#that he just accesses with ease because he can evoke trust

[magdalence]

something lost in the "sylus is NOT like THAT" with that ranging from all the various kinks people have deemed he'd never ever be into (because "he's not a red flag, he's not a dark romance guy, he's a softie simp") is that he has a range from making the mc shoot him after trying to force a resonance for over three days all the way to the sweetest boyfriend experiences. he's nuanced and complex and that's fun! he's got range and sides to him!

above all, the very fact that he does open up to such depths of devotion and adoration is the core of why having him do a lot of nasty hard BDSM is hot — if he knew you were into it, he'd respect the boundaries you laid out and do it because he wants to service you. if you want to be degraded, tied up and made to gag on his cock, he'd do it because he finds pleasure in being of service. to you. on your terms.

do you see the difference?

[c-atm]

Fighting Flirty: Character Select PT4 (Act3.7)

"Well, Look who finally showed up!" Wanda exclaimed as the duo walked up. "I heard that you guys were having your own little photo-shoot without my equipment." She folded her arms and sneered in jest. "That hurts my pride, you two." Her eyes glanced at Connie in the Asuka outfit. "Though seeing such a body in some of my merchandise makes up for it."

Steven's eyebrow arched in slight envy as Connie gave Wanda a smug smile.

"Why, thank you." A slightly flirty tone laced her voice as she tipped her cap. "I think it looks good on me too."

"Then I can Imagine how our resident Shinji feels." The witch teased getting a smirk from Steven.

"What's there to say, that hasn't been said."He shrugged. " She makes angry psychotic breaks hot." He chucked as Connie gave him a gentle elbow into his gut.

"Hey now, Steven." She smirked.

"Hey nothing. You're the one who said I make 'depression' sexy."

"I stand by that claim."

'Hmm..Did something happen?' Wanda observed as she watched their antics. There was a certain lack of passion and a bit more reservation in their tones and smirks. She shook her head as she turned her direction toward the set up behind her.

"Ok you two, let's get this shoot going shall we?" Wanda suggested. "Who's going first?"

"That would be me." Connie announced with her hand raised.

"Ooo, now that's a treat. Get over there."

Connie gave Steven a quick grin before walking forward, passed Wanda and the camera set up and up onto the 'Main Stage'.

The 'Main Stage', usually a revolving platform surrounded by mirrors, had a more traditional set up. Most of the mirrors were removed except for four full body ones each corner of the seven foot wide, circular revolving stage. The backdrop was.a green screen that stretched over the revolving platform stopping at the mirrors edge. Studio led lights towered over the mirrors and peered downward towards the stage making it bright but not blindingly so and thanks to the central air of the whole studio it was at a comfortable temperature. All in all it definitely made her feel like she was the center of attention, which made her feel a bit anxious.

'Oh this is, more than expected.' Connie looked at each of the mirror's perspective of her and slightly grimaced at her reflections as a bit of self-consciousness slipped in. ' I..I should have probably asked Alex for some makeup...I wished he told me how much he planned for this..didn't think I would get professional shots done. I feel a bit overwhelmed..What if the shots don't come out well.' Her face started heating up as Steven comments and actions in the dressing room played in her head."Though, he did say I looked hot." She grinned a bit looking up.

"Admiring yourself?"

She turned to see Steven walking up to her camera in hand, a slight grin on his face.

"Admiring the set up." She stated before narrowing her eyes.at his grin. "You didn't take a candid shot, did you?"

Steven scoffed at his companion, putting his finger tips to his chest. "To think that you would accuse me. Your Biscuit, your Mister, your man; of taking a shot of you unaware and behind you back. With this professional camera," he held up the black device in his right hand, "for shame Heartberry. For shame."

"You definitely did ."

"But I used my phone."

She chuckled as he brought out the smartphone and handed it to her, showing her the picture. It was of her looking up at the set up. He hands folded behind her back, her left foot on her toes, a small smile on her face and the lights reflecting in her black eyes.

'Admittedly, that's a nice shot.' her musing thoughts were interrupted when she felt him pull her close to him with his left hand on her navel, pressing her back to his chest while holding the camera above them with his right. She rested her left hand on top of his while rubbing his whiskered chin with her right sticking out her tongue towards the camera to go along with his flirty grin.

With a press of a button, the camera clicked with a quick flash of light and temporarily strained their eyes.

"Ok, flash was stronger than expected." Steven chuckled as he rubbed his eyes. "Sorry about that Heartberry." He blinked multiple times, getting his focus back.

"You're fine, Mister." Connie reassured as she blinked a few times herself.

"Want some help with that, heal your eyes like that one time?" He joked.

Connie blinked again but on emotion based reflex. "Uhm... I would but we lack a drink." Shyness gripped her throat as she spoke.

"Ah, that's true" Steven rubbed the back of his head. "Guess direct contact is our only choice."

"Guess so." Connie breathed deeply as she closed her eyes.

Steven palms gently pressed against other cheeks getting a reflexive grin from her. "Smiley." He teased before placing gentle butterfly kisses on her eyelids. Getting a giggle from the young woman. "Better?"

"Uh-uh." She held his hands in place, keeping her eyes close. "I think you need to try again."

"Oh, really." He heard the anxiousness under the flirting before kissing her cheeks tenderly. "Better?"

She bit the corner of her lip, holding back a giggle. "Getting there." her tone, more relaxed and teasing.

"Getting there, huh?" He whispered closed to her lips.

His breath tickled her, bringing a little heat to her face. As she massaged the back of his hands with her palm." Uh-huh."

"Let me help you along then. "

She snickered as he laid his lips upon her. His slightly wet lips met her soft chapped in a sweet kiss.

Her hands slipped to his wrist as the kiss deepened from a simple pressing peck to a clipping lip lock capturing his upper lip between hers own while he did the same with her bottom.

The gentle feel of the mutual suckling upon each other's lips. The tight protectiveness of his arms around her waist and palms on her seat. The looping of her arms under his own grip on his shoulders, pulling him closer as she asked for and was granted access into his mouth with her tongue, evoking a love filled hum from her.

They released the oral action with a soft 'chu' as they held each other in a swaying embrace ignited by a feeling of understanding between them.

"Better?" He whispered warm-heartedly into her shoulder.

"My eyes are, yeah." She nuzzled a bit closer. "I don't think you're talking about that, though."

"You're right."He sighed, feeling her stroke his locks. "You looked unsure up here..Kind of scared."

"Been awhile since I've been in the spotlight like this. Guess i'm a little nervous.."

She turned to the mirror looking at their costumed reflections, her sight lingering on his form. "Kind of feel below par for such a professional shoot. Unlike you, handsome."

Steven turned to her with an arched eyebrow. "You are gorgeous, you know that right, Berry."

"Hmm, what you mean in costume?"

Steven smirked "Oh you're wearing that plugsuit much better than the actual character," He praised while kissing her cheek "but.. I was talking about in general.

"Well you did say I make 'psychotic breaks' Hot." She jested.

"And I stand by that." He smirked. "Jokes aside,the pictures are gonna come out fine..better than fine." He gazed at her lovingly. "They're gonna be extraordinary because " He gave her a quick peck. " For one, I'm taking them and you know I won't make you look bad."

"I trust you to make me look beautiful, yes." She massaged that back of his ear, getting an appreciative snarl.

"You already are and I got evidence of your photogenic allure to prove it. " He shook his phone with a grin before whispering in her ear.

Connie's face turned maroon at his words, and her grin grew as she turned to his lecherous smirk. "Really? You want a shot like that."

Steven shrugged as he pursed his lips. "Not like I don't have one..It just you'll be in different costumes instead of my shirt and short shorts"

"True enough." She whispered, giving him a squeeze ."Thanks, Mister. For making me feel better." She kissed and smiled against his temple.

He nuzzled into her shoulder "I said nothing that was a lie..Your beautiful Connie"

"I'll take your word for it." She sighed. "Still.Though... After the awkwardness in the room..I guess it kind of made anxious to impress you." She moaned in embarrassment.

"You don't have to try to impress me, Connie." He chuckled. "Though I kind of feel the same." He admitted. "Can't help but want to impress the one you love, right?"

"Oh,Steven." She gasped.

"I know, Berry...We'll figure it out, later."

"Promise?"

"Of course." The two shared a kiss to seal the promise before he moved to press his forehead against hers,

The inadequacy and uncertainty from before, easing down by the sound of each other's breathing, the sensation of each other's touch, the warmth of each other's affection.

"I love you." their dual whispers was followed by a duet of silent chuckles as the weight on their hearts was lessened a little.

*Click!*

They both turned to the sound of a camera, took their attention. Releasing each other in the process.

"I'm sorry. It was just..You two are perfect together." Alex apologized, camera in her hand. "I had to take the shot."

"Come on, now." Steven complained as he glared at Alex halfheartedly. "That was something a little private."

"Sorry...I...I'll delete it." Alex offered in remorse.

"Don't." Connie stated. "It's fine," She reassured the receptionist.

"You sure?"

"Yeah.. Like you said. You saw something worth taking a shot at." She interlocked her left hand with The man beside her, getting a surprised glance. " We can relate to that." She smiled giving his hand a kiss and a squeeze. "Right?"

Steven's face glowed pink at her actions but soon settled as a bright smile grace his face, "Of course.When something that worth it comes along, you gotta take your shot. "before facing Alex.

"Oh.. Cool." Alex grinned in excitement. "So since that is the case..How about we start with the couple shots? Sure your friends would enjoy them as well."

"Yeah sure." Connie agreed.

"We can begin whenever you two are ready."

The two looked at each other. Identical grins as the feelings of anxiousness was now matched with the feeling excitement. Both were eager to know exactly what the other wanted.. and scared about how things would change, now that the term 'love' was out there, but they trust the person standing by them enough to navigate and work through the inevitable changes in their companionship.

"Ready for this, Heartberry?" Steven smiled gently, his question having a double meaning.

"Yup. Ready if you are, Mister." Connie answered in a similar tone, as she gave his hand a loving squeeze.

Both surprised and elated at how true and freeing the answer was.

[psyga315]

"What if Volume 7 was about Post-9/11?”

This is another V7 rewrite of mine, but rather than just tweak scenes, these are gonna be full on alterations, with the overall aim being to make it more clear cut at Ironwood’s dictatorship, but also showing a half-full view of his actions.

See, until we get a commentary on what the intent was for Ironwood, we’re of two camps: One, RT always intended Ironwood to be a dictator who lost his grasp on reality or two, they meant for it to be one of those “you guess who’s in the right” but people instead memed the “RWBY’S ALWAYS RIGHT/WRONG” angle too much.

However, a Twitter post by Ruby Rose talking about how people despised RWBY for being too political has got me thinking: “The problem isn’t that RWBY is too political… The problem is that RWBY isn’t political enough”.

Okay, let’s take a look at this: Ironwood has a whole 1984 angle going with TV Screens showing his face everywhere, androids recording people, and the ability to declare martial law when he feels like it. The problem is that we don’t really get to see enough of that angle. It’s a set piece to show how bad Mantle is and nothing more.

While that would have been okay back in the day to convey how dystopian and how much a dictatorship is for Atlas, the problem is that with the ease of access to information, we actually see just how much more they could have went. Even rumors how bad certain dictatorships are manage to be much more threatening than “cameras, cameras everywhere”.

And this is supposed to be the reason why Ironwood isn’t to be trusted with Salem’s immortality truth bomb. At first glance, I see where people are coming from, but looking closer, it just feels wonky. “You want to keep an eye on people in case things go horribly wrong and want to unite the world against Salem? Too bad, you’re not getting any info outta me” and it makes Ruby come off as an entitled brat than a paragon.

And so, I propose this solution:

What if Ironwood wasn’t aiming to unite the world against Salem? What if he really was freaking paranoid at the sky falling? What if, instead of re-enacting 2016 like some people have joked, we dial the clock back fifteen years and instead re-enact 2001. Some of you may see where I’m going with this, but for those who don’t, I feel like these two words will manage to convey the intent I have for Ironwood’s character:

Patriot Act.

For those who don’t know or need a refresher, back in 2001, there was a terrorist attack involving the destruction of the Twin Towers that killed almost three thousand people which placed the USA in an ongoing state of national emergency that still goes on to this day. Sound familiar?

The Fall of Beacon has a few comparisons to 9/11, namely how it was charged by terrorists of, at the time, undeterminable origins (which translates to RWBY as multiple fronts attacking Beacon at once), was responsible for a lot of deaths and destruction of at least one tower, and punted the world (namely the heavily militaristic one) in a state of panic. You could even interpret the Atlasian Soldiers being hacked as a nod to the accusations that the USA planned 9/11, but that’s a bit of a stretch.

During the fallout, the USA, in response to this and an ongoing anthrax attack at the time, decided to, almost as quickly as 9/11 happened with a month and some change in between dates, passed a very lengthy Patriot Act, which, to put it to the simplest of terms, allowed the government to have due process in searching through people’s information with the intent to put a stop to terror attacks before they even begin. However, this is how it’s used in practice. In execution, its uncertain wording and possible violation of the base Amendments caused the bill to garner skepticism or outright criticism.

And what do we see in Volume 7? Ironwood quickly passes a system that enables him to keep a closer eye on the people of Mantle and tighten imports and exports, as well as people going in and out of Atlas, not unlike how the Patriot Act was potentially harsher towards immigrants. So, we have this source of information to draw from now, make parallels and basically show this controversial subject through the lens of your Saturday morning cartoon that put on the big boy pants a couple of years ago.

So, with that in mind, let’s go back to Volume 7, Episode 1, and change up what exactly we see that would make RWBY and co go “this is horrible!”

By the point where RWBY and co get to Atlas, the border patrol shouldn’t be the first sign of danger. Weiss was there when she overheard Ironwood’s plans for increased security and they had to steal an aircraft because of said tight security. Nor would they react to Ironwood’s “Go Home. Stay Home.” speech.

What they would react to are the Paladins forcing people back to their homes, with one threatening to open fire when one of them tries to resist. Cries of “this isn’t right” are uttered when they see a human instantly attack a Faunus right after they see them and accusing them of being part of the White Fang. The moment a cop gets involved in abusing the Faunus, that’s when Blake blurts out that the city is awful, much to Nora’s chagrin.

Weiss throws the cop into the trash bin as we hear a sickening crunch (as he has no aura) as Weiss just looks in remorse. Already we get a good idea that this place is pretty fucked up without looking at a screen of someone saying “we are here for your safety” and going “this is awful!” and it evokes feelings of the racially-charged attacks that followed 9/11.

The rest of the show follows like normal, but the moment everything changes is Episode 2 when Ironwood tells them all why he’s called everyone back. It’s clear that the video has Ironwood at his strongest. As his beard is patchy and his hair greasy now comes the “you look tired” comments. Ironwood has no plans to stop Salem. The reason for his embargo and calling back his troops is to stockpile Dust and men and prepare for the inevitable war, not knowing that Vale and Mistral are hardly equipped to take on Atlas and Vacuo is… Vacuo.

