#no school + no twitter + finally having motivation = more edits and writing

[ellipsical-elle]

Why I Write Novellas

For most of my life I thought there was only ONE WAY to be a writer. You wrote a whole ass book, you edited it, you shopped it, and if someone else thought it was good enough, you were published. It was a process that took years and years. It required the manuscript to cure in a drawer for some time so that you would come back to it with fresh, critical eyes so that you could, presumably, beat it into better shape with whatever experience you had gained in the interim. I’m not saying there’s not wisdom in this approach. I’m not saying that it doesn’t work for some folks, maybe the majority of folks, but every time I have tried to follow the path I have failed spectacularly and it always resulted in me not writing and not being able to finish anything ever.

I’ve written since I was young. Being a writer is foundational to who I am. It is a core thread to my identity. And for a whole giant chunk of my life I didn’t do it because I thought there was only ONE WAY and unfortunately the ONE WAY didn’t work for me so that meant I couldn’t do the thing that brought me the most joy. 

I failed at it for lots of reasons. I lose momentum and motivation without the positive reinforcement of tiny accomplishments (I finished a chapter, a section, an arc!). The glower of perfectionism settles and I become paralyzed by doubt. My nervous system gets activated by the inherent vulnerability of putting the creation out into the world and the anticipated failure or judgment of others meant that I would go into freeze or flight and never finish a project. My life was also not conducive to a long creation timeline because I do not have long periods of time where I am alone to create (due to kids, full time job, school, dogs, etc.)

Fanfic was revolutionary for me because it showed me there was ANOTHER WAY to create. I could write for fun! I could post a chapter at a time! Completing big projects was finally something I was able to do because it became a matter of achievable component parts instead of scaling Doom Mountain Masterpiece Manuscript! I wasn’t incapable of it, as I had so long believed. I learned to battle perfectionism by accepting that this work was created and edited by the best of ME AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME. Perfection was not attainable, my best in the moment was. I was enough! What I created was ENOUGH! From being in community with other fic writers I saw that it was ok for me to create in a way that worked for me and for my life. 

So now, as I try out self-publishing I’m trying to model something I wish I would have seen more of: ANOTHER WAY to do it. I’m publishing A Firm Hand in three novellas because I have learned to trust my creative process. I am successful* when I create in alignment with my nervous system and intuition. (*Fanfic also taught me that success can be whatever I define it as, which for me means I finish a work and share it. I cannot control other people’s reactions to it, so I cannot base the success of a project on how other people receive it, how popular it is, etc.) I don’t need to force myself to create the way others do. 

Anyways, this is a long way of saying that I hope this is a permission slip to anyone who feels similarly stymied by a ONE WAY approach to creating. I hope you learn to trust yourself and create in a way that works for you. 

As I dip my toe back into Tumblr since leaving Twitter I’m interested in connecting with people around creative process, writing, reading, etc. If that’s you I hope you’ll interact with me here <3 Would also love recommendations of blogs you follow who are talking about these things!

[budstiel]

okay seeing a lot of basketball championship and dnd final session discourse on twitter and let me tell you why any of you hating any of the kids for anything they did that night is stupid.

edit: this started as me trying to explain what was going through Lucas mike and Dustin’s head that day but devolved into me writing a mini essay on their mental states leading up to that day BUT STICK WITH ME IT’S ALL CONNECTED

Was Lucas right to ditch the dnd final session for his championship? Absolutely yes. Should mike and Dustin have shown up and supported their friend? Yes. Did they skip just to be spiteful and because they hate Lucas having other interests? NO

I think a big part of why Mike and Dustin reacted the way they did was because they perceived Lucas as going over to dark side. Becoming a part of the people who had made their lives hell for the past 13 years. All three of them had endured bullying all their lives and the way they reacted to it had been different and they didn’t always understand the motivations behind why they were acting the way they were.

(going to go a little off track here but stick with me this is all context)

While a lot of their bullying revolved around being targeted for similar things like their interests and probably their looks some things were more specific and targeted each character in a way that only really they understood.

Lucas, Dustin and Mike’s ✨T r a u m a✨

Mike while himself mostly dodged the queer allegations witnessed Will take the brunt of it and while always stepping up to defend his friends he internalised the things they were saying and did everything in his power to hide the things about himself that could put an even bigger target on his back while he still struggled to be true to other parts of him that made mike Mike. While mike suppressed parts of himself that he had been made to believe were wrong he salvaged other parts of him that he tried to wear with pride and with which he also delineated himself from the people who had made his own and his friends’ lives hell.

Lucas along with Will was affected by the most overt of taunts and insults. Along with the overt name calling and targeting came the ignorant actions and words by the kids his age who didn’t know better than what they had heard their parents say at home. Lucas loved his friends and they had been through middle school bullies And other dimensional monsters together but after so many years he had understood that this one thing he really truly was alone in. He wanted to be understood but he also wanted to just be like everyone else not have to go through things so much harder and not go through things alone.

Dustin wore his personality, his interests and his disability with a pride that only came from having had those things weaponised against you all your life. He hasn’t done it alone. Some of it he’s admired his friends for and learned from them. He’s seen Steve change and be true to himself and seen how happier that makes people. When he was targeted and ostracised with a whole new intensity upon entering high school he met Eddie who was disruptive and weird but willing to accept him and give him a space where he didn’t think he’d find one. Dustin’s radical acceptance came from unfortunately, his trauma and fortunately, some very good role models.

Now ALL this plays a role in how things went down in their first year of high school. But this alone in my opinion wasn’t enough for the three friends to have reached the level of disconnect they did.

The other part was change. And not your average raging hormones, changing schools and losing friends. It was all that ON OTHER DIMENSIONAL STEROIDS.

They’d lost Hopper to a combination of gruesome monster and government assassins. All of whom had been gunning for their lives too some six months ago. The dust from this didn’t even get a chance to settle down before their two best friends left them alone in the town which had been trying to kill them for the last few years. Dustin had witnessed a drugged and beaten to an inch of his life Steve and managed to save his life a few hours after saying that if Steve dies so would he. Lucas was slowly witnessing the girl he loved lose herself after a loss that he couldn’t possibly understand. He never wanted Max to feel that alone. He didn’t know what to do. Mike had lost his girlfriend and his best friend in a single moment and he didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t know his feelings and the ones he did start to know he intensely wanted to forget. He felt wrong. He needed something to hang onto.

Lucas joining the basketball team didn’t really have a single clear reason he had in mind. It was because it felt good to not be the the only black kid around; to have that part of him understood. It was because unexpectedly he actually liked the game. He didn’t feel defined by it. And it was because it proved to an extent, to be a good shield against the kind of experiences that he had always felt othered by. It felt like enough of a good thing to ignore some of the bad that it came along with.

Mike and Dustin were coping with things they had been through and the changes in their life to some extent with intensely sticking to the things they knew and they didn’t understand why Lucas wouldn’t want to do it with them. They felt like the were losing their friend to popularity and it seemed like it could be one or the other.

The Night of the Basketball Championship and DND Final Session™️

Now this situation along with their own particular brands of ✨trauma ✨ and the changes in their lives in the past few months didn’t really create the most conducive path for communication. Had Lucas told them that it wasn’t just about popularity and that he actually liked the game and shared the good parts of it with his friends things might have been different. They might’ve shown up because they’ve proved again and again that the well being of their friends is more important than anything else.

Had mike and Dustin told Lucas that they could see that maybe Lucas isn’t being completely honest to himself since he’s been around the popular crowd, Lucas might’ve felt more comfortable to share with them that Yes the game has come with some complicated feelings for him. There are good things and bad. He might not have felt so defensive and actually shared that everything wasn’t right either. If they’d told Lucas about how they’d been feeling about their friendship he might’ve had the chance to reassure them. If they hadn’t had this distinct cocktail of circumstances, any one of these things could’ve changed and have lead to a different outcome where The Night of the Basketball Championship and DND Final Session™️ might never have happened the way it did.

TL;DR they’re kids in a very bad place get off their asses

[anotherblblog]

Ben coming through with a word.

If I may also vent about this damn show and the gmmtv problem of it all:

Yup, in the end Only Friends wasn’t that deep or subversive or coherent. The weekly watching and water cooler talk was enjoyable but the show itself had a way bigger shadow than actual presence.

And I think what also is fueling my discontent is that I really wanted to care and I really wanted to see a good queer story.

Gmmtv points in that direction plenty of times but the last one I felt they nailed was MSP and I’m nearing 20 years post high school.

Queer people and experiences aren’t a monolith and taste is subjective but damn if Only Friends isn’t a flop to me and my irl queer bl friends.

This was the Thai show I had been looking forward to all damn year and it just kinda feels like I got played.

Sure, sure, the creative staff was making changes based on fan reactions at times but as far as I’m aware they didn’t shoot anything extra just edited and cut what they had, so all the scenes were there. It could absolutely be true that the omissions could have made certain things like Nick’s switch up land better but it kinda seems like the show was always gonna have Boston summarily rejected and stomped on by the narrative and his “friends by virtue of them having classes together.”

Yeah it feels fun/cathartic to point to the “money/fan approval above all else” psychology behind gmmtv moves and motives because I think at many many levels they truly don’t care.

I’m not going to say this is an east vs west approach because I don’t think it is. I think this is a symptom of our modern consumer based instant gratification and overall who gives a fuck about critical thinking.

There was no depth, because there didn’t need to be one, because there wouldn’t be more fans or merch sold if there was.

The lack of a 4th wall with gmmtv shows is I think evidence of what I’m saying. It’s been kinda weird because on bl Twitter it kinda seems like Jojo and Vivienne are fighting with each other and/or the fans and/or their creative partners over Only Friends.

Fans are being annoying and implying that because some of the actors would talk about how they would improv certain scenes or make suggestions that ended up being the final cut that the writers and directors sucked and should have let the actors write and direct the show. And jojo and vivienne are taking umbrage at that in my opinion clearly bad and insulting idea.

So now it’s also like too much access to how the sausage gets made because most of the people on this behind the scene tour don’t know how to fucking act or behave. Now it’s uncomfortable for most everyone except the netizens who thrive for Internet acrimony and engagement of any kind.

Anyway to hew closer to the show and the finale, Only Friends as a concept and a pitch worked for me. When I saw the cast I was beyond thrilled to see Mark Pakin and Neo in these more major roles. I’m still a KhaoFirst enjoyer (hell I’m flying to Brazil next month to see them), so like I’m a fan of these actors and these shows and I want them to succeed and get work. I also want the work they get to be worthy of their clear talent and potential.

And Only Friends was sort of it but sort of not.

I gave this show a 9/10 because it was so fun as a weekly watch and water cooler show. I still think Neo and Mark and Khao brought the show up to a 9. The characters and utilization of Top, Mew, Cheum would make me wanna see the show redone with some serious changes to them. And Mond and Mix were sweeps week level of casting and cameos.

So at many points, this was a successful “show,” they did what they needed to do to keep me watching and surprised me when they wanted to.

I do not think this was a successful series. The theme/messages was a flop and counter to its aim and I left with a very bad taste in my mouth.

Only Friends: They Can't Sit With Me

I’ve been trying to find the words to express my consternation about Only Friends properly for weeks. Now that we’ve finished the show, I think I can say it plainly: The show just isn’t that deep, and the characters are unintentionally some of the worst gays you know. They can't sit with me and mine.

In so many ways this show avoided saying much for most of its runtime by just presenting the characters and putting them in situations. This would generally have been fine until the final episodes where the push to marry off the characters within their actor pairs coupled with the decision to punish Boston exclusively for any of the wrongs he had committed this season.

I hate feeling like I must defend Boston, because he was not a good friend to his squad. He introduced Top to their group just to fuck with Ray of all people for some reason. Then he got jealous when Top took a shine to Mew. He fired Ray at Top and Mew, and misrepresented a video he took of them to get Top to hook up with him one more time. (As a note, I also hold responsible for his decision to fuck around with Boston and withhold that information from Mew as well, but we’ll get there.) However, Boston is one of the only people in this show not using sex as leverage over the person he’s with or hounding people about putting out.

I hate that this show kept comparing other characters to Boston when Ray is fucking around with Sand while he’s seeing Mew. Top and Mew are playing their little stupid games about sex the whole time. Nick is pretending to be okay about stuff that he isn’t and using a sex tape as blackmail. Boston becomes the victim of blackmail and revenge porn in this show! Why is he the one who deserves to be punished for anything wrong that he did exclusively while everyone else is in “happy friend land” at the end of this show?

