#probably some of this is the self-fulfilling prophecy of my own assumptions/expectations

[rosinasnoot]

A curious thing I’ve noticed as one of the ~18% of computer science majors who is a woman:

I find myself assuming that the guys in my major generally know what they’re doing, and if they don’t, they’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, I expect the gals (we’ll go with that; it’s the best female equivalent for “guys” I can think of) to need help and to generally find things more difficult.

But why? Many guys in CS got into coding as a hobby and so have that pre-existing skill set; I’ve very rarely encountered gals who had that. But the rest of them? Should be just as lost as the gals are, on average. There’s nothing about CS that would make it easier for a guy to understand if he’s never done it before. And yet there’s a part of me that says that they’re somehow more competent even with the same skill set, despite the evidence of my eyes telling me that no, we’re all picking up the new stuff at the expected speeds considering individual variation.

Another aspect of this: I hate asking for help with computer stuff from my peers. Even if it’s quicker because the person looking over my shoulder happens to know how to do this thing already and I would have to look it up. Because I feel like that’s what everyone expects of me, and if I’m missing a single piece of computer knowledge that’s proof that I’m just another girl lost in a field that ultimately belongs to men.

[makeyourdeanabi]

Finale Reaction- 2 months later

In the wee hours after the Supernatural Finale, after tossing and turning in my bed, I got up and wrote this... this was before I was actually active on Tumblr and I never thought I would share this because I was too self conscious.  I deleted it shortly after I wrote it because it brought me so much pain to relive it.  I have since watched the Finale again and have come to terms with it and I felt it was a good time to share my thoughts. I hope that my words may bring other people comfort who feel the same way.  Thanks for reading :)

Alisha

P.S. Sorry so long, I was feeling things and the words just kept coming and coming  ___________________________________________

I don’t blog.  Never in my life have I sat down to tell the world about my feelings in such a manner.  I may contribute on message boards and social media comments, but I never thought anything was worth my time to spill my guts into the ether when I am near certain that not a soul will read them.  But here I am.  I have to write because if I don’t get these thoughts out of my head, I am going to go full on insane.

That ending was bad. It was a disservice to the 15 years of an incredible show that was not only genre bending it was cultural norms bending.

I could mention the various tropes that this ending (and the previous episodes) invoked, but I am not well versed in them and would never want to do anyone a disservice with a comparison that wasn’t apt.

The buildup up of each character arc and then the glaring lack of conclusion for said character arc was laughable.

To say I am disappointed is an understatement.

To say I am heartbroken is an understatement.

I am destroyed.  

I am destroyed that the two men who have been with this franchise since day 1 wrote and directed an episode that they thought was the perfect ending. They thought this is what their devoted fandom wanted.  

I am destroyed that the lead actors signed off on this script and went so far as to call it their favorite.  I realize Jared was the only one calling it his favorite episode. Jensen admitted he had reservations about the episode and needed the wise words of creator Erik Kripke to accept it. I do have to say that taking the word of a man who left the show 10 seasons ago and hasn’t been involved in all the plot lines and inner workings since season 5 is probably not the best idea. I could be mistaken about the extent of Kripke’s involvement, but I am fairly certain that I am right in my assumptions.  

Dean spent 15 years (probably more) of his life feeling unloved, unworthy, self-conscious and convinced that his life had but one purpose and that purpose would ultimately be the death of him, and he had made peace with that.

He is given a best friend, potential love interest, who helps him to see that he is more than that, so much more than that.  He is selfless, he is caring, he is a lover, not a killer. His friend’s soulmate’s sacrifice is the catalyst for him believing that all these things are true. He even takes the step of admitting out loud that he knows he has changed.  He knows that his life is worth living to the fullest and appreciating what he has every day and honoring those they have “lost along the way.”  

To then kill him during a routine hunting trip in which the boys are up against a vampire nest they could take down in their sleep.  What could possibly have been the purpose for that?  To show that once they were no longer God’s little play toys their lives were expendable?  WHY?

Dean, arguably the greatest hunter in the SPN universe, was taken out by a fucking rusty piece of rebar, and instead of trying to call for help and get the man to a hospital (not sure it would have helped) he has his final monologue, the one he has been due for the latter half all of Season 15.  He died scared, in pain, and sad.

Dean goes to heaven, and its not the heaven we have been told of in the past where you are living in your memories.  Its truly life after death and its wonderful. He meets Bobby again and told that various people in Dean’s and Bobby’s life are close by.  His parents live down the road.  His father, who was never confirmed to be but was most likely an abusive bastard, lives just down the road with his mother.  Wonderful. (WTF?) He gets confirmation that Cas is out of the empty and he smiles, nothing more.  He sees baby and goes for a drive, not to find Cas and thank him for his ultimate sacrifice, but to just drive.  I like this part because we see a happy, content Dean, and we finally get to hear Kansas’s “Carry on Wayward Son” (DONT GET ME STARTED ON THE LACK OF THE ROAD SO FAR AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EPISODE). I just wish Dean’s path to heaven had been a little easier on him.

Dean deserved better.

Castiel, the selfless angel who just wanted to find purpose in his life and ultimately found it in death. He dies never being told that he is loved, after countless times of professing his love to his found family. The angel who sacrificed himself to the Empty, a horrible place of unspeakable torture, to protect the man he loves.  A man who, mere days later (in my mind anyway), arrives in heaven after being killed in a gruesome accident, rather than fulfilling his destiny that Cas fought so hard to protect.  Some sacrifice. It turns out that Cas is saved by the Empty from Jack, but we don’t get to see his joyful reunion with Dean, the man he loves.  

Cas deserved better.

Sam is left to live this life without his brother, and potentially the love of his life because the writers couldn’t be bothered to confirm Eileen’s re-existence after Chuck’s rapture.  He has a family, and he grows old (mind you with REALLY bad makeup in a show that is known for their incredible makeup/special effects departments).

He seems to be happy, but you can tell something is missing.  We come to see that he raised his son to be a hunter.  He raised his son in a life that, at the outset of this show, he was desperate to get out of and live a normal life.  Perhaps he no longer believes that anyone can live a normal life knowing what is out there. *EDIT* Looking back I don’t believe he raised his son to be a hunter, just gave him the tattoo in case.

He names his son Dean, because of course he does. He has a wife who we see from a distance and is never given the clarity if it is Eileen or not.  He finally dies after what looks like a slow and painful illness and is sent to heaven.

In heaven he meets up with Dean.  This was lovely.  The two of them meeting again after so long, for Sam, that is. Dean only had to seemingly wait for a few hours.

Sam deserved better.

For a show that had the potential to go out on a historically significant high, this is disappointing, to say the least.  The story had the potential to end with 2 brothers who have sacrificed so much and saved so many people, find a happy ending.  Not only that but find a happy ending with a deaf partner and a gay angel. If that isn’t breaking barriers and bending norms, I don’t know what is.  I really would like to know what prevented this from happening.  Be it the CW from restricting them or maybe the absolute lack of originality from the writers, I am curious as to their reasoning. Maybe it was COVID.  Maybe because they couldn’t have those two actors physically on set due to protocols, they didn’t want to shortchange them by having them appear otherwise: disembodied voice, phone call (DONT TOUCH ME) or even a flashback… hell STOCK FOOTAGE! I don’t know and I clearly can’t imagine the reason.

I realize that there is nothing that can be done about this episode now and that accepting it and moving on is really the only way forward.  But the legacy this show has left, and its lasting impact on me and my life, cannot be ignored.  I was looking forward to indulging in past episodes of this show for the rest of my life. It is going to be a long time before I can watch an episode without anger and resentment towards what I know to be their eventual end.  That, to me, is unforgiveable.  

I don’t expect anyone to actually read this because I do not have any followers. I have never blogged in my entire life and was only recently introduced to the online fandom, but I needed to write this.  I needed to share the impact that this episode had on me.  I do hope that it does reach those in the fandom that may have similar feelings and are able to use my words to help express how they are feeling.  We can move on, and we will move on, but we need to do it together.

I know that there are people who, if they read this, would shake their head in disbelief that I became so emotionally invested in this show that watching a bad ending would take such a toll on my mental health.  

To them I say, imagine this… The Pittsburgh Steelers (my favorite team, they can imagine their own) have an incredible season.  A season where they saw a myriad of highs and lows. Veteran players making incredible comebacks, rookie players coming in to their own.  Season ending injuries that lead to the next man stepping up and contributing in ways they weren’t sure possible.  Now imagine they make it to the Superbowl and after 3 tough quarters, in which they played their best, getting better with each quarter, they lose it in the final minutes.  All that blood, sweat, and tears for nothing.  Now imagine that was their last season and the Pittsburgh Steelers are no longer an NFL team.  They are done.  No “we’ll get ‘em next season.”  No “it’s just a game and there is always another one”.  Just done.  Their entire franchise, for a brief moment in time, reduced to those final minutes where they failed to win.  Devastating. Of course, in the long run that is not what they will be remembered for.  I mean, after all, they have won 6 Lombardi trophies, and no one is taking that away from them.  But the sting will remain for a while. *EDIT* This was as close to prophecy as I will ever get, the Steelers did all of the above until the playoffs, but THANK GOD, there will be another season.

If I can’t make you understand with a sports metaphor than I will never make you understand.  

I love this show and this loss is devastating.  I do hope that it is remembered for more than their last-minute loss.  I hope it is remembered for the joy and acceptance that their fandom felt with each episode, for the laugher on set and the gag reels. I hope it is remembered for the individual players who gave it their all. I know it will be, but for me personally, this sting is going to last for a while.  

