enough about where to place Yang in any of that, even just as an “unsoldierly” person with all these performative civilian aspirations, that he’d put himself out there without some sign of interest from Yang. I think also with both Yang and Frederica he has this pre-emptive sour grapes thing of like, I don’t have a chance so I’m going to sublimate all my energy into weird interrogations of their joint ward, which Julian calls him out on in the one target practice scene, lol.

“No, really.” Schonkopf eased his weight off the desk and raised an eyebrow, a half a beat too late. Yang was practically glowing. His eyes had popped open. Disgusted, Schonkopf understood that he was ignoring any implications: he had the silly, brazen look he got when alone with an ideal puzzle. “I thought you were sour Frederica turned you down,” Yang stage-whispered, putting his hand flat on the desk in a covert slap of triumph. “I was too narrowminded. General, if you have a complaint—”

Yang is so dumb lol. None of the above commentary is meant to imply that this isn’t a genuine lightbulb moment for him, at least on a conscious level. Yang: “huh, this hot guy is constantly up in my business, I guess I can leverage his curiosity as loyalty” —> “ohhhhh he cares about me as a PERSON i can use him for SEX”

He paused. I should have timed it, Schonkopf thought, and folded his arms.

“How curious,” said Yang, leaning back. “I seem to have lost my head. I apologize if I said something in bad taste. It was a joke. Uh, a test?”

I wrote a less halfassed version of this and then had to ask myself whether Yang would put any effort whatsoever into offering someone ELSE a graceful exit.

Schonkopf shook his head. His arms stayed crossed. Yang stared up at him, and stifled a yawn. When the silence had gone on another moment, he appeared to sag. “This is difficult. Usually, the other person makes a move, and we’re interrupted by a firebombing,” he offered. “Well, I say usually. It’s only happened the once…”

“How would you know?” Schonkopf said, kissing him.

He felt Yang tense. The change was harsh. But, equally quickly, he relaxed, and even moved with the kiss. His hands settled on Schonkopf’s shoulders. Schonkopf felt a fleeting moment of pity for that one other person, whose life and honor the firebombing must have saved.

Anyway, my favorite thing about writing this scene was just that Schonkopf doesn’t know who Jessica Edwards is. Could Yang pull this line on Frederica? He could not! But Schonkopf, while a stalker, isn’t one of those weird stalkers who knows your dead friends’ names. Here, that puts him at a disadvantage.

“life and honor” — I like this bit because, although it’s just a joke, I enjoyed making Schonkopf be wrong in this fic, in general, as a dramatic irony thing but also because I like when characters are wryly, ruefully, or resignedly wrong. Like, they put some thought into this! Still wrong. And often the way in which they are wrong shows a real lack of imagination about how many different things can fail terribly—sure, getting emotionally involved with Yang is a bad idea and about to become a much worse one, but disengaging didn’t save Jessica. Yang is not the be-all and end-all of horrors awaiting anyone in LOGH universe, and it’s important that Schonkopf can’t see beyond that for even a second.

#akitania #no one expects the fannish inquisition #my analysis of my analysis.#logh tag

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the-cryptographer · 7 years ago

Text

I should not have dropped eight thousand words of a new WIP.

I mean, it was the one unposted WIP fic I allowed myself to work on at all, and for a microfandom, so it’s not like I had no idea what I was doing. It’s just a lot on my mind and on my plate, and I’m just kind of meh about the parts of the chapter I rushed to finish. I felt myself struggling through parts of the Trish conversation, and I completely BS-ed a section - one that should have been longer - in a very poor attempt to preserve the original pacing and scene changes that I drafted two years ago. But after sitting on the thing for so long, I figured it was just better to go ahead just bc... I want this fic to exist.