He’s also paranoid that Salem will strike next. Without any reports from the other Kingdoms, he’s effectively put his head in the sand. He’s not even thinking of counterattacking, just staying and believing the best offense is a good defense… Or so RWBY assumes… Ironwood reveals soon that, as he dwelled upon the failings of Beacon, he came to the conclusion that Salem couldn’t be beaten. The most that Ozpin did was put her at a stalemate and even then, all it took is one bad night to change the tide. He is scared.

He finds a small semblance of hope in seeing Oscar and the Lamp, but he assumes that the questions are used up or if there were, the team used it to ask if Salem could be beaten. Ruby neither confirms nor denies it. With his mind clearly submitted to despair, he tells RWBY that the Winter Maiden is spending her twilight years in isolation to protect her from the villains after what happened to Amber. Weiss asks if this is a little much, only for Ironwood to snap and remind her how Cinder was able to destroy Beacon and kill Pyrrha thanks to Ozpin’s poor handling of Amber. The comment stings Jaune, since he partially blames himself for what happened. He then asks RWBY to wait until the Winter Maiden passes on so that the fresher Maiden can handle the Vault and chuck the Lamp in.

That’s when Ruby brings up the Relic’s Grimm-attracting properties. The sooner it’s in a Vault, the better. This does not bode well for Ironwood and he tries his best to compose himself with this bombshell, then permits Ruby and the others to keep the lamp, as they’ve managed to handle it on their own. RWBY then come across the Ace-Ops, who apologize for their antagonism. Weiss raises an eyebrow as she has never heard of the Ace Operatives before and Marrow jabs on about how they’re a secret police force before Harriet shuts him up with an elbow to the rib. Note that he doesn’t call themselves “the best of the best”. If anything, the name is to harbour goodwill, since anything alluding to a shadow police would just send fear and panic.

Of course, the implications of there being an Atlasian secret police flies over Ruby’s optimistic head, but the others start to feel a little suspicious with them. Clover, realizing this, tries to ease tensions by offering the rest of his team to train RWBY and JNPR. Instantly, Ruby accepts, seeing as they scraped by their victories by the skin of their teeth, glancing over to Yang’s broken arm. Clover takes note and says he’ll commission Pietro to construct upgrades for their equipment.

Episode 3 is a simple, light-hearted episode that lets us breathe from all the crazy stuff that went on. It’s also a bit more serious, though, as the gang confront Ruby on omitting the information they learned to Ironwood. Unlike my previous tweaking of Volume 7, this time everyone, Ruby included, feel like they should at least tell Ironwood something, especially after Weiss compares his attitude to when they were affected by the Apathy.

However, they have no good news to share. Even the news of having the Relic of Knowledge comes with the weight of having to tell him how they got the Relic, with Yang feeling just as guilty for omitting Raven’s Spring Maiden powers. Seeing something is off, Clover decides to have the team test their mettle against the Ace-Ops in good fun. When asking if he’s to join in, Clover decides to stay by the sidelines. JNR choose to stay out too. Qrow asks Clover, if he’s the Ace-Ops leader, why doesn’t he join and that’s where we have him casually reveal his Semblance, which causes Qrow to admit that he has the opposite kind of Semblance. Clover chuckles and ponders if being next to each other would cancel the Semblances out.

To make a long story short, the Ace-Ops defeat RWBY, even with their upgraded weapons, but it’s clear they only did it through brute strength and not through teamwork. Regardless, Ironwood is brought out of his shell and sees the battle unfold. He has the common decency to tell RWBY that they shouldn’t spend what may be months cooped up in a house (both a jab at V5 and a poorly timed joke for 2020), he graduates them on the spot so that they can do missions. Ruby takes this time to tell Ironwood that they can beat Salem, though doesn’t she clarify if this was something she learned from the Relic. It leads to Ironwood assuming that she had and is elated. The episode ends with Robyn and her Happy Huntresses having saved a Faunus from getting lynched before they notice Ironwood making an announcement, his beard and hair now trimmed and combed.

Episode 4 begins with Ironwood telling Mantle (and Atlas) about Beacon being attacked by a faceless coward and declares that Remnant will be defended. He doesn’t announce any plans, but the first thing he immediately does is lower the amount of guards in Mantle, something that gives them room to breathe. The episode introduces us to Robyn’s team and gives them some sort of depth in contrast to “is just a background character who sometimes will have a tweet telling us info like J.K. Rowling doing a Harry Potter info dump”.

Only one of them gets flashback, though. Fiona sees some kids being escorted by Jaune Arc and remembers back when she was a teacher, reading a book to the kids before they were told of the Battle of Beacon and its subsequent fall, sending the kids into fear and panic and summoning the Grimm. We don’t see the end result, but Fiona’s thousand-yard stare and hyperventilating are a clear indicator that it did not end well.

May comes across Henry, who was taking advantage of Mantle’s lower economy to buy groceries on the cheap, and we get confirmation that not only are they cousins but that May had a transition as Henry fails to recognize her. True to form, as soon as he finds out, he has a bit of a freak out before he’s decked by May.

Joanna is the first to encounter Ruby and Weiss, who are out on a routine mission to help stabilize the barrier with earth Dust (remember that’s a thing?), though questions Weiss’s presence. It’s here we get some infodump on what Jacques was up to during her escape. Willow had leaked a recorded video of Jacques hitting Weiss, which earned him some much needed bad press and sinking the SDC stock down to where other Dust Companies are vying to buy it out. It sets up a small character arc for Weiss that’s hopefully more fleshed out than V7’s: should she rescue her father and save the SDC or leave it to crumble and forge her own name? Eventually, she’ll decide on a middle path, preserving the SDC with the help of Ironwood, but making Whitley the one who takes it over, realizing that she can’t worry about the SDC when the world’s at stake.

But more on that later. As for Joanna herself, she speaks with an odd whistle lisp and a smile reveals that her two front teeth had been broken. When Ruby asked what happened to her, she shrugs and says that “I got a dose of reality from a former friend.”. A later scene of her helping out the Faunus gives a bit of an implication that she was one of the kids that Ilia was friends with, namely the one who got the broken teeth.

The biggest character depth moment comes when Robyn sets up a rally, only for hecklers to come and joke at her insistence for Mantle to be its own Kingdom without Atlas watching over them, having had enough with Atlas’s jackboot. One of the hecklers gives a reason that shows a darker side to Atlas: When Mantle lost the war, a chunk of the continent decided to levitate itself away to disassociate with the nation and that chunk became Atlas. It became unanimous that Atlas would rule over Mantle as punishment for causing the war.

Robyn’s desires to make Mantle its own nation once more invites a lot of skepticism and accusations that she’s a Neo-Mantlean, wanting to take away all forms of expression and burn art. Robyn wants none of it and asks Joanna to boot the heckler out, which only solidified his views. Nora sticks around to listen to more, as does Forrest. A small scene also happens where Clover and Qrow experiment with their Semblances before Clover realizes Qrow can’t control his. He then tries to work with Qrow and train him to be able to control it, something that isn’t going to be fully realized until the endgame. We then end the episode on Forrest being killed in the dead of the night, but we don’t see who kills him, just a hint that it may be Tyrian.

Episode 5 is a Weiss-heavy episode. After training with the Ace-Ops, Weiss is called by Winter for a special one-on-one. In reality, she wanted to tell Weiss that Jacques has fallen ill since she left and Willow has had one too many blackouts from her drinking. The Schnee family is falling apart and she gives her the ultimatum of either staying in Atlas to properly take over the SDC, bringing up that she and Ironwood can prove Weiss is sane enough to keep her title of heiress, or stay with RWBY and let the SDC be taken over by a third party that will ultimately be revealed to be Robyn and her Happy Huntresses (i.e. stealing from the rich to give to the poor).

Weiss asks why she doesn’t take it over, to which she reveals that she’ll be the Winter Maiden. Weiss is a little uneasy, remembering what Jaune had told her about Pyrrha (he’d probably either tell her off screen like everything else or bring it up when arguing with Ironwood about keeping the Maiden under lock and key) and asks if she’s okay with it. Winter give her a deadpan look and tells her “if I wasn’t, my name wouldn’t be Winter, now would it?” revealing that this was a name she picked herself and one that had been used for so long, that Weiss has no memory of what Winter’s real first name really was…

But I’m just gonna roll out the charming plot twist and say it’s Whitney. She joined Ironwood before Willow gave birth to Whitley and so he got her name, albeit masculinized.

We cut to Jaune and his team as they go on a mission to help the Ace-Ops clear out a cave. Blake and Yang join too, if only to showcase their new weapons in more detail, with Blake’s weapon upgrade actually having something to benefit it beyond just gorilla glue. Namely, the golden strip is actually a dust crystal and can be used for electrical attacks as a tribute to Ilia. We could even have a small flashback that has Blake specifically request this. It’s kinda ironic, as they’re in the mines where Ilia’s parents died in.

This is the third episode of RWBY basically, though it ends with two scenes. Qrow and Clover talk about the recent killing of Forrest and how Qrow brings up that this was the third person who spoke against Ironwood that had died in a row, having done research on the news when he arrived. They both believe that someone is setting Ironwood up, but Qrow mentions that what’s unnerving him more is his removal of troops. The last time something like this happened, he moved them all to Vale and caused fear for people. Clover says nothing, but reassures Qrow that Ironwood is making a big play.

We end the episode on the air patrol, now with notably fewer ships. One flies towards them. We see people at air control seeing a blip on their radar and just as they’re about to call it out, it disappears. They pass it off as a glitch as we cut to the plane in question…

It’s Watts and Tyrian, the former of which chuckles and notes that, while Ironwood has made an effort to change the code, it just took a bit more brute force on his part to crack and that, with a few more crackings of the code, it’d be easy for him to hack back in. They then notice a second plane flying in. It doesn’t take long for Tyrian to notice that the plane feels “off”, as though this plane isn’t “normal”. Watts just shrugs and hacks the system to let the plane in. As the second plane flies in, we get a zoom in through the windshield and see Neo and Cinder, smug as hell in thinking their disguise was foolproof.

Episode 6 focuses on Ruby and Penny. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but it’s basically the much neglected “hey, Penny, you died. I cried. I missed you.” Bit. Ironwood has recovered much better and he’s looking like he did on the videos now. He even gives the crew a night off, to which Yang and Blake get an invite from FNKI.

Things start to take a turn for the worst when Ren, of all people, asks Ruby how they’re going to beat Salem. Ruby confesses to Ren that she just told Ironwood that to give him some hope. Ren just gives Ruby a cold warning that the man had lost everything, even the will to keep fighting. Giving him hope, only to take it away would only destroy him. Nora can’t help but agree, comparing his situation to how they were given hope of beating Salem only to be told that she’s immortal.

RNR are enroute to a rally: the anniversary of the Fall of Beacon, just to fuck with the fans keeping timelines. I’d play it safe though and say it’s a two-year anniversary. It doesn’t matter, it’s basically to commemorate the fall of Beacon and honor those who have fallen. However, the rally is run by Robyn of all people and Robyn has quite a few things to say about Atlas’s handling of the situation, things that the public would rather not want to hear. Things like how they plotted to attack Beacon once Penny won the tournament but had to accelerate their plans once Pyrrha killed Penny, or how they created the White Fang for the explicit purpose of having a scapegoat.

Obviously, all of these are pure bullshit to which Ruby calls out. The one thing she can confirm is true is the hacking of the robots. While the crowd cheered at Ruby calling Robyn out, they go quiet when she talks about the robots. She makes it clear that it was a third-party that hacked the robots, but it didn’t stop the crowd from trying to get her off the stage. Robyn takes her to the backstage and asks her to shake her hand and tell her exactly what happened at Beacon. Ruby painfully recalls the Fall before shedding tears, though her words ring true for Robyn’s Semblance, prompting to ask about whether Atlas planned on attacking Beacon and being truthfully told no. Robyn has a moment of clarity, but that is halted by screams from the rally.

Meanwhile, Ren and Nora bicker about what to do regarding Ironwood. Nora wants nothing to do with him while Ren just wants to help him the best they can. This eventually goes into the conclusion that Ren has been emotionally distancing himself since they found out about Salem’s immortality and Nora tries to kiss him, only for the lights to go out and the massacre to begin. People try to take out their phones but are quickly taken down. Penny rushes in to try and fight, but she gets out maneuvered, and Marrow also tries, but the assailant purposefully avoids him. By the time Robyn and Ruby get involved, the massacre is over and the lights turn back on as its revealed to be Tyrian, claiming the responsibility for the killings under the White Fang’s name. Before Robyn can attack, Tyrian scurries away and announces to the surviving public that war is coming. Panic maximum is hit as Grimm attack.

Episode 7 is kinda like the Episode 7 of my other rewrite, Grimm attack interrupts FNKI and there’s a large angry mob, but this time, it’s more akin to pandemonium. Not only does the Huntsmen have to fight the onslaught of Grimm, but stop the crazed civilians from lynching the first Faunus they see: Blake and Neon. This leads to a bit where one of them tries to brand Blake with an SDC branding stick and Yang snaps, kicking his ass and, thanks to his lack of aura, crippling or outright killing him. People suddenly remember who Yang is (remember, the whole world saw her injure Mercury) and so they team up on her, beating her up and stealing her metallic arm.

Similar outbursts happen with the other Huntsmen, showing them the worst of humanity encapsulated in a single night and reacting negatively to it. The only person who is above it all is Weiss, who learned her lesson after she snapped at that Trophy Wife, and, as a nod to that, she summons a Boarbatusk when she sees someone making off with Yang’s arm and has the Boarbatusk not gore the person, but take the arm from them and bring it back to Weiss.

I don’t want to make it as dark as the other rewrite’s V7E7 where Penny gets torn apart limb from limb, but I do want to at the very least show just how desperate humanity is when the chips are down, so perhaps crippling Neon with a gunshot to the leg. Just as things are about to get worse, Ironwood personally intervenes with his army of robots as he quickly handles the situation by having those robots subdue the rioters. At first, it seems like he’s being the reasonable authority figure that we all know and love… Then he looks to one of the rioters, the drunk man that Weiss would have tossed into the bin, and tells him “With all the negativity you’re showering onto others, the Grimm are only interested in you right now.” Then, as coldly as the robot he commands, says “Cast these rabble out to the cold.” They comply, much to Ruby’s dismay, as some of the robots throw about a dozen people out of the wall and lock them out. They beg to be let in as we end the episode with a person looking in horror as he sees a Manticore swoop in and we get one of those shots where the monster eats the camera.

Episode 8 begins with a long, silent moment with all the members of RWBY, JNPR, the Ace-Ops, and Qrow in Ironwood’s office. It’s obvious what has to be said, and Nora is the one to say it.

“You sent them out there to die.” She grumbles.

“The longer they remained in Mantle, the longer they caused trouble.” He replies.

“That doesn’t mean you should have killed them!” Nora shouts.

“Would you rather I had my robots shoot them right there? In front of everyone? I’m a general, not a dictator.” James said.

“Well, you certainly acted like one back there.” Nora retorted. We see Clover is a little unnerved with Nora’s replies.