[conelly]

( luke hemmings, twenty-two, cismale, he/him ) did you see BYRON CONELLY walking down main street earlier?  you know who i’m talking about, they’re a DECKHAND.  everybody in town says that they’re SANGUINE & NONJUDGEMENTAL, but have a tendency to be IMPRESSIONABLE & VOLATILE too.  BYRON has been in town for ONE AND A BIT years. c'mon, they’re always requesting SWEET CAROLINE by NEIL DIAMOND at karaoke nights.  well, i’m sure you’ll see them soon! ( ooc: sunny, 22, she/her, est )

hi thanks for tuning in, SUNNY here to tell you all a lil bit about westmere’s very own new nd improved favorite loser below. sorry for this summary being all over the place, it’s kinda how my brain works heh which is kinda perfect bc byron will for SURE be all over the place too ( u can rly tell at a certain point i was like ok i give up + i’m posting mf ). let me know if u have any questions about ‘em and most importantly, lmk if you would like to plot a lil connect or sumn 😙

@westmerestarters​ 

FAMBAM + BACKGROUND

born 14 years after the elder conelly ( wanted brother connect !!! ) entered this word to two parents who didn’t seem to read the job description, it was clear that byron wasn’t planned. and down the line, he’d soon realize through the tumultuous household he was brought up in - perhaps never even wanted.

byron’s parents had one constant - and that was fighting. over anything, all the time. there just wasn’t any love between the two and they stayed together for whatever meaningless reasons until byron hit middle school. ( there might’ve been a super short lull in toxicity once byron was born, but it had to be short as his first memories are nothing shy of toxic. )  it was a messy separation ( they never paid the full legal fees for a full divorce ) - his father moving to the coast of nj & his mother moving to a smaller apartment nearby her own mother ( which, due to the negative relationship among his mother + grandmother, also called for more tension ). he’d often be dropped off @ his grandmother’s house for baby-sitting or when he was ‘ becoming too much to handle. ’ eventually his grandmother moved into his cousin’s house ( MONROE ) and although grateful he made a practically new brother, similar tendencies of feeling unwanted occurred when byron noticed their grandmother praising and coddling and favoriting monroe just a bit more.

( his mother was a struggling addict ( and had been her whole life ), but the loneliness, newfound pressures and whatever excuse she was able to name caused her drinking to spiral worse than byron remembered ( even at his young age ) before. )

( his father was rarely in his life, but when he was, he was THE coolest. always played good cop in any situation regarding his mother, despite choosing not to have an active role in byron’s life. byron looked up to him like no other. when he WAS around, he taught byron how to surf, skateboard, play sports, they’d play video games, they’d eat junk food - honestly anything that byron wanted to do. his dad was an adrenaline junkie and created the stepping stones for byron to be one too. he was a marine biologist & pretty successful at that. passionate,  intelligent, but seemingly finding his newfound life a lot better than his previous - which is why he never wanted byron to stay too long, the boy reminded him of her, of the past. )

( his older brother moved out of the house when byron was just a lil kid, they’re not very close and don’t have much in common ... or so it seems. he lives in nyc and they only talk here and there on holidays. he was never a huge part of his life, but it does bum him out to think what could’ve been / could be. )

TO GET THE GIST 

due to never receiving the attention he craved from his family members, he made up for it tenfold in school. he was always talking to everyone, loud, boisterous, gregarious, life of the party; he wanted people to like him and they did. he become a total people pleaser, molding himself to make sure everyone was content and stayed around. impressionable, adaptable. he felt less this way towards adults and had a bit of a rebellious phase, hanging with the wrong crowd & getting into things he probably wouldn’t do otherwise. old habits die hard and he still tries his best to make everyone crack a smile, to remember him - since he believes he won’t be remembered for much else.

after he just barely skated by in high school ( his grades were never as good as his cousin’s and never lived up to his father’s expectations ), byron felt a bit lost. a lot of people had plans, were heading off to college - but already under the assumption he couldn’t reach any expectation in that realm ( a lil self fulfilling prophecy am i right pals ), he stayed in town - caring for his mother who hardly had anything together, his uncle who got sick very quickly & passed, spending time with his grandmother, while he himself fell into a rut. most of his days meant he drove out towards his dad’s place ( dad hardly there now, out and about with his new family ), surfing, smoking, and grabbing some cash doing odd jobs any way he could. he lost any purpose he once had ( but yall would never know it bc who wants to be in someone’s life who’s a buzzkill ? all smiles, baby, all smiles. )

IN WESTMERE

when his cousin offered the opportunity to travel cross-country in his van, byron had nothing to lose. always adventurous in spirit, he immediately said yes - deciding to ignore that ‘obligation,’ that feeling to make sure they were a-ok that he felt towards his parents. he needed an out and this was it. 

after landing in the small connecticut town for the night, the two fell for it - especially since when they got there along the water, it was a summer night + everything landed into place. they decided to stay there a bit longer ... and that eventually turned into more than a year. still antsy to keep traveling and to move around, byron has been ready to head out ... but stays for a few reasons - and them all being people ( bc lbh the surf is not even on point here ok )

his current job is a deckhand ( on a bunch of boats, ppl prob hired him as word of mouth got around that he knew what he was doing ). prob got that knowledge from being by his dad’s on the water when younger ( he’s ... obsessed with the water ) ! and also he’s just a quick learner ok ( ps: if your charrie has a boat pls let’s make somethin happen )

TO KNOW [ headcanons + more ]

his fav karaoke song is sweet caroline bc he knows everyone will be able to sing nd party along. he does it for the ppl, ppl.

he never saw too many baby / kid pics of himself which was kind of a bummer bc he really only remembers negative times - somehow they overpowered ( i bet lil byron was cute as fuck too fml )

he’s super into drugs, hallucinogenics, honestly you name it. it started off w/ him being impressionable, then bored, and now he just enjoys it. despite his mother’s addiction running through his blood, he still continues to do his thang.  

longboards around town so watch your toes

uses 🤙🤙 all the time and not ironically 

has an existential crisis on the daily about purpose but keeps that to himself most times 

WANTED CONNECTIONS

someone pls give me a sugar mama idc how we plot it out they don’t have to hook up they can idk idc i just want someone giving him money or expensive things it can be so much fun ok ,, pool boy ? idk sign me up

pls if your muse has a boat, let him be the deckhand ok it will also be so fun and potentially angsty if he fucks something up

a fling 100% - even multiple ? idc listen he is currently sharing a tiny VAN with his COUSIN he needs a place - like an actual bed - to crash on at night

can he save someone who was potentially drowning pls??? he used to be a lifeguard, it can be a cool/fun thread to write out

omg off of that can he teach someone how to swim 

look if anyone is into marine bio, can they somehow know byron’s father ?? i feel like that could make room for a cool plot

also i have an older brother connect on the w/c’s page lmk lmk

give me a good influence that will somehow have him open up + tell him that it’s weird to be so sunshiny all the time. maybe someone who witnesses him at his worst + stays, ya know ??

a bad influence plot where y/c takes this impressionable young lad and puts him through the ringer tbh ( srrsly he’d do a lot for ppl, so ask him to do something illegal for them it’ll be fun )

party pals, smoking pals, on the water 24/7 pals, 

co-worker, other ppl that work on the water ( fishermen?? more deckhands?? captains??)

gimmie someone he accidentally bumped into while longboarding ( he’s a large human it might’ve done damage ok )

i want and need enemies ok i know he’s chill as fuck and wants everyone to like him but there’s always a way to find enemies >:o. anything angsty for REAL.

unrequited thing? where he led someone on?? i’m sure he does this constantly

don’t ruin the friendship thing omg plsssss always so fun

look i’m open for it ALL. every plot u have in mind so lay it on me

[asking-jude]

I don't exist. And everyone is dying. No one cares. I'm invisible. There's no damn point to any of this. I can ask for help, get ignored. I can make friends, they die. I can say I'm sad, no one cares. There's always someone with a bigger issue. This won't be answered either, so it doesn't matter.

Hello and thank you for reaching out to Asking Jude!

It breaks my heart to hear that you’re feeling so sad, invalidated, helpless and hopeless. I want you to know that your problems do matter, and also, more importantly, you matter! I am sure that there is some part of you that believes it too, because otherwise, you wouldn’t even send this ask in the first place. Please hold onto that part of you, no matter how small it might be, and let it give you strength to keep going.

There is a concept in psychology called learned helplessness. Basically, after a person tries something multiple times and repeatedly encounters failure, they no longer see a point in trying any further. They get so convinced that whatever they do, the outcome will always be negative, just like those many, many times before. Through those negative experiences they learn that they “are helpless”, that there is nothing they can do to change their situation and it makes them give up. I understand that a huge amount of hurtful and disappointing things that have happened to you make you think that they are just going to keep on happening forever and that your life will never get better. It is natural to get discouraged when it seems like life is just one bad experience after another, but clinging onto this mindset is a recipe for depression. 

The truth is that life is fluid and full of changes. Yes, bad things happen, but they are not the only part of life. Good things happen, too. It is your belief that you are helpless, that you have no control that blocks you from seeing opportunities, chances to find support and consolation and move on. When you believe that no one cares, when you assume in advance that you won’t get any help – well, you most probably really won’t. It is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy. If you only expect to encounter people who are not interested to hear about your struggles and who don’t care, your own expectation will cause you to get really defensive and unaccepting of help in advance, which will further induce the people who try to help you to believe that you don’t even want to be helped when you act like that. 

Your belief will make you act in a certain way which will then make your helpers act in a certain way which in the end will really make them uninterested and uncaring, exactly like you thought they would be. That is why, your assumptions will prove to be true yet again and obviously, you will start to think “why should I even bother anymore”. People are constantly trying to prove their own beliefs to be true,  both consciously and subconsciously. Because of this, we tend to focus only on the things that confirm those beliefs, and ignore anything else that would prove us otherwise. The first step in overcoming all of this is to realize you have to change what you believe in. Let yourself have hope and let yourself believe that things can get better. Below you’ll find some articles on this topic and tips on how to deal with these sort of thoughts and feelings. Hope you find them helpful:

https://www.chillpill.io/learned-helplessness/ 

https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/learned-helplessness-seligman-theory-depression-cure/ 

http://www.elizabethesther.com/blog/2016/5/16/overcoming-learned-helplessness    

https://psychologycompass.com/blog/overcoming-learned-helplessness/ 

http://lightwayofthinking.com/confirmation-bias-emotions-screwing-over/  

https://gostrengths.com/you-get-what-you-expect/ 

https://beatingtrauma.com/2016/05/25/6-steps-to-overcome-invalidation/ 

Just because someone else may have a “bigger issue”, that absolutely does not mean that your issue is completely irrelevant. If it makes you experience strong, overwhelming emotions, if it is important to you, then it is important – period. Also, if you feel yourself too deep in a crisis, please don’t hesitate to reach for help:

National Suicide Prevention Hotline (US): 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: Text “HOME” to 741741

Global Suicide Hotline Resources https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/28030010/ 

P. S. check out Asking Jude’s youtube channel to find some helpful videos https://www.youtube.com/c/AskingJude            

Sending you my love,

Nevena Radojević

Asking Jude needs YOUR help! Donate pocket change here and save our safe space. 