It’s really weird for me, because it’s not even a fic that’s entirely mine - it was something brainstormed in response to someone’s yuletide prompt from 2015. I’m not sure I would have conceptualised the concept as I did without that prompt. I have some major reservations about the ship, for one, particularly the Gig/Levin side of the triang. Gig’s mass exploitation and the control he leveraged over Raksha in the backstory is kind of fucked up in a way I can’t really excuse as the backstory for a relationship, regardless of how terrible a person Raksha is. But even though I’m finding myself edging over to the abandoned fandom corner of Levin/Revya OTP, I kind of want Gig there for this anyhow. He’s great to write dialogue for, for one. He’s observant in ways the other two aren’t. And there’s something in his relationships with each of the others... The kind of codependence he has with Revya - they way they hide their identities behind one another, and draw together in solidarity so easily. And that Gig and Raksha, for all that ugly, ugly, history, were really the only two to make it out alive and together and in an understanding of what had happened - all those attempts to grab power and control - was all utterly futile. So even though I have issues with Gig being there, and I’m not entirely sure it’s something I would have happened upon myself, I kind of realised that there isn’t really a story without him. How would Revya and Levin even begin a conversation if it was just them? They get so easily tongue-tied. And it’s also just kind of hard for me to imagine Revya... not wanting Gig to be a part of this. ...And also bisexuality and polyamory and genderfuck are life, lol. Like, I’ll write and enjoy het ships, but this is really what I’m here for - let’s not lie to ourselves.

Other issues I have with it...

Chapter two will be better in this regard, but the first chapter relies too much on incidental meetings. I don’t think they’re impossible to believe, and I think on a meta level they can be justified considering the amount of narrative mileage that’s milked out of them - the first setting up the plot, and the second being the centerpiece of comedic schadenfreude. But I’d prefer to have a more substantial reason for characters running into one another on an in-universe level.

The mental health stuff is all over the place. It was another thing requested by the yuletide prompt. I got the idea for depressive, bipolar, and psychosis trifecta with Revya, Levin, and Gig respectively. But, while I’m kind of attached to bipolar Levin in particular, I realised I don’t really have the background or personal experience to write much more than depression with any certainty. It’s kind of integrated into the plot at this point, so there will definitely be moments of lapsed health, but I kind of feel it’s going to be both disappointingly vague and disappointingly left hanging.

The prompter also specified they didn’t care much for Tricia or Danette. And, yeah, I don’t /not/ get that. I’m not too fond of Danette myself. It’s just hard for me to make Revya not attached to her. The same way i won’t write Red not liking Pikachu. Or Yuugi not liking Atem. So that, but also it’s hard for me to leave this kind of fandom mindset where... I really /want/ to like female characters. Even when I don’t. Despite all the incredibly shoddy writing surrounding female characters, and despite the fact that I don’t think it’s really a fan’s responsibility to make allowances for that, I’m still kind of super... meh... about the way female characters get treated in fandom. I live irl around enough women that are 500x more critical of other ladies than any of the men in their lives. And it’s just... really hard for me to not read that kind of misogyny into fandom attitudes. Especially considering how viscous and charged and controlling I’ve seen fandom get about what female fans are allowed to do. So I kind of inevitably want to write stories where the female characters are given weight and importance in their relationships with each other, and the resultant product of this impulse combined with trying to follow the letter of the prompt was something very ??? where Tricia and Danette are kind of left out of the story while still being rather over-present in it. I kind of wonder at this point what niches they would have filled in the story if I hadn’t tried to limit them. But it kind of is what it is at this point, and I have trouble wanting to fix what isn’t broken, even if it could potentially be better maybe(?)

So, in spite of all my many reservations, I... care about this thing. The kind of grim comedy and exuberance to Soul Nomad struck a chord with the grim comedic fatality of my teenage self, and every once in a while I’m kind of overcome with how much I love the cow siblings. They are just a mess of abuse and biological weapons engineering and deception. I kind of realise dancing around the soul nomad tags... how much I disproportionately love Levin, lol. And how much I need content about him and Euphoria that goes into their identity struggles, and having been trafficked, and the kind of ugliness and control that sits between them. Content that largely doesn’t exist.