“One of my highest-preforming Huntresses is unable to walk without mechanical equipment because of them and if I had let them stay any longer, I feared that I wouldn’t be able to save her or anyone for that matter. I shouldn’t have gone lenient. Because of that, we now have one of Salem’s minions hiding out in Mantle, ready to strike again and make everything worse.” Ironwood says.

To make a long conversation short, he orders the Ace-Ops track down Tyrian and execute him on sight, along with any other suspected members of Salem, as that’s what they do. Meanwhile he confesses that he hasn’t been truthful to them about something out of fear that the plan would be leaked. He plans to have a satellite built on Amity Arena and hoist it up, using it to reactivate the CCT. There, he will tell the world what Ozpin neglected to tell them: the real cause of the Fall of Beacon is Salem and they must unite to kill her. He labels it as Operation Unifying Freedom. The crowd goes pretty silent as Weiss asks if this would even work, as people may believe it to be a lie. That’s when Ruby gets the idea to bring Robyn into the picture, as she realizes what her Semblance can do.

Ironwood explains that Robyn refuses to work with Atlas and he fears that her stance against Atlas would only make things worse. While he has a point at first, he then continues to spout off how Robyn can’t be trusted in a manner that screams paranoia, thinking that she too could be a spy for Salem without realizing that she has nothing to gain from rallying the citizens of Mantle with conspiracy theories they don’t believe. Oscar calms him down and asks him about Atlas’s Relic, since he wonders how it can be involved in OUF. Ironwood complies and we’ll get a later scene.

From here, we have people assessing the newly found situation. Ruby and Jaune talk about whether she should tell Ironwood about Salem not being able to die. Jaune is pretty insistent that they do before Ironwood steps into matters he has no idea about, reminding her that Pyrrha never found out about Salem when she died.

Ren and Nora confront each other about Ironwood, to which Ren explicitly spells out that they’re doing jack and shit while Ironwood is trying his hardest to help. Nora brings up her “you’re not the one struggling” speech, but with a heavier coding that implies she knows more about Mantle than Ren realizes. Ren ends the conversation by guilt-tripping Nora. “The sooner we beat Salem and place her back in the sludge from which she came, the sooner we could prevent another Kuroyuri from happening.”

Blake visits Neon in a hospital bed, who is bummed out at being told she’ll never walk again with her injury. They have a touching heart to heart where Blake tries to take the blame for the bad things that happened to her, saying that she should have helped improve relations everywhere, only for Neon to tell her that she’s done enough. While at first, it comes off as rude, Neon explains that Blake can’t just change the world on her own, especially with something as deep-rooted as racism. The most she can do is make a change in her area. Neon cites herself as an example. Before, no Faunus were allowed at Atlas or if they did, they have to hide their traits. Neon gave them the middle finger and wore what she wanted, though this earned Ironwood’s respect enough to use his two seats and allow more Faunus in. Marrow comes in as well and we have what we’re going to get in V8, now without the awkward “but they’re enemies now” moment.

Weiss talks to Yang about her family and asks her what to do about it, as she knows too much about abandonment issues from both parents. Yang sits Weiss down and tells her that even though Taiyang didn’t raise her and Ruby for most of their lives and Raven was too busy murdering innocent people to care, they’re still her family. She’s this close to revealing that Raven is the Spring Maiden, but stops herself short. Unfortunately, Weiss hears enough to draw her conclusion later on.

Ironwood and Oscar talk about the Vault and its Relic of Creation.

“So… What? Can it create stuff?” Oscar asks.

“Ozpin knows more about the relic than I do. The most I know is that we can’t use it.” Ironwood said.

“How so?” Oscar asks.

“Because the person that came before Ozpin used the Relic to hoist a chunk of Solitas in the air. He says it’s to be a beacon of hope…” Ironwood then takes a moment to remorsefully look down at the floor. “If only that were true.”

Oscar asks what he means and as we see Weiss go to her father’s house, Ironwood goes into more details about what happened. After the Great War, the people deciding on the Vytal treaty wanted to blame Mantle for kick-starting the war and as such, charged them with repaying for the ten years of damages and severely cripple their military to prevent another war from happening. It was unanimous, but before the charges could apply, the King struck a deal with the nobility of Mantle that, provided they share their newfound technological knowledge with the rest of the world, he would create a loophole by making the Kingdom of Atlas and prevent them from getting caught in the inevitable punishment of Mantle.

Oscar’s clearly distraught that Ozpin would do something like that, since this meant that the real people who were responsible for the war got away and let innocents take the fall. Ironwood, however, sees it as a chance for Mantle to start anew. “Besides, I can’t do anything about it now… If I were to remove the Staff, then this entire place comes crashing down…” We end with Weiss entering the house as Ironwood reveals that one of the nobles who fled punishment were Gele and Schnee, Jacques and Willow’s ancestors respectively. We see that Weiss isn’t alone, as she had brought RBY with her.

Episode 9 is another Weiss-centric episode, as she is brought up to speed as to what happened. Klein got fired and replaced with Faunus servants (if you want to go the extra mile, all of them are rabbit Faunus). Weiss is found by Willow and they have a small chat about the situation at hand. Willow has sobered quite enough, but the damage to her liver is done and she doesn’t expect to live long. Jacques had it worse though. The bad press and subsequent embargo have stressed Jacques out so much that he’s shortened his life expectancy to about a few months, now on his death bed.

Fiona is there too, having an arm in a sling after surviving a lynching from a mob. When asked what she’s doing here, she explains that she’s to oversee the transaction and ensure Robyn has full ownership of the SDC. This puts the cast at an uncertainty because, while they might fully trust Robyn, it’s clear that the supply of Dust that the SDC can provide would bolster the project by tenfold. Penny is also there, since Winter has been her partner since she was rebuilt and thus, is welcomed into the family.

Knowing that she can take over the SDC, Weiss goes in to confront her father. It’s clear that he’s seen better days. His body is bony, his hair is now a full-on toupee, and he’s coughing irregularly as a monitor beeps, acting as a timer for his remaining life. Jacques sees Weiss and glares at her at first, then melts into a serene glance. Weiss doesn’t buy it, but they have a pretty deep conversation about what happened since Weiss ran away, paired with a piano medley of all of Weiss’s theme songs, starting with “The Path to Isolation”, then both parts to “Mirror Mirror”, followed by “It’s My Turn” However, there’s no “This Life Is Mine” anywhere during the chat…

Jacques reveals that business has plummeted since the embargo, though leaving out that smaller tier dust companies that he hasn’t bought out managed to flourish and keep the minimalist economy of Mantle afloat. He talks of all the people he ruined with his practices, starting from recent cases where he reduced people’s wages to the point where they’re working with less than minimum wage, but then dialing back to before the events, where he talks about the unfortunate explosion that claimed Ilia’s parents as well as “a rowdy Faunus I personally had to deal with… I had a hot branding iron, Weiss, normally to brand my property… And…” Blake instantly knows what he’s talking about and runs off. It’s clear that Jacques is having death bed confessions and while Weiss is ready to tear them down, she can’t. She realizes what Yang meant when she said that they’re still family.

However, Jacques then goes back to his old self and calls Weiss out for being the reason his company went under, practically going all “why did you make me hit you” and the harassment causes Weiss to yell at Jacques, telling him that he is everything that’s wrong with the SDC and that the world would be better off without him. She then runs off and Yang tells Ruby they should go, but Ruby insists on staying with a cold expression that scares Yang. She leaves as Ruby just gives him the business.

“You struck my partner… You turned someone into a monster that maimed my sister and haunted her partner… You’re responsible for these radical attacks from Faunus… And yet you never once thought that it’s people like you that are to blame for the problems of the world? Another Great War could happen very soon and you care more about your bottom dollar than the well-being of others… And yet, I’d rather you live, to see us turn the world you and everyone else have corrupted into a better place than what anyone had thought of 80 years ago. I want you to live and see your daughter take your company and use it in ways you can never imagine…”

“… Well, I hate to disappoint you then…” He coughs and flops onto his bed, having gasped his last, the long beep confirming his death. Ruby is shocked as Weiss comes in and sees this. This is where a somber piano rendition of “This Life is Mine” plays, as Weiss breaks down into tears. She wanted this to happen for so long, to take over the SDC from her father, and yet, this wasn’t what she had in mind. Ruby comforts her, but then says this:

“He told me what he could never muster the strength to tell you… He loved you, truly, but he had a funny way of showing it and he apologized for all the pain and torture he inflicted onto others…” She says it in a way that convinces Weiss, but Yang leaves the room, being very shocked with the fact that Ruby straight up lied. Before, telling Ironwood that he could beat Salem and not telling him about the immortality was acceptable since she never once said he could kill Salem and they all understand that delaying her plans counts as “beating”. Now? She pretty much lied to Weiss’s face about what her father said and the worst part is, she can’t properly call her out on it.

Blake and Yang then have a chat about whether this was for the best as the piano song shifts to “Nevermore”, with Yang breaking down and telling Blake: “I lied too! I lied about the Spring Maiden!” However, Blake doesn’t get upset with this, namely because she has no idea what the Spring Maiden fiasco was all about. She notes that they have changed since the Fall of Beacon and this is where Penny comes in, escorting Winter so as to help comfort her when she inevitably sees her father’s cadaver. However, Winter insists she’ll be fine and goes ahead as Penny joins in on the conversation, only to be told by Yang that, no. It will not be like Beacon again. It will never be like Beacon again. They’ve changed so much from the past few months/year that they are barely the same person. Blake even confesses to having taken a life. Penny begins to cry, yet she doesn’t understand why yet, though it’s implied that she is the only one of the characters that hasn’t “grown up” due to her situation.

The piano medley returns to “This Life Is Mine” as Weiss and Winter, taking time to set up an interview, attempt to announce that Weiss is to inherit the title… Only for Weiss to refuse. She makes a speech on how she needs to improve the world and that she will do it more as a Huntress than she would as the owner and so respects her father’s wishes for Whitley to take over the SDC and having Ironwood financially back the company in trade for helping them with a project to reboot the CCT. Ironwood sees this and has a freak-out when she reveals the plans for the CCT, telling Clover that she’s leaking plans.

We see people react to the news unfolding as the song becomes much more sinister and twisted. Cinder and Neo don’t give two shits, but Cinder decides to figure out a means to take this to her advantage. Watts just smirks and mutters that there’s no use as he cracks the code to Mantle’s heating grid and shuts it off. People then begin to freak out as Robyn sees the notification that the SDC will not be bought out by the Happy Huntresses. As May asks Robyn if that’s a problem, she sees people go into a riot before she smirks. “No, no I don’t think it will.” As she says that, the piano makes a full transition to “When It Falls” as we see people raid shops, throw trashcans at TVs, set up huge fires, and toss the robots into the fire, all while Grimm begin to raid Mantle.

Episode 10 kicks off with a large raid alarm as RWBY, JNPR, and even the Ace-Ops and Happy Huntresses try to stave off the raid. This is where things mostly stay the same with the exception of no Ironwood telling everyone his plans. However, Ironwood does take his weapons and goes to the Amity Arena, knowing that at least someone would interfere in his plans. He expresses a bit of shock that it’s Watts who is there, but he doesn’t mind it one bit.

“Thought you died.”

“I did.” He gives a smirk and doesn’t give much detail until…

Episode 11, where a battle causes Watts to get injured and reveals that he’s a robot with his aura implanted into it. “I finally saw what the fat bastard was talking about when he talked of preserving life.” The fights remain the same, but the change begins when Watts has the last laugh, taunting him that his attempts to stop Salem will be fruitless and that he finds using the CCT to rally the world together will only end in pain. Ironwood, determined to stop Salem, drops Watts into the pit of lava, though not before Watts deactivates his robot body and turns it into a conduit to hack into Amity Arena and thus hijack the CCT built inside.

Tyrian is soon beaten and it’s discussed what they should do with him. Robyn wants him to stand trial while Clover wants to execute him. Robyn protests, calling Clover a bootlicker for doing what Ironwood has told him to, but Qrow shuts her up and tells her that Tyrian is a dangerous fucking serial killer that has done far more harm than good. Robyn scoffs, then leaves as Clover prepares to execute Tyrian with his fishing pole (the first time he actually reveals his weapon) and as we see the bob and hook, people might be able to connect the dots…

However, before then, RWBY, having evacuated the people of Mantle (save for the few stubborn ones that they can’t do anything about) and Weiss seeing a homeless Klein and almost sacrificing herself to save and evacuate. Robyn sneaks aboard while RWBY and the Ace-Ops report back to Ironwood over the chess piece he found. Unlike in the original, he is a lot more stable with how he handles it, telling RWBY to go track down Cinder while he prepares the transfer to Winter. This makes Weiss upset though, since this means killing Fria. Ironwood tells them they have no other choice in the matter, since they can’t risk Cinder taking another Maiden power. Ruby manages to convince Ironwood that, they wouldn’t need to do the transfer if they find Cinder first and take her down. He gives them that benefit of the doubt at least.

Meanwhile, inside the craft, Robyn tells the people that this is exactly what Ironwood wants, to corral Mantle and make them dance under his strings until they do what he wants. This actually gets through to the people who are finally fed up with Atlas stomping on them and Robyn enacts a full-blown revolt. Making matters worse is that Salem uses the hacked CCT (in which the virus is basically a digitized Seer) to broadcast herself onto Atlas and Mantle. This is where the scene where Salem appears comes in, but recontextualized because here, she’s talking to everyone, not just Ironwood and RWBY.

She shows just how real she is by commanding some of the Grimm to stop attacking Mantle and return to the tundra, saying how she’ll make the Grimm never bother Mantle again provided they give the Lamp and the Staff to her. Ruby interrupts using her phone and tells her that they’ll beat her, with Ironwood adding that they will destroy her. Salem just laughs, knowing that Ruby has slipped that she knows about Salem. Gives her the famous “your mother” quote, but with the added quote of “None can really kill me… Isn’t that what found out from dear old Ozpin?”

“What is she talking about?” Ironwood asks Ruby, she stammers.

“I… I mean what I said. We can beat Salem-” Then Yang interrupts her.

“But we can’t kill her. We don’t know the full extent but… Ozpin in a past life asked if there was a way to destroy her and he was told that he can’t. So…” Yang looks to Ruby with a disappointed look in her eyes.

Ironwood slumps into his chair as Salem broadcasts her intent to invade Atlas to grab the Relics and that they’d make things much more pleasant for themselves if they handed them over. She gives one last parting remark before she logs out. Now, we can have Ironwood react one of two ways, which would impact the rest of the story.

Either he nuts up and decides to go nuclear on Salem’s ass, stubbornly believing that there has to be a way to destroy Salem and goes all in on having Winter become the Maiden so they can have Atlas go down rather than up. With people comparing this scene to Sokovia, might as well just go all in with the plot, right? Ruby and the others protest that this would end the world with the force Atlas would have, Ironwood goes “with us or against us”, Ruby makes an announcement and calls him a bitch ass motherfucker, and we get the same conclusion as before where the Ace Ops turn on RWBY.