[adenthemage]

shoutout to @madness-to-my-method​ for enabling me!

Here’s a long post where I dumped all my thoughts about tfp Starscream into a Google doc, please do enjoy and sorry for the length in advance! 

Categories include (but not necessarily limited to, as I’m an unorganized mess,) Wants vs Needs, How the Pit Does His Head Work, Megatron, Heroic Traits, and additional headcanons.

Wants vs Needs: The core to both Starscream’s want and need is the desire to be respected by others. Starscream is, of course, a very ambitious person. He knows exactly what he wants, and what he wants most of all is control of his own life. His own ambition and mad brand of genius amplify this to world-domination-levels of control. The want of power and being feared by others is a by-product of the core desire to be respected.

What he needs is someone to trust. He needs someone to ground him back in reality and help him recover from the serious damage those billions of years of abuse has done to his psyche. This will probably never happen, because Starscream will never let anyone get that close. When he lives in a world where Megatron constantly hurts him and no one has ever stepped in to help, of course he would learn that he should never rely on anyone else. That he has to help himself first and foremost because no one else will.

The closest person to ever almost gain his trust was Knock Out, and Knock Out never even realized it. It’s shown blatantly more than once that Starscream doesn’t forget when people do him a great service or disservice. He tends to operate on a weird ‘eye for an eye’ sort of honor code. If you save his life, he will remember that. KO saved Starscream’s life at least once, and it’s easy to see especially in the episode Thirst that Starscream starts to sort of respect the guy (and the genuine flattery didn’t hurt either.) Meanwhile, in the same episode, we can see KO becoming perhaps a little disenchanted with always being left behind or thrown under the bus after all he’s done to look out for Starscream.

KO put himself out there to help Starscream, (barring the ending of ep Thirst, but unfortunately that’s just the behavior expected of him,) and Starscream realized that in some capacity. On the other hand, Starscream was willing to let KO get hurt to save his own hide at every turn, and KO didn’t miss that. So it’s no surprise in the end, when Starscream rescues KO and hands him a powerful weapon and turns his back to him, nor when KO takes that opportunity to throw Starscream under the bus to save his own hide.

This is why I believe it is nearly impossible for Starscream to form any positive relationships after the ending of tfp. He was already basically there during the series, he likely already had the mentality that ‘trusting anyone=death’, but KO was supposed to prove him wrong, in a way. It was essentially his last chance to change, but instead he was proved right as a result of his own actions. He is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Starscream desperately needs to be saved from himself. He will never get this. Starscream wants power and control. In his relentless pursuit of this, he has ruined his chances at getting any of the above.

How the Pit does his head work: Starscream, as I mentioned briefly before, is kind of a genius. It’s not really the conventional type, though. He is observed for most of the series coming up with outlandish ideas on the fly (heh,) and they’re usually pretty hit or miss, but when they work they really work. It definitely helps that Starscream is quite honestly willing to sacrifice anything and everything short of his own life if he thinks there’s a chance it’ll work out in his favor. He takes risks-- granted a lot of the time it’s out of necessity, in his mind. ‘If I pass up on this chance, it might cause my death later on.’ He has a combination of a mind that comes up with plans most sane bots would rule out as impossible, and a constitution strong enough to act on those plans.

He functions on the (rather correct) assumption that everyone wants him dead, and so every alliance is never anything more than another means to manipulate and probably kill. He is a startlingly good actor when he is either in control of the situation or under threat of death by anyone besides Megatron.

Speaking of! There are two situations in which Starscream will act strikingly differently. When he is in control of the situation, versus when he’s under threat of even just physical harm. When he’s in control, he is grandiose and dramatic, sadistic and gleeful and terrifying. When he gets what he wants, he revels in it. He loves when he has someone else cornered, when he can feel the fear in them, it’s a sense of power that he isn’t allowed to have ‘back home,’ so it’s intoxicating (also, he’s just kinda a piece of shit.) As he is already prone to puffing himself up, his pride may become his downfall in these times (he gloats every once in a while. Depends on his mood. Sometimes he’ll just murder the victim right off the bat.)

When he feels significantly threatened, or otherwise thrown off guard, he may shut down, so to speak. He will give up on fight or flight and turn to trying to trick his way out. This is what the show seems to consider his cowardly side. He will do anything to protect his own life, including begging. His silver tongue is very much his strong suit, so there are several instances of him talking his way out of death. Thing is, he’s kinda smart about watching his own back. He survived the war, after all, and in a situation where he was essentially taken captive he followed all the recommended rules to surviving that situation. Even when he’s panicking, he’s able to plan an escape route.

Megatron: Megatron deserves to fucking die and I’m going to tell you why. Buckle in.

The concluding paragraph to the Want vs Need section was pretty bleak, and it’s Megatron’s fragging fault. What he put Starscream through is some severe abuse. There’s no way to deny that. He put Starscream in a position of power and then proceeded to take away any sense of power, security, control, safety, you name it. He created an environment where Starscream was constantly afraid and paranoid, punished him for every little error, literally beat him to near-death on an occasion that the show spells out for us. He gave Starscream the idea of what he wanted to badly and then tore it away from him.  If I made a Fears section, (which, I might,) Megatron would be near the top of the list.

And it’s infuriating because Starscream thinks that the way to get out of this cycle of pain and fear is to become just like Megatron. And what’s worse, he adapts to the situation, unaware. He learns that failure of any kind means pain, he learns that security will be found in controlling and harming others, he learns that he is worthless and desperately tries to force everyone around him to believe he is worth something, and he learns that believing in Megatron and the Decepticon cause was naive.

He was right about Megatron, by the way. Unstable as his grasp on reality may be at this point, he correctly saw the major flaws in his leader and correctly sought to dethrone him. Look what happened because Megs stayed in power! Megs became a corrupt leader and created a hierarchy where he was at the top and everyone did whatever he said because they were all too scared of him. If he made errors, it wasn’t because he was making decisions without taking into account the opinions of the qualified around him, it was because someone under him messed up somehow and he would punish them accordingly. Also, he uh, fucking lost the war. So yanno, eat shit, Megahoe.

Starscream kept Decepticon presence so well-hidden for the three years they were on Earth, that the Bots didn’t even realize they were there. Can I stress how impressive that is. He managed to operate on Earth enough to at least mine so much fuel as to run a massive warship and feed an army, and the Autobots assumed they were still out in another galaxy. Had Cliffjumper not stumbled upon one of the digsites before Megatron’s arrival, who knows what they could have done with such a potent element of surprise. He would have killed Optimus Prime in one instance if Megatron hadn’t intervened to beat him up. He would have been a far more effective leader than Megatron.

I would also like to note that the Decepticons do not fear him as wholly as they do Bucket Head, with notable distinctions to be made in how KO does not flinch away from Starscream despite being punished for disobeying him once or twice, whereas Starscream will flinch away if Megatron so much as walks towards him. The poor guy flinches at almost all physical contact, even if it isn’t hostile.

Whenever we’re shown Megatron attacking Starscream, Starscream does not fight back. He even refuses to put his hands around Megs’ wrist when he’s being lifted by the neck, which would generally be instinctual. That’s an intense terror to have been instilled in him, but I guess billions of years of severe mental and physical abuse will do that to you.

Heroic Traits: Starscream is a terrible guy, of course. We’ve established that much. But he’s got some traits that are often ascribed to protagonists, which I find interesting, so I’m making note of it. The big one is his perseverance. American stories love heroes that never give up, despite the odds, that try every angle and come out victorious despite hardships. Starscream embodies this trait, but I think the interesting angle here is that he’s persevering in pursuit of some evil-ish goals. Any heroic trait can be perverted into something to scorn, after all. If this trait is pointed at something that isn’t worth pursuing with such fervor, then perhaps that is what makes the difference between a hero and a villain.

The other one is his willingness to act on the problems he sees. The heroes are the ones who take up the calls to action, and far be it for him to be the type to sit back and let things happen. If he can, he will have a say in what happens. He thinks in terms of the bigger picture and goals towards solutions, and these are usually traits framed as worthy of being admired. He is often ridiculed and punished for these traits in the show.

Also, given his dismay at the destruction of the first chance to save Cybertron being done away with, I think it’s safe to assume, somewhere in his mind, he wants the best for their planet. Whether that’s to rule it is a different story--

Headcanons: He has a crooked, fake-looking smile even when he’s being genuine. Fight me. Also, dark lines under the eyes. Ups the spook-factor and the tired-old-man-factor all at once!

The reason Starscream returned to the Cons for season 3 was because he was starving. The red energon was the last of what he had, so he was forced to find a way to use it to earn his way into one of the factions. The Cons were familiar, he knew how they ticked, and trying to join the Bots twice before nearly cost him his life. It was the lesser of two evils.

He talks to himself constantly. He’s a verbal processor. (Although, this one might just be canon.) He also may not be able to differentiate between what he keeps in his head and what he says out loud, occasionally.

He’s a terrifying enemy in a fight, so long as he isn’t taken of guard. Look at him, he’s basically a bunch of knives with wings! Curse you, tfp, for not letting him win more fights, you cowards!