And I also like the kind of aftermath to what is a quest that gathered a number of different party members - all of different political allegiance - and set them to a common goal. The idea that they’re all still friends that enjoy each other on a personal level, but still all have their own agendas and priorities that clash, is one of those things that intrigues me. And that Revya and Gig and Levin can kind of move through that landscape (mostly) unaffiliated and detached from it. Outside observers.

Anyhow, these are all the things I’m kind of thinking about. and I just wanted to ramble for a bit.

#spoilers #Soul Nomad #nis #the process

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jeremycreager · 5 years ago

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chriscanwell · 5 years ago

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If you're trying to seduce a girl who's younger than you and she pulls away, what should you do? This article will show you what to do and the pitfalls to avoid.

First, let’s take a look at an email from a reader who is going through this exact same problem. My response can be seen below in bold.

Note: all names and personal information have been changed for privacy reason.

I'm a man of 40 and 6 days ago I kissed a woman of 25, who lives in my same apartment complex (we kissed at a bar though). Being so near means that we've hung out every day since then, no sex yet.

It’s great that you kissed her and escalated the physical attraction. However, you don’t want to hang out every day even if she does. It’s important to give the “illusion” of being busy and to remain a challenge. Also, remember that until you’ve had sex then you have no real leverage over a woman or power.

The power and control is still firmly in her court, so you need to continue to seduce her the right way and make sure that you remain a challenge.

We have been on a blanket in a park, in my apartment and in hers but not in her room. There has been some cuddling, kissing, and some partial undressing. She seems a bit uncomfortable/inexperienced about her physicality.

She said she is a virgin, got close to sex a few times but always stopped the guys just before, mainly because of her Christian faith, although she says she is now ok to have sex before marriage if “she is in love”. She is a bit stone cold when she undresses (just the top and not fully). However, she snuggles up against me spontaneously when we see each other. She sometimes initiates kissing. She seems in an exploratory mode.

She’s obviously attracted to you and desires you, there’s no doubt about that; however, her Christian faith shouldn’t be a big problem if she’s come this far.

But whether she is a virgin, a Christian or a party girl doesn’t matter—you have to treat all women the same and remain a challenge and be mysterious. Don’t be too available for this girl. And continue to push for physical intimacy.

It’s also incredibly important to mirror her actions. When you feel her start to pull away from you and cut contact… then you do the same and pull away and wait for her to reach out to you.

When she is really into you and wants to see you, simply mirror her and see her too, around 75% of the time. This is to make yourself busy and more scarce.

I have never in all my years dealing with thousands of clients, seen a woman who doesn’t respond to challenge and scarcity in a positive way.

She tells me "you are different" (in a positive sense), so indeed my approach with a girl is more physical and romantic than the average guy (as she herself pointed out, appreciatively).

She typically replies to calls or texts, and occasionally has even texted first.

We do NOT use endearing terms with each other, and the second day we agreed that we didn't need to define what we have since it's so early.

It’s time to switch things around here. You say that she “occasionally” texts first. You have broken the ice with this girl and kissed her and become somewhat physical with her. It’s now time to let her chase you. You need to transition from being the one who is texting her first to allowing her to come to you.

Also, make sure that when she does come to you that you are fun and light and continue to be romantic and flirty.

But you want to always give the impression that you are a busy man and that a woman has to work to see you. She is attracted to you, there is no doubt about that.

The only way you can screw this up is by over pursuing this girl and coming on too strong (texting too much, being too available and wanting to see her too much).

Today (six days later) she is pulling away, replies to a sweet message ("good morning beautiful girl") but does not reciprocate the sweetness (she just writes "thanks, lol"--I found the "LOL" curious) and then cancels on our plan tonight (exercise together in the gym and then go somewhere).

My best guess is that, us living so close, she is either: needing space to keep attraction, testing if I am strong, or she just hung out with me because she enjoyed the attention of an older guy and she could brag about it with her friends. I did not reply to her last message (the cancellation) and I intend to keep her wondering. But what would you suggest?