Or

He sits calmly. Ruby can see the lights in his eyes fade as the Ace-Ops panic. Even Weiss and Blake are afraid. Ruby then tells Ironwood that they have to do something, only for Ironwood to smile and say “Ruby… There’s a solution here you’re not seeing…” Before he pulls out his white gun and puts it at his head, ending the episode with a literal bang.

Either way, the Ace-Ops turn on RWBY, either by following orders or because they blame Ruby for filling Ironwood with false hope, with Harriet calling it a disease and that Ruby spreads it around like a plague.

If we don’t end the episode with Ironwood’s suicide, then we end with Tyrian musing and commenting on how Ironwood has picked a new attack dog. Qrow is confused at this before he remembers all the murders that were caused. At first, he suspected it to be Tyrian, but as Clover looks on, he puts two and two together and asks:

“… No… You didn’t…”

“Sometimes, you have to pull a few bad weeds to keep your clover patch alive…” He coldly says.

Episode 12 picks up right where the last episode would leave off, with Clover and Qrow having a stand off, with Clover explaining that the Ace-Ops aren’t called that because they’re the best, far from it, but because they’re willing to do the things no normal person would do, and that includes killing certain people to keep the system alive. Qrow tries his hardest not to fight Clover, but unfortunately for him, Clover concludes that he is to die alongside Tyrian, who has healed. Like in the previous fixing Volume 7 thing I did, the fight becomes more of a proper melee a trois where Clover, Tyrian, and Qrow battle each other equally.

Tyrian, in the middle of this, says how he used to be Ironwood’s attack dog before his destructive nature caused Ironwood to fire and arrest him before said behaviour stings his metaphorical froggy ass (remember that old fable he’s based off?) and notes how Clover takes after him with how the bob and hook look eerily like a scorpion stinger, hence how he put two and two together. The fight gets pretty brutal before Qrow ends up finally managing to control his Semblance by figuring out where to target. He ends up targeting Clover and cancels out the good luck he has, putting him on an even level, then slipping the bad luck over to Tyrian to trip the both of them up. It ends the same, with Qrow punching Clover’s aura. Clover tells Qrow that he’s willing to die for his Kingdom and asks if that’s something Qrow would do. Tyrian stabs Clover, leaves as he hears the cops come, and Clover, in his last words, just tells Qrow “you and your entire team… you killed us all!” Qrow then closes his eyes and cries, saying “Yeah, I know…”

Like in the previous rewrite, we have Neo take the relic from Oscar, but she’s stopped by a mob of people that are raiding the base. JNR find Neo and Oscar decks her in the face, but it’s clear they’re outnumbered… Only for the mob to remember the four and help them, one of them telling Neo that if they mess with one with them, she messes with all of them.

RWBY vs the Ace-Ops… goes the same. But now we don’t have the “they’re the best of the best but then they trained RWBY” BS.

Episode 13 has the crowd mess with Neo, but even so, she outmaneuvers them and kills a few of them. In the chaos, she takes the Relic of Knowledge as guards come in and gun down the crowd. Jaune runs, only before seeing one of the kids getting shot as well. Jaune just freaks out, then rushes in and kills one of the guards. A robot catches footage of this and he’s suddenly on the wanted list. He tells Ren and Nora to run with Oscar as he holds off the guards. Robyn helps Jaune out in taking out the guards last minute.

Everything with Penny, Winter, Fria, and Cinder are the same. The ending, however, depends on what happened to Ironwood.

Ironwood Lives Ending: He orders every intruder to be killed on sight, prompting RWBY, Nora and Ren to flee to Mantle. Oscar stays behind and talks to Ironwood before he gets shot and Ozpin comes back. This is the most in line to V7’s ending.

Ironwood Dies Ending: The crowd easily overpower the military and take over, but now have crippled themselves as Salem’s forces arrive. Robyn does not care though, as she tosses Ironwood’s corpse out the window and towards the icy depths below before taking over his position. “Headmaster Hill… Has a nice ring to it…” RWBY and JNPR reconvene as they bare witness to Salem’s forces arriving. Blake asks Ruby:

“What do we do now?”

To which Ruby replies:

“Now? Now we save the world.” Before we end with her cocking her rifle.

The Stinger would be Ozpin coming back to Oscar and telling him that the fate of Remnant is not for him and his faction to decide on anymore. That it now rests in the new generation. He passes on and it’s Oscar who becomes the dominant as all the memories of Ozma’s lives come back. Oscar is now filled with determination.

And with that, that’s how I’d do Volume 7 if the Mantle subplot was more akin to the post 9/11 environment than it is 2016 Elections, with bits of modern-day politics and even a bit of Stalinism involved. The Penny Subplot can either be in this Volume unaltered or to be decided upon next Volume.

[scripttorture]

(1) i'm writing a story about a kid (under 13, havent decided exactly how young), who undergoes a horrible though mostly unintended period of psychological torture, set in northern Russia in the 13th-14th century. They're the youngest child of the local Lord, and their town gets invaded. Once the dust has settled, their family is brought up on a stage and all the commoners and servants are made to watch in silence as the family is tortured via slow dismemberment, then killed.

(2) The child is basically in a position where they have to serve the people that did this and maintain their disguise, or they will have the same done to them. At one point they are accused of theft and are given the punishment of that time and place- cutting off a finger. Beyond that there's no direct, intentional physical harm done to them. After several years, the invading force leaves and it becomes safe for the surviving child to come out of hiding.(3) What sort of effects could i expect them to have after the torture and trauma? Currently I have them as being so afraid of speaking giving away their identity that they've gotten selective muteness, and once it becomes safe to come out of hiding giving up their former title due to fear of becoming a target. I'm looking for stuff both during the ongoing trauma and afterwards, and i want to do it justice!

Thisall sounds possible.

Idon’t know anything about Russia during that period so I can’tcomment on whether these particular attacks fit the place and period.

Ialso don’t know much about childhood development. The majority ofthe accounts I have are from adults. And while the same symptomseffect children and adults the expression of those symptoms can bedifferent.

ScriptTraumaSurvivorshas a post here on age appropriate expression of trauma symptoms.

GenerallyI tend to stress that witnessing traumatic events doesn’t alwayscause trauma symptoms, but given all the other circumstancessurrounding this I think you’re right, it’s highly likely thischaracter would be extremely traumatised. They’ve lost theirfamily, witnessed horrible things and lived for years in a constantstate of fear and threat. Long term psychological effects areextremely likely.

I’dsuggest you don’t refer to that as psychological torture becausewell- that’s a phrase a lot of torture apologists tend to use torefer to things like starvation, sleep deprivation and stresspositions, which leave no obvious external scars but do cause a lotof physical damage. It’s a phrase that tends to get used to dismissor belittle physical tortures by implying they’re ‘only’psychological.

Iunderstand why that’s the phrase you reached for here though and Idon’t think you’re downplaying what the character goes through.Just- be aware of how that phrase is often used.

Iget asked about muteness or refusing to talk sporadically. Thereisn’t really a way to purposefully inflict it and from everythingI’ve read it seems to be a rare symptom. But you do occasionallyget survivors who stop talking for a period of time. And the wayyou’re describing this it seems as though you’re treating hisrefusal to talk is part of an underlying set of symptoms rather thanthe symptom itself. Which I think works.

I’malso getting the impression that you approach writing symptoms quitedifferently to the way I do. There’s absolutely nothing wrong withthat: we all have different ways of writing and I honestly think themost unhelpful writing advice is the sort which sets out to changehow someone writes.

Rightnow you’ve got a set of behaviours but not necessarily an explicitset of symptoms.

Nowyou don’t necessarily needto come up with an explicit set of symptoms to do this justice, butit might help guide you through how the character’s mental healthproblems change with time.

Atthe moment it sounds as though the main mental illness you’reportraying is anxiety (though you could possibly also write whatyou’re describing as hypervigilance or depression). That in turn isleading to social isolation as the character avoids or cuts himselfoff from other people.

Ithink that’s a pretty good starting point. The symptoms have beentied to both the character and each other in a way that feelsnatural.

Myinstinct is that given everything going on here another underlyingmental health problem might be a good idea. Given the character’sage, the setting and the other symptoms I think insomnia, learningdifficulties or memory problems could all work well.

Insomniaexacerbates pre-existing mental health problems and you could usenightmares as a way of tying this to the other symptoms.

Learningdifficulties would probably be a little more subtle as they might bedismissed as inexperience or a product of the character’s age butthat subtlety could also make them easy to work into the story. Theother symptoms clearly establish that the character hasserious long term symptoms and that means you have space to includeless ‘obvious’ ones.

Irecommend memory problems pretty often because they’re incrediblycommon in real life but rarely depicted well in fiction. They’realso often not acknowledged in the real world, despite having amassive impact on survivors’ lives.

I’vegot a Masterpost on the most common types and how they work here.

Giventhe story you’re telling I don’t think memory loss orinaccurate/false memories would be a good fit.

Butforgetfulness might well be: the character could easily use that asanother ‘reason’ why he ‘has’ to step down, believing himselfto be incapable or unsuitable. Intrusive memories could also be avery good fit and could feed in to his other symptoms. Writing wisethere’s the ‘danger’ of including too many flash backs toparticular awful moments, robbing these moments of their power. Butthis can be overcome quite easily by stressing the feelings thememory evokes rather than the details of the moment in itself.

Loopingback to the main part of the question- The ‘right’ way to handleany of this going forward is going to depend on the story.

Whilethe character is still in danger there may well be worse moments andbetter moments but he’s not going to make any real progress towardshealing while he’s still effectively a prisoner. This doesn’tnecessarily mean his symptoms will be constantly getting worse. Itwould be perfectly normal for them to reach a point and plateau.

Recoveryafterwards isn’t something survivors do in isolation. He’d need asupport network which he currently doesn’t seem to have. That couldmean that part of his recovery process is buildingtrusting and healthy relationships with others.

Giventhe time period and place the church could play quite a large role inhis recovery. Priests, monks, nuns (and anchoresses but I’m unsureif Russia had them) all played roles in communal mental health. NowI’m sure the quality of this help varied widely from place to placeand person to person but there’s nothing wrong with you choosingthat your character has access to better quality help.

Hislack of support network means that recovery would take longer andthere’d probably be a period where he’s at quite high risk ofharm. That doesn’t necessarily mean attack by others or self harm.Severe mental illnesses can make it difficult for a person to takecare of themselves.

Forinstance he might have days when he’d rather go hungry or cold thengo out among other people and get food or firewood. That’s the kindof time when having a support network is a huge material help.Linking back to the church idea I think it could be plausible to havelocal religious figures attempt to help in this kind of practicalway, leaving food or firewood. Other characters close to the survivorcould also fill this kind of role.

Recoveryis slow and it is rarely linear. Even if someone is generally gettingbetter they can still have incredibly bad days or weeks.

Andas people recover they often find that aspects of their mentalillness seem to change. For instance if someone has severe depressionit’s not uncommon for them to start feeling more anxious/overemotional as the depression eases.

That’spart of why I think trying to figure out the underlying illnessbehind these behaviours is helpful. It can give you an idea of how tohave those behaviours change in ways that are organic and realistic.

Goingwith the idea that the character’s major illness is anxiety- Thephysical symptoms can include shaking, nausea, heart palpitations,chest pain and generally feeling like you’re having an adrenalinerush most of the time.

Somepeople have speech difficulties when they’re having an anxietyattack. That can include difficulty taking in what people are sayingand difficulty communicating clearly (though it doesn’t stopspeech). Things like repeating the same short answer a couple oftimes. Sometimes it means giving a reflexive ‘answer that will getrid of the person’ rather than an accurate answer.

Anxietycan drive people to withdraw from others, especially if their anxietyis triggered by others. Things like stepping away from people duringconversation and struggling with crowds or confined spaces canhappen.

Itcan also be difficult to sleep, which in turn makes other symptomsworse.

Depressioncan make people feel tired all the time, while also making itdifficult to fall asleep or sleep well. It can make eating difficult.It tends to mute sensation and can leave people feeling numb.

Itcan get in the way of positive interaction with other people indifferent ways. One of the things I hear people describing most oftenis difficulty engaging. When all of someone’s emotional energy isgoing on holding themselves together sparing some for other people isincredibly difficult.

Ihave a post about solitary confinement that may help you get a graspon the effects of isolation. Keep in mind that solitaryconfinement is much more extreme then the vast majority of cases ofsocial isolation. The effects on your character probably wouldn’tbe this bad. But it could help give you an idea of the way this kindof isolation effects people and how it feels.

Itend to approach recovery quite organically. For me it’s anextension of both the character and their symptoms- the logicalconclusion of the situation the story posits. But that’s because Itend to write symptoms in a way that’s very rooted in the characterand I tend to write very instinctually.

Ifyou’ve got a more analytical approach then breaking symptoms downmight help.

Onceyou know what conditions the character has (rather than just thebehaviours) you can start to tie those behaviours to particularaspects of his mental illnesses. That in turn helps you figure outhow he might recover.

Let’stake his difficulty speaking for a moment and assume that the rootcause of that is anxiety. He probably knows that ‘fear’ is thecause of this. He probably feels less afraid on a daily basis afterthe invading force leaves. And that could lead to him finding it alittle easier to speak again.

Buthe might not understand why he keeps getting chest pains. Or why hefeels ‘afraid’ when in a crowd of people he knows are ‘harmless’.

Ifhe, and everyone else, focused on the biggested most obviousbehavioural problems he had then there’s likely a lot of thingsthat slipped under the radar. That were too small to comment on atthe time or that everyone assumed would stop when the invaders left.This can be a pretty effective way to approach how symptoms canchange and how it can catch a character off guard.

Anotherapproach is thinking about what a character currently can’tdo and when in the story they needto do that particular thing. Then think about what needs to change,environmentally or emotionally, for the character to be capable ofthat action.

Sometimesyou can only really get them half-way there and then find yourselfputting together a creative work-around. That’s OK. That can add toa story and be an interesting break from typical tropes.

Recoveryis a slow process of learning to deal with symptoms in healthierways. And incidentally virtually every mentally ill person I’veknown has had moments of expressing things like ‘But I should beover this’ ‘But I should be able to deal with this’ ‘But Ishould be better by now’.

Fromthe sounds of things you’ve put a lot of thought into both thecharacter and that process already. You are doing a good job. Keep atit and I think you’ll have an excellent story.

Ihope this helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

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[cjostrander]

Papa Roach: Who Do You Trust?

Hi everyone! It’s been a few weeks since my last review and it will likely also be my last review for the year as well. Because of that i had gotten my hands on the latest albums by Papa Roach and The Smashing Pumpkins and was rather happy with both albums. I really do suggest checking out Shiny and Oh So Bright Vol. 1. It is a very nice surprise for the mostly reunited classic lineup and showcases a surprising sense of harmony between the bandmates. It was meant as a combo of eps at the time of recording but fits together rather nice and trims a lot of the excess fat in the last two albums. Because Papa Roach’s newest album isn’t out till mid January and leaked real early I want to get this one out so that they can get a little extra publicity. As is typical with them; it is a bit over a half hour long and should be a straightforward release in terms of bloatedness. It features more focus towards a late night type club sound without necessarily being pop. It features a fair amount of rock and from my first few listens works well due to its simplicity and relaxing mood that is perfect for days when you want to take it easy without going to sleep. It also has four singles out already so they seem to be getting some extra label push this time. Let’s see how it goes!