Dark Energon reacts more powerfully to Starscream than Megatron, though it seems to have more downsides for him, as well. It’s effect when he first stabbed himself with a shard was to cause him to burst into purple flames, while Megs just kinda spazzed out for a bit. However, Starscream could not control a Terrorcon with it, and Megatron could. (Not gonna make a call on the visions from the future thing because Starscream wasn’t affected by the Dark Energon for very long.) Megs used the Dark Star Sabre as merely a big slightly-toxic sword. When Starscream used it, it would backfire and cause him pain occasionally, but he was also able to use it to send out a paralyzing shock to everyone within like a 30ft vicinity or something idk I didn’t count but it was pretty impressive okay.

Insert mumbo-jumbo about Vosian Seekers and Skywarp and Thundercracker and Genericons here. He’s shorter than his brothers fighT ME.

Knowing myself, I’m probably gonna add to this garbage sooner or later.

[muggle-writes]

@dionian-gayce asked me to ramble about world building and i can't save answers as drafts and tumblr ate my last (very long but not as long as this) attempt to answer. and while it's probably for the better that you'll get a more coherent answer I'm also very frustrated that I put a lot of time into an answer that I didn't get a choice in throwing out. That's not your fault though

Thanks for asking! I'm sure you made that post offering to ask people questions thinking of the (if your blog traffic is anything like mine) 3-10 other blogs that regularly interact with your original posts, and instead it had something like 350 notes by the time i saw it, so I'm impressed you're still following through.

world building is one of my favorite things to be honest. I write mostly fanfiction anymore and very few of them are canon compliant because I love pushing boundaries and exploring "if I make xyz change to that universe, how does that affect how the characters behave?" (tl;dr like 70% of my fic-writing is answering those world building questions, and the rest is when i have specific ideas about how certain characters will interact, and then I will write the rest of the fic to set them up for interacting)

the most visible example(s) I have of this is my surprising variety of soulmate AUs. I'll describe some of the thought that went into the published parts of Sphygmoid and Stripes of Fate, and end with some spoilery bits about the process of world building for The One I've Been Looking For (which was originally titled Colors and I'm going to call it that for the remainder of this post because that's a shorter title without having to abbreviate to The One or an acronym my phone won't recognize as a word)

I think of soulmate AUs as the easiest example of world building because there's something big and obvious and visible differentiating that universe from ours or canon. and while it's possible to write a soulmate AU with no thought as to "why" people are soulmates with each other, just for the fluff factor, or to get the OTP to think of each other romantically sooner than canon or ever, I usually prefer to explore all the interesting questions that brings up. like "how does the prevalence of soulmates affect social norms?" and "what does it really mean when people are soulmates?" alongside "what do people think it means to be soulmates, and how accurate are they?" I also generally have a preference for soulmate AUs that connect you to more than one person, like 'strings of fate' AUs that connect you to your inevitable best friends and long term partners and sometimes even mortal enemies, though I haven't written one of those yet.

so, going from least world building to most, in Stripes of Fate, the premise is that everyone has a patch of skin on the inside of their wrist that is the exact color of their soulmate's hair, and changes whenever they dye it. Saguru (the main character) speculates (and eventually his soulmate confirms) that if one of them changes the color of only part of their hair, the other's mark changes to a matching pattern. as I mentioned, this is probably the soulmate AU I've put the least thought into (they're soulmates because i like the ship and one of them, in fanon at least, changes his own and his classmates' hair colors often, if not regularly so there's something interesting to bring them together. and I haven't specified anyone else's soulmates) but even so I worked in some fun world building: how do societal norms change because of the prevalence of soulmates? well one country's norm is to wear the mark visibly and for young adults to change their hair color frequently as a way of identifying themselves to their soulmates. another country's norm is to keep them covered and private. but I left other questions unanswered, like since soulmates are rarely the exact same age, does the older one have a mark from birth? what about people who won't live long enough to meet a soulmate, do they have a mark at all? what about the soulmates of people who don't have hair at all, for any reason besides shaving? those answers aren't relevant to the story as written, but if I were writing any more in the same universe, I'd want to decide those answers, just in case.

Then there's Sphygmoid. Sphygmoid is more the style of soulmate AU I like to read (and write, obviously), because the prompt specifies that people have marks from many of the important people in their lives, not just their soulmates (who get a different color). I really enjoyed exploring the mechanics of these soulmarks, and unlike many soulmark AUs, which feature marks or strings which are either there from birth or appear all at once, these vary in brightness based on the state of the relationship. (Ran had a childhood friend who she had a mark from but after that friend moved away and they grew apart, the mark faded back to almost nothing). it's also interesting: the original prompt specified that people have marks from their soulmate and from people they love, but I initially misread it as "from people who love them". and even after i realized my mistake, I decided to keep it that way because I liked the mental image of children being born with several bright marks already because their parents and grandparents and older siblings loved them even before they were born. For the most part, the difference between "you love them" and "they love you" is negligible because in most cases, the care and affection are reciprocal, but given that the main character of the anime gets adopted into his best friend's home under a fake identity, using the "they love you" metric makes it interesting because I'll get to explore the questions of can Shinichi distinguish between Ran's love for him vs her love for Conan just from his mark(s) from her? does it matter that she thinks they're two separate people? how does that compare to his marks from his parents once they know the truth? likewise (and also a reader commented to ask and I was thrilled that someone else cared about the same sort of thing) what does Ran think when she doesn't get a new mark from Conan after they take him in and he's been in their family for a while? I've got partially solidified ideas of how to answer these, but aside from his parents finding out the truth and immediately loving their son in every form, love grows slowly over time, so I've got a while to decide and build up to those answers. in the meantime I'm stuck on chapter two which I want to be mainly from the pov of a character that I don't have a good handle on her voice, let alone her internal narration. But overall, yes the entire focus of this fic is to explore how soulmarks grow and change as the characters do.

And then there's Colors, which I'm probably most proud of the world building in. it's ironic that this is the fic I've thought the most about because I decided one night "hey I've got tomorrow off, someone prompt me and I'll write at least (minimum length) on the topic," and by 11pm the following night, I had picked someone, been prompted with a pairing and a style of soulmate identification (you see in grayscale until you meet your soulmate, and after that everything is in color), and then worked out a majority of these world building details and wrote a one shot that became the first chapter.

spoilers ahead for things hinted at but mostly not revealed (yet)

did that work as a readmore?

I can't actually tell

So the prompt was Harry/Ginny, and when I asked for preferences, suggesting i make other canon ships each other's soulmates, the requestor agreed. But for this one, I really sat down to think: what makes a soulmate a soulmate? now I'm ace and arospec so I wasn't particularly interested in the classic "the one perfect romantic partner for you" interpretation, though I saved that for the answer to "what does society think soulmates are?" because otherwise why are they called soulmates instead of something else? Instead, I decided that soulmates (of which any one person typically has many potential matches, people just don't notice a change from color vision to... more color? when they meet subsequent possible soulmates.) are people who, by adulthood, will support you and enable you to become your best self. For many people this is an ideal romantic partner too, but that's only the case when both people expect their soulmate to be a romantic partner (which is most people, given society's assumptions about soulmates, it kind of turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy that a majority of soulmates are also "the" perfect romantic partner for each other) but arospec people and others for whom romantic compatibility isn't a priority, don't tend have soulmates who are destined to be romantic partners.

So with all that decided, I had to decide (a) why are people's canon endgame partners the first potential soulmate they'll meet, especially for people like Bill and Fleur who met as adults, when many people, especially within a small community like the British Wizarding World, meet a match in their school years? and (b) why don't more people notice "one-sided" soulmate situations when someone's potential soulmate thinks they already know the one soulmate they should have. The latter was easy: power of suggestion again. when people assume they will only have one soulmate, and they know who that one person will be, they are hostile to people who claim to be their soulmate, and assume they're liars. that makes them not as supportive to the potential match as they could otherwise be, so mostly they just don't match. which of course reinforces the misunderstanding that there's exactly one soulmate per person. however, particularly selfless people will find themselves a match to nearly anyone who is reasonably supportive in return.

for Bill and Fleur, and why neither of them met a potential soulmate before each other, Fleur was easy: she's part Veela, and too many people judge her for her heritage rather than on her own merits as a person, so they're not supportive enough. for Bill, I decided he has too much wanderlust, and the British Wizarding community, small and insular as it is, doesn't tend to inspire much of a desire to travel for longer than a week of vacation so none of Bill's Hogwarts peers would have been up for traveling with him and encouraging and supporting him in that long term.

then of course I had to decide whether every canon couple was soulmates, and obviously I decided not. Charlie, being the most popular aroace headcanon, obviously wouldn't be surprising to not meet a soulmate at Hogwarts where everyone assumes they'll marry their soulmate, so it's okay to have him not have a soulmate or meet one (someone with similar priorities of dragons!) at the Reserve

on the topic of the Weasleys though, you can't have nonromantic soulmates and not make Fred and George each other's soulmates. you just can't. they're so in sync and so thrilled to do everything together, and you know they'll support each other perfectly for their entire lives. even Harry and most of the fandom (and Molly, facing a boggart), think of George and Fred as a unit. however, given the usual assumption all the characters make, that soulmates must be romantic, means that sibling soulmate bonds are treated as scandals that families hush up. (thus not publicly contradicting society's narrative that soulmates are guaranteed romantic. I decided that, while this doesn't happen for every set of twins, it still occurs in many families. they just never find each other because shame keeps them silent on the matter.) however, given that multiple soulmates are a thing, most sibling-soulmates are identified by non-family soulmates, and even if they don't believe their other soulmate's claim, they usually accept the "convenient misunderstanding" and marry their newly-met soulmate. This is exactly what happened with George and Lee, and Fred and Angelina. the twins assume their friends are mistaken, and the rest of the Weasleys assume Lee and Angelina are soulmates and are covering for the twins because they know they're "actually" each other's soulmates.

after the most recent chapter, (in which Harry asks the twins if they've met their soulmate it was Lee who answered for them, despite how willing the twins otherwise are to talk about themselves. because Lee knows he's not lying or mistaken, but all the Weasleys in the room hold onto a sliver of doubt and hate to "take advantage" of their friend by "falsely" making claims about his soulmate.) someone commented on how they were sure I was setting up to reveal the twins as each other's soulmates and Angelina and Lee were a curveball. and I kinda was leading up to that. but even if soulmates were unique in this universe, what stops Lee from lying to protect his friends, like the Weasleys mostly assume he is doing? characters don't always tell the truth! anyway that comment made me feel good, somewhat, about my foreshadowing skills, but also made me realize if I want people to know these details, I have to give them a reason to "naturally" come up. Like, Charlie is going to come pick up Norbert, still, and that'll be a way to bring up non-romantic soulmates (Charlie comments on the color of Norbert's flame as an indicator of health, and then demands the others not tell Ron, because Ron can't keep a secret from Molly, who's overbearing about insisting all her kids find their perfectly respectable soulmates and get married and produce lots of grandbabies, and Charlie's really not interested in most of that and his partner (name and gender tbd) agrees.