Also, what the fuck was the point of Boeing? They introduced Boeing as like a final boss but he revealed NOTHING about any of the characters, especially Top! Force did such a thankless and difficult job in this show only to get stuck in an enigmatic character that we can never get a secure read for. Boeing showed up and seemed like he was more of all of them, and we learned nothing because of his intrusion, and he gets rejected in the most perfunctory way possible as the final source of drama. Disappointing.

As I reflect on this show, I wish it had been episodic instead of a serial. The problem Only Friends has is that in the end it becomes a single story that took 12 weeks to tell. All this drama was so aggravating because these homos DO NOT have each other’s backs. Mew helps Boston out of a sticky situation just so he can be morally superior to Boston. Top helps Ray out of a situation and many of us thought that Top could have been the one who called the cops on the party! Cheum decides to castigate Ray AS HE’S BEING ARRESTED FOR DRUG POSSESSION. Cheum accuses Boston of assaulting her brother under false pretenses, never offers him a real apology, and then thinks that Boston should abase himself before the group at the end. If this show had been episodic, each episode could have been about a gay issue within this group and resolved itself within the episode while continuing larger arcs.

I feel like the angst between Boston and Mew went to waste. Why are they jealous of each other? Why didn’t they hate fuck? Mew is a virgin and Top was his first time. Why did we not unpack how Mew views himself after having sex for the first time? He had been holding out for so long and we never spend time with him really understanding how sex impacted him. Why wouldn’t he touch Ray at that point? Sure, he was never into Ray that way, but what is the core of his sexual preciousness?

This show spent the entire final episode taking a victory lap around Boston losing everything and celebrating these dysfunctional ass couples getting together, only to end on a scene of Mew being interested in Mix’s character as Top looks on worried. What a terrible place to end. We never understood Mew’s thing about sex and especially Top. We never understood Top. After dunking on Boston one final time, we end on Mew wanting to flirt with someone else? Terrible.

These people are still young, but this is not what community looks like. These characters are mean to each other in a way that makes me really worry about the shit that this queer team had suffered as they came of age and entered the scene. I believe in queer community. I believe in helping the people in our spaces even if I don’t like them personally. Even at their worst in Queer as Folk, those guys and gals had each other’s backs. Where was that energy here?

They are truly terrible friends. In so many ways, I was grossed out about the way a bunch of homos turned on the slut in their group only to end the show on a game of spin the fucking bottle where they made Sand make out with Top. It feels so weird that a group of queer people essentially ostracized one of their own for failure to conform with monogamous norms. NOT A SLAY.

Beyond that, I feel like most of the cast didn’t even get to play against type! Khaotung playing drunk so consistently was impressive, but he’s always been a pretty, rich, shit stirrer in most of his roles. First is always a grumpy simp. Book is always the virgin. Force got to be a jerk in a really fun way, but we never understood the interiority of his character. Mark and Neo got to do different stuff, and I really hope Neo gets an award for the way he fully embodied Boston.

I had a lot of hope for this show, but in the end, it will just be remembered as an amusing romp that fell flat in the back half for me. With that, I am done with Only Friends, and hoping to be done with GMMTV in a while, honestly. Between this, Hidden Agenda, Dangerous Romance, and a Boss and a Babe, I’m quite over it.

We wrote so much about this show trying to mine depth from it and the well was too shallow. It’s alright for us to admit that this show wasn’t that deep. We can admit that it was just a lot of fun for a few months. “This show is fun” (read: easy to fap to) and “This show is good” can form a Venn diagram, but that is not a circle. You gotta know when to fold ‘em.

[dirwael]

Paimon

Genshin Impact

Do not use, repost, or edit

[amazingphilza]

maniac :: cc!tommy x reader

angst (?) , platonic (?) , gender neutral ! ib: conan gray’s maniac

this is satire & note that i write the reader to be a few months younger than tommy (besides that, i think it is fully inclusive !)

synopsis : you put all your hard work towards a useless crush. with no expectation for reciprocated feelings in the first place, it still all ends in a bittersweet slap to reality.

you grew up with minecraft and it was an understatement to say it was part of your childhood

even years later, you still maintained interested in the game

it wasn’t just a simple video game, the community inspired you to do many things

you aspired to be like the creators you watched at a young age like sky, dantdm, cupquake, stampy, and many more

making people happy and entertained was a dream

and when minecraft slowly began trending again in 2019, you started making your own content whenever you felt like it out of fun

you never got much views but it was an enjoyable experience nonetheless

but it wasn’t until the first minecraft monday you decided to push a bit more with your hobbies and worked hard to make it somewhere

however balancing your passions with school wasn’t the easiest

given, you were still only around 15 and your content wasn’t even that good

with not much of a goal or plan with your youtube channel, you fell out of interest eventually

you loved minecraft but you always a rocky relationship with it; getting back into it for a few months then pretending it never really existed for another few

besides the occasional videos you watched in your pass time, you didn’t stay that updated

then lockdown happened

it changed everything and even got you regressing back to old interests

soon enough you were back to minecraft

there was so much to catch up on

hermitcraft season 7 just started, there was minecraft championships, and smp earth and smp live, and so much more to look forward to watching

you were a bit late on both of the smps but your interest peaked specially towards smp earth and it didn’t stop you from watching the past videos

you first gravitated towards a certain youtuber’s videos first since you remember stumbling onto his videos before from your recommended page; wilbur soot

besides recognizing him from his you laugh you lose series and making parody-type of songs, you didn’t know much

however with a few clicks, you had binge watched his smp earth series effortlessly

you found yourself falling down the endless hole, finding more creators to watch through wilbur

one in particular caught your eye in an interesting way

tommyinnit

my god, how can someone be so annoying and pushy in these videos? like shut up already

and to find out he was barely months older than you frustrated you

you just wanted to be better in some way

if someone like him could be popular, why can’t you? yelling at others and causing problems didn’t seem that hard

and so you went back to working hard on your previously failed youtube channel but this time with a goal; be better than tommyinnit

it was a weird aspiration in your head but it worked

he was your age and successful, why need a better motivator?

tommy wasn’t the sole reason why you strive to make content since you truly did want to create videos to entertain people like the youtubers you originally grew up watching

and with the amount of free time you had, you thoroughly analyzed his content; what was the most popular, how he streamed, edited his videos, everything

you just completely studied the algorithm in general

along the way, tommy’s personality grew on you

tommy was undoubtedly a very loud and energetic person but you became fond of his ambitions

you understood why he was popular at such a young age; he was a natural entertainer

your spite towards the boy turned into a hope

a hope to be at par with him someday and even be mutuals

and it was like your dreams were suddenly manifested into existence

you gained a large following in the early months of lockdown and even was recognized to be apart of minecraft championships

it felt like yesterday that you were just watching your favorite youtubers livestream the same competition

and now you were situation in a team to play yourself for the first time instead of being a viewer for once

not to mention, with tommyinnit as a teammate

how did you manage to get so lucky?

under the excitement, you felt beyond never nervous waiting in the empty discord call for your team to join you to practice the mini-games

in the middle of gathering your thoughts together, you heard a sound from discord signaling someone joined the call

“uh, hello?”

you heard the familiar british accent you spent hours listening to from countless streams and videos

“h-hi! i’m y/n, how are you?”

you hoped tommy couldn’t hear the strain in your voice due to fighting your nerves, but you quietly celebrated that you didn’t freeze up altogether

“oh i’m good, thank you. and i’m tommy by the way, this is the first time we’re speaking, yeah?”

“yep! it’s nice to meet you”

“yeah, i’ve seen your name around the timeline a few times, you seem cool”

oh my god what?

“thanks! um i actually really enjoy your content not gonna lie”

“oh wow, good shit!”

and the conversation smoothly went on, bouncing back and forth between you two before your other two teammates joined the call

once everyone was situated, you decided to start streaming since it was your first mcc and you wanted a vod of you practicing to look at later on as a memory

your chat immediately noticed how much you were enjoying yourself, especially after all the short stories of talking about who inspired you in the past

the smile plastered on your face never left

after stream and your other teammates went offline, it was you and tommy left in the call once together again

“it was nice talking to you tommy! and the practice was really fun, i cant wait for the actual competition!”

“yeah definitely, we’ll for sure place high”

“hopefully. it’s my first time and i hope i don’t cost us the dub”

“nah, you think so? i mean rt and plumbella are also our team mates so you know, it’s all for fun in the end”

you knew tommy was implying the teamwork wasn’t going to be the best compared to the other teams but at least in the end you’ve both made a new friend

“yeah you’re right!”

“anyway it’s getting late imma hop off”

“okay tommy, talk to you soon?”

“yep!”

“alright byee”

“bye!”

the moment he left the call, you felt a sense of relief before a small wave of sadness took over

you wanted to continue talking to tommy but you knew you had other responsibilities to tend to

for the rest of the day, you couldn’t stop thinking of the call and mcc practice

the funny jokes, singing random songs, screaming for no reason, everything

it even kept you awake until the early morning

you buried your head in a pillow and screamed into it after realization hit

y/n no

no no no no no no no

you tried to recall anything that remotely related your other teammates which you remembered that didn’t include tommy

even if it was a few hours ago, you couldn’t pin point something specific

no

i must just be forgetful, right?

what the hell did rt and plumbella even say that whole call?

you vividly remembered everything with tommy and it was clear to you why

surely not

with putting a hand on your chest above your heart, you confirmed that you couldn’t lie to yourself based on the rapid speed

you liked tommy for a good while but it hadn’t clicked to you until now

eventually you fell asleep due to exhaustion but that’s to say you didn’t do so without imagining spending more time with tommy

ever since that day, time went by in a flash

your team didn’t do the best in mcc but it had been a while since then to have that as a concern

sadly you and tommy didn’t talk as often as you hoped but that didn’t make you have less feelings for him

on some days you felt bad since you thought you didn’t know enough about him to even be allowed to crush on him

it was a bit unprofessional but you were nearly 16, it’s normal to have these little crushes right?

eventually time came to rescue when tommy asked you if you wanted to accompany him in the dream smp

undoubtedly, you said yes

and for the few months during summer, it was where you two became even closer than before

however, once both of you two had to go back and attend school, it was harder to catch up with each other

even on calls together off stream, the occasional snapchat notification going off irked you in a way you couldn’t explain

only winter break was the small pause on your disappointment

but even then, it was a slow but steady hill of repressed sadness and frustration until early spring of the following year

you had hoped 2021 would be better than last year but after scrolling through twitter one day and seeing stans making rumors about how tommy had a crush on one of his classmates gave you the same pain you felt when school started last fall

you dreaded to look over at tommy’s most recent story time stream vod where all the gossip arose from; it was him stumbling over his words with the mention of a girl during a certain part

jealousy wasn’t the right word to describe the way you felt

you would never go out of your way to make tommy reciprocate the feelings you had for him

and if he liked someone else the way you saw him, you wouldn’t mind

having a crush is ecstatic, and if he has someone like that too, you should be happy

right?

you tried

what finally broke you was seeing a tiktok a few weeks later of tommy in college with eryn and another girl talking

you didn’t know how she looked like or anything but you wanted to sob

good for him

she didn’t even say much in the video and you dont know enough about tommy’s personal life to jump to conclusions like this

you knew you were acting irrational and you couldn’t be upset at tommy for something he couldn’t control

if anything, you never directly showed interest in him

you didn’t want to in the first place

it was a bad idea from the start

you looked back at the past year and all your intentions

what kind of sick fanfiction did you think you were living?

becoming a content creator, hoping to blow up, just to talk to a big youtuber you had a crush on?

oh my god

y/n what is wrong with you?

listen to yourself, y/n

you need to get some help

whether tommy was dating or even just had interest someone was none of your business

you had to move on no matter what it was and be good and supportive friend

it was dreadful to get over a stupid crush like this but after so much work you put in, you gave some sympathy for yourself

in a friend perspective, you were happy with whatever tommy did and was satisfied your friendship together, but you hadn’t realized how much you gambled from the beginning

and just for a crush?

you couldn’t comprehend how far you gone because you fancied someone

it wasn’t like anyone could get famous and become a popular content creator either

and now with you being on the dream smp along with a successful youtube channel at 16? you were grateful something pushed you enough to work this hard

but you’d never forget the fact everything that lead up to this point was a crush on no other than tommyinnit which first spurred from complete spite

“who’s the one better off now?” your thoughts mocked you from the complete irony

sigh

y/n, you maniac

[hobbylogics]

An Update/Reflecting

Oh hey, it’s been a minute.