The Ending: We start this album off with a track that is labelled to better be a finale piece but when the lyrics rise it delivers a more rising from the ashes feeling. The instrumentals begin with an interestingly soothing synth start before they establish a rather firm sense of tension. The guitars arrive to give them some rather tasteful riffs before drum loops signal for Jacoby to enter with very compelling rap verses. Lyrically it moves quick but provides a fair amount of substance for the listener to follow along to. The guitars keep a relaxed flow that supports the vocals perfectly and keeps the song moving with a very calculated energy. I could see it being an easy track to dance to and play live and works rather well as the opening piece due to its firm tension build for the listener to latch onto. 9/10

Renegade Music (Single): This first of four following singles arrives with spaced out but aggressive guitars that bring a sense of fire to the atmosphere and the drums keep a steady beat for Jacoby’s vocals to echo along to. He is a good focal point due to how smoothly the instrumentals format themselves around him. The chorus is full of rage and fire that could bring back fond melodies of their infest days without trying to reach for it. The subtle rap essence in Jacoby’s delivery helps to stretch things out fairly well so that the listener can remain engaged throughout the song.As a live piece; it has the energy to be pulled off easy so as long as the audience isn’t overly harsh then it should be a success. Realistically though if you were enjoying their last three albums then this is only a natural companion piece verses their straight forward rock era albums. 8/10

Not the Only One (Single): This song starts with a nice island style guitar melody and the drums create a very nice groove to dance to that is perfect for a late night drive. Jacoby thrives on this instrumentals support and really makes for a cheery and relaxing song to drive to at nice. The guitars arrive to deliver a rather fresh guitar style to join with manipulated vocal samples. It creates a rather nice texture to change up the album and is one of personal favorites on the album that was a nice surprise when first hearing. It also did the crucial job of fully getting me into this album’s style.The jam instrumentals in the latter half are another highlight to focus on as well. 8.5/10

Who Do You Trust? (Single): This title track begins with a simple guitar rhythm before they pick up the volume a bit for Jacoby to warm his vocals up to. He does a decent job of keeping a nicely atmospheric texture during segments where he is alone. The chorus is a bit repetitive and does open itself to some criticism but could pretty easy at getting a live audience engaged if done right. This one definitely showcases some of the experimental elements that they played with on Crooked Teeth. Other than that i can’t knock this because it is another good piece to get up and move to due to the surprising strength/simplicity of the instrumentals. Also a good driving tune as well! 8.5/10

Elevate (Single): This final single begins with backing gang vocals to set up a sense of ambition before Jacoby arrives to deliver some firm rap verses that remind me of Ronnie Radke’s own style. Instrumentally it stays very simple and gives Jacoby a lot of space this time around before the chorus. The chorus is very basic but shifts focus to the guitars that constantly chime in and out with rather solid riffs that continue to stand out surprisingly despite their simplicity. I remember criticizing the guitars in the past for mainly being along for the ride but they definitely have shown growth over the years and this album is a prime example of how their cohesion has grown together. 8/10

Come Around: This track concludes the first half of the album and begins with very soft and melodic guitar riffs. It has a little more of a airy pop atmosphere but Jacoby’s softer melodic style helps to keep things focused firmly on the uplifting nature of his lyrics. It is definitely going to be a track that will give them a very firm access to a more pop centric audience. It might of been a wise choice to pick it as another single just so that they could try and stick it on a pop station and see if it clicks. For me it’s one of my less favorite tracks but only because i’m a rock/metal guy at heart. However; i have to give it credit for succeeding at its intended sound and trying to appeal to a wider base as a result. 7/10

Feel Like Home:  Drums start off with a nicely energetic rhythm and the guitars infuse a cheery melody that Jacoby arrives with an easygoing vocal tone that is reflective in nature. It’s lyrics are decent to follow along to and the substance in them will be simply straightforward but very full in meaning. The instrumentals keep things feeling rather basic but effective in presence. For people in a rough point of their life this album as with any Papa Roach album will lyrically be a good choice for a therapy session. Though this album definitely going to match that positive tone instrumentally as well so this will be especially suited for your more vulnerable days. 7.5/10

Problems: Interesting synths start off with a very soothing foundation and Jacoby arrives to deliver very soft spoken rap style verses. The lyrics are a very strong focal point in this song and the chorus is pulled off rather refreshingly. It is very basic but its lyrics can hit home emotionally with the listener on a state of being relatable with ease. The instrumentals do rather well with keeping the atmosphere relaxed and soothing but firmly supporting the vocals as well. This will succeed in keeping empty moments from popping out to the listener and may make this a favorite among listeners. I could see this as a finale piece or a concert closer as well due to its intimate nature with the listener. 8.5/10

Top of the World: This song has a more pump up nature lyrically but experiments very heavily with synths and backing harmonies. It works decently with Jacoby’s soft rap delivery and flirts with their pop side without attempting to alienate their rock fanbase. I’m not even going to bother comparing it their Infest days because the fact that they have brought rap vocals back is all you are going to get since they aren’t metal anymore. The guitars make a decent towards the end and should give some needed energy to keep the listener from getting much at risk of sleeping. 7.5/10

I Suffer Well: Now this song is a real quick minute and a half piece that seeks to rev the listener back up with some of the most aggressive material on the album; similar to the title track on their last album Crooked Teeth. It has a bit of a punk vibe that reminds me heavily of Linkin Park’s sound on their album The Hunting Party. It probably could of gone longer but does very well at jolting the listener back into a state of life. 8.5/10

Maniac: Guitars arrive with a nice show of force than is balance by very melodic loops before Jacoby arrives with a more wounded vocal tone. It evokes a sense of emotional despair that showcases ample substance in the vocals.The chorus is an easy moving piece that uses simple lyrics to get the point across without boring the listener too much. The instrumentals do a fair job of keeping things going but other than that its a hit or miss. 7.5/10

Better than Life: This finale track starts off with nicely electronic infused guitar riffs and Jacoby arrives with his poppy vocal style that places high focus on his lyrics. It keeps a very simple atmosphere going on for the listener to ease in to before the chorus arrives. Jacoby and the instrumentals showcase a firm use of power and high notes that will present a sense of ambition to the listener. Overall it’s a fairly decent way to end the album due to it showcasing the new elements on this album and leaving the listener with an energetic sense of farewell. 8/10

Overall album rating: 8.0/10

Well this album scored appropriately for what it was. I definitely recommend checking it out because it showcases continued growth for the band and further experiments with the band’s pop side. For the next album i’m hoping they infuse a little more aggression into it similar to crooked teeth but this album plays a crucial role in adding new sound elements into the band’s backlog. Hope you guys enjoy this review and take time to check the album out. I’ll catch you guys later so enjoy your day everyone!

*Reviewer’s Pick*

[btsfanficss]

Stay Professional! Final

NSFW! Work AU! Explicit smut, some fluff and slight angst? : Jungkook x Reader

Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13

Summary: Jeon Jungkook’s persistence landed him a place in your heart- although a special spot for him was already there to begin with. He was more than just a pretty face. Not only was he exceptionally skilled in bed, he’d gotten to a point where he lived to spoil you... in more ways than one. 

A/N: This is the last chapter of Stay Professional! Quite possible that it’s the most steamy chapter too! Please be aware that this chapter involves explicit smut! NSFW! Derogatory terms, dirty talk, over-sensitivity, spanking.. just full on rough and kinky fucking. Read at your own risk! DomJungkook! x SubReader

You opened your eyes slowly due to the blinding sunlight that pierced through Jungkook’s polished glass windows. You patted around the king-sized mattress, in search of a warm body that’d hugged you all night long. A small smile spread upon your lips at the memories of the passionate love-making the night before. 

“Jungkook?” You called out in an unusual nasal morning voice and waited for a response as you stretched and bathed in the morning sunlight. 

A quick shuffle of feet trotted from across the hallway and Jungkook immediately made an appearance, an effervescent grin on his radiant face. 

“Yes?” He beamed and crouched over your small frame to plant a loving kiss on your forehead. 

You couldn’t help but let your grin grow as big as his from the loving actions he’d spoilt you with. You suddenly noticed that you weren’t wearing anything underneath the white sheets so you pulled them up higher above your chest and Jungkook’s grin turned into a smirk. 

“You can’t suddenly get shy now, can you?” He licked his lips and briefly brushed them over yours, a quick peck to temporarily satisfy his growing desire to relive last night. 

“Don’t tempt me again, sweetheart.” He planted raspberries down your neck and you giggled at the sensation of his soft lips and puffs of air from his cheek. “This time, I really will punish you.” 

You raised an eyebrow at his cocky attitude and Jungkook merely kissed it. 

“Are you hungry?” He asked as he started to rummage through some of his clothes in search of something comfortable for you to wear. 

“A little bit, yeah.” You hummed and stared out of the glass windows to fully admire the gorgeous view Jungkook woke up to every morning. A forest of tall skyscrapers painted the scenery in beautiful gradients of greys and whites and really accentuated and aestheticised the ‘rich’ part of town.

“This is such a beautiful view. It’s picture perfect.” You complimented and Jungkook’s voice grew soft with affection. 

“I know..” He smiled whilst never shifting his gaze off your amazed features as he admired your side-profile. 

You shifted your gaze from outside the window to catch him staring at you and you couldn’t help but get a little flustered at his cheesiness.

“I was talking about the view outside.” 

“I know but I’m talking about my view.” He whistled and gently placed a large white oversized top next to you. 

“As much as I love my current sight, I can’t afford to let you catch a cold so please change into that shirt.” He pointed at the comfortable looking shirt and made his way out the door to leave you with some privacy. 

Jungkook’s ears perked up at the sound of the shuffle of your feet down his rather long hallway towards the kitchen. He stood across the counter with a freshly brewed cup of coffee in his hand. 

“Good morning.” He hummed and took a small sip of his daily caffeine intake. Jungkook immediately beamed at the sight of you in one of his t-shirts. 

The oversized design made the shirt look even bigger on your small frame and the soft cloth barely managed to stay on your small width of shoulders. He licked his lips at the sight of your visible collarbones and noticed the traces of pinks down your neck from the night before. 

“Good morning~” You whistled innocently and reached for the other cup of coffee placed on the counter. 

“Do you have work today?” 

“Actually no, I don’t. I took today off to spend some time with you.” His smile grew past his ears as he stealthily wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling your body closer to his. Coincidentally, he’d trapped you between the counter and his masculine body. 

“Are you sure you’re allowed to do that?” You had a raised eyebrow but the happy smile on your face clearly indicated the joy from Jungkook’s decision to take the day off. 

“It doesn’t matter.. I need to spend more time with you before I lose my composure again.” He kissed your forehead and you wrapped your arms around him in return as you nuzzled up into his neck with a giggle. 

“And speaking of losing myself- we need to talk about last night.” He pulled you away from his warm chest and you looked up at him with an innocent gaze. 

“What about last night?” You simply smiled at him and Jungkook scoffed at your attempt to override the obvious elephant in the room. 

“Baby girl, please. I made it clear to you that I was going to take things slow between us because I really don’t want to mess this up..” He ran his hand through your hair and pat some strands into place. 

“You being uncooperative isn’t going to help my urges.” He lectured and frowned at you, his tone had sounded a little lower to evoke a more serious atmosphere within the room. 

“Your urges?” You purred and leaned in on his chest to listen to the quickened pace of his heart. Jungkook managed to quickly peel your away from him again and held onto your wrists this time. 

“We both know what I’m talking about. Last night was my mistake, I’m really sorry. I couldn’t hold myself back but please don’t misunderstand.. I’m completely serious about you. You’re too special to me and I don’t want you to think that you’re only here for the sex.” Jungkook’s voice sounded incredibly smooth as the grip on your wrists softened. 

“Jungkook.” You held onto his hand and intertwined your fingers with his. “Last night wasn’t your mistake. To begin with, it wasn’t a mistake at all. You have no idea how long I’d waited for you to make a move... and since you were being such a stubborn and proper gentleman, I couldn’t resist my urges anymore.” 

You could see the uncertainty on his face as he chewed on his bottom lip. 

“I don’t want you to hold back.” You admitted. “I’ve had enough of fantasising about you. I know on your behalf that you’re trying to take things slow to prove a point but..” 

“I’m only hesitant because I really don’t want to do anything that could potentially mess things up between us.” He interrupted and suddenly hoisted you up the kitchen counter with ease. You sat on the cold marble counter with legs swaying like a child and spread them a little so Jungkook’s body could fit in between. 

He closed the gap between your bodies and you wrapped your bare legs around Jungkook’s back. A small sigh of relief escaped from Jungkook’s lips as you tightened the intimate embrace. 

“Trust me, you’re doing more damage by not letting me fulfill my desires.” You whispered sweetly into his ear and you could feel the vibrations of his chest as he laughed. 

“It was the same pain for me, okay. You have no idea how many crazy fantasies I had of you... and one actually involves this very counter.” He murmured in between suggestive yet gentle kisses down your neck. 

“I’m more than happy to grant your wish.” You encouraged and spread your legs wider to provide him with more access to close the gap between your excited bodies. 

“Was I too rough last night?” He stopped to ask in a concerned tone and you groaned at the lack of contact of his soft lips. “Jungkook..” You ran your hand down his upper-body and your finger hooked onto his shirt revealed a hint of his toned chest. “Less talking, more kissing.” You pleaded and Jungkook quickly got the idea of the way you liked it in bed. 

“I can’t believe I agreed to this.” You grumbled and Jungkook looked a little confused at your rather sour behaviour. 

He sat from across the table, decked out in one of his finest Giorgio Armani suits. His hair was neatly parted to the side and gelled to perfection. A thin black tie sat around his neck and the matching black skinny-fit suit jacket enhanced his chiseled jaw and ridiculously handsome features. 

The dimly lit candle lights and the soothing hums from an orchestra further intensified the romantic atmosphere. You’d finally allowed Jungkook to pick a place for dinner- any place he wanted, this time. And of course, it’d have to be a Michelin star restaurant that overlooked the festive night-life of Seoul.

“Sweetheart, why are you in such a bad mood?” He lovingly rubbed your knee over your floor-length gown and your bit your lip with nausea. 

“I feel really out of place.. As much as I appreciate you taking me out to indulge in these luxuries... It kind of adds to my discomfort in a way.” You swirled the golden Champagne with a small twist of your wrist and watched as the bubbles danced within the glass. 

“I just don’t like being reminded of how much I don’t deserve you.” You spat out and placed the glass back down on the silk tablecloth. Jungkook raised an eyebrow in confusion and asked for you to continue. “What do you mean, Y/N?” 