In Molly's defense, as far as she knows, of her eldest five children, the oldest two haven't met soulmates by an age most purebloods have, one is fine, and the other two are each other's soulmates which is absolutely scandalous. she's worried that Percy is going to be the only one with a real soulmate, and that'll not only draw negative attention to the family, but to her children as individuals, with further attention drawn because of the pattern of a "lack of soulmates", and none of them deserve society's judgment.

anyway back on topic, I had to decide if canon endgame ships were going to be each other's first soulmates in all cases, and tbh I decided "not always". because I love the idea of Sirius and Remus being soulmates even if Tonks and Remus get together after Sirius' death, and they obviously met before Tonks was born.

so from there I decided to keep canon ships and decide if they're soulmates on a case by case basis and justify it if not. Voldemort/Bellatrix is plausible (she'll definitely support him in his endeavors and he clearly respects and trusts her enough to bear his child.) on the other hand she's also soulmates with her husband but the Lestranges are just open-minded enough for Bellatrix to accept the status boost of his claim and Rodolphus to support her whether or not they believe him, so they don't question it publicly or privately. obviously their version of supporting each other isn't something the rest of the world particularly appreciates but I like it. alternately (though these aren't mutually exclusive options) I think it's likely voldie had another soulmate he met young but he rejected her due to his biases at the time and never gave her a chance. I'm not sure either option will ever be plot-relevant on a Hinny story so it almost doesn't matter (except it does because I hate JKR's "he's so evil because he can't love, and he's incapable of love because he was conceived under a love potion" and all the unfortunately implications of both those statements. I prefer to think he ignored or rejected the resources and chances for growth that could have made him a less evil person. regardless he has a soulmate or several to just not get into demonizing people for not being "able to" love.) The other notable canon relationship I've specifically decided on is Vernon and Petunia. and honestly, I can't remember a single instance in the books that he did a thing to support her. at most he didn't fight harder to kick Harry out at various times, when her decision not to was reluctantly made based on letters from Dumbledore. and to be honest, I can't imagine him being a supportive partner to anyone. he holds Dudley to high standards, and praises him whether he meets those standards or not, but that's not the same as a mutually supportive/healthy adult relationships. so Vernon is the only person who specifically hasn't and won't meet his soulmate ever in the course of the fic. but if I'm saying that then what about Petunia? given how I've focused soulmates on potential to support each other, I've made the arbitrary decision that Petunia and Peter Pettigrew are soulmates. if they'd given each other a chance they would have initially bonded over their feelings of inferiority next to Lily and James, but they would have seen the best in each other's abilities and encouraged each other out of that bitter spiral. Petunia of course admires and envies everything about magic, which encourages Peter who's used to being seen as the tagalong who isn't quite as good as James and Sirius. and in return he admires her for not letting having no magic at all stop her from accomplishing her other goals, and for her homesteading skills that he never mastered, with or without magic. I acknowledge it's an odd pair, but in terms of potential, it's there. as for why they didn't talk it out and give each other a chance when they realized they were soulmates, that's probably a short I'll eventually write, from both of their perspectives.

anyway i count most of this as world building instead of character development because it's rarely if ever going to show up in the fic (as if Petunia would admit to Harry that she's soulmates with one of James' buddies - she isn't even sure which one) but it informs characters' behavior and background events (Harry would still notice that she always insisted on doing the laundry and flawlessly matches socks to each other for Dudley and Vernon, and her outfits are always color-coordinated and she'll often find an "unrelated" excuse to correct Vernon's outfit when his has particularly uncomplimentary colors)

anyway alongside all that character-focused development, I also thought about what changes that makes scientifically and to society. obviously, since most kids won't see colors yet, the color names won't be taught in classes in younger years. they'll give everyone a take-home reference to study on their own time for after they do meet a soulmate. (Harry wishes for this and remembers Vernon binned his and Dudley's copies, saying it was propaganda). muggles get little reference books with all the basic colors and references to books with more colors, wizards have a magic magnifying glass shaped thing that will overlay color names of whatever is visible through the lens (Harry borrows Ron's on the train). since there's a strong chance that a large subset of the population can't see color, traffic lights are all different shapes, in addition to being different colors, and house/sports team colors have other designs worked in, so that they can be recognized by shape too (Harry observes something like this in the house banners at Hogwarts). scientifically, one of the few details I've come up with is that all color vision is magically granted, which means that even peripheral vision has color (which it doesn't in the real world due to the relative density of rods and cones in our eyes). and accordingly the usual variety of "colorblindness" that exists in our world doesn't exist in this fic, color is just all-or-nothing. (people frequently comment on how true grayscale vision "isn't" a type of colorblindness in the real world but I know someone in person who has that exact form of colorblindness it's just rare in our world, especially in comparison to other forms)

and I was going somewhere else with this, but it's been over a week and when I read this draft to remember what not to repeat I keep getting distracted by the character-backgrounds stuff so I think I'm just going to post this as-is. I feel like it's more than sufficient as an example and attempted explanation of my thought processes.

[steffenhardwick-blog]

The Expectation Economic situation.

Actually although several local business owner set out to begin a business because of this, they frequently locate themselves overworked, underfunded and also swamped by their daily activities. Each individual is actually regularly getting a flow of internal data as well as the individual will definitely accept records merely that is in line along with their individual assumptions. In case you loved this post and you want to receive more information regarding yellow pages uk search by name (web link) kindly visit our own web page. If, for example you think that wealthy people are actually bad" and have gotten their wealth through illegal ways, then on the occasion that you need to immediately acquire a large bonanza (maybe coming from a lotto win) you are going to probably discover that you drop the majority of this rather rapidly, because of your requirement as well as view device. . Simply keep in mind to connect your requirement well and you'll observe fantastic outcomes.

Certainly not only do our desires impact the situations from our lifestyles, but the requirements we store of other individuals impact their life circumstance and in turn, the expectations they hold regarding our company do the very same. When you possess requirements from your own self as well as you neglect; YOU are actually outplayed along with YOU as well as this can lead merely right into anxiety Do not do this to on your own! Naaman was even more concentrated on certainly not possessing his desires fulfilled in comparison to he was about his accurate necessity for recovery. The above plans are actually certainly not meant to be complete, but merely to give a tip as to expectations as well as policy for all workers. To materialize the lifestyle from your dreams, you need to be in harmony with your assumptions. We're not proposing you completely rid yourself from all assumptions, our company are actually recommending you evaluate which assumptions are reasonable and which are not. In determining whether an item's safety and security fulfills the individual requirement test, the jury looks at the requirements from a theoretical affordable individual, instead of those of the particular plaintiff in the case. Find how the freshly handled objectives and desires operate in your everyday life and just how you feel as you achieve the much smaller goals heading to your goal. The requirement and also going along with mindset that you stuff is actually probably just what your teen will certainly provide in come back. If you pick excessive from an assumption you could be let down due to the fact that you are not enabling yourself to be open up to acquire the appropriate answers merely the ones that reasonable to you. Snatch your note pad and also electronic camera and also begin taking EXPECTATION ECONOMIC CLIMATE notes as well as images. Purposely or not, they discover that you possess a dream or even an expectation of them that they can't as well as perhaps don't also care to measure up to. When they start making an effort to acquire away coming from you, that is actually. You emotionalize the need as well as requirement from promotions and also rears by fervor from your Limbic (feelings) unit. The self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or even in a roundabout way triggers on its own to come to be true by the very relations to the prophecy itself, because of favorable comments between opinion and also practices - an assumption concerning a target (e.g. an individual or even event) can easily affect our behaviour to that topic, which induces the requirement to occur. The lack from accurately understood assumption is actually the resource from a lot strife in relationships, the cause of a lot of struggles, and the beginning from unsatisfactory organizational performance. Customizes requirement to ensure when the counted on approach is phoned, it yields numerous times per invocation with the defined parameter_groups. Because the likelihood from each individual result is challenging to figure out, Processing the assumed worth as a weighted average is actually difficult/messy. The quickest means to dissatisfy on your own in a relationship or even ravage a youngster is to hold them to an expectation you do not explain in words. This may be an unreasonable desire for an on the internet outdating service, unless you participate in among the a lot more expensive matchmaking solutions that cater to additional rich clients. Inning accordance with the National Conference of Condition Legislatures, there should be a reasonable assumption of privacy in order for the infraction to be held authentic. The fundamental reason from the practice was actually to support the hypothesis that reality may be inclined by the requirements from others. Here are some practical methods to modify desires of workers and draw out the greatest in your entire personnel. This could look the only way to decrease the outcomes that are actually produced due to the expectations that they possess. Keeping in mind the whole entire company is a team, the examination from the lack of ability to fulfill assumptions need to focus on the group aspects. Know what motivates and also encourages the person you are actually preparing an expectation for, as well as ensure you deserve to prepare it in the first place. In childhood years our experts are strained by requirement of close friends, parents and also educators. But the knowledge consumers perform an investigation concerning the attributes, setback, requirement plus all other features they can consider before buying and also most of their study time spend on finding most appropriate high-end audio supplier. To possess none, or even worse, bad assumptions on your own is actually to neglect before you also begin. You are going to certainly never be feel stressed on managing the assumption if you internalize this knowledge. You give thanks to The lord for having many folks in your lifestyle believes that you could deliver, after that handling requirement comes to be much easier. These 4 straightforward things could create a planet of variation in your capacity to attract what you prefer, and when the symptoms start to occur, you'll be able to incorporate them to your listing of encounters to offer you a lot more confidence and confidence to your expectations - which will definitely make them still more helpful! Alternatively, if the ambiguity effect is actually lessened in Block 2 for the RC-First group, but there is still a substantial obscurity impact in Block 2 for the Filler-First group, at that point this will advise that-perhaps aside from one thing like job adaptation-subjects are definitely adapting their requirements depending on the stats of the etymological environment. The wish remains in straight conflict with your assumption and also the disagreement in fact causes both messages being actually communicated-- generally as asks for-- as well as, sadly, desire is actually often the victor in the inner field of honor our team contact our mind considering that the emotional energy from our conviction (in our assumption) is a lot stronger than the psychological electricity from our desire. Cozy chocolate chip biscuits in mid-afternoon, apples on the frontal work desk contrarily, mints on your pillow, frequent-stay awards are actually just a few methods which accommodation firms try to transcend our assumptions and needs to delight our team as well as obtain our commitments. With these growths in Marshmallow, the assumption from users coming from their Android units has improved manifold. I had to discover how to be actually straightforward with myself regarding my assumptions - so I could release the ones that were actually crazy (like, everyone is actually visiting own the method I prefer them to), and have my selections - so I could have obligation for how I was actually establishing myself around be actually a victim in order to transform my patterns. What made this brand-new research so amazing and also vital is that unprejudiced human brain browses had throughout the practice also presented which areas from the brain were impacted by the clients' individual assumptions. A control training program can assist improve your service as well as the potential customers as well as profession from your personal employees.