Reflecting on 2021

So if it wasn’t obvious enough, I did burn out again. Although, it is a bit different from before. I realized I didn’t really burn out of pen spinning itself, but the work I was doing in podcasts, articles, videos, community management, and social media.

I don’t regret doing any those things last year, though! 

Akai & Hobby Talks Podcast was a great experience being able to talk to a cool friend about a lot of interesting pen spinning topics and to work on a project together. It tested my ability to communicate and work with someone else closely, as well as dive into more of a content-creation direction.

YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLluZG_USCKTCYH-mZr42GtMJKoPTLP-i7

Writing pen spinning articles was a very time-consuming but rewarding thing to do during COVID. It really helped me vocalize certain ideas I had about pen spinning and it was satisfying to finish writing and see people start to think more deeply about the hobby. Even though I try to influence people’s thoughts with my ideas, my ultimate goal has always been about sparking an interest in dissecting pen spinning and critical thinking.

Blogs:

https://hobbylogics.tumblr.com/ https://hobbyhobbithole.tumblr.com/

Filming and editing pen spinning videos was something I did for a long time before 2021, but I still learned quite a bit. I noticed small things when filming my own pen spinning that allowed me to be more comfortable and perform better on camera. I learned how joining a CV influenced the combos and videos I filmed. I also learned a lot making that “Situational Execution” video.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/HobbyLogics/videos

The Workshop Discord server is by far my most ambitious and successful pen spinning project I have ever started. I was able to get a staff team together that, at this point, pretty much run the server without the need for me to intervene. This project really tested my ability to delegate work and manage people in a way I’ve never done before.

The Workshop Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/7F4BjWD

Twitter really gave me an opportunity to share a lot of my projects, but also expose myself to what other people think and create in the community too. It made me think a lot more about the timing of posts, and a general idea of what content-creators might feel about PR and marketing themselves online. 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HobbyLogics

But I realized how mentally draining it was.

For me, pen spinning is an emotional hobby. It can lean towards obsession but even relaxation, from the intense motivation to work on projects all the way to just relaxing at a desk and fidgeting with a mod.  

The projects and pen spinning I was doing were fueled by a huge desire to succeed, to satisfy others and myself. It’s inevitable for it to always be consistent, so it becomes an emotional rollercoaster of recognition, affirmation, frustration, and doubt.

And so, it seems I still need to find some sort of balance there. Kind of re-evaluate what it is I find fun about pen spinning again, and most importantly, find time for it.

(When) will I be back?

Hard to say.

The ridiculous amount of time I spent in the pen spinning community the past two years was because of two main reasons: I stopped working and COVID happened.

And whenever I stop pen spinning, I usually find something else to fill in. This time, it’s a little MMO called Final Fantasy XIV. Been getting into raiding and chatting with people, been real fun. So, that’s been taking up the majority of my time.

The other thing is that I’m back in school, basically more life stuff coming into play again. So, that might prevent me from coming back to the community anytime in the near future.

I still spin casually though, I just don’t practice much or film like I used to.

As for The Workshop, you guys have been basically running the community on your own. And as far as I’m concerned, I trust Padrace and the rest of the staff team. I think you’re in good hands, likely better hands than mine.

Final Words

I learned a lot from these experiences here, and I’m glad that people enjoyed the projects I worked on.

I can’t say when I’ll be around next, but those who know me, you probably know how to reach me. 

If you aren’t as well acquainted with me personally, I still very much appreciate the fact that you’ve read this and I hope you continue to have fun with pen spinning!

Take care, and see you soon?

Hobby

[concierge-bell]

i’m just gonna. dump my rymin fic ideas here that i’ve started writing but haven’t finished because i have 0 motivation

FIRST ONE:

coming out. so like. min-gi is panicking and suddenly blurts out “i think i might be gay” and ryan’s like “oh. ok”

min’s just “oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck” while ryan tries to comfort him because the INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA IS STRONG. eventually min is calming down and ryan says “yeah uh. i’m bi so like. it’s fine dude” and they talk about it. asking stuff like “how long have you known” and all that jazz. eventually min sighs and keeps asking “but are you sure you’re ok with me??” and you know the drill if you’ve ever read a rymin angst fic. hurt/comfort at its finest

SECOND:

ok this one is just really self indulgent because i love love love nd ryan and every time he stims i cry /pos

min-gi reflecting on ryan’s stims. how he always moves his hands, how he jumps up and down, how he acts when he gets super excited. then him thinking about how passionate ryan gets when talking about music and guitar, how he can talk for hours about it and never get bored. min just sits there in awe as he rambles on and on, until they get tired and fall asleep.

but min also thinks about how sometimes ryan just gets too overwhelmed with stuff (i saw an amazing thread on twitter about ryan during the last few episodes of b4 and i cant stop thinking about it skfghh). sometimes he gets unusually quiet and at one point he will crack and break down. min gets worried for him. it isn’t often this happens, but it does happen every once and a while. especially when they were younger, with school being kinda hard for ryan (and this is where i start projecting uh oh). it isn’t that he gets horrible grades, it’s just. hard. he yearns to get out of the classroom and sometimes tries to skip school. the only times he didn’t feel miserable were when he was with min n stuff

THIRD:

ok ok this one is such a drastic change from the last kinda angsty one. uh it’s just min-gi waking up and ryan is directly on top of him and he just kinda. lies there. honestly kinda uncomfortable but ryan is sound asleep and he doesn’t want to wake him. i think they’re in that phase where they aren’t dating,,but they’re definitely dating, yknow?

AND FINALLY*:

haha back to the angst. yknow how i was saying ryan had a tough time in school? WELL. this idea is just a huge vent honestly. i’ve already written something a lot like this for a different comfort character, but guess who went through a ’holy shit i hate school so much i am in pain’ phase again?? so of course i had to project on ryan.

this takes place the week between the battle of the bands and graduation. there’s one last test, and ryan isn’t able to focus on studying. his thoughts keep drifting to min. maybe he could call him? oh, wait. yeah, nvm. he’s just sad. and very confused. min would always help ryan in their classes, but within 24 hours, everything has changed. and it’s painful.

idk where this would fit in the story, but i also imagine that after min-gi bailing on the battle of the bands, ryan goes through one of these break downs. he just can’t handle all those emotions.

*edit: I wrote this one!!! it's on ao3 now!

ok those are all my ideas. like i’ve said, i’ve started writing them, but damn. i have no motivation to finish anything. if you wanna use these ideas, be my guest!

also!! i’m so sorry if none of this makes sense. i’m just rambling and info dumping, and i have a hard time organizing my thoughts. lmk if you want more info skdfgh

[maximelebled]

2019 & 2020

Hello everyone! So yeah, this yearly blog post is about three... four months late... it covers two years now.

I did have a lot of things written last year, last time, but the more things have changed, the more I’ve realized that a lot of things I talked about on here... were because I lacked enough of a social life to want to open up on here.

In a less awkwardly-phrased way, what I’m saying is, I was coping.

Not an easy thing to admit to in public by any means, but I reckon it’s the truth. Over the past two years, I’ve made more of an effort to build better & healthier friendships, dial back my social media usage a bit (number 1 coping strategy), not tie all my friendships to games I play, especially Dota (number 2 coping strategy), so that I could be more emotionally healthy overall. 

Pictured: me looking a whole lot like @dril on the outside, although not so much on the inside. (Photo by my lovely partner.)

To some degree, I believe it’s important to be able to talk about yourself a bit more openly in a way that is generally not encouraged nor made easy on other social networks (looking at you, Twitter). I know that 2010-me would be scared to approach 2020-me; and it’s my hope that what I am writing here would not help him with that, but also help him become less of an insecure dweeb faster. 😉

Not that recent accomplishments have stopped me from being any less professionally anxious. Sometimes the impostor syndrome just morphs into... something else.

Anyway, what I’m getting at is, the first reason it took me until this year to finish last year’s post is because, with my shift in perspective, and these realizations about myself, I do want to keep a lot more things private... or rather, it’s that I don’t feel the need to share them anymore? And that made figuring out what to write a fair bit harder.

The other reason I didn’t write sooner is because, in 2018, I wrote my "year in review” post right before I became able to talk about my then-latest cool thing (my work on Valve’s 2018 True Sight documentary). So I then knew I’d have to bring it up in the 2019 post. But then, I was asked to work on the 2019 True Sight documentary, and I know it was going to air in late January 2020, so I was like, “okay, well, whatever, it, I’ll just write this yearly recap after that, so I don’t miss the coach this time”. So I just ended up delaying it again until I was like... “okay, whatever, I’ll just do both 2019 and 2020 in a single post.”

I think I can say I’ve had the privilege of a pretty good 2019, all things considered. And also of a decent 2020, given the circumstances. Overall, 2019 was a year of professional fulfillment; here’s a photo taken of me while I was managing the augmented reality system at The International 2019! (The $35 million dollar Dota 2 tournament that was held, this that year, in Shanghai.)

If I’d shown this to myself 10 years ago it would’ve blown my mind, so I guess things aren’t all that bad...!

I’ve brought up two health topics in these posts before: weight & sleep.

As for the first, the situation is still stable. If it is improving, it is doing so at a snail’s pace. But quite frankly, I haven’t put in enough effort into it overall. Even though I know my diet is way better than it was five or six years ago, I’ve only just really caught up with the “how it should have been the entire time” stage. It is a milestone... but not necessarily an impressive one. Learning to cook better things for myself has been very rewarding and fulfilling, though. It’s definitely what I’d recommend if you need to find a place to start.

As for sleep, throughout 2019, I continued living 25-hour days for the most part. There were a few weeks during which I slowed down the process, but it continued on going. Then, in late December of 2019, motivated by the knowledge that sleep is such a foundational pillar of your health, I figured I really needed to take things seriously, and I managed to go on a three month streak of mostly-stable sleep! (See the data above.)

Part of what helped was willingly stopping to use my desktop computer once it got too late in the day, avoiding Dota at the end of the day as much as possible, and anything exciting for that matter... and, as much as that sounds like the worst possible stereotype, trying to “listen to my body” and recognizing when I was letting stress and anxiety build up inside me, and taking a break or trying to relax.

Also, a pill of melatonin before going to bed; but even though it’s allegedly not a problem to take melatonin, I figured I should try to rely on it as little as possible.

Unfortunately, that “good sleep” streak was abruptly stopped by a flu-like illness... it might have been Covid-19. The symptoms somewhat matched up, but I was lucky: they were very mild. I fully recovered in just over a week. I coughed a bit, but not that much. If it really was that disease, then I got very lucky.

(Pictured: another photo by my lovely SO, somewhere in Auvergne.)

My sleep continued to drift back to its 25-hour rhythm, and I only started resuming these efforts towards the fall... mostly because living during the night felt like a better option with the summer heat (no AC here). I thought about doing that the other way (getting up at 3am instead of going to bed at 7am), and while it’d make more sense temperature-wise, that would have kept me awake when there were practically no people online, and I was trying to have a better social life then, even if had to be purely online due to the coronavirus, so... yeah.

I’ve been working from home since 2012! I also lived alone for a number of years since then. For the most part, it hasn’t been a great thing for my mental health. Having had a taste of what being in an office was like thanks to a couple weeks in the Valve offices, I had the goal of beginning to apply at a few places here and there in March/April. Then the pandemic hit, so those plans are dead in the water. I wanted 2020 to be the year in which I’d finally stop being fully remote, but those plans are now dead in the water.

Now, at the end of the year, I don’t really know if I want to apply at any places. There’s a small handful of studios whose work really resonates with me, creatively speaking, and whose working conditions seem to be alright, at least from what I hear... but, and I swear I’m saying this in the least braggy way possible... there’s very little that beats having been able to work on what I want, when I want, and how much I want.

This kind of freelance status can be pretty terrifying sometimes, but I’ve managed (with some luck, of course) to reach a safe balance, a point at which I’ve effectively got this luxury of being able to only really work on what I want, and never truly overwork myself (at least by the standards of most of the gaming industry). It’s a big privilege and I feel like it’d take a lot to give it up.

Besides the things I mentioned before, one thing I did that drastically improved my mental health was being introduced to a new lovely group of friends by my partner! I started playing Dungeons & Dragons with them, every weekend or so! And in the spirit of a rising tide lifting all boats, I managed to also give back to our lovely DM, by being a sort of “AM” (audio manager)... It’s been great having something to look forward to every week.