“I don’t want to be constantly reminded of the gap in our social status and I hate being bombarded with the thoughts that perhaps, you deserve someone so much more.. you know.. someone much more powerful or even...wealthy..” 

Jungkook looked taken aback. His lips were parted slightly and both eyebrows were raised at his realisation. 

“So this was the reason?” He muttered under his breath as he finally put together all the puzzle pieces. “This was why you were so hesitant on me taking you out?” Jungkook asked as he reached for your hands. 

“I know it’s selfish and hard to comprehend... but--”

“--Y/N.” He interrupted in a stern voice. Despite his gentle expression, his low voice sounded suddenly very intimidating. 

“I’m going to make this very clear to you right now.” His serious stare made you shift your gaze frantically to anything that wasn’t his piercing eyes. 

“I could not care less about the difference regarding our social status. I don’t care if you’re poor, I don’t care if you’re a billionaire. But I do care about how you see yourself around me. I’m not comfortable with the idea of you thinking lowly of yourself. I’m not going to sit here and let you see yourself as anything less than the most beautiful and forgiving individual I see you as.”

Jungkook took in a deep breath. “So please, don’t think that wealth is a problematic factor because it definitely isn’t. Y/N, wealth can’t possibly teach me the lessons I’ve learned from you.” He soothingly grazed his fingers over the back of your hand.

“Before, I’d often brooded over all my problems alone and I was too scared to open up to anyone but your warmth changed that. I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling these ecstatic and addicting emotions. Arguably, if I was being completely honest here with you-- I don’t think I deserve someone nearly as beautiful and forgiving as you.” 

It was almost as if Jungkook knew what you’d been wanting to hear this whole time regarding the issue about his social status in comparison to yours. 

“No stop! That’s not true Jungkook. Please don’t think that. You’ve changed --” You interrupted and tightened your grasp on his hand. 

“-- I have thanks to you but one trait that hasn’t is my persistence.” Jungkook’s comely smile was too radiant. 

“Please allow me to be selfish and let me ask you to stay by my side.” Jungkook brought out a dark navy velvet box from within his suit jacket. He opened the box and inside was a gorgeous pair of Swarovski crystal earrings. 

Your lips parted at the sight and you find it difficult to articulate a response. 

“You don’t like them?” Jungkook chuckled and pushed the jewellery closer to you. 

“That’s not it no! They’re... so beautiful but...I can’t possibly accept this.” You admired as you feasted your eyes on the expensive earrings. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Y/N. I personally picked them out to match your dress for this evening.” 

“Jungkook these are the most beautiful earrings I’ve ever seen but I really can’t. You’ve already done so much for me and I don’t want to feel like I’m a burden on you or anything--” You pushed the box away from you with a muted smile.

“--Baby girl,” Jungkook’s call sounded borderline angry as his voice had grown deeper than before. Yet, there was an irresistible sultry twist in the way he spoke.

“You should get used to this. I’m allowed to spoil you however I want, got it?” He muttered in a dangerously low tone and you couldn’t help but clench your thighs together at the sexy sound. 

“This is too much though.. You’re already paying for everything tonight and--” You insisted and Jungkook just clicked his tongue to shut you up. At that point, it was obvious that Jungkook had become a little angry.

“It’s going in the bin if you’re going to be so stubborn about this.” Jungkook threatened and closed the box before you reached over to stop him. You knew that he was being completely serious.

“No! I’m sorry. Please don’t throw it away.” You protested and Jungkook’s deeply knitted brows softened. 

“I want to spoil you.. don’t think too much about these things and please just enjoy it. I have every right to treat you and remind you of just how lucky I am to have you.” You interrupted Jungkook’s sigh by leaning over the table to plant an unexpected small peck on his lips. 

“Thank you.” You couldn’t help but smile at his dulcet confession. 

Throughout the dinner, Jungkook’s gaze stayed fixed on your glamorous appearance. It was rare for you to dress-up since.. to be fair, you never really owned anything expensive. The evening Jungkook planned covered for your evening gown and professional make-up just so he could take you out to this restaurant. 

You were wearing a floor-length dress that was the most magnificent shade of dark blue. It had beautiful ‘star like’ gem embroidery at the hems that made the dress look like the twinkling night sky. 

“Since you’re my lover, I have every right to spoil you and treat you the way you deserve to be treated.” 

“May I come in?” You gently knocked on Jungkook’s office door. 

Jungkook’s head immediately looked up and his face brightened at the sight of you. “Of course, Y/N. This is a surprise,” Jungkook said through an airy chuckle, “Shouldn’t you be at work?” 

“I can’t concentrate because all I can think of is how good you can make me feel..” You purred and strutted over close to Jungkook. 

He could sense the desire in your voice and see the lust in your eyes. He knew immediately why you were here and the thought made his heart skip. 

Boldly, you sat yourself on Jungkook’s work desk, your skirt suddenly hitched much shorter-- a delicious view of your legs for Jungkook’s eyes. 

“Are you really busy?” you asked as you started to thread your fingers through his noir locks. Jungkook smirked at your suggestive behaviour and admired your bravery. 

“Well.. I am but I guess it’ll have to wait..” Jungkook whispered into your ear as the distance between your faces slowly diminished. 

You soon locked lips with him and you couldn’t help but melt under his touch. Jungkook stealthily wedged himself right in between your legs and worked his tongue with skill to further excite your lustful state. 

Jungkook broke the heated kiss. “Aren’t you afraid we’ll get caught?” 

“I don’t work here anymore so it’s fine.. plus, you’re the big boss here so why should you care.” You slurred suggestively and fiddled with the tie that sat tight around his neck. 

Jungkook gently grabbed on your hands to stop you from loosening his tie. “You’re right, sweetheart.” His expression changed into an attractive and lustful one.

“Since I am the boss here, be a good girl and listen to my instructions.” He whispered harshly into your ear and it sent shivers down your spine. “I have to at least make sure my appearance stays professional today so no touching.” He cockily smirked as you frowned at his words. Regardless, you listened to him.

“Of course~” You sung in an innocent voice that drove Jungkook’s testosterone levels off the roof. 

“Spread your legs for me.” He hummed as he began to unzip your skirt. Jungkook slid down your panties that were already soaked with your juices. His tongue immediately circled around your clit as his long fingers pumped in and out of you at a fast rate.

Jungkook was a fast learner-- so he picked up on how to pleasure you so quickly. A minor orgasm made your body tremble in pleasure but the two of you were interrupted by a loud knock on Jungkook’s door. Jungkook’s eyes immediately widened and your mouth dropped open in panic. 

“It’s Jimin here.” Your boss’s voice sounded muffled through Jungkook’s mahogany door. 

Jungkook quickly mouthed some instructions for you to get underneath his table and thus hide from Jimin. You quickly obliged and curled up into a small ball under Jungkook’s desk. The two of you were so lucky his desk was a work station and so you were successfully hidden due to the plank of wood that decorated the front of the table. 

“It’s good to see you’re actually doing your job.” Jimin appeared from behind the door with a handsome smirk that creased his loveable crescent shaped eyes. 

“Well.. what can I say,” Jungkook nervously blabbered out and rubbed the back of his head, which was something he did only when he was extremely anxious. 

You could feel the sweat form on your forehead due to the excitement of the situation. Jungkook’s anxious facial expression added to your mischievous intentions. You were in control and he was the one that was going to be squirming. And the thought of that had your stomach churning with arousal once again. 

Jimin sat himself down on the couch a couple of meters away from Jungkook’s desk. You heard a small curse escape Jungkook’s lips and you could hardly hold back a giggle.

“Why are you here?” Jungkook asked with a forced smile and Jimin raised an eyebrow in response. 

“I’m going to cut to the chase here-- that’s how I’ve always been.” He coughed and you stealthily slid your hand up Jungkook’s thigh at a painfully slow rate. 

You’d forced yourself to press your lips together incase a giggle escaped. You couldn’t help but exhale silently to calm down your excitement after seeing Jungkook flinch from your hand stroking up his thigh. 

“Of course.” Jungkook nodded and fixed his gaze on the paperwork on his desk. It took him every ounce of energy to hold back his excited grunt and he couldn’t help but look a little uncomfortable.

“I’m just here to say I’m glad you’re back to normal.” Jimin quickly muttered under his breath.

It was rare for Jimin to be so soft.. especially on Jungkook so he didn’t know how to react tohus unusual statement so he just swallowed loudly. 

You’d decided to start slowly start massaging his tense thigh and Jungkook poked his tongue through his cheek- a sexy symbol of his annoyance. 

“I mean-- thank god you’re back to normal. Your reports are actually readable now.” Jimin coughed and crossed his leg due to his nerves. 

“Uhh.. thanks hyung. It’s only because I sorted things out with Y/N!” Jungkook’s voice suddenly raised mid sentence from the sensation of you suddenly palming his hard length through his boxers. Jimin looked terribly confused at Jungkook’s weird behaviour. 

“Yeah I realised... speaking of Y/N, has she contacted you? She left work early today because she wasn’t feeling well.” 

Jungkook’s gaze quickly shifted to you hiding underneath his desk. You quirked up a brow and placed a finger over your lips, a mischievous smile poking through. 

“Oh..” He acted surprised. “I’ll make sure to check up on her.” Jungkook smiled through trembling lips as your finger that was hooked onto his boxer started to trail down his legs. You teasingly undressed him of his boxers and admired Jungkook’s clenched jaw from underneath. 

“Are you alright?” Jimin asked in a suspicious tone. 

“I-I’m fine.” Jungkook exhaled loudly as you managed to free his hardness from the confinements of his boxers. 

“Are you sure..? Your face looks a little red.” Jimin commented and squinted his eyes in disbelief. 

“Yeah don’t worry about it.. I might’ve caught the cold from Y/N.” He lied and out of the blue, yanked on your hair to get you to stop. You couldn’t help but let out a small noise of disapproval but his action just turned you on even more. 

As revenge, you stroked his throbbing length at an insanely slow pace and Jungkook coughed loudly in response to hold back a grunt. He’d been hard for so long it was getting really painful for him. 

“You have to take care of yourself, Jungkook.” Jimin’s curious stare lingered on Jungkook’s face. 

“I will, hyung. Thanks for caring.” Jungkook chuckled nervously and kept his replies short and sweet-- to quickly end the conversation. 

“On a side note..” Jimin continued and Jungkook’s breath hitched again as your hand developed a tight grip around his cock. “There’s a get-together over in the US with all the stock-holders for your company. It’d be a good chance for you to expand your professional networks. What do you think?”

You started to jerk him off very slowly. “T-that sounds good. It also gives me a breather and some time t--”. Jungkook stopped mid-sentence to fully indulge in your quickened pace. 

“It gives me some time to think about how I can improve my performance.” Jungkook lied completely and that one was way too obvious. He’d never actually spoken like that to Jimin before. 

You slowed down your hand that was jerking him off and also softened the tight grip. You continued the slow pace with one hand and with the other hand, you couldn’t help but touch yourself briefly as the situation was just too thrilling. 

There was nothing you wanted more than to be fucked so hard, roughly like two animals in heat. 

You were soaked once again and you collected your warm juices that endlessly dripped down. Jungkook gulped and was given the time to think from your slowed pace. Jimin couldn’t help but wonder what in the world was wrong with Jungkook, though. 

“Alright...” Jimin raised an eyebrow again. “Do you want me to book your flight... then?” 

With the hand that you’d touched yourself with, you swapped hands so that your warm juices were transferred onto his cock and you watched it clench immediately. Jungkook knew exactly what the wetness was and he clicked his tongue loudly as he was beyond tempted to kick away the table and fuck you senseless. 

“Sorry I have a migraine right now and it’s really painful.” Jungkook lied once again as his hips automatically started to thrust into your hand. 

“I’ll go to the meeting don’t worry. Will you be coming with me?” Jungkook asked while placing his hand over yours to speed up the pace. 

You admired the sight of his hard member coated in your slick juices and the view had you hungry to taste him. The air grew musky with the smell of sex but that didn’t stop Jungkook from thrusting into your hand. 

“I will be going yes. I suppose I should leave you to... rest..” Jimin’s eyes suddenly widened at the realisation but thankfully, he got up and walked towards the door with a smirk plastered across his lips. 

“Thanks for visiting.” Jungkook could barely hold back from breaking out into a loud moan.

Jimin had his back facing Jungkook when he momentarily stopped at the door. He wasn’t stupid-- his astute mind was beyond bright and his quick witted personality didn’t allow for any lenience. 

“Can’t you two at least wait until after office-hours?” Jimin chuckled devilishly before locking and closing the door behind him.

Jungkook immediately let out a frustrated grunt at the fact that Jimin had just caught the two of you and you giggled loudly as you continued to pump his hard length with a tenacious grip. Out of no-where, Jungkook pulled you up from underneath his table so roughly with an unforgivingly tight grip on your wrist. 

You stopped pleasuring him as you were forced to stand up and you unraveled from the shrivelled position that allowed you to fit under his table. Your knees were suddenly shot with stings of pain as the hiding position previously made you kneel mercilessly on the floor. The stinging sensation ran up your leg and you struggled to stand up properly. 

Jungkook noticed and grasped on your hip to steady your waver. His ruthless smirk grew mercilessly. “You’re really asking to be punished, aren’t you?” 

Jungkook let go of your wrist to run his hand tenderly through your hair. It was gentle and therapeutic until his grip suddenly changed. He harshly grasped onto your roots and pushed you down onto the cold tiles. 

“Kneel, bitch.” 

You cursed as another wave of stings crept up your knees but it seemed to turn you on even more.

“Suck me.” He commanded and loosened his grip on your hair roots. “You’re such a needy slut.. You could’ve waited just a couple more minutes..” He murmured with his head cocked to the side. 

You licked your lips hungrily and opened your mouth slowly before Jungkook slammed into it at full force, making you choke from the unexpected roughness. He’d never been this rough with you before. The other times you’d slept with him, when he felt like he got too rough, he’d check with how you were feeling but this time-- he was really rough.. But he could tell you were really enjoying it from the way your tongue wrapped itself around his throbbing length despite sputtering for air. 

“Suck me harder.” He whispered harshly and used his large hand to guide your head’s movement as you hollowed your cheeks ever more than before. 

Jungkook continued to thrust into your mouth at a fast and unforgiving pace. Each time, he’d hit the back of your throat causing you to gag in response and he loved the sight-- you on your knees with drool down your chin as your eyes screamed at Jungkook to slow down. He could practically see the wet pool that developed on the floor due to your overwhelming excitement in between your legs. 

He pulled out quickly and admired the quick heaving of your chest as you inhaled quick, sharp breaths to take in much needed oxygen. He yanked on your hair and pushed your head back so you were forced to face him with an erotic expression that pushed all of Jungkook’s buttons. 

“Do you like sucking me off?” He asked with a lob-sided smirk. 

“Yes Daddy.. I love it so much.” You murmured and the new kink seemed to push Jungkook beyond his limits. His smirk grew wider with confidence at the sound of his new title because he fucking loved the sound of it. 