[britneyfrencham-blog]

California Civil Jury Recommendations (CACI) 1203. Stringent Liability.

This will need a bit extra emphasis in comparison to ordinary subconscious mind work, where you are programming on your own for a goal or other habits. Generally companions are actually born in mind when to pamper mental edge or even child from younger delight; that makes sure that companions are actually meaning from Beloved, offering a Stimulation on others to recognition for amative firm. The very first residential or commercial property is actually that if X and Y are the 2 random variables, then the mathematical expectation from the sum from the two variables is equal to the sum from the mathematical requirement of X and the algebraic desire of Y, gave that the algebraic desire exists. If you think that you've bumped into a wall surface, or even hit your head on the ceiling, your requirements of exactly what should be actually are possibly forcing you to have 'too significant of a snack.' But, do not necessarily decrease your desires. A third option is to deliberately consider something really good, to refocus on the bigger photo and build up your favorable requirements once again. Customizes desire to ensure that when the anticipated technique is actually referred to as, this elevates the pointed out exception with the defined notification i.e. refers to as Piece #raise( exception, information). There is actually a cognitive space between administration and worker on the significance from employee benefit programmes. The complying with are a handful of settlement tactics/strategies that you can make use of to control your negotiations and also the assumptions included within all of them. To a lesser level, an expectation void was found regarding the dependability from analysis and also audited financial claims, and also the effectiveness of audit. This is different off worth committing where the genuine price of the reveal is actually trading listed below its intrinsic value as well as is actually anticipated to find good after market corrections take place. Just how ever because of active schedules of life, this is actually coming to be difficult to fulfill other expectation. This concern might lead to frustration, irritated, self deprival, disappointment or even in modern-day control jargon ANXIETY. In qualified life, our company are struggling to meet the expectation of others or others are actually not up to our desire is actually possibly due to our incapability to share our criteria quite plainly ... Conveying our demands plainly is actually the fine art of interaction and establishing this capability is a lifestyle lengthy effort as our company need to take care of other individuals, along with other condition as well as our experts go to different degree of maturity. Long after the people that initially programmed a number of the desires our team were bound to recognize are actually gone, our company are actually still functioning from them given that they have actually become seated in our code of conduct, regardless of whether they do not accommodate which we are. When you cherished this information in addition to you desire to get details regarding yellow pages online malaysia (visit these guys) i implore you to stop by our web site. Although you can manage the digital impact of your label online to a specific level, a focus on online reputation monitoring may assist you manage your digital profile much more proactively, as opposed to re actively. There is actually certainly that you, like me, possess expectations concerning just how you ought to be, just how people need to be as well as just how life itself should be actually. And after that there are actually the expectations that individuals have about how you ought to be actually, exactly what you may or even might not can accomplishing, what you need to feel, claim and also perform along with the standard requirements society possesses regarding age, sex, religion, citizenship, ethnicity and so forth. Desires bring about tags and tags bring about making limitations. Coming from that minute on I began to cultivate the belief that I was actually in some way less intelligent in comparison to my fellow trainees, this subsequently negatively influenced my expectations and also pretty practically resulted in years from underachievement. Naturally, liberating your own self from expectations is a procedure of building healthy and balanced psychological borders and also agreeing, oftentimes, to risk having a person be disappointed. Fine art Control salaries generally cover all of the benefits that a popular job has. Unrealistic expectations make you think you'll certainly never do well, every initiative is actually for naught, you are forever predestined to stop working. Essentially, a person which is having a relationship along with our team, strongly believing that our team can accomplish their desires. Merely stated, the Rule from Assumptions tells our company that whatever one anticipates, along with self-confidence, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you see continuous frustration, that may be that you have to lower your desires rather. A requirement of success are going to promote effectiveness, whereas a desire from hazard will definitely bring in unsafe conditions to the individual. One of the best efficient ways that you can easily accomplish equilibrium is by changing the desires that you place on yourself as well as others. Towering and out of reach assumptions in ANY connection certainly causes dissatisfaction- over and over. Higher assumptions may made you in a setting from trying to dive your own gulches right out of eviction. The theory greatly applies to the stock exchange worldwide, as, if real estate investors count on the price of common stock from a certain company to find down they take place a marketing spree and the end result is actually noticeable, and when they anticipate that to climb they buy greatly and also consequently, the rates spirally. Broad trends based on individual needs and wants will definitely uncover additional from these expectations. One team will definitely perform a practice and also expect X end result, which they obtain, then another different group will certainly perform the particular very same trying out the desire from result Y, which they acquire ... their thoughts as well as assumptions being actually the only difference. You could additionally incorporate the kindness, sweetness and sincerity from Joe Gargery in your wonderful requirement essay. The absence from plainly comprehended requirement is the resource of a lot quarrel in connections, the reason for the majority of battles, and also the beginning of inadequate company efficiency. Modifies desire so that when the counted on method is called, it gives a number of opportunities each rune along with the specified parameter_groups. Computer the anticipated value as a weighted standard is difficult/messy since the probability from each personal result is difficult to determine. The quickest way to disappoint your own self in a connection or wreck a little one is actually to have all of them to an assumption you do not verbalize. The talk concerning desires should be actually a real chat - so that both from you know each other's assumptions and so that you could more in the direction of arrangement. These are actually people who can easily shift market reveal portions when they removal their loyalty to products or services that promise to surpass their assumptions of value. There is a delicate equilibrium between specifying a motive (making use of the rule of tourist attraction) and having a desire. If Assumption works with strong pain-killing drugs - at that point if our team are KEYED to succeed in analytic, selling, or developing original software program, the mind-body-connection is also a powerful resource for excellence in college as well as your occupation. In a professional atmosphere, expectation develops in between you and also your employer, desire emerges in between you and also your team, requirement develops in between peers etc.

[soberist-blog]

I Need To Talk

The Truth

I’m not living with my wife right now. The swings are too much.

If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re already well acquainted with the way the holidays play out in an alcoholic home. If you’re not, it’s no fucking picnic. This is the third time I’ve left since Christmas. To be honest, I don’t know why I bothered ever going back. Everything I know about the sickness tells me that things are never going to change. More than that, if things are going to change, they’re going to get a hell of a lot worse before the get even a little bit better.

My initial decision to leave was a long time coming. My entire purpose in this marriage up until now has been to maintain the illusion while my wife falls apart – get up, feed the kid, get him dressed, make the hour-long drive to work, put in 10 hours, hike it home, make dinner, tidy the house, go to sleep, repeat. If that’s not enough, there’s an almost uniform certainty that she’ll be a bottle deep and incoherent by the time I finally make it home. I get a knot in my stomach when I get off the highway every day. That’s what happens when home isn’t a safe place, when you have no idea what you’re walking in to.

I packed up all my things just before the New Year and went to stay with my da. He knows this story. On top of being a 14-year sober guy himself, he did this dance with my step-mother for a decade before he decided enough was enough. I like how I feel when I’m at his place – free from expectation, anxiety, fear. Free to be myself. After returning home from that stint of serenity, things were good – for a while. What is it about things being “good for awhile” that makes the next episode so much worse?  I’ll work up a formula for that and post it later.

This particular Friday night, I got in the car to start my long trek home to the city from the boonies where I work. When I got in the car I called home.  I always call home when I’m leaving work – it gives me an idea of what to expect when I run out of highway and only the driveway looms in front of me.  Tonight, a friend of my wife’s picks up the phone. I don’t really listen to her, as I know where this is going. I make myself sick with worry the rest of the way home. In retrospect, I should have turned the car around and found something else to do – somewhere else to be. What I walked in to was a clusterfuck the size of which there exists no scale to measure.

My wife’s friend’s got more coke in her than Tony Montana and is making dinner with my son.  There’s food everywhere but in the pots, it seems, and my wife is passed out face down on the tiled basement floor.  It’s 6:30 in the evening.