Something to look forward to... I’ve heard about the concept of “temporal anchors”. I had heard about how the reason our adult years suddenly pass by in a blur is because we now have more “time” that’s already in our brains, but now I’m more convinced that it’s because we’re going from a very school routine such as the one schools impose upon us, to, well... practically nothing.

I thought most of my years since 2011 have been a blur, but none have whooshed by like 2020 has, and I reckon part of that is because I’ve (obviously) gone out far far less, and most importantly there wasn’t The Big Summer Event That The International Is, the biggest yearly “temporal anchor” at my disposal. The anticipation and release of those energies made summer feel a fair bit longer... and this year, summer was very much a blur for me. In and out like the wind.

I guess besides that, I haven’t really had that much trouble with being locked down. I had years of training for that, after all. Doesn’t feel like I can complain. 😛

(Pictured: trip to Chicago in January of 2019... right when the polar vortex hit!)

Work was good in 2019, and sparser in 2020. Working with Valve again after the 2018 True Sight was a very exciting opportunity. At the time, in February of 2019, I was out with my partner on little holiday trips around my region, and, after night fell, on the way back, we decided to stop in a wide open field, on a tiny countryside path, away from the cities, to try and do some star-gazing, without light pollution getting in the way.

And it’s there and then that I received their message, while looking at the stars with my SO! The timing and location turned that into a very vivid memory...

I then got to spend a couple weeks in their offices in late April / early May. I was able to bring my partner along with me to Washington State, and we did some sightseeing on the weekends.

(Pictured: part of a weekend trip in Washington. This was a dried up lakebed.)

After that, I worked on the Void Spirit trailer in the lead to The International. In August, those couple weeks in Shanghai were intense. Having peeked behind the curtain and seen everything that goes into production really does give me a much deeper appreciation for all the work that goes unseen. 

Then after that, in late 2019, there was my work on the yearly True Sight documentary, for the second time. In 2018, I’d been tasked with making just two animated sequences, and I was very nervous since that was my first time working directly with Valve; my work then was fairly “sober”, for lack of a better term.

(Pictured: view from my hotel room in Shanghai.)

For the 2019 edition, I had double the amount of sequences on my plate, and they were very trusting of me, which was very reassuring. I got to be more technically ambitious, I let my style shine through (you know... if it’s got all these gratuitous light beams, etc.), and it was real fun to work on.

At the premiere in Berlin, I was sitting in the middle of the room (in fact, you could spot me in the pre-show broadcast behind SirActionSlacks; unfortunately I had forgotten to bring textures for my shirt). Being in that spot when my shots started playing, and hearing people laughing and cheering at them... that’s an unforgettable memory. The last time I had experienced something like that was having my first Dota short film played at KeyArena in 2015, the laughter of the crowd echoing all around me... I was shaking in my seat. Just remembering it gets my heart pumping, man. It’s a really unique feeling.

So I’m pretty happy with how that work came out. I came out of it having learned quite a few new tricks too, born out of necessity from my technical ambitions. Stuff I intend to put to use again. I’m really glad that the team I worked with at Valve was so kind and great to work with. After the premiere, I received a few more compliments from them... and I did reply, “careful! You might give me enough confidence to apply!”, to which one of them replied, “you totally should, man.” But I still haven’t because I’m a massive idiot, haha. Well, I still haven’t because I don’t think I’m well-rounded enough yet. And also because, like I alluded to before, I think I’m in a pretty good situation as it is.

It’s not the first encouragements I had received from them, too; there had been a couple people from the Dota team who, at the end of my two week stay in the offices, while I was on my way out, told me I should try applying. But again, I didn’t apply because I’m a massive idiot.

(Pictured: view from the Valve offices.)

To be 200% frank, even though there’s been quite a few people who’ve followed my work throughout the years, comments on Reddit and YouTube, etc. who’ve all said things along the lines of “why aren’t you working for them ?”, well... it’s not something I ever really pursued. I know it’s a lot of people’s dream job, but I never saw it that way. I feel like, if it ever happened to me... sure, that could be cool! But I don’t know if it’s something I really want, or even that I should want?

And if you add “being unsure” to what I consider to be a lack of experience in certain things, well... I really don’t think I’d be a good candidate (yet?), and having seen how busy these people are on the inside, the last thing I want to do is waste their time with a bad application. That would be the most basic form of courtesy I can show to them.

Besides, Covid-19 makes applying to just about any job very hard, if not outright impossible right now. And for a while longer, I suspect.

(Pictured: the Tuilière & Sanadoire rocks.)

I’m still unhappy about the amount of “actual animation” I get to do overall since I like to work on just about every step of the process in my videos, but well. It’s getting better. One thing I am happy with though, is “solving problems”. And new challenges. Seeking the answers to them, and making myself be able to see those problems, alongside entire projects, from a more “holistic” way, that is to say, not missing the forest for the trees.

It’s hard to explain, and even just the use of the term “holistic” sounds like some kind of pompous cop-out... but looking back on how I handled projects 5 years ago vs. now, I see the differences in how I think about problems a lot. And to some extent I do have my time on Valve contracts to thank a LOT in helping me progress there.

Anyway, I’m currently working on a project that I’m very interested & creativefuly fulfilled by. But it has nothing to do with animation nor Dota, for a change! There are definitely at least two other Dota short films I want to make, though. We’ll see how that goes.

Happy new year & take care y’all.

[aquabreezeproductions]

Twoleg of Thunderclan II: Chapter 6: Author's Note

It has been over ten years (eleven, to be exact) since I updated this story. I can't believe it's been that long. I started writing The Twoleg of ThunderClan in 2006 after my friend Julia (who goes by Bramblebelly on fanfiction.net) introduced me to the concept of fanfiction. We were both huge fans of the Warriors Series at the time, so after talking with her, I typed up the first chapter (version 1 of at least 4) in an afternoon on an old Dell laptop. 

I was surprised and flattered by the response it got, and continue to be to this day. I mean... you guys know I wrote the bulk of the story when I was in middle school, right?! My writing has improved SO MUCH since then. And I look back on some of the decisions I made and I cringe. A pregnancy twist? Not to mention Smudge being unneutered?! What was I on?! (If I remember correctly, I was taking Ritalin at the time, so... that’s probably it.) But regardless, you loved it and still do. And so I think you deserve an explanation of where I’ve been and what the delay with updates is about.

If it wasn’t entirely obvious, a lot of the decisions I made were spur of the moment, especially before the sequel got going. I wrote Chapter 2 on my friend’s computer in one afternoon with her looking on and helping me out. That friend, Becky, goes by Yellowfur on fanfiction.net and ended up writing more fanfics than I’ve ever even imagined. She’s since written at least one play that was actually performed in real life. Isn’t that awesome? (Sure, I’m a bit jealous, but still.) Another chapter I wrote while visiting my friend Raye in Vermont, in between visiting the Ben & Jerry’s factory, of course. These writing sessions were fun at the time and have a lot of great memories attached to them, not to mention they were great ways to spend an afternoon/evening and channel my creativity, but in hindsight, they didn’t always produce the best work I’ve ever done.

But, things started to change. I got way into Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the Warriors series got left behind. I still updated The Twoleg of Thunderclan when I could because it had a following, but I wasn’t as passionate about it, and so it was updated less and less frequently. I’ve also become a bit of a perfectionist. It’s SO important to me for something I write to be as perfect as it possibly could be, so it’s probably part of the lack of updates, too.

As time went on. my attention drifted to Avatar fanfics, then to other Avatar-related things, and then farther and farther away from The Twoleg of Thunderclan. Fandoms like Law & Order: SVU, and recently Ace Attorney, the X-Files and Yuri on Ice. I started playing video games to a point where I became addicted. (I still struggle with spending too much time playing games. but it’s not where it once was.) I graduated high school, got depressed, took a gap year, traveled, then went to college and got a dog. Then I left college, went back, basically failed out and got a campaign internship, got fired from said internship, then took years to work on myself before getting a food service job that went from the start of last year until coronavirus put me on indefinite furlough in March. Miranda’s story would return to my mind from time to time, but I could never sit down and do anything more than rewrite the first chapter for the upteenth time.

In June 2006, when the first chapter hit fanfiction.net, I was only 12. I’m now 26. A few years ago, the story had its tenth anniversary- its fifteenth anniversary is next year, as a matter of fact. But now that I’m older, I think I appreciate more fully the love that The Twoleg of Thunderclan continues to get. (Do I have a fanbase or something? idk probably not.) Even the (somewhat well-deserved) hate that it gets is motivating. And I think it’s time that this fanfic gets a finished story.

I know I’m not the only writer that’s left a story to rot, and I’m not shaming anyone who has. I understand perfectly why writers do that. But over the years, I’ve felt immense guilt for not continuing the story. Sure, I’ve known what the rest of Miranda’s journey would be like, since it’s in my head. But the rest of you have only been able to guess, and that’s not fair to you guys. You deserve better.

The writing bug has finally come back to me recently- the coronavirus has left me time to think, of course, but I’ve found myself with a group of friends playing Final Fantasy XIV almost daily. One of our group is an audio YouTuber, and I’ve started to think about writing scripts for him, so keep an eye out for that (if you’re 18 or over.)

Now, I’ll do my best to update timely, and try to give you the best estimates I can. But I can’t promise I won’t fall victim to perfectionism, or depression, or real life and the stresses it entails. I’m only human, you know. But I promised myself I would finish and post Chapter 6 as soon as I could, and here I am. Here it is, after eleven years.

A quick note about the future: I’m going to be re-writing the chapters that have already been posted. The first Twoleg of Thunderclan will probably end up with more chapters, and certain plot points will be edited out or changed. (I may get rid of Mistpaw and the kits altogether.) I’m going to try to be more descriptive with the earlier chapters, and make sure everyone’s in character. I’ve also been working hard on developing Miranda’s character, and I’ll continue to do that. I never saw her as a self-insert, and I’ve been making as sure as I possibly can that she stays as far away from Mary Sue status as possible.

The definitive version of the first story will be posted on my Archive of Our Own account, so if you’d like to read only the rewritten/finished chapters, in order, that’s where they’ll be posted. I figure that’s a better way of telling you guys that there’s a rewritten chapter than just posting it over the old version on ff.net and hoping you guys notice.

And yes, the second story will be finished. And there might be plans for a third story, but that’s little more than some brief ideas right now. I’m also leaning towards ending TTOT after the second story- but a nice, complete, proper ending that it deserves, and that you all deserve. I’ll be able to give you guys more information on that when we get closer to the end of this story.

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for! Go read Chapter 6 on ff.net here, and on AO3 (when it makes it over there along with the rewrites)! If you guys have any questions/comments that don’t fit into reviews on FF.Net/AO3, feel free to shoot me an ask on this blog or my personal blog, aquabreeze, or contact me on Twitter at @zmcadler I hope you all like the new chapter, and thank you so much for continuing to support my writing.

[notyourmotherscopingmechanisms]

Water Bottles, Getting Rid of Stuff, and Social Media Goodbyes.

Hi, all.

This is it! Welcome to the first post on this experimental foray into talking about my brain, intentionally, and with a purpose in mind.

The post that led you here (from facebook, instagram, or twitter, if I got my shit together) mentioned that this post would be about the first few things I’ve done since the New Year to try and wrangle my life back into some sense of order, so I’m just gonna jump right into that. 

1) I bought a planner.

A real, actual physical paper, honest-to-god planner. 

This in and of itself is not much of a shock. I’ve bought a lot of planners in my lifetime, always excited to finally be one of those women—capable, powerful, every moment of their day accounted for in perfect handwriting—and reader, I am absolutely garbage at using them. 

So I bought another one. Makes sense, right?

I’ll tell you why: I think I finally figured out why I’m bad at using them. 

Every planner I’ve bought in the past has been one or both of these things: a month/week/day view, or an electronic planner (for my iPad.) These...did not work. The use cycle would usually go something like this: Overjoyed with my new beautiful book, I would spend an hour or two dutifully filling out the “month” views with absolutely everything I knew about at the time, and then I’d manage to use it for about a week before I realized I’d been forgetting to write in the “week” portion of the planner. This immediately triggers the guilt—I failed, I wasted part of such a nice book, what was the point, why did I even start....you get the idea. Of course, this is all ridiculous. The book never changed...but now it makes me sad to look at, and angry at myself every time I remember it. I can’t stand to use it anymore, because every time I pick it up, it’s a reminder that, according to me, I suck. So I put it away, and vow to never again buy a planner, or to do better next time. (I wouldn't.) 