“What did you just call me?” He bit on his bottom lip so hard in satisfaction it looked as though it’d start bleeding. 

“Daddy~” You purred as you licked his sensitive tip and Jungkook could only shudder in response to your bold and new kink. Previously, when the two of you involved yourselves in dominant and submissive role plays, you’d always refer to him as ‘Sir’ so when Jungkook heard the new and improved title, he became harder than he’d ever been. 

“That’s right sweetheart, know your place. Show daddy how sorry you are for being so impatient..” Jungkook hissed and began to thrust into your mouth again. 

“Jimin’s never going to shut up about this..” He scolded and you gagged on his hard cock as he shoved it so far down your throat that it was impossible to not contract around his length. Jungkook sighed with content as tears continued to stream down your face.

“Look at you..” He admired his view of you, completely submitting to his dominance. “What a dirty slut you are.” 

You tapped on his tense thighs to let him know the burning sensation in your lungs were becoming unbearable. Jungkook pulled out of you mouth and stared at the way your saliva dripped from the tip. 

“I’m... only a dirty slut for you.. Daddy..” You muttered in between catching your breath as you wiped away the saliva that dribbled down your chin. Jungkook couldn’t get enough of his sight. 

“Yes but you need to control yourself.” He lectured and signalled for you to get up from the floor. You weakly stood up and clung onto his masculine body for support as your knees were in shocking pain. 

With a swift and rough movement, Jungkook twisted you around and pinned you down onto his work desk. You cheeks were pressed up against his papers and your arousal grew even more intense from the sound of his belt he picked up from the floor. 

Jungkook maintained a strong grip on both of your wrists that were pressed into your back. He used one hand to keep them in place as you tried to wriggle free and occupied his other hand with his belt. Before you could protest at his tight grip, a sharp sting ripped through your butt-cheek and you screamed loudly at the painful yet exciting sensation. 

Jungkook smoothened his large and cooling hand over the spot he’d just whipped.

“That’s right, scream for me. Let everyone know that you’re being punished here for being such a needy and impatient slut.” Jungkook bent down to whisper the dirtiest profanities into your ear and it further intensified your desire to be fucked by him. 

His wrist danced in repetitive motions as he continued to whip you with his black leather belt. Your moans grew even louder than before and it became obvious of what was happening in Jungkook’s office.

But at that point, you couldn’t care less. You were in no condition to think straight because all you could concentrate on was the juxtaposition of the burning feeling from his belt and the cooling sensation from Jungkook’s soothing rubs. 

“Daddy I’m sorry..” Your muffled cries were barely audible over the sound of leather slamming onto your skin. 

“Are you really sorry?” Jungkook stopped and leaned back down to indulge in your small whimpers.

“Y-Yes.. I’m so sorry daddy..” You moaned at the sensation of Jungkook leaving blossoms of pink and red galaxies down your back and torso. 

“Please hurry daddy.. I learnt my lesson.. but right now I can’t wait any longer to be fucked by you.” You pleaded with tears that streamed down onto his paperwork and Jungkook also couldn’t wait any longer. It was becoming all too painful for him. 

Jungkook let go of your wrists and flipped you over so that you laid on your back. He ripped open your white blouse with full force and a couple of buttons became unattached to the shirt due to the violent stretch. He stealthily undressed you of your blouse and freed your breasts so he could watch them dance as he rammed into you. 

Before you could even process his fast hands, the next thing you felt was a crash of his teeth as he passionately dominated the kiss by overpowering your tongue. Jungkook kissed you while he trailed his hands down to once again meet your drenched core. 

He mercilessly rubbed on your sensitive clitoris with his thumb as his three fingers plummeted in and out of your slickness. Before you knew it, another orgasm hit and you moaned at the intense pleasure and also the pain from the sensitivity.

Jungkook then rubbed his hard girth against your wet folds and you bit your lip in frustration. 

“Please d-daddy.. slow down.. the sensitivity is killing me.” You whimpered and Jungkook smirked at your request, suddenly shoving his whole length in one swift snap of his hips.  

Jungkook slammed his hips into yours so quickly and pulled out even quicker-- he then again slammed back into your dripping heat without giving you any time for you to adjust to his impressive size. He pumped into you so roughly that your breasts danced back and forth in time with the table. Jungkook stared in amazement at the sight of your bouncing breasts and gave in to the loud and high-pitched screams that escaped your lips. 

“Daddy!” You screamed loudly. You tried to slow down his mind-boggling pace by pushing on his chest but it was useless. Another orgasm began to build up within your body as Jungkook nailed to hit all your sweet spots inside. 

“Isn’t this what you wanted, kitten?” He hummed and you opened your eyes to admire his face drenched with sweat from the fast speed. 

“You were begging and asking me to fuck you so hard before so why are you telling me to stop now?” Jungkook chuckled and you could only whimper beneath his drilling hips. You were sure that there would be bruises tomorrow but the pleasure was too heavenly to think about anything else. 

“You’d been begging to cum right? Well I’ll make you cum until you can’t fucking walk.” Jungkook threatened through his rough panting and softly bit on your ear. 

“Mmm! ‘m about to cum again..” You moaned and Jungkook continued to slam in and out of your entrance. Your walls began to contract around his throbbing length once again and Jungkook couldn’t hold himself back this time. 

You clamped down on his cock so hard it was hard for Jungkook to pump into you at a fast rate. “Fuck!” He cursed and roughly bit down on your shoulder to quiet his grunts. “You’re so fucking tight I’m losing my mind.” Jungkook complimented and thrusted into you even deeper than before. 

With a skilful thrust, Jungkook had you unravelling underneath him for the 3rd time. Jungkook lost himself in your warmth and heat gripping his member that he released his seed within you as he let out a string of curses. 

Your chests heaved heavily and until Jungkook fully got his breath back, he stayed on top of you- resting his head in between the crook of your neck. He pulled out his softening member and watched as the sinful combination of your juices trailed down onto his paperwork. 

He diligently collected the mixture that continued to flow out of you with his sensitive tip and thrusted it back into your throbbing pussy. You whimpered due to the overwhelming sensitivity and a long curse filled the atmosphere. 

“It’s not over yet.” He panted and slowly shoved his fingers back into your cum-filled pussy. 

“D-daddy p...please... I can’t anymore..” You could barely articulate your words as you felt completely overwhelmed from the painful sensitivity. It felt as though you were about to black out from the intense orgasms he’d provided you with. 

“Sweetheart, you asked for this... daddy’s going to keep fucking you since you’ve been such a needy bitch.” He increased the speed of his fingers and all you could do was try to even out your breathing before another wave of pleasure started to coil within your body. He bent his fingers in all the correct spots so you were bound to be a moaning mess once again. 

“Can you hear how wet you are?” Jungkook questioned and you could barely hear anything because your ears had started to violently ring. 

He took out his fingers from within your squelching heat then trailed kisses from down your stomach to your core. His tongue skilfully flicked your overly-sensitive nub and you tried to wriggle your hips away in pain but his hands held your hips down in place. He lapped up some juices but made sure to not lick you clean. Suddenly, Jungkook inserted 3 of his digits up to his knuckle into your pussy and began to draw circles over your clit with his tongue. 

“Fuck!” You screamed out as your heartbeat became dangerously fast. He’d made you cum again through the use of his mouth and fingers. You couldn’t help but let your tears stream down due to the intense pleasure and pain. 

“Look at the mess you made.” Jungkook snickered and shoved the sinful combination up your fucked out pussy. “You better keep my cum inside you, Y/N.” He removed his face from your womanhood to place a gentle kiss to your lips. 

He awed at your completely fucked out and tired expression temporarily before breaking out of his ‘daddy’ persona. 

“How am I going to explain these stains on my paperwork?” Jungkook teased and you still had your eyes closed in exhaustion. Jungkook lovingly kissed your forehead and your unresponsive state was starting to freak him out. 

“Y/N? Are you still alive?” He pulled you up from his desk and sat you up so that you could lean against his firm chest. He hugged you gently and pressed soft kisses down your neck. 

“I..I loved.. that.” Your hiccuped as some tears still streamed down your face. Jungkook chuckled and blew raspberries across your collarbones as you weakly hugged him back. “T..that was so intense... I feel like.. I’m about to faint.” You giggled and Jungkook planted another loving kiss on your forehead. 

“That’s what you get for being so impatient, sweetheart.” He smirked and pecked your swollen lips. 

“So much for staying professional~” You joked and Jungkook rested his head upon your shoulder. 

“You’re right. The whole office is going to tease me so much now.” Jungkook chuckled and ran his fingers through your hair to tranquillise your sensitive state.

“Let’s run away together.” You could hear him grinning up to his cheeks. “We’ll run away into the country side and we can live together on a farm with no one else there to bother us.. We can be as loud as we want and we definitely wouldn’t need to stay professional.” 

Your hazy state allowed you to only giggle at his bewildering suggestion as you started to fall asleep, sat up on his chest. You could hear soft sounds of shuffling due to Jungkook putting on his boxers. “That sounds like a dream..” You mumbled as you started to drift off to sleep. 

Jungkook struggled to dress you back into your work clothes as your half-conscious state made it incredibly difficult. He realised then that he probably shouldn’t have ripped your blouse off you but the action was so sexy, you didn’t mind. It took him some time to flimsily dress you again but he somehow managed despite you falling asleep on him completely half way.

Jungkook pulled you into his body and effortlessly lifted you up bridal style. He carried you over to the couch from across his desk and placed you down gently upon the leather sofa. You were in a deep sleep at that point due to the exhaustion and tiredness.

He took off his suit jacket and used it as a blanket to cover your upper body. Jungkook crouched down to linger his gaze over your peaceful features before planting a soft kiss on your nose. 

“I really hope that dream comes true..” Jungkook’s soft whisper grazed over cheeks as he kissed your cheek another time. He couldn’t resist keeping his lips off you since you were so irresistibly cute to him.

That was the final chapter of Stay Professional! 😁 There’s a couple of things I’d like to say here so I’d really appreciate it if you were kind enough to stay and read my thanks. 💖

First of all, Stay Professional is my first ever long and COMPLETED series! So YES! This is a major achievement for me~ If you’ve been following me long enough-- you might notice my terrible habit of starting something and never finishing it :’)) so without further ado, I’d like to thank YOU! It was due to your love and support that I was energised enough to finish. SP will always hold a place in my heart because this series marks my first ever smut and Au :) 

Special thanks to @jeonjungrude and @jeonjowaaan for always keeping me motivated. These two have been so supportive and loving I can’t thank you two enough for your love 💞 I’m so thankful I got to meet these wonderful people! 

On a side note-- I recently hit 2k followers! Just this morning actually :) I’ll also be uploading a mood board I made for this series 🤗

[lonesomealley]

A Short Hike - In Depth Analysis and Review WRITE UP

DISCLAIMER: If you haven't seen the video that this write up is based on, I highly recommend you watch that before reading onwards.

This is a video project that, frankly, I didn’t expect to take so long. And I can’t really go into details as to why it did outside of just immense family issues taking place. Sprinkle in a little procrastination, school work, and a part time job, and it’s kind of a miracle I had the space and time to finally put this together. But it’s here, I’m alive, and I can finally do this write up to give a little more insight into the design philosophy of this video.

I stumbled upon A Short Hike sometime back in June or July when I saw that it was in Humble Bundle’s humble trove that you gain access to when subscribing to their humble monthly service. We had subscribed to this service for my girlfriend’s birthday just as a way to give her a large library of games that she can sit down and slowly churn through, while I was all about playing this game. So I sat down and played it, and played it, and played it. This was one of those games that would cause me to zone out and just put all of my focus towards the game while I’m playing it. That sounds like an odd statement to say considering it should be your goal, as the player, to be fully immersed in whatever you’re playing. However that’s more of a fantasy than a reality, at least with me, because I find myself taking many notes or going between tasks while playing video games.

A Short Hike is also just one of those games that really hits you right in the feels with its message. Now I’m not one to be very receptive to emotional ploys or to be hit by the sad music that plays whenever a character dies in a media piece, but this game somehow nailed it. It’s kinda weird, especially given my videos, that the only two games I would attribute with legitimately evoking an emotional response from me are A Short Hike and The Beginner’s Guide. So given all of the blog posts and video ideas that I had failed to really kick off so far, I decided to write up a 3700 word review for the game and put it into full production.

And that brings us to the release of the video, which took about 4 or 5 months to produce. . . Now I have an excuse for this that I stated previously. And ummm, I was hungry? That’ll do it. BUT, it’s here now, and I can write this paper.

This video was relatively simple, and honestly I could’ve (and probably should’ve) completed this a lot faster than I did. During the production of this video, I played A Short Hike 3 times, and 100%’d it. I feel that playing through games multiple times, and 100%ing them when reasonable, is necessary to understanding the more complex or abstract design of the game I’m playing. Hence, this allows my reviews to become in depth and hopefully more worthwhile than the standard review videos.

When it came to writing the script, I was primarily interested in the narrative design and atmospheric setting of the game, because the way the game goes about doing this was quite interesting. As noted in the video, the game puts its purpose right at the end, no hints, no anything, just a big twist right at the end of the game. And that’s a very unique way to design a video game’s story because it breaks typical writing norms. Usually you’d include tid bits here and there of where the game is going or what the underlying tone is, but nope. A Short Hike says, “fuck it,” and gives you a game that is unapologetically and completely invested in itself. And that’s something that deserves to be documented, which is ultimately the point of my channel: To highlight things that deserve to be talked about, that no one else is really covering.

After I had come to a satisfactory amount of thorough analysis with the writing, I decided to write a review for the entire game. This was because the amount of information I had on the relatively simple plot of A Short Hike didn’t make for a long enough video. Something like this may ultimately drown out the point of the video, which was to highlight the anomaly of ASH’s design, however through this medium I was actually able to also convey other points like the effective world design and gameplay.

If you haven’t read through the script yet, you can do it HERE!

Going into the editing, my project folder will often start out as just some footage files of me playing through the game, and as I begin putting stuff together and deciding on what pace I want the video to be, I’ll go out and collect other resources. My final video project folder ended up being about 67 gigabytes (including the files used for this write up.)

I unfortunately don’t have too much to write about with my editing, because it’s super basic. It’s a lot of cross fades, cuts, and key framing. If you know even the most basic stuff about Premiere Pro you can decipher how I did a lot of my edits with ease, so instead of going in depth about them, I’ll just show you how I put together the video and my workflow.

The first screenshot is how my secondary desktop typically looked while I was working, and the second is my primary desktop which features the default look and layout for Adobe Premiere.

I don’t have any real specialized work flow or editing process for how to put a video together, I just linearly piece the video together until I get a finished project. Going into the script I’ll come up with several ideas for how I want certain bits of the video to work, and will either keep a mental note of it or put some [brackets] in the script to signify what I want down there visually. This keeps the pacing of the video somewhat in check, but a lot of it ultimately comes down to whether or not I want to put in the effort to make a video that’s super stylized. I already tried this once with a previously cancelled project and it turned out horribly. So the editing for this video was a lot of just cuts to different gameplay pieces.