Obviously, I’m unimpressed and need to find an excuse to get the fuck out of here as soon as is possible.  After doing my best to make nice for about an hour, I head to the garage to hack a butt.  My intention is to stay here until this idiot goes home.  She hasn’t shut up since I walked in the door, telling the same story about how she let a fireman fuck her in the ass last night, and what a slut she is.  Then she laughs hysterically.  I’ve heard the story a dozen times by the time I walk outside.  She follows me and switches gears begging me not to be upset about the state of my home.  “It’s her birthday, so this is ok”.  Wrong, cunt – this is NEVER ok.  There’s a child here.

“Would it make you feel better if I sucked your cock?  I’ll suck your cock, y’know.  It probably won’t go over well with your wife, but I’ll do it.  You could fuck me if you want, too.”.  I should I have done it.  At least if I’d shoved something in her mouth she would have shut the fuck up.  Some friend, though.

My wife, at this point, has managed to stagger her way upstairs and the 2 of them now are verbally assaulting me about how intolerant and inhospitable I am to girls on their birthdays.  I leave and head to the garage.  No one should have to do this kind of thing ever, let alone in a marriage.  If I’m honest, I was pretty magnanimous about the whole thing.

After the cunt leaves, my wife breaks into full psycho-mode demanding to know how I could treat her friends so poorly.  The bile that comes out of her mouth is a new low for our relationship, and far and away the most offensive speech directed at me since I was incorporated in 1978.  I’ve had it now, and I have to leave.  It’s just past midnight and I’ve endured as long as I’m able.  At the sight of me gathering a few things I’ll need until morning (toothbrush, clean underwear, my e-reader, etc..), my wife wakes our son up and drags him in to the hallway.  “Look at him!”, she screams, “Look at him!  Abandoning us again!  Why don’t you explain to MY son what kind of a man just walks out on his family?  You’re a fucking coward”.

It was then that she attacked me.  She hit me in the ribs a few times before I decided that, while I couldn’t hit her, I certainly needed to stop this.  I pushed her off, but she came back.  I pushed harder and she flew across the floor.  From there, she charged me.  I moved and she tripped, knocking me down on top of her.  I was enraged.  I wanted to kill her, but I’m not a savage (in spite of the fact that I’m sure I had one hand around her throat when we were down on the ground like that).

[ EDIT – The doctor would tell me a week later that I had a hairline fracture on my bottom-left rib, and the 2 above them were badly bruised.  I hurt for a month.]

Our son saw the whole thing.  He’s 9 years old.

I didn’t leave the house that night, instead I spent the night with him – both of us trying to make heads-or-tails of the shit show our lives had become.  We talked a lot.  He asked a lot of hard questions.  Questions I still don’t have the answers to.  Questions he’ll be doubtless asking his therapist in a few years.

My wife got drunk again the next day.  Her friend still won’t come back here because I make her uncomfortable.

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I’m hoping that someone will someday read this account of events in my life and consider that they matter. The truth is, I’m living a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same road, leading to the same inevitable conclusion, forever.

I met my wife about a decade ago. She is the sister of the girl who was married to my cousin at the time. I was immediately rapt with her. I mean, this is the kind of woman who lights up a room just by being in it; who makes people better simply by being around them. If I’m honest, I still feel this way, in spite of everything. I first realized there was a problem fairly early on. It isn’t lost on me now that all of this, all this pain, is likely my own fault. I could have done the thing I always do. I always run. It’s safer that way. I didn’t do that this time, and I know exactly why – Love. Love is a fucked up thing. Love is the only thing that could take an otherwise reasonable person and turn them into a stark-raving lunatic; or in my case, the thing I hate the most.

I live with an anxiety that never ends; a tightness in my chest that’s been there so long I can’t remember what my life felt like without it. It makes me sad. A lot of things make me sad lately. I miss my wife. I miss the conversations we used to have. I miss the way her hands felt on my skin when they were truly excited to be there. I miss her smile; I see it scarcer every day. I miss the plans we made together, and the life we promised to build.

I’m afraid we’ve poisoned the well. I’m afraid that there is no going back from where we are. It keeps me up nights. It breaks my heart.

Anger is a tricky thing. It’s really the antithesis of love. I believe that anger has replaced love in our relationship, but I can’t speak for her. My anger is all gone. It’s been replaced by frustration, apathy, and a nagging desire for the promise of us; the promise whose light lays scattered in the ruin of countless hateful words. The truth is, anger is stronger than love. My great-grandmother used to say that being bitter was a lot like pissing your pants – everyone can see it, but you’re the only one that feels it. The same is true of anger.

My wife once told me that it wasn’t her I was in love with, but the idea of her. I can’t even begin to describe to you fucking insulting that is. The truth is, I understand why she thinks the things she does. I do. The problem that we’re running in to now is that the carefully constructed paradigm in which we live is based on half-truths and assumptions. There is no honesty here.

I’m terrified of what’s to come.

We only move forward here with trust. We move forward with an honesty that is fearless and unflinching. I don’t know how to get there from here, but I know that the first step is laying down anger. Everything I’ve seen these past 4 years tells me that this is impossible, but I remain hopeful.

The truth is, I’m living a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same road, leading to the same inevitable conclusion, forever. Without a re-dedication to the things that brought us to the table in the first place, I’m destined to become exactly the man my wife needs me to be – just another asshole in a long line of assholes bent on destroying her happiness with my selfish needs and controlling ways.

I refuse to be him. Please help me.

[words-for-the-void]