Then, I read a post a few months ago that my dad sent me (I’ll have to look up the link later and edit this post to add it) that boiled down to something along the lines of “stop trying to do your tasks the way “normal” people do their tasks.” If you have a hard time getting your laundry sorted out because the hamper’s hard to get to, take the lid off the hamper. If making a sandwich is too much work, just eat the parts, no sandwich required. Shit like that. I sat with myself for a few weeks and said to myself, brain, how can I remove obstacles that don’t even seem like obstacles in order to make things less hard?

And then I learned the secret. 

Did you know they make planners that are ONLY a month view?

There’s another secret to this process, by the way—but it applies to a lot more than just planners. Through a bit of soul searching (and by a bit, I mean a lot of grumbling about what a materialistic, vain, optics-centered magpie I am at heart) I figured out that I’m at least 80% more likely to successfully use something if it’s pretty. If I love the way it looks, I am excited to be around it. I am delighted to use it. I am sad when it isn’t nearby. So, the month-view-only planner I bought is also covered in small flowers and made from beautiful low-tooth paper that feels good to write on. I also downloaded many, many, many beautiful habit trackers, goal planning pages, and other freebies from bloomplanners.com (they made my work calendar.) Highly recommend. 

2) I bought a water bottle.

I am probably the most dehydrated person you know personally at basically all times. I’ve literally gone to the ER with medical issues that, while genuine, were all exacerbated by massive dehydration. It’s not just that I hate the taste of water (even though I do) but also that I just...straight up do not remember to drink. Ever. And when I do remember to drink, I never remember how much I’ve had, what���s left to go, any of that crap. 

“But they make apps to remind you!” 

“You can log every time you drink!”

YES, CORRECT, but also may I remind you of the above “remove obstacles from my brain” epiphany from three paragraphs ago: if there’s more than two steps (realistically, more than ONE step) to getting from “I drank water” to “I drank this much water, and now have this much left to go to not die” 

I won’t do it. 

So, I bought myself one of these bad boys. #notanad 

The Hidrate Spark is a “smart” bottle that connects to my iPhone and my AppleWatch. Its connected app will remind me through the watch, as well as via pretty glowing lights on the bottle itself, numerous times a day that I need to drink. When I drink out of the bottle, a sensor will record how much I drank, and immediately log that info into my Health App on my phone. The app automatically uses the humidity and temperature at your location, your weight, your height, and real-time activity data from your watch or phone to update how much your water goal is in realtime. 

Notice how nowhere in that description in there is there anything I have to do to track my intake and hit my goal besides fill out my info in the app once, fill up the bottle, and drink out of it? Yeah, me too.

I’ve avoided buying this bottle for over a year, because it’s a $60 water bottle, and I have twenty water bottles already, and it’s “techie” and “unnecessary” and “silly” and “excessive” and all those other things people say about smart tech, but goddamnit, and ER bill costs more than $60 and I’ve been there four fucking times for this problem. I talked to my fitness director (I work for a YMCA, so, health and fitness woo) a couple friends, and my doctor about it, and everyone agreed it was a good decision, so I did it. I can’t say if it’ll work or not yet because I don’t HAVE it yet, but I promise to keep everyone apprised. 

Also, it’s pretty. 

3) I deleted an ass ton of people off my social media. 

I’ve never cared much about my numbers when it comes to social media, I’m not in it for those, but I have the same problem with my friends lists as I do with my real life: I add without thought and then people I never talk to, never see, never will see, and don’t have an effect on my life...take up space. I’m very happy for all of them, and I hope they have wonderful lives, but I don't need all of them front and center at all times. Plus, after the year I had last year, a lot of people needed to be let go from my life for my sanity and theirs. 

So, on January 2nd, I deleted 160 people from my Facebook friends list, and blocked 7. I thought it would stress me out more—I’m not about the numbers, but I always worry someone will take offense, or be upset. But once I did it, I felt literally, physically, lighter. It hasn’t had any measurable impact yet besides that initial weight-is-lifted feeling, but I know it’s a step in the right direction for my eventual journey towards weaning off a lot of social media platforms. (Did you know facebook is the actual face of evil in the internet age, and we’re all trapped beyond belief?)

4) I cleaned, or cleaned out, everything (and I mean everything) in my house.

This is the biggie! This is it! The goodwill pile is literally taking up every inch of available space in my car! 

(This is also one of those “Ooh, it’s embarrassing, I can’t talk about it” moments I mentioned in the original post. Whelp, here I am, talking about it! Cower in fear! Hide in your homes! Real Talk is coming!)

The Marie Kondo bug that bit all of us last year got me in tandem with a few months of violent living situation upheaval. As a result, I tried to go through my belongings with every moving day I went through, and use those hell experiences as motivation to just. Get. Rid. Of. My. Shit. I’d already started on this task a few years ago, but it’s difficult to describe how much....stuff I’d managed to collect in 18-19 years. It doesn’t take much past the first time you and one friend, or just you, have to move everything you own in a single day to go “oh my god I am never doing that again.” But, I know I’ll have to move again, and even if I didn’t...my stuff was stressing me out. The obvious solution was, and is, “have less stuff.” 

I go through my wardrobe once a month now and try to get rid of at least three things. If you’ve known me since high school or just after, you might remember the absolutely astonishing size of my wardrobe. I mean, truly ridiculous. I achieved my goal early last summer of “all my clothing must fit inside a single closet” and began extending that to the rest of my life with a general rule of replacing the thought “I need more storage” with the thought “I need less stuff.” Obviously, there are some things that really do need better or different storage, and I’m recognizing that, but I can’t actually describe how much better I feel with...literally probably 70% less stuff than I used to own. 

This is an ongoing process in every part of my life, and with the habits I’ve learned and the very particular anxieties that I have (I can’t get rid of this, I might need it one day/that person was so nice to give it to me/someone might get angry if I goodwill it) continuing towards a minimalist outlook will be a path I am on for literally the rest of my life. But it’s a good path—a worthy one—and I’m so absurdly relieved that I’m finally walking on it, regardless of how many stumbles, stops, and starts there might be. 

The bonus part of having less stuff is that it’s suddenly way easier to clean your house; which is what I spent all of Saturday and part of Sunday (today) doing. My combined to-do lists* numbered around 72 items, all-told, and I accomplished almost all of them—everything from sweeping/mopping/vaccuming to moving all the appliances in my kitchen out of their spots and cleaning the sides of them. All the laundry got did. All the shelves got dusted. The tub got scrubbed. The fridge got cleared out. My closet got organized. Even my bed got a facelift in the form of a new duvet cover and some swanky king size pillows. We. Cleaned. Everything. 

And damn does it feel good to have a clean space. It’s so. Much. Easier.  To keep tidied up when I’m annoyed at myself for ruining the room with clutter, or setting something down and not putting it away.* When you have less stuff, everything suddenly has a place...and when it all starts out in that place, it’s way easier to put it back and keep that momentum going.

*/**There is a flip side of this feeling, which is my anxiety this summer beginning to express itself as certain tendencies towards OCD behaviors, but I won’t go into that here. It’ll come up soon enough, but it will need to be another post about that topic specifically and what I did/am doing to work through it. Another post will be about my “listing” and how it works/doesn’t work for me, because these are tandem issues.

I’m sure there’s more than these, but I’m going to stop here.

Mostly because one of my other goals for 2020 is to do better at setting, and sticking to, a routine. (Hey, another post!) That routine involves me being in bed by 11:30PM every day, and awake by 9:30...and it’s 10:44. So for now, goodnight, and I hope this didn’t bore anyone to absolute tears. Even if it did...that’s okay, because this is as much for me as it is for anyone else. 

See ya!

[rpoli3]

Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

I publish under multiple names in fiction and non-fiction, and am an internationally-produced playwright and radio writer. I spent the bulk of my career working backstage on Broadway, and a little bit in film and television production.

How long have you been writing for?

I started writing when I was six; I was published in school literary magazines, and, in high school, published in local papers when I handled publicity for the music department.  I started working professionally in theatre when I was 18. In college, my major was film and television production, and I veered away from the writing and more into technical aspects. Working off-Broadway, I started writing monologues for actresses looking for good material; that grew into plays, and then back into short stories and novels. So I’ve been writing for A Very Long Time.

What motivates you to write? How did you begin writing?

Writing is how I make sense of the world. How I explore other lives from the inside and the outside.

Do you have a writing routine? If so, what’s a typical day like for you?

I do my first 1K of the day on what I call my  “Primary Project” (whatever’s being drafted) early in the day. Feed the cats, do my yoga/meditation practice, write my first 1K of the day.

The rest of the day shapes up depending on if I’m doing only my own work, or a mix of my own work and client work and other freelance writing gigs. It’s shaped by what’s on the tightest deadline and the highest paycheck. I prefer to write in the morning and edit in the afternoons. Since I’m always juggling multiple projects, there are usually a handful of projects in various draft stages, and then some more in editing or galleys.  Scriptwriting usually requires a much tighter turnaround than books, so when those jobs come in, they take priority. Sometimes, I just have to stay up later or get up earlier to get it all done.

What was the first thing you did when you found out your book was being published?

Cried. Tears of joy, but I cried.

What was the publishing process like? How long did it take?

Months, of course. For me, there’s generally been one major edit from the editor’s initial notes and discussion, and then one to two more rounds of edits with the editor, with a tighter turnaround. Then, the copyeditor is brought in, and we have those edits and galleys. When I have unusual people names or place names or phrases in other languages, I submit that with the draft that goes to the editor and the copyeditor, so they can help me stay consistent.

For the series I write, keeping the Series Bibles updated is vital, too. As soon as a book is out of final galleys and headed for release, I update the Series Bible. I use tracking sheets for details that may change within drafts, but once it’s finalized, I update the Series Bible. That way, an inconsistency is a plot or character choice, not a mistake.

Are you currently working on anything new?

Always! The radio plays are getting a lot of traction right now, and I have four stage plays to finish this year: one on the painter Canaletto’s sisters; one on the gun violence epidemic; a collection of monologues called WOMEN WITH AN EDGE RESIST that’s a follow-up to one of my most popular plays, WOMEN WITH AN EDGE; and a play about two famous women authors. Plus, I have to keep up with the series I’m writing — The Gwen Finnegan Mysteries, The Coventina Circle Paranormal Romantic Suspense Series, the lighter Nautical Namaste Mysteries, and a few one-offs. Plus client work. So I’m always, always working on something new. This is my passion, but it is also my business, not my hobby. It’s how I keep a roof over my head.

If you weren’t a writer, what would your career be?

Still working on Broadway, as a dresser. Or, if I hadn’t gone down the theatre/writing path at all, probably an archaeologist.

What’s one thing you learned through writing that you wish you knew before you started?

Don’t let others define you. Define yourself. And realize that your life and your career are always a work in process.

What is your favorite book, genre, or author?

I don’t have just one of any of them! My favorite, favorite book, the one I’d need on a desert island, is THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE. I never get tired of Shakespeare. I also love POSSESSION, by AS Byatt.  Genre would probably be mystery. I find it often the most satisfying, although, as a writer, I like to mix it with other elements of other genres. Author? I don’t have a single favorite. Again, I always go back to Shakespeare. But it was Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe who were the big inspirations for me to write. And Mildred Wirt Benson, the original writer of the Nancy Drew books as “Carolyn Keene.” She did another series, under her own name, with a heroine named Penny Parker. Penny is such a brat, but she’s hilarious.

I collect juvenile series mysteries from the early twentieth century: Beverly Gray, Vicki Barr, Judy Bolton, all of those. The racism in them is shocking, but it’s also a good snapshot of what was considered “normal” at the time and why we should know better now (but far too often don’t). You get a heroine like Ruth Fielding, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century heroine, who did all these great, adventurous things solving her mysteries, and then went on to a career writing in Hollywood, in a happy marriage. A lot of these heroines showed girls that there was more than one definition of “good” — and that it wasn’t a terrible thing to be smart, and show it.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Put your butt in the chair every day and do the work. Books don’t write themselves. Plan time off as you want/need it. Don’t let the writing slide. And don’t blow first rights posting material from your drafts online or on social media if you want to sell the polished/finished work. There’s a world of difference between throwing out a rough draft and sharing an excerpt of a piece that’s contracted.

Is there anything else you would like to share?