Should I just reply "sure, no problem" to act confident or just total silence? Wait until she gets in touch, or until I bump into her? What if she does not get in touch? It's obvious that I will see her sooner or later anyway (remember, we live in the same building!), but what would I do in that case?

In this situation, you have to understand that you guys both live in the same apartment building.

This girl is probably thinking that if she gets too close to you right now so quickly, then she is going to feel suffocated and in a difficult situation because she will have to see you, like you say, even if she doesn’t contact you.

So what do you do? It’s easy. You mirror her, again, and completely back away. You have to let her know that you aren’t going to suffocate her and always be trying to see her. You need to sub-communicate to her that she can still have her own private space and that you won’t mind if she doesn’t see you all the time.

I’ve been in the same situation as you before, girl living in same apartment building, and you have to let them come “Knocking” on your door when they’re free and ready. So she cancelled the date, just ignore it and say something easy going like, “no problem. Enjoy your day/evening.”

Don’t worry she will get in touch with you again as long as you don’t chase her too hard and always be the one reaching out to her. And if you do run into her, just act cool and ask her how she’s been doing.

She’ll say something predictable like she’s been busy, then she’ll ask how you are and you just have to say that you’ve been really busy yourself and that you guys must catch up again sometime when you’re not so busy.

It’s an interesting situation when a guy is dating a younger woman because there are some important principles to keep in mind. I want to share these with you here because I think they will really help you get into the right type of mindset with this girl.

Dating Younger Women

Most men can only dream of dating a younger woman, even though it’s been found that the older we get as men, we still want to date younger women.

Fortunately for us men, the opposite isn’t true. As we get older, younger women still find us desirable and want to date us.

This is great news for men and it’s always great to know that as we get older, we still have many options with women (assuming you don’t let yourself go and become overweight and excessively out of shape).

That being said, there is nothing like a bit of an age difference to bring out the insecurities in a man in a relationship.

If you’re dating a girl 10, 15 or 20+ years younger than you then you, then it’s often natural to feel that this is too good to be true and the relationship won’t work out.

But the truth is, the only reason relationships with an age difference don’t work out is because one of the partners in the relationship becomes obsessed about age difference and can’t let it go.

Dating younger women, however, is very different to dating an older woman. It’s not always easy and it takes a confident man to date a much younger woman and keep her around for the long-run.

Once you know what you’re doing though, dating a younger woman is incredibly easy and has a lot of advantages.

In every culture and society in the world, younger women are attracted to older men. However, in Western society this is often frowned upon (mostly by older women who see younger women as a threat).

The fact remains, despite what feminists and modern society tries to tell us, younger women will always be attracted to older men because it’s written into our biology. Despite what many people like to think, human beings are hard-wired this way.

Age Attracts Youth

Older men are naturally attracted to younger women and younger women are naturally attracted to older men.

But a lot of men that I speak to feel ashamed that they’re dating a younger woman. They worry what their parents will think, what their friends will think and what strangers and society as a whole will think. They also worry what their girlfriend’s friend will think and they worry that people will laugh at them.

The reason you shouldn’t feel ashamed to date a younger woman, however, is because it’s completely natural.

Women and men are attracted to each other for different reasons. Men are attracted to a woman’s youth and beauty and femininity. And women are attracted to a man’s strength and resourcefulness and masculinity.

At no point in time does a woman find herself attracted to a man because he is young. If anything, youth works against men as many young guys will tell you… they can’t get laid despite their best efforts.

A woman’s nature understands that young men often lack true confidence, strength and masculinity. They also often lack experience and worldly skills that women find so endearing and interesting when they date older men.

In fact, a young man’s naivety and lack of real world experience can be a very real and dangerous threat to a woman’s existence and the man’s ability to protect and provide for his woman.

Again, a woman’s nature implicitly understands this and this is why women so often gravitate towards older men.

This is nothing to be ashamed about, instead it is something to be embraced and accepted. And despite what people will tell you, women usually hit their prime between the ages of 18 and 25. Whereas a man doesn’t hit his dating prime until around 35+ years old.