DEAR SUGAR, THE RUMPUS ADVICE COLUMN #85: WE CALL THIS A CLUSTERFUCK BY SUGAR

Dear Sugar, I recently had sex with a guy who has a complicated history with a friend of mine. I knew sleeping with him would hurt my friend’s feelings, and so I told her I wouldn’t. She didn’t ask me not to sleep with him, but it was implied. She would make references to “his crush on me” and once asked him if we had had a threesome with this other girl. Long story short, I broke my promise. I meant what I said to my friend at the time, Sugar, but I failed. The man in question is a good guy. I enjoyed spending time with him and let’s just say my conjugal bed has been rather empty of late. My desire outweighed the potential hurt I knew my actions would cause. The guy and my friend have had many conversations since I slept with him, and they appear to have made up, whereas my friendship with her is still on shaky ground. I think it will normalize eventually, but I already feel like our friendship is something that’s not that important to her. I don’t even know if it’s all that important to me either. Very recently, my step-dad had a heart attack. It was his second. It made me think about gravity and consequence and trivialities, and that if this one night of problematic sex forever alters or negates all the other ways I’ve been a good friend to her, then so be it. If that’s the case, our friendship wasn’t meant to last, and I have more important things to worry about. But at the same time I can’t help but wonder if I am losing my humanity a little. Because today, an ex/friend of mine basically said she hadn’t completely forgiven me for hurting her six years ago. I cheated on her like the dumb 22-year-old I was, and I have apologized a thousand times since then. We weren’t friends for a while, but we became good friends again eventually. Until today, I was operating under the assumption that we were okay. To hear her say she relates to me differently, that she withholds information from me because of how I behaved years ago, makes me profoundly sad and angry. Forgiveness isn’t something piecemeal to me, but clearly I am upsetting people in ways that have staying power. What does it mean if someone forgives you, but never forgets? I feel both horrible and stubborn. And I don’t know how much of this anger is due to acknowledging potentially ugly truths about myself—that I value desire at the expense of my friendships; that I can’t seem to learn from past mistakes; that I am a person others deem untrustworthy. The last one stings the worst, and is a doubt I expressed to the guy shortly after our tryst. “She never trusted you,” he said, which was a confirmation of my fears, if not a self-fulfilling prophecy. I would probably have done the same thing, given another opportunity. And I don’t know if that should worry me or if it makes me some kind of pleasure addict or just a terrible friend. I don’t regret my recent behavior, but should I? Am I throwing away solid friendships for stupid sexual gratification? Part of me feels selfish even writing to you, because I know you’ll call me honey bun and make me feel better when I don’t deserve it. Friend Or Foe *** Dear Sugar, I have two friends who I love dearly. One is a man I’ve known since we were teenagers. A few years ago, he and I started a brief non-monogamous romance. He then fell in love with another woman, who he rightly chose over me. Though I knew we were meant to be friends instead of romantic partners, my feelings for him ran deep, so I was crushed. Eventually the pain subsided, and we became closer as friends. The other friend is a woman I admire greatly as a writer and as a person. She’s witty, sexy, brilliant. We support each other through romantic traumas and laugh constantly whenever we’re together. She was there to comfort me when my male friend told me he had met someone else. She sat with me as I unabashedly cried in public in the middle of downtown San Francisco. Recently, these two friends met and hit it off. He started joking about sleeping with her. (He is single now.) I told my male friend that this idea made me feel uncomfortable, but he dismissed my worries. I didn’t press the issue because my female friend swore that she would never sleep with him. She said this to me, repeatedly, emphatically, even when I didn’t ask her. While I was over my attraction to this guy, the history was still a little too fresh, and I wasn’t finished processing the heartbreak. She saw how it was still affecting me. I trusted her. But it happened anyway. They slept together. When my male friend told me, I got very upset; I yelled at him for the way he’d dismissed my feelings in the past. We talked on several very long phone calls, and by the end of it I felt heard, valued and respected. He also forced me to come to terms with my jealousy and lack of claim I have over others’ actions. Since then, I’ve had to do a lot of hard looking at my own insecurity and desire for control. Two weeks later, when my female friend apologized for breaking the promise she had made to me, I told her I no longer thought I’d had a right to that promise in the first place, even though it hurt and angered me when she broke it. She had done what she felt was right for her, and now I had to figure out what was right for me: taking time and space. Part of me felt at peace with this conclusion. But by that point, I also felt so emotionally exhausted by the whole situation, and so disgusted with myself, I wasn’t even sure I deserved an apology from anyone. Sugar, I’m conflicted. I know what they did wasn’t morally wrong; I’ve felt desire before for the exes of friends, and the friends of exes. These two friends have a relationship that’s independent of me. Still, I was so hurt. And the worst part is, I’m ashamed of my hurt. I’m ashamed of the jealousy I didn’t know was still in me, even eighteen months after the romance ended. I want to be the person who can gracefully take joy in the fact that two people I love were able to share some sexy fun. I want to believe that the hurt is all in my possessive, competitive little brain, so I can just change myself and get over it. All I do now is beat myself up, for whatever choice I make. My internal compass on this matter is so broken. I need your wise, soothing words. Love,
Triangled Dear Women, A couple of years ago the Baby Sugars got into a vicious fight over the decapitated head of a black-haired plastic princess. My son was all but frothing at the mouth. My daughter screamed so hard for so long I thought the neighbors were going to call the cops. The decapitated head in question was about the size of a gumball, its neck not a proper neck, but rather an opening into which a tiny interchangeable torso was meant to be snapped. This torso was either the ancient female Egyptian my daughter was holding in her hand or the sultry skirted girl pirate my son was holding in his. Hence the uproar. Neither of them could be convinced to relinquish their claim on the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess, no matter how gently or sternly or maniacally I explained that they could take turns, each of them attaching the head to “their torso” for short periods of time. Likewise, they refused to be consoled by any one of the countless items that clutter the room they share—not the bin of agates or the wooden daggers; not the stuffed kittens or alphabet flashcards; not the foam swords or half-trashed markers; not the ballerinas or Roman warriors or monkeys or fairy statuettes or fake golden coins or movie-inspired action figures or unicorns or race cars or dinosaurs or tiny spiral-bound notebooks or any other damn thing in the whole motherloving universe but the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess. It’s mine, my daughter shrieked. I was playing with it first, countered my son. It’s special to me, wailed my daughter. She plays with my special toys all the time, my son bellowed. I talked and reasoned and made suggestions that soon became commands, but really, ultimately, there was nothing to be done. There was one head and two torsos. The indisputable fact of that was like a storm we had to ride out until all the trees were blown down. I begin with this allegorical snippet from Chez Sugar not because I think your individual and joint struggles regarding your friendship are as infantile as a tussle over a toy, but rather because I think it’s instructive to contemplate in essential terms our desire to have not only what is ours, but what also belongs to those we love, and not only because we want those things for ourselves, but because we want the other person not to have them. That fervor is age-old and endless and a gumball-size piece at the core of what we’re grappling with here and I invite you both to ponder it. We all have a righteous claim to the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess. We believe she is ours alone to hold. We refuse to let her go. Before we begin disentangling your situation in earnest, I’ll say right out that I’m quite sure if the two of you continue talking silently to yourselves about this crappy and weird thing that happened with the man I’m going to go ahead and call The Foxy Fellow you’re going to regret it. And more than that, you’re going to hatch a whole slew of increasingly distorted beliefs about what went down and what that means and who did and said what and it will not only make you miserable and sad and bitter, it will also rob you of a friend who you really should be sitting on a porch with ten years in the future, laughing about what knuckleheads you were back in the day. You both did something you basically know wasn’t so great. Your desires and fears and failings and unreasonable expectations and things you won’t admit to yourselves clicked into each other as neatly as a plastic head does into a plastic torso and when you put them together you both got pinched. The same thing happened to you from different points of view. With whom should our sympathies lie? On which woman’s shoulders should the greatest blame be placed? In what directions do the arrows of your narratives flow? How best do you find your way out of this place? These are the questions I asked myself as I pondered your letters. Every time I tried to straighten the stories out in my head they got all tangled up instead. I made charts and lists with bullet points. I took a piece of paper and literally drew a map. I turned your Foxy Fellow imbroglio into a pair of mathematical equations of the sort I never learned how to do properly in school (which utterly frees me to use them for my own whimsical literary purposes). Here’s how they look. Friend or Foe: “I solemnly swear that I will never fuck The Foxy Fellow because my friend still has tender and territorial feelings for him and I don’t want to hurt her” + [I am a caring person and fucking The Foxy Fellow would compel me to question the sort of person I believe myself to be] + fucked The Foxy Fellow anyway = eek/ugh2 x [but perhaps, when I really think about it, my friendship with this woman is “not that important”] ÷ and yet there was that time I sat with her in downtown San Francisco while she bawled unabashedly > so – fuck this shit! + how dare she be mad at me! + I was a good to friend to her in every other way! + The Foxy Fellow has not even been her boyfriend for, like, EVER! + I am attracted to him! + he is attracted to me! + I’m not even 30 and my vagina is growing cob webs! + who the hell is she to say who The Foxy Fellow and I get to have sex with in the first place? < I am a terrible person and a selfish sex fiend [will the damning ex-girlfriend please present her testimony to the court?] ÷ cheated, yes + lied, yes + to ever be trusted or forgiven, no, never, not by any woman in any time for any reason whatsoever = you know what? Fuck those bitches! + I’d totally do The Foxy Fellow again! ≠ Except. Well. [Damn] Triangled: “The Foxy Fellow is a wonderful person” +  [we “broke up,” though we were never really together, never monogamous, even though he crushed my heart in this really hard-to-exactly-define-way for which I do not fault him because I didn’t have expectations—why would I have expectations? etc] ÷ it’s pretty clear to me that he wants to fuck my lovely woman friend who watched me bawl unabashedly over him in downtown San Francisco and this makes me feel like puking2 + [what is the meaning of monogamy? what is love? do we ever owe anyone anything when it comes to sex? why do I feel like puking if The Foxy Fellow is “only my friend”?] = accept adamant and profuse promises from my lovely woman friend regarding her plans to not fuck The Foxy Fellow x [sisterhood!] – allow The Foxy Fellow to brush me off when I express my wish he not fuck my lovely woman friend = cry/rage when they fail to not fuck + [how could they? she promised! I thought she was my friend! he never listened to me!] < long, difficult, ultimately satisfying conversation with The Foxy Fellow that makes me feel oddly closer to him [and worse about my puny, insecure, control freak, jealous, uncool, dumbass, competitive, needy self2] x short, unproductive, decidedly cool conversation with my lovely woman friend [doesn’t it seem like she should be sorrier than this?/what right do I have to an apology? since when do I get to say who fucks whom?/but she promised!] ÷ fantasize that my lovely woman friend will take a long-term job in Korea + listen to my generation’s equivalent of Lisa Germano’s “Cancer of Everything” repeatedly while huddled into the pathetic ball of myself + [alternate with trying to cheerfully compose the phrase “to share some sexy fun” in relation to those two selfish assholes] ≠ Except. Well. [Damn] In the math ignorant world of Sugarland, we call this a clusterfuck. You are both wrong. You are both right. You both know you can do better than you did. The fact that you failed to do so equals nothing unless you learn something from this. So let’s learn it, sweet peas. Triangled, if it really hurts and enrages you that The Foxy Fellow fucks a friend of yours he isn’t your friend and you should not conduct yourself with him as such. He is your ex, the love you’ve yet to get over for reasons you may not be able to explain or justify even to yourself, the man who is an absolute no-go zone for anyone who’s even remotely in your inner circle. Lose the but-we’re-just-friends-now/free-love mumbo jumbo and own up to what you actually feel: if The Foxy Fellow is fucking anyone, you don’t want to be hanging out with her. Not yet. Not now. Maybe not ever. At the very least, heal your heart before you go introducing The Foxy Fellow to your friends, especially those you’d describe as “witty, sexy, brilliant.” And then brace yourself. Though it may seem that Friend or Foe’s choice to break her promise and fuck The Foxy Fellow is what caused all this pain, her actions are not at the root of your sorrow. What’s at the root is the fact that you failed to recognize and honor your own boundaries. You tried to have it both ways. You wanted to be the woman who could be friends with a man she’s not over, but you are not that woman. I understand why you want to be her, darling. She’s one cool cat. She’s the star of the show. She doesn’t take anything personally. But you are not her. And that’s okay. You are your own fragile, strong, sweet, searching self. You can be sad a guy you sort of fell for didn’t fall for you. You don’t have to be a good sport. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay with sharing your interesting and beautiful friends with The Foxy Fellow, even if you feel like a puny asshole not being okay with it. You can say no. But the thing is, you have to say it. You have to be the woman who stands up and says it. And you have to say it to the right person too. Not to the lovely friend who can’t possibly keep the promises she’s made to you while swimming in the shared waters of your wishy-washy ache for affirmation and orgasms, but to the man himself. Yes, The Foxy Fellow. The one who is, but who is not, your friend. You have to live with the uncomfortable reality that it’s from him—not her!—that you need time and space. And then you have to take it, hard as it is, come what may. Friend or Foe, you made a choice you knew would hurt someone who trusted you—a choice, it’s worth noting, you explicitly vowed not to make—and afterwards you justified that choice with reasons you could’ve more thoughtfully discussed with her beforehand. This makes you neither “a pleasure addict” nor “a terrible friend.” It makes you someone who did what most people would do in this situation at this moment in your life—a woman who took what she wanted instead of pondering what she needed. You are at once blameless in this and entirely responsible. You were sort of set up by Triangled and you were also basically a jerk to her. The reason all that other junk came up in your post-Foxy Fellow contemplations—(your ex, your feelings of being eternally punished for having wronged her, your sense that your friend never trusted you either)—is that, contrary to your claim that you don’t regret what you did, you know you could have done this differently, better, or not at all. What’s at stake here is not only your friendship with Triangled, but also your own integrity. You promised you would not hurt someone you cared for. You hurt her anyway. What do you make of that? What would you like to take forward from this, honey bun? Do you want to throw up your hands and say oh well or do you dare to allow this experience to alter your view? We all like to think we’re right about what we believe about ourselves and what we often believe are only the best, most moral things—ie: of course I would never fuck The Foxy Fellow because that would hurt my friend! We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first. It’s the reason we have to fight so viciously over the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess before we learn how to play nice; the reason we have to get burned before we understand the power of fire; the reason our most meaningful relationships are so often those that continued beyond the very juncture at which they came the closest to ending. I hope that you’ll do that, dear women, even if it takes you some time to stagger forward. I don’t know if your friendship is built to last a lifetime, but I know the game is worth the candle. I can see you on that ten-years-off porch. Yours, Sugar