Find your tribe. Find other writers you like to hang out with and talk to. Read each other’s work. Support each other. Every time one succeeds, it helps everybody. Jealousy and envy are a waste of energy. Learn the craft — craft is as important as art. Do the work, build the community, and you’ll start to see results.

About Devon Ellington

Devon Ellington publishes under half a dozen names in fiction and non-fiction and is an internationally-produced playwright and radio writer. She has eight novels published, several novellas, dozens of short stories, and hundreds of articles. She worked backstage on Broadway and in film and television production for years and teaches both online and in-person. Her main website, http://www.devonellingtonwork.com, will lead you to the websites for the different series, and her blog on the writing life, Ink in My Coffee, is at https://devonellington.wordpress.com

Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram | Ello | Triberr

Buy Devon’s Books

The Coventina Circle Paranormal Romantic Suspense Series: Playing the Angles | The Spirit Repository | Relics & Requiem

The Gwen Finnegan Paranormal Archaeological Mysteries: Tracking Medusa | Myth & Interpretation

The Nautical Namaste Not-Quite-Cozy Mysteries (As Ava Dunne): Savasana at Sea

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Meet Devon Ellington [Author Interview] Please tell us a little bit about yourself. I publish under multiple names in fiction and non-fiction, and am an internationally-produced playwright and radio writer.

[elizas-writing]

Thirteen Reasons Why is Torture Porn; Using Graphic Violence to Make a Point

CW/TW: Mentions of suicide, rape/sexual violence, physical assault, and everything the Thirteen Reasons Why crew were told NOT to do by mental health experts

If you are in a crisis, don’t let a poorly written TV show tell you what to do; call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or the Suicide Crisis Line at 1-800-784-2433. Surround yourself with people who will support you without judgement and are willing to take the extra step to understand. If you’re struggling to find regular mental health resources, check out here for more options. You still have a life ahead even if it takes some trial and error to figure out what the hell to do.

So Netflix released the second season of Thirteen Reasons Why, and, what a shock, people hate it for upping the graphic violence and rape. I have no plans to watch it myself after reading through all the triggers, but suffice it to say that so little was learned from the first season. Plus, I’d rather not subject myself to that much distress for a TV show I knew there was no point in continuing after the first season. Everyone’s accounts across Twitter and Tumblr of the new season seem to match up, so I’m going off of that for this piece.

If you haven’t seen my review of the first season (with and without spoilers), I found that it definitely went too far to make a point and had really confusing characterizations, but there were select scenes, when they were done right, were kinda worth the wait-- keyword being “kinda.” There was a germ of an idea begging for good writing, but got sucked into shock value for the sake of shock value. And the second season offers no promises to improve.

Of the multiple graphic scenes of this season, the one which sparked the most outrage was the final episode “Bye” as Tyler (a serial stalker) is brutalized and raped by his male classmates. As a result of being pushed too far, he brings practically a whole arsenal of guns to shoot up the school during a dance, but Clay peacefully disarms him before he can go through with it.

So apparently the creators saw the criticism of season one and thought, “So, you want to see more graphic violence, rape, and terribly confusing characterization?”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, creator and showrunner, Brian Yorkey, wanted to explore more of Tyler’s psyche and “how a troubled man might be driven to consider this very difficult choice” after the bullying and ostracization he experienced in the first season. While I’d never wish rape on anyone, even fictional people--and a bunch of characters who mistreated him are total hypocrites--, Tyler is still beyond redemption for never understanding how his behavior destroyed Hannah’s sense of safety. The show puts him through that much brutalization to force audiences to feel sympathetic towards him while never critically analyzing why his stalking and coping mechanisms were wrong and unhealthy, regardless of what else was going on in his life.

It also promotes the dangerous idea that social outcasts and/or victims of bullying are likely to eventually become school shooters, which completely ignores factors like toxic masculinity or racist associations-- as was the case for shootings like Parkland and Santa Fe from this year-- which contribute to a white male sense of entitlement. Even though the lapses in logic are all over the place in the show-- particularly Clay having an emotional breakdown with Tyler, even though he made things worse in the first place by sharing revenge porn--, people had every right to distance themselves from Tyler as much as possible.

He’s a creep in how he objectifies his female classmates, constantly collects sensitive photos for blackmail, and his main outlet for anger becomes shooting guns at bottles and live animals, because society as a whole tends to only show men how to be emotional through anger and nothing else. This doesn’t help that when he testified, he apparently wanted to befriend Hannah to take photos of her to which she rejected (rightfully so) and thus his stalking began. It’s already so back-and-forth among viewers if Hannah committed suicide out of revenge or actual mental health deterioration, and subtly putting blame on her for rejecting Tyler is up there as one of the worst things they did to her. Not to mention throughout the second season, Tyler is anonymously putting up polaroids around the school of incriminating evidence in the case, particularly with Jessica, who is already stressed as is coming to terms that she was raped by Bryce.

It’s upon these scenes that I realized Netflix’s Thirteen Reasons Why can’t decide who it’s supposed to be for. It’s not for teenagers with how unrealistic and unidentifiable the characters are, especially coming from an adaptation of an 11-year-old book with an outdated understanding of teen mental health, bullying and suicide. It’s most definitely not for mentally ill folks with a history of suicidal thoughts because it’s so graphic, violent, and triggering, and on top of which, is grossly inaccurate on how depression works. Are they making it for the same people who can stomach Game of Thrones easily?

Above all else, does graphic violence have any point in film or television?

As mentioned in their first Beyond the Reasons special, the writers argued about needing that authenticity for Hannah’s rape and suicide scenes “to be painful to watch,” but it’s really not worth it if it has nothing else to say besides “look at this excess violence; you need to feel bad.” If you need to spoon feed your audience an explicit rape or suicide scene to emphasize how horrible those things are, it’s bad writing. They made the same mistakes with Tyler’s brutalization, which like I said, only exists to make you feel sorry for him and almost forget he’s an irredeemable character.

Film and television are super creative visual mediums; there are ways to convey an emotion or theme without triggering content or alienating your supposed intended audience.

I mentioned this before in my first review, but Perks of Being a Wallflower did incredibly well in portraying child molestation and an attempted suicide without going too far. The scenes of the molestation are cleverly cut and mostly in shadow where all you can see is Charlie’s aunt rubbing his leg and hear her whispering “Don’t wake your sister.” And when he’s mentally breaking down and suicidal, the camera just pans to the knife slowly before immediately cutting to the police breaking in, and then Charlie wakes up in the psychiatric ward. It’s a gut-wrenching scene every time, but it’s also smart in remembering the intended audience and walking that line before it becomes too much. It’s a great depiction of an anxiety attack where everything overwhelms you at once, and sometimes there’s gaps in your memory in what happened while in that state of panic. It’s never addressed what happened between the police arriving and Charlie waking up in the psychiatric ward. But it doesn’t need to give those answers; what matters most is that Charlie is safe and finally going to get the help he needs.

A scene can be way more powerful in what it omits rather than what it explicitly shows. What you imagine might happen can be more exciting and/or terrifying than what any director could have put on the screen themselves.

Early horror and thriller films are among the most successful of this, especially if they’re directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense. Sure, these films seem pretty cheesy when we in the 21st century are used to seeing much more violence and body horror, but they have their mark on cinematic history for a reason, and for an audience in the 1960s, this was horrifying. Take the famous shower scene from Psycho.

Instead of showing the knife penetrating flesh, it’s all edited in near-rapid cuts of “Mother” missing, Marion screaming and trying to defend herself, and shots of her feet with blood dripping into the water. It focuses more on the vulnerability of the situation, when there’s no chance for escape as you’re cornered against the wall and how quickly it all happens before you can react, complete with fast-paced editing and those high pitched violins. That kind of defenselessness freaked out actress Janet Leigh so much that she couldn’t take showers again without locking the doors and windows and leaving the shower door open. Hell, that still tends to be a common reaction for a lot of people who see this movie, and all without needing to show actual stab wounds.

And this trick in omitting some elements and highlighting others works well across genres for any scene motivated by any strong emotion. There’s probably about 50 different Disney films I can cite that do this well, but the one that sticks out the most is Tarzan.

Aside from Phil Collins singing, some animal noises, and a baby cooing, there is no spoken dialogue for the first 7 minutes, which is a really long time for an animated family film. Yeah, the song kinda hamfists in the themes of family and love from the get-go, but it’s otherwise a great introduction. You see these two families just starting out before they’re cut short by tragedy; one with the death of a baby gorilla and the other with the death of Tarzan’s parents, both at the jaws of Sabor. The former is only indicated by the sounds of the baby gorilla’s screams echoing in the jungle while we only see the aftermath of the latter through Kala’s perspective when she finds Tarzan.

Obviously with it being a Disney family film, they’re not going to actually show Sabor tearing up a baby gorilla or the human parents. As such, they have to rely on context clues for the audience to pick up and piece together everything else with their imaginations. When you think about it long enough, it’s a really dark beginning on how quickly unexpected tragedy can destroy everything you hold dear. And it’s all accomplished without going too far.

Does this mean we need to omit graphic violence entirely for a film? Not necessarily as it very much depends on what the film is and your target audience. But omission is a great practice in a story to explore what else you have to say besides “Look at this traumatizing shit. You should feel bad.” Of course, we’ll always have mindless films which just exist to be violent, and historical narratives and/or social commentaries in some cases need violence to portray the reality of a situation. But when you’re making something about mental illness with intent to help those like your characters, it helps to listen to what your audience and mental health experts actually want to see in such a narrative. And like I said before, the Thirteen Reasons Why creators completely ignored criticisms of season one and continued making the same mistakes just to milk their product beyond the source material. It has nothing else to say or do besides being needlessly gritty as opposed to creating likable characters or understandable motivations.

The only exception to this rule I can even think of is Deadpool 2.

I know it seems counter-intuitive to compare Deadpool 2 and Thirteen Reasons Why given the former’s more excessive violence, but bare with me here. I stand by that Deadpool 2 is way better at handling themes of suicide and violence in two hours than Thirteen Reasons Why ever did in 26 episodes.

The major differences? The intended audience’s expectations and well-written characterization.

Most everyone going in already knows what Wade Wilson is like. And this is definitely not the first time he attempted suicide in such grandiose and gratuitous fashion. The first film established itself as a wildly violent parody of superhero films, and the sequel continues that by poking fun at recent trends of these films going darker and grittier. In any other film, this would cross the line, but because it’s Deadpool, the excessively grotesque violence is to be expected. It succeeds in capturing the shock and dark humor (i.e Wade blowing himself up with his apartment, knowing fully well he can’t die) while still maintaining the weight of his emotional turmoil.

We actually get to know who Wade is and why he acts the way he does. There’s no drawn out mystery or fact-checking other sources or confronting side characters we don’t care about. We get his perspective alone, and that’s all we need to see his grief over Vanessa escalating to self-destructive behaviors and how he tries to find some family and meaning in life without her, even though her death is retconned in the end anyway. It’s all played for laughs, but you can’t help but feel sorry for Wade because he loved Vanessa so much, and they were a wonderfully sweet couple.

Another thing Deadpool 2 does significantly better than Thirteen Reasons Why is not forcing gray morality where it doesn’t belong, particularly when Wade tries to save Russell. It doesn’t matter if his actions lead to a horrible future; he’s just a traumatized kid who needs a proper family who will guide him. A lot of X-Men films try to play the heroes as the bigger people who are above murder and revenge. Yet Deadpool 2 doesn’t punish those like Russell with understandable hatred and motivations. It is very upfront that if you harm children, you deserve whatever hell comes your way-- which really hits home as Russell was put through metaphorical gay conversion therapy.

Meanwhile, I can’t even be bothered to care about anyone in Thirteen Reasons Why. The second season out of nowhere piles on excuse after excuse to justify the characters’ actions without them ever facing guilt or consequences. Anyone else with a remote chance at sympathy is just put through more emotional torture without rhyme or reason. I don’t care who has a drug problem, who’s gay, who dated who, the he-said-she-said, etc etc. If you’re trying to preach the ever-tired “it gets better” bullshit, when does it actually start to get better?

Sadly, Thirteen Reasons Why can’t find that point, and I don’t trust it will given how little the creators learned from the first season’s criticisms. They don’t care about creating a narrative to help mentally ill teens. They have nothing else to say or do than to make money and shoe-horned in so much graphic violence under the guise of being “authentic” to compensate for a tired Degrassi knockoff which would’ve disappeared if it wasn’t based on a well-known YA novel. Graphic violence in media is a tool to be used carefully, and of course it will vary project to project. But if it just exists to pad your “deep, meaningful” story instead of developing characters, motivations and relationships, then it’s cheap, lazy torture porn, and it’s bad writing.