Unfortunately, most men are completely out of shape by the time they reach 35+. They’re overweight, badly dressed and they look 50 years old from drinking too much alcohol, smoking too much, and eating too much junk food.

If you look like a slob it doesn’t matter who you try to date, women in general just won’t be interested.

It’s important to realize that if you keep in shape as a man and take care of yourself, then you can easily date younger women well into your late 60s.

Women Like Older Men

Before I get into the “How To” of dating a younger woman, it’s important to take a look at some of the reasons why younger women want to date older men.

This is so we can understand why younger women find older men attractive.

- Older men are more emotionally stable.

- They have more resources (money and assets).

- They are more committed and more likely to settle down.

- They take the relationship more seriously.

- Older men will value a younger woman more.

- They are more likely to protect and nurture a younger woman.

- They are more refined and elegant than younger men.

- They are usually more confident and strong (in mind and body).

- Older men are more street wise and worldly.

Just remember that dating a younger woman takes a certain level of strength and mastery, especially when it comes to maintaining the relationship.

In every relationship there are problems and tension. This is felt even more acutely in relationships where a large age difference exists.

The greater the age gap, the more the man and the woman will wonder if age difference is okay or if it’s actually going to be the ruin of the relationship.

I have successfully dated women 15 years younger than myself and I have seen other men successfully date women 25 years younger than themselves.

That is just the successful 10%. The other 90% never go the distance and the age barrier always causes a problem, even though it shouldn’t.

When you’re dating a younger woman you have a choice: either you can talk about the age difference and make it an issue or you don’t.

Is Age Just a Number?

I’ve seen guys try to reassure their younger girlfriends that age isn’t a problem, when it obviously is… only to them. These same men make the age difference an issue and it’s always in the back of their mind.

If you start worrying about the age difference between you and your girlfriend, your girlfriend is going to worry about it too, and before you know it… age has suddenly become a problem.

Now there will be times when your girlfriend will worry about the age difference in the relationship. This is normal and it’s what women do, they worry.

When this happens it’s important not to be worried or disturbed by what she says. Simply laugh it off and tell her that you don’t even notice the age difference because you already have a strong emotional connection with her.

The less you worry, the less she’ll worry about the age difference. Men who are most successful dating younger women don’t even worry or care about age difference. And if they do, they definitely don’t make it an issue or a problem.

If you’re dating a younger woman it’s tempting to fall into the role of “substitute father.” Women love this to a point, but it’s also very easy to fall into the trap where you try to educate your girlfriend about life.

Stay Young at Heart

It’s understandable that your protective instincts kick in and you want to help guide your girlfriend through life, but if you try to tell her what she should and shouldn’t do, and if you try to explain to her how the world “really” works, you’ll end up coming across as just another boring older guy.

The only time you should give advice is if your girlfriend asks for it. She wants to feel equal in the relationship, she wants to have a strong emotional connection with you. If you start lecturing your girlfriend, you’ll only end up driving her away from you.

Also stay young at heart. Now you’ve probably met guys in your life who are in their 50s but act like they’re twenty years old.

There’s also a lot of young guys in their 20s who have the mind of a fifty year old and are very serious about everything.

When you’re dating a younger woman it’s important to embrace your younger self.

Just because you look forty or fifty when you look in the mirror doesn’t mean that you have to act like you’re forty or fifty.

You can still be a very refined and intelligent older man, but find joy, excitement and humor in life like a lot of younger guys do.

Dating a younger woman will require you to have a good sense of humor and zest for life. Your younger girlfriend’s still most likely experiencing the world and excited about life; it’s important that she can share that joy and excitement with you.

I had one friend who was dating a girl fourteen years younger than himself. This girl ended up breaking up with him because whenever she wanted to go to a new place or try something new he would say it’s boring and he’d already done it.

If you want to kill your relationship, there’s no better way than to be a killjoy.