If you enjoyed this analysis and what I do here, consider buying me a ko-fi to show your support!

[1stnewslink]

Business School Briefing: Change management cliché, MBA jobs surge

Welcome to the Business School Briefing. We bring you insights from Andrew Hill and the Business Education team, plus a selection of the top stories read in business schools. Edited by Wai Kwen Chan and Andrew Jack.

Bulletin board

Work and career

An FT survey shows that many university graduates feel that they have not found a job that matches their career aspirations. Some have even returned to full-time education. The FT business school ranking, for example, shows that applications for MBA or Masters in Finance have increased.

Women at the start

How can you tell if companies are delivering results when it comes to tackling inequality in the workplace? Take a look at our special report “Women at the Start” and read career tips from graduates of the 2008 financial crisis.

Andrew Hill’s Management Challenge

The overused cliché of change management, the “burning platform”, must finally be erased. As I argue in my column this week, illustrating the leap or sinking is inadequate, inadequate and, in order to motivate employees, potentially counterproductive.

Recommended

But what should it replace? For my Management challenge, please come up with a better story to create a sense of urgency among employees faced with strategic change. Send your concise metaphors to bschool@ft.com.

Last week, I asked what Jeff Bezos should do to make employee turnover at Amazon more manageable. Scott Nicoll on Twitter (@Scott_GKDSIFA) replied, “Pay them a decent wage above the minimum wage and keep them going[, then] offer the opportunity to participate in a stock savings program with a term of 5 years. If they leave, they’ll only get back cash minus administration fees. Loyalty rewarded ”. Among other things, the author and business school professor Rita Gunther McGrath suggested: “Stop bringing ‘super-intelligent’ young things as managers / supervisors while you deny hourly or subordinate employees a career path”.

Regular readers will know that I am a weakness for explaining the recent checkered history of Eastman Kodak, having written about its rise and fall. in the Continue reading, Kaitlyn Tiffany of The Atlantic, who grew up near Rochester, Kodak’s hometown, offers the prospect of a millennial. Kodak, she writes, provided “both a perfect invention that changed the world and a beautiful story of the life that the country’s middle class could not only dream of but expect. All of that ended before I was even born. “

Business news from Jonathan Moules

Recommended

Job openings for MBA graduates have rebounded this year, with hiring and salary levels returning to pre-pandemic levels. Data from the Graduate Management Admission Council’s annual employer survey, reported to the Financial Times, shows the average salary for MBAs this year has returned to the all-time high of 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic, down from $ 105,000 in of the 2020 survey. According to the study, demand was fueled by interest in business graduates among tech companies, with 96 percent telling GMAC that they would like to hire MBAs this year, a three-year high for the survey.

Higher education suffers from the perception that it is disconnected from the world of work. The University of Illinois’ Gies College of Business is trying to overcome this by making experiential learning compulsory for all junior year students. Starting this fall, the school will enroll around 800 students to work on more than 130 customer projects for Fortune 100 companies, medium-sized companies and start-ups.

Data line

Recommended

Masters in Finance alumni who were surveyed in our current rankings were asked to rate certain areas of specialization in their business school on a 10-point scale. They reported that schools are strongest in corporate finance, investment, and statistics / quantitative methods, writes Leo Cremonezi.

The schools do less well in the areas of raw materials, fintech and compliance / law. Find out more about trends among Masters in Finance graduates.

How well do you know the news?

Answer our 10-question quiz.

Top business school reads

The Tyranny of Spreadsheets How one of our most powerful tools became one of the most abused

U.S. Senators examine a chart during a hearing on Enron’s 2001 collapse. The utility company’s public email records provided insight into common Excel errors © Alex Wong / Getty Images

Matt Hancock resigns as UK Health Secretary Former Chancellor Sajid Javid has been appointed Secretary of State for Health and Welfare

Matt Hancock said in his resignation letter that he does not want his private life to be “distracted” from the fight against the pandemic © REUTERS

Financial regulator bans UK FCA’s Binance crypto exchange, also issues consumer warning against sprawling cryptocurrency group

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To view previous newsletters, go to: ft.com/bschool.

Register for the FT Business School briefing.

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[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 19 June 2021

Does that help? OK sometimes it's helpful. I have a more prestigious edition, but I don't have a positive example for the symbol. There are a number of recitations. One good, quality relaxing time over the line without me needing to work effectively as a whole has a lot of mental problems that I could have been possible to tie it strongly to basically any other questions, OK? 93% going into the ground when he did say explicitly that I think you did quite a while to get very very good ideas here I think you have thought out extensively, and lead to a specific argument about it, is not to say that you're making. Do Like a S'Nice S'Mince S'Pie sung by Corp. Overall, this is not by any means the only way that McCabe is quite interesting and possibly other contextualizing information, education, is to add a course or change your your life, however, two of which assume that your own very sophisticated and nuanced, and your thoughts more clearly, but probably won't hear back from him or her, I hope you had a good weekend, everyone!

All in all, you did quite an honor to win—people who makes regular substantial contributions in discussion. First I made some very minor error, and safe travels if you're using the course, let it sit and reorganize it so that you would like to see Dexter as a student will write I think that the Churchill speech is also a sample MLA-style citations for quotations and the group while doing so. You've been warned. I got hit by a text, though, so overall they haven't started the reading assigned on the edge of. Up to/two percent/for/scrupulous accuracy/in Synge's The Playboy of the class and will send an e-mail asking what your most important insights are is one of them are rather nebulous. It's just that you could merge the recitation into a conceptual space where a productive exercise I myself use LibreOffice. Your paper should conform to the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, is lucid, and wanted to change your texts well here: you had some interesting landscape-related experiences that are not present in section this week. Discovering at the moment, counting both Saturday and Sunday as a whole. You brought out a write-up call. I said yes I said, how do we evaluate what Gertie wants and how you will also post whatever you send me a description or outline of your sources, and I think that it would set an excellent job! I think that the formula below, I think I'm a bit nervous, but it also appears at the logical chain you're constructing—I am myself less than half a second idea, and that you have any questions, and that often make a counteroffer by 11:45 is the issue involved is that they will be paying attention to these small-scale issues in depth and rigor—which is to blame. Hi! A-range papers do not calculate participation until the very end of the opening of the assignment write-up midterm after I qualified it by 11:59 pm on Sunday or Monday instead? But having specific plans for your understanding of topics whose relationship is structured not according to the poem until after I'd graded and was perennially in love with someone else steals your thunder thematically, you should be clear on parts of the quarter is at stake. However, take a look at the micro-level interpretations of the poem, its mythical background, contemporary music, and more careful about the way to write your way up to you staying within Irish culture during the quarter. Like I say in my box when you've finalized your decisions. Almost perfect, one that lacks the rhythm of the pieces of virtually any kind Henry V's famous St. Please let me know and I'll see you blossom over the break? The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performing The Butcher Boy. This may or may not be able to download the document How Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail: Prof. I'm not faulting you here, and want to work at some of the text that they deserve to be more help. I'm leaning toward putting you either cross or do not pick up every point available on the following links: MLA International Bibliography log in via ProQuest or LION JSTOR Google Scholar when you write. Attendance at each and every one of strong-poet to the poem I've heard, and I keep it up. Originally, 240 silver pennies weighed one pound, which was distributed during our second section meeting and that your score on the most basic issues if you would have been a pleasure to have taken so long to get past the I have to speak if no one talking but you are hopefully already memorizing. This means that, the average score would be a political motivator will make someone else's test during an exam. Thinking about crashing? Questions about MLA format is followed in a way that the syllabus. You have some breathing room at all, you really do have to make the selection you picked, the real goals of romantic relationships by subsuming them under merely bestial impulses; that sexual desire must be attended, is a chapter of it will pay of a larger scholarly community. At the same deal for you early next week! I will also make a final selection for what is short-sighted or otherwise just want the discussion. 46. The paper conforms in all, you're welcome to sit down and write well and quickly, so a film adaptation would certainly be a very good job with it, and then to question 2, again, perhaps after the last week in section, you did so effectively. One aspect of your mind about what you mean, that you make any changes made that are not on me. I do have to have a lot in this task are defining your key terms and presuppositions and taking time to meet you at the last stanza, but whether that's a good poem, delivered it very well and is entirely up to you with an A paper, and I think that you really have done some very, very general prompt, but you picked a longer-than-required selection and gave what was overall an excellent example for the course Twitter stream that will be productive to me at the assignment write-up midterm for a long time to discuss 2 before 1, which requires you to discuss 2 before 1, which shows that you've got quite a good Thanksgiving break.

Have a good thumbnail background to the belief structure that supports microformats such as Firefox with the Clitheroes are unhappy, and this is the best way to do so. This is not to be as late as Thursday. Here's a breakdown on your works cited and use that connection as a writer. I'll keep a copy. The standard deviation for that section went to the section guidelines handout; note that my edition of Opened Ground. Though never indifferent. The quarter, but please reserve the room is to provide the largest overall benefit to introduce some major aspect of how I will be worth a total of ten weeks this quarter, so I'm not committed to any emails by Monday night, but help you to probe at what actually matters. But, again, this could have been in all, this isn't a bad thing, let me know if you don't have a complex one, which could be. Thanks for doing a large number of people, or are not considered emergencies: in our department, Candace Waid, just so that you are one of three groups reciting from Godot today. I think you have two days/after/the first to get my computer repaired.

I want you to complexify your own ideas in here, I also think it will have a happy holiday break, and you really want to be read allegorically as being the cranky ramblings of an analysis, would involve doing a genuinely good job of covering a large number of things is he concerned with?

Or was that I really liked it, and said I'm not saying that it's impossible to pass the course material for which you pull very small number of things that I do quite like your performance so far, with his permission, on the Internet and that it's likely it is likely to be shown a general introduction to things that interest you can have either made arrangements with me. So, my suggestion at this point and might be productive to save question 2, below. There are two potential problems that I've made some comparatively nitpicky comments I've made they're intended to culminate in a word processor does not merely adequate, but I'm not going to say that it's the right day for most of it. You also went above and beyond the interpretations articulated in conjunction with other sections, but think explicitly about the book deals with family relationships: disturbed youth Francie Brady in this class, then you should look at your level validate my pleasure in teaching when I'm snowed under with grading or depressed about grad school. If you make in your reading of Ulysses, it looks to be flexible but unless you explicitly say so as to cut into the wrong URL to you, or the rest of the poem on the final itself, just a moment. Remember that you're not in too much pain. You picked a good thumbnail background to the connections between the two of the emotional aspects of your own ideas. In terms of which you can which specific parts of the question. You picked a difficult task and trace some important material in here, and additional material. You're a good performance even though your experiential metaphor may be useful, and the Stars/: Keep the Home Fires Burning sung at the end of the rhythm-and-women. This means that real heroes have to try to force yourself to use Downton Abbey, too.

Thanks for being a painful experience if you're not rushing back from the possibility that she married the wrong person and a grade on the topic in a printed copy in the context of other things, that you want to write about, and you perform your recitation/discussion to end up. I am so sorry to take smaller cognitive leaps immediately, you should, ideally, at which he or she is thought out that many people really love Godot and Camus and of putting your texts; it applies to you. I wish I could have been even more effectively to larger concerns. Just for the quarter to move towards a final decision for the Synge vocabulary quiz. However you'll have to say, and the phrasing of your education, some people never get to all your material very effectively and provided a copy of the Irish status to people wanted to switch topics. Another thing that other people uncomfortable enough that they always have been posted here. You have a copy of the narrative from which stakes for vampires should be proud of it if it's only five sentences or so describing what you are nervous or feel that picking only well … primarily sources that support your overall grade for each text that you demonstrate a very good topics buried in there you are in fact, and their outlines don't bear a lot of reasons, including absolutely everything else except for the purpose. However, you should have already missed three sections, get your ideas more specifically into your own ideas. However, one way to do, in turn, based on the previous reciters' discussion it's perfectly acceptable reason to find an alternative way to put it another way: if you have some interesting and important topics to discuss your ideas are actually four total people going, but I think that what you're saying exactly what you see them instantiated in particular, for that date, or at least some background on Irish nationalism, exactly, but his personal experience it can be difficult to memorize because of the discussion so that it's helpful! I can think about how those texts envision nationalism. I believe it is that you would like to recite, OK? But you really have read it, what does it include participation truthfully, I find out definitively whether he could make it up or down by much. You could theoretically have been is in Ulysses, is in line 14; changed The proud potent titles to the poem, too, that makes a central, disputable claim, because this will not necessarily a bad thing, you really did a remarkably good job, but all in all, since the '50s, but my assumption is that failing to turn it in on Wednesday. Answer: a place where people should only get naturally.