I’ve also seen a lot of guys date younger women and literally worship the ground that these women walk on. It’s kind of understandable that a lot of guys act like this.

A lot of men get out of bad divorces or have have spent the last ten years in a relationship with a woman their own age, when, suddenly, they find themselves dating a much younger woman who looks great naked and has a fresh and innocent view on life. The younger woman isn’t jaded and she doesn’t have baggage.

The natural reaction in this kind of situation is for the man to treat the younger woman like she’s something incredibly special.

Sure she is special, especially compared to a lot of older jaded women out there, but you don’t want to let her know that.

The moment a woman thinks that she’s special in the relationship is the moment she starts to think that she’s higher value than the man. This is danger time.

If a young woman gets a sniff that you might value her much more than she values you then she’s going to start testing the hell out of you and she’s going to make you jump through hoops to please her.

You need to establish from the beginning that as the older man in the relationship that you are higher value than the woman, regardless how old she is or how beautiful she is.

Masculine Attracts Feminine

This last part is very important. You must be very masculine when dating younger women…

If your find yourself dating a younger woman then there’s a very good chance that your girlfriend is extremely feminine.

In fact, the bigger the age difference the more feminine your girlfriend is likely to be. Truly feminine women always seek out older men as partners because this relationship dynamic feels more natural to them.

When a woman is extremely feminine she is much more likely to be physically smaller and to also have a softer “girlier” personality.

Because of these traits a feminine woman is much more likely to seek out a man who is older and more capable of protecting her.

Younger, more feminine women always look for more masculine men to be with as this is the perfect compliment to her femininity.

This means that as a man you have to fully embrace your masculinity and be an “alpha male” if you want to keep your younger girlfriend attracted to you.

You have to make her feel that you can protect her both physically and emotionally. You also have to exude strong masculine traits like leadership, confidence and decisiveness when dating your girlfriend.

Your girlfriend will also expect you to be fully in touch with your masculinity. Where younger guys are known for their indecisiveness, uncertainty and false confidence, you must stand out with your boldness and real, true confidence.

Women Want Alpha Males

If your girlfriend senses that you aren’t really sure of yourself and that you aren’t internally strong and confident enough to date her, then she will start to pull away from you and seek out a relationship with another man who is strong and confident.

The same applies if you try to seek reassurance from your girlfriend that she loves you and really is attracted to you.

I’ve seen a lot of guys date younger women and it ends up brining all their insecurities and vulnerabilities to the surface.

These guys worry that they look too old when they’re with their girlfriend. They worry that their girlfriend will leave them for a younger (more handsome) man.

They worry that things are too good to be true and it’s only a matter of time before their girlfriend realizes that she with an “old man” and dumps him for someone closer to her own age.

If you start to think like this then you’re literally opening up Pandora’s Box and creating a world of trouble for yourself. Remember, your thoughts will materialize into real life actions.

If you start to doubt yourself and your relationship, your girlfriend will start to sense this.

Her immediate response will be to test you, and a younger woman will always try to test your masculinity to make sure that you’re strong and certain and sure of yourself.

The important thing to remember is that staying strong and embracing your masculinity is exactly what you need to do to keep your girlfriend attracted to you.

Age isn’t a real problem unless you make it a problem and start obsessively focusing on it. It only becomes a problem if you start to doubt yourself and act insecure over the age difference.

Guys who are successful dating younger women never focus on age difference. They keep the relationship light and playful and fun and don’t try to lock their girlfriends down into a committed relationship.

At the same time, these guys are very masculine and confident and they don’t let small things like “age difference” and uncertainty get in the way of a great relationship.

And believe me, dating younger women is one of the most amazing and pleasurable dating experiences you can have! If you find yourself dating a younger woman, make sure you enjoy it, embrace it and cherish it.

Keep in mind that a woman pulling away is completely normal and nothing to be scared of. Instead it should be embraced because this means she’s into you and is simply testing your masculinity before she proceeds to a full physical relationship with you.

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