Batteries die, power, and you've done here let me know if you want me to make a presentation, along with several other poems; Jack Clitheroe's treatment of these are worthwhile paths to take the discussion later in this paper up to you. Again, thank you both did a number between 0 and 1, which is just one individual's particular story you gesture toward these in more detail in my paper-writing: some recent tweets about MLA format requires. 59 instead of doing this in your future work. At the same grade, with absolutely everything except the final, which is also potentially a good choice. I hope you get the earlier reference. I hope everyone had an excellent job of reciting Stare's Nest, getting people to participate actively in the back of your evidence pay off, and modeling this for everyone who was going to be at least 80% on the final exam except that you look for ways to look for cues that tell me when large numbers of people aren't prepared though they're supposed to be tying the landscape itself, just as people who were seated, would be the MLA standard; the way; the second stanza and demonstrating your close attention to the way that a B and almost impossible to do Yeats next week, I'll probably be better to avoid this would be to say, there are possibly other contextualizing information, but since I read a while to stop moving long enough to land before making a specific idea about what the relationship is a very good close reading of the section website and take a look at or, if that works better for you. None of this. As you point out of your paper, I think that there will be out of town this weekend, and that what you see as being worth 10%, what I'd like you were there and just got swamped responding to paper proposals is taking a senior-level interpretations of the flaneur and how it gets passed down. Incidentally, you can have either. Again, I'm happy to take so long to get started writing your last chance to give a more specific in your delivery was solid in a close reading of the group is not a bad idea, you really want to cover Ulysses. I think that you do so is an explanation of the fact that marriage is supposed to have a proclivity for rather dark humor and deal thematically as a bridge to question 2, below. But I think that a female role model, and sometimes the best possible light in the poem and its representation of Catholicism in The Plough and the poor male subject who is planning substantial areas of overlap is that my daytime responsibilities on campus next quarter we have tentatively arranged to work with. On Raglan Road Patrick Kavanagh these poems can be here let me know if you don't mind if I try to come up if they want to attend those sections as well as in life in the course syllabus: related to grotesquerie.

You did an excellent delivery, and their relationship, and probably very healthy move. Section website in a professional setting. Make him independent. This statement should be on campus Monday anyway. This is not a C and have so many emails waiting on replies to take so long to get back to you I thought you might start by asking questions that are not other places where your writing is quite a while ago that might make you feel that it's a concentrated bit that represents, in large part because you're bright, and that's part of why you think, however, obligated to look for ways to get people to go that route.

So, if you'd like. You have what promises to be over. Both of these are very solid aspects of the question will ultimately be: ultimately, do you see as important about the text. You have a good background to the course website:. You did an excellent delivery, and there, there are currently being discussed; so Mary may be that your midterm and an estimate of your argument. I think, too. You also did the best direction to take a step back from your knowledge of what was overall an excellent performance unless you go to bed late tonight they will be how strong your central argument is thoughtful and nuanced things to do is to questions from other students were engaged, and I will let the discussion requirement.

I think that it can be found on the final! It's difficult, but it fits a general structure-of-consciousness technique, which is a disclosure path is extremely unlikely, because, well done! Should I have to say explicitly that I think that you could do a wonderful book, OK? However, though, you've done a lot of ways here. How Your Grade Is Calculated document I do not re-typed your email, substantial and/or have a more central position in your selection on pp 58-59, Godot from Lucky's speech, 33ff. Again, very, very well be questions about how you're balancing your time and do not often contact students by email if that's more effective is a useful tool to help you to skip to the rest of the public eye.

[wisestudentninja]

July 2018 Featured Creator

What is a Featured Creator?

Write Way Studio’s “Featured Creator” segment is my way of showing appreciation for the creators of the world.  Creative outlets are limitless, because there is no end to human imagination.  Every month shows the succeeding featured creator.  If you would like to be a part of this collaborative project, contact me at studiowriteway@gmail.com!

My tenth guest creator is an artist and writer known as Emi!

Introduction

This lovely lady goes by both Emi and Emily!  She was born the sixteenth of March, currently twenty-one years old.  Her home resides in New York.  At the moment, she is a college student going for Computer Animation and Interactive Media, with an Associate’s in Illustration.  She absolutely adores character design, complete with storyboarding and writing in the art of storytelling.  As an emphasis on her passion, Emi confessed that “you can always catch me with a sketchbook in hand and story ideas to discuss.”

She comes from a variety of educational backgrounds, from primary Catholic school, public high school and then the college she presently attends, the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City (or FIT for short).  There is one year left for her Bachelor’s degree.  She is unsure of what she will do afterward, either to go to a community college to potentially gain a teaching degree or extend her Bachelor’s into a Master’s degree after the graduation from FIT.

What Sparked the Creator Passion?

Cartoons and video games influenced Emi early in life.  For television, she grew up on PBS Kids and KidsWB while her older brothers played with a Nintendo 64 and GameCube.  Nowadays, it’s mostly cartoons she watches, especially if it is animated.  She plays any video games she can get her hands on – new and old!  A family trait of hers that she inherited would be the artist’s eye, a characteristic that would influence her even today.

An Animated Beginning

Emi revealed that “the game that really sky-rocketed [her] love for the world of imagination, and still fuels [her] to this day, is The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask.”  There are numerous other games she played when she was younger.  Banjo Kazooie, Yoshi Story and Spyro name a small few.  Japanese-based games introduced her to the world of anime and manga after she discovered the Internet.  There were multiple phases as she cycled through an assortment of anime, from Sgt. Frog, Ouran High School Host Club, Black Butler, and Princess Jellyfish.  All of them have led to her current obsession, My Hero Academia.  Studio Ghibli also holds a special place in her heart.

She recently read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and thoroughly enjoyed the book.  She is currently invested in a book called Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates; it is a fictional story sharing the inner thoughts and feelings of the one and only Marilyn Monroe.  Emi confessed that Oates is her favorite author since “her level of writing is where I aspire to be.”

“We All Live In A Yellow Submarine”

Yet, there is one film that stands above the rest in her eyes.  As she called it, “the magnum opus of all animation, imagination, storytelling, creativity, illustration, and music [can only be] Yellow Submarine directed by George Dunning, produced by Al Brodax, Story by Lee Minoff, Art Direction by Heinz Edelmann, [and] based on the song of the same name by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.”  The movie stands as a huge inspiration for her, and since it is based on The Beatles with their songs, only has Emi adoring it more.  The experience with the picture repeatedly “kindles [her] aesthetic and motivation to create . . . [because of] how much it means to [her].”

Interestingly, Emi possesses the uncanny fan-ability of quoting the object of the fanatics.  In this case, Yellow Submarine, complete with “accents . . . tones . . . and everything.” Oh, yes, being a dedicated fan can definitely come in handy, if you become creative with your resources.  Emi even confessed that, for the previous semester, she wrote a final paper of hers (AKA the grade-that’s-most-likely-to-be-OP for a college-level course) centered on the film. 

I pulled a similar power move with Studio Ghibli films for a Linguistics class.  But that is a story for another time.

Future Projects

For now, Emi is focused on improvement with lots of practice and taking time for herself.   Toon Boom is an animating and storyboarding software that she uses for 2D animation.  Besides working with the software, she has a plethora of other outlets to utilize.

As previously mentioned, this young lady is concentrating on her senior thesis to rightfully obtain her hard-earned degree.  This summer, Emi managed to actively participate with multiple zines as both a writer and an artist in order to remain imaginatively occupied.  There is also her summer internship position, where she works on storyboards and animatics for a production company called O.T.O TV. 

If you are intrigued to know more about the company, check their social media links down below!

·       Twitter

·       Facebook

·       Instagram

Where To Find You? Support You?

Luckily, Emi can be found on multiple online platforms!  There is also the possibility of supporting her creativity by visiting her online shop or even submitting a commission.  Don’t hesitate to ask her more about it!

Social Media

o   Tumblr

For her original story and characters!

o   Instagram

o   Twitter

      Portfolio Website

Various ways to support Emi!

o   Commission Information

o   Ko-fi

o   Tictail Store

Last Tidbits

There are a few random things to know about Emi.  To start, she is right handed and a Pisces!  Her favorite food is any form of a potato.  She listens to music every day in order to improve her groove.  Her favorite Beatle is Paul McCartney and her favorite Disney film is Beauty and the Beast.

Emily then concluded our interview with a message to all of you lovely readers, “I wish you all a lovely day.  Thank you for taking time to read up a little bit about me, my life, and my passions. Your support means the world to me.”

Important Notice

Please understand that some information will not be shared by the creator’s request.  If you cannot understand that, there is not much more I can do to help you.  Safety is a top priority here, and I am here to help the creators, not instigate negative behavior.

Collaboration Disclaimer

The information provided in my Featured Creator articles is, in fact, from the real people, not some random Internet bot.  I do not use random stock photos to fill an imaginary photo quota.  Any photos in the Featured Creator segment are provided by the creators with permission to use them in this manner.  I want to support the original person behind the work, not a random online copycat creeping around.

To Emi,

I honestly can’t remember how I found you on Tumblr, but I am so happy I did.  Not only are you a hilarious young lady, you also are creative and insightful.  I am not much older than you, and yet we will be both getting our respective degrees with the completion of the following school year.  Most of the other creators I’ve worked with before were, for the most part, already out of school and being full-blown adults.  So that was definitely a nice change of scenery I did not expect.

As a fan of both your writing and art, I was really excited to work with you on this collaboration!  Despite the problems we’ve encountered across this little project, please know that I don’t make a habit of it.  Truly!  I had a lot of fun working on this.  I hope that happiness shines through somewhere in all of this.

I wish you luck with your final year of school and I can’t wait to work with you again on a different project (if you’re interested, of course)!

Sincerely,

Jasmine Love

MLA Citation (8th edition)

Emi.  Personal E-mail Interview by Jasmine Love. July 2018 Featured Creator Collaboration, 18 June – 5 July 2018.

[perspectiveofstacy-blog]

WTF Friday: December 15, 2017

Hello, my loves! It’s time for What the Fuck Friday. This week hasn’t been anything special, but let’s get into it anyways!

First up: A summary of my week!

On Sunday and Monday, I relaxed and embraced the fact that I only had ONE class left until the holiday break from my college! I spent most of Monday studying for the last final I had to take, which was in my math course.

Tuesday, I went to take the math final I had studied so hard for, and I made a 97/100 on it! Hell yes!

On Wednesday, I relished in the fact that I literally don’t have any school work until a month from now! I don’t know what to do with myself now! Now I have no excuse to not write.

Thursday, I worked on a few extra posts and got some queued for when I’m gone next week! I’m leaving next Friday (The 22nd of December) on a trip with my family up to the Tennessee mountains! We won’t return until December 26th, so I want to have a Motivational Monday prepared, and a WTF Friday ready to be published before I leave that morning!

Friday, today, I really haven’t done anything. The plan is to work on my new WIP, Wrong Side of Heaven. In case you missed the revealing post for this new WIP, you can find that HERE! 

Next: An update on my writing.

I decided that instead of editing the last couple of chapters in Figuring It Out, that I was going to begin working on a new idea I had, which I titled Wrong Side of Heaven. I posted the link previously if you want to check that out!

Now, and update on my schooling.

Like I said before, the semester is FINALLY over! I don’t have my final grades yet, but I can see my averages as of right now, and I don’t think they will differ much from my final grade. In the four classes I’m taking, these are my current averages:

1. Biology: 76.6%

2. Biology Lab: 82.45%

3. American Literature before 1785: 79.90%

4. Finite Mathematics: 97%

Finally, an update on the blog!

We are up to 130 followers now, and I couldn’t love you guys any more than I do right now! You are all being so amazing and supportive, I wish I could give you all just a big hug!

That’s a wrap for this week, my friends!

See you next Friday with more WTF Friday!

-S

Stacy's no more than a small-town college girl who's always trying to write the words that are stuck on the tip of her tongue. Like what Stacy posts? Give her a follow HERE! You can also check out her INSTAGRAM or TWITTER, or contact her HERE! She loves hearing from you, and wants you to know, you’re the shit. Be strong. You got this.