My general philosophy when it comes to editing is that I want exactly what I’m talking about to be on the screen whenever applicable and present visual information in a way that will back up the audio. So while my editing style and workflow are pretty free form and otherwise unfocused, I do try to at least have a reason for why I edited something the way I did. As I’ve said this video was designed to be straight to the point and contain just enough information to make a very snappy video. And the goal of these write ups is to explain a lot of the decisions made during the video editing process and things that influenced the video to get made the way that it did. As I continue making these videos, I hope to improve the conveyance of information over time so that what you’re being told is much more concise and comprehensible for many different audiences.

That isn’t to say my design philosophy is flawless though. One major problem with this format comes down to not having the right footage for a certain thing, or not having enough time to properly show it off. There’s one part where I briefly mention the direct shortcuts you can use on A Short Hike’s island and I couldn’t use a piece of footage of me using it because I simply didn’t have enough time. So I compromised with just a brief close up shot of one of the shortcut entrances, this was the best I could do to convey that this was what I was talking about.

I think in many instances the pacing of the cuts is done effectively enough that you can pick up on all of the information I’m trying to portray, but in some others it may fall flat or be convoluted by the use of filler footage. Filler footage is, and will always be, a problem in the medium of video essay because you aren’t going to have an example for everything you’re talking about from gameplay alone, especially if you like discussing hypotheticals. Of course, you can spend a lot of time developing those concepts in your own mediums such as through a game’s development tools, but that takes a lot of extra time and effort that I simply couldn’t afford to put into this video. On this note, let’s talk about the audio quality. This has been something that primarily just comes down to not having the proper equipment to really make my audio sound good. And I can really only subsidize this so much through the use of audio editing to the point where the effort that I put in just isn’t worth it in my opinion. That’s why there’s several moments in the video where my audio cuts out or goes a bit wonky. I want to clarify that in these moments that isn’t me just being terrible at audio editing like my Beginner’s Guide video, that’s actually my microphone just randomly refusing to pick up audio information. This can be worked around if I really sought to, but that would take too much time and effort on my part when I could purchase new audio equipment.

My overall goal with this video was to construct a snappy, well paced video that put all of the game into one convenient roll up. It might be a little strange for a review video to have massive game spoilers (as the point of reviews is to inform customers who haven’t played the game yet) but I feel it was necessary to be able to explain what exactly this game does.

A lot of my external resources and information either came from Adam and Mark, or were just some google images regarding what I was talking about. You may notice that in my video I use screenshots of DMs from Mark but not Adam, this is because Adam said that while I could talk about the information he gave me, I was not to screenshot it. I guess you’ll just have to take my word on that.

The final thing that I’ll really talk about video wise is the part where I play my own remix of a rock song to demonstrate how music affects video games.

This is basically a vaporwave version of an alternative rock song called “Black Domino” created by the band Ozma. And trust me, I really have no rhyme or reason for making this outside of just pure boredom. I loaded this song into Audacity, threw a bunch of effects on top of it like phasers and slow pitching, and it turned into this monstrosity(?). I figured since some people might want to listen to the full thing that I’d include it here. This song is technically part of a full album that I’m working on, that’ll feature a bunch of vaporwave or just weird songs constructed very shottily in Audacity or whatever I feel like working in. If a blog post ever appears about the album, now you know ahead of time.

Next I want to talk about the artwork that I commissioned for the video thumbnail. For this I went and picked out an artist that I already knew somewhat. That artist is Kagu, aka NeroNero, aka Totoaba. . . She really needs to decide on a name. But anyhow, she has fairly exceptional design skills and I saw the potential in her making a good, catchy, and flashy thumbnail that would show another level of effort and philosophy when it came to YouTube thumbnails.

So we started by discussing what I was expecting and how much I was going to pay. That went along the lines of, “Hey I need a thumbnail for a YouTube video and I will pay you at most $50 to make it.” Fortunately for me, she said yes. There was just one issue, however. Kagu was all about character design, and I mean that. There are next to no scenic pieces of art on the entirety of her twitter. Although considering I wasn’t sure how much scenery was really going to be needed for the composition, I went with the most comfortable option and pressed on. For reference, here’s a couple pieces of her art.

Again, please visit her twitter!: https://twitter.com/neru_nero_/

Having to go out and commission art was a really interesting process that I documented as it went along. Going into the commission I didn’t really know what I wanted (don’t be me), but not wanting to be that commissioner who just says, “Surprise me,” I had to quickly assemble a basic composition. However the only drawing program, and access to actual drawing tools, was Microsoft Word on my laptop. What resulted was the below abomination.

However, I feel like I should carry you, the reader, through the commission process so I want you to take a close look at that first sketch and this finished product:

After this first sketch was sent to her she immediately went to work and came back to me with this:

It’s not great, but it’s definitely a start. What may stick out to you immediately is that Claire, a big focal point of the composition, is pretty stiff and otherwise blocky. So she went through a redesign.

And then, deciding there wasn’t enough in the composition, we added a waterfall.

Once we had finalized the composition sketch, the next thing was to make a nice outline for it all so we could start coloring.

I knew from the get go that the background was just going to be some gradient that would mirror the colors and tones from A Short Hike. We used several official art resources and in game screenshots to come to the conclusion of what this gradient looked like.

Now given my standards, that’s about where the thumbnail would’ve ended. Just slap a logo on there and I would’ve been like, “Alright cool here’s some money thanks.” But she didn’t stop here.

I feel the need to point out that Kagu was entirely gracious in trying her own thing and putting her own spin on the rather simple ideas that I gave her. She wouldn’t just stop at adding basic shadows to something, she really went the extra mile to make sure that things aligned and matched. And while she had some communication issues where some of my feedback she would seemingly ignore, we did eventually work through those to produce something that looked better each and she was always willing to adjust something even without my input. An example of this is the clouds.

Initially, I had no idea what I wanted these clouds to look like and how that process of describing it to someone else would go. All I knew was that I wanted the clouds to appear like how they do at the end of the game with their odd flat appearance blended with the use of gradients. (The screenshot was rendered in high resolution for clarity.)

When I sent her that, she took a good amount of time to just experiment and figure out what she was doing. She then came back with clouds that were way above my expectations. And even as we adjusted the background gradient, she was happy to change the tone of the clouds along with it.

And speaking of that background gradient, I believe we spent a good hour making sure that the gradient in the background was just right, and she did it joyfully and productively.

And so we eventually came down to the final product.

This piece was well smoothed out, and I used my eye as an observer to catch all of the little details and errors that she made along the way, and she was entirely happy to clean them up. In the end we settled on $50 for me to own the rights to the art, and the money was promptly sent through PayPal.

Something that my brain didn’t quite register in time is that I’d possibly want to have a logo-less version of this piece polished and available to be put up here. So unfortunately I don’t have the most polished logo-less piece in the world, and I deeply apologize for this. However if you’re able to look over some of the rough edges that the logo was previously covering up, then you are entirely free to download and use this however you please.

I have a download link to the full resolution (1920x1080) pictures (plus some little bonuses) HERE!

In retrospect this video write up wasn’t as impressive and as grandiose as I had previously hoped for, and this will hopefully resolve itself with time as I build up a fan base and figure out more things to talk about with these write ups. But hopefully what I’ve put out so far gives you a little bit of insight into how I develop my videos and I plan on continuing these for every single essay video that I put out there. If you have anything you want me to talk about in the next video write up, please send me an email at countunderscore@gmail.com.

-Count_

[getoffthesoapbox]

[7DQ] - Willing Prey to the Tragic Flaw

Are we driven to madness, or do we invite it in ourselves?

~ letting doom in by the front door ~

It’s easy to write Yeosangun off as crazy or insane at this point. Maybe he was in real life, but I don’t think this particular show’s version of him invites the viewers to write him off so easily. I think the creators are trying to explore the natural progression of a lifetime of bitterness and resentment, and what giving in to those two emotions does to a person. 

There’s an old story most people know from the Bible--Cain’s killing of his brother Abel. Cain was the first human, and the first human was a murderer. The first human becomes a murderer because he failed to make the appropriate sacrifices to God and actively chooses to fall prey to his resentment of his brother, who seemed to effortlessly receive the favor he could not. God tells Cain it’s his own fault he’s not receiving the favor--he opened his heart to darkness and willingly allowed it to have its way with him. Cain’s furious, and he murders Abel out of spite toward God. Thus, there is nothing more “human” than the darkness that lurks within each of us and the actions we take to get revenge on the world for our own failures. 

Yeonsangun at last fully takes up Cain’s role in this middle section of the story, setting himself up for his inevitable deposition and demise. He falls prey to the very emotions he’s willingly invited in to sustain himself--resentment and long bitterness. Because he fails to reframe his thinking, because he fails to take advantage of the opportunities countless people have offered him, because he spurns his allies and refuses to accept reality, he willingly invites his own destruction into his house with open arms, and naturally falls prey to what he’s invited in. This is the inevitable trajectory of resentment. 

So consumed by the ghosts of the past--ghosts of people long gone--Yeonsangun can’t even see the forest for the trees anymore. He’s drowning in suspicion and has completely lost sight not only of why he even wants to be king in the first place, but who he actually is and what he wants to accomplish. He renders himself unfit for the throne by losing sight of all that’s important--he becomes fixated on having Chae-kyung for himself, on possessing everything Yeok has, even though he never wanted any of that to begin with. He loses sight of what’s important, and his genuine affection for Chae-kyung becomes tangled up in his resentment toward the brother he both loves and hates. 

Yeonsangun, like Cain, will never be happy until he takes everything his brother has. But, like Cain, even that will not bring him happiness, as we see during the episodes where he genuinely believes Yeok is dead. Only facing himself honestly and accepting his mistakes and moving on from them would do that. And instead of facing himself honestly, Yeonsangun just digs his grave deeper and deeper, a Scrooge unable to heed his ghosts. 

~ hell paved in resentment ~

I’m personally of the opinion that most kings of the past who people deemed “Insane” weren’t insane in the way we mean it today--they probably for the most part weren’t sociopaths or psychopaths or bipolar or multiple personality disordered. At most, they had extreme paranoia--but that’s more a natural consequence of living under both constant surveillance and constant threat of being murdered by ambitious rivals. Kings on the whole were rather merely mortal men who, through their own failings as human beings, were unable to rise above themselves and fell prey to their own inner vices--resentment, suspicion, greed, fear, and jealousy. I think people in the modern world tend to downplay how powerful these emotions are, and the insane and at times inhumane lengths to which they will send people if allowed to reign unchecked by higher order thinking. On top of this, a king generally is surrounded by the worst kinds of people--greedy sycophants, ambitious rivals, spies--none of which can be trusted to help him stay on the straight and narrow. 

There’s an old axiom that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Without any check on the king’s power, any king can fall prey to his own inner vices. And with the absolute authority to put those vices on display to the world, this leads to despotic rulership. If a king--a human being--is gifted such authority--authority that should be abstracted and placed above him in a deity or ideal that even he must live by--, chances are high that if he’s not properly keeping himself grounded as a human being and/or has people around him reminding him he’s merely a human and helping him hold true to his higher self, he will inevitably fall prey to one of the darker emotions. Yeonsangun is such a king. His childhood neuroses and complexes about his father and mother are heightened to paranoia and delusion as one by one the people around him prove untrustworthy--in his eyes. 

Because he’s a king, and because he has an incomplete and fragmented sense of self, and because he doesn’t value other people outside himself due to his own failure to actualize himself, he begins severely misusing his power. He kills ministers for minor infractions, he is capricious, he abuses the very woman he seeks to receive love from, he murders innocent men for merely trying to protect their loved ones, he has no mercy, he has no affection for anything. He’s lost to the very dark impulses that he invited in to protect him long ago. 

Apparently the Roman generals used to have a slave stand by them when they were victorious in war reminding them that they were “only human.” Yeonsangun needed someone like that at his side. But more than that, he needed to find his own worth on his own, without requiring validation from others. He needed to figure out why he wanted to be king, and why it mattered to him. Being king out of spite “just because Daddy didn’t want him to be” is no way to be king. I loved that Chae-kyung asked Yeok why he had to be king--Yeok will actually have an answer before he takes the throne. Chae-kyung’s a wise woman, and Yeok will most likely be a better king than his brother thanks to her influence.

The sad thing is that Yeonsangun did have access to her influence--if he’d been willing to accept her as family, and not try to push her for more. Had he been smart enough to listen to her and allow her to guide him in the right direction, maybe he too would have been a better king. But that’s all lost now.

~ the grass is always greener ~

I don’t want to absolve Yeosangun of his responsibility for his deeds. I don’t think the narrative absolves him of it either, and that’s what I find so fascinating about his character. The narrative gives us a deep understanding of why he acts the way he does, and why he falls, while never budging on the ramifications of his actions--he’s wrong and he must be stopped. 

But I as a viewer, even as I’m watching him fall, can’t help but wish that he could have been saved earlier. I wish he’d understood his heart earlier. I wish he’d come to terms with what he really wanted for himself--not the birthright his father denied him, but rather what he himself wanted--much earlier. When he admits to his concubine, far far too late, that he’s at last beginning to wonder if he wants to be a king or a husband, I can’t help but find it tragic. This foolish man didn’t see what he truly wanted until he was so far down the well no one could ever pull him up. 

His relationship with Chae-kyung is honestly one of the most tragic things I’ve ever seen in k-drama land. He can’t even admit he loves her. Every time he even gets around to spitting the words out, he clams up. He can’t even be honest about this one thing. If he were able to be honest, and upfront, she’d be able to reject him gently and maybe they could move into healthier territory. But he’s so obsessed with taking everything that Yeok wants--and although I do think his love for Chae-kyung is genuine, it’s twisted up with his jealousy over Yeok. 

He was foolish to think he ever had a chance with Chae-kyung. She was never going to look his way--she just never noticed him as a man, other than when she was a child. Had Yeok not returned, I don’t think he would have seen her that way either. Yet it still tears my heart to pieces that he doesn’t want her to be a pawn in the Queen Mother’s games, even as he’s making her a pawn in his. He’s such a foolish, stupid boy and he has no self-awareness and no one near him to slap some sense into him. 

Honestly, I think even if Yeok had “come back from the dead” and been loving and forgiving and only asked for Chae-kyung, Yeonsangun would still have wanted to kill him and take his life from him. Yeonsangun is the kind of man who will never be at ease, whether his brother is alive or dead. He’s failed over and over to face himself, to do the hard work of accepting his failures in life and overcome himself. No one ever taught him how to do that--they just gave up on him and passed over him.

Watching him fall apart is hard for me, because all I can think is that my son is driving himself and everyone around him into an abyss from which none can escape. And for what? Why does he have to be king? What good has being king ever done for him? Why not set down the burden, let Yeok play king if he wants it so much? Why not become a painter or a minstrel and travel the world and be free? What does Yeonsangun even want for himself? He hates ruling! His hatred for it is in every minute he’s on screen! Most of all, he seems to hate himself and of course he’s the only person he can’t run away from. 

~ too late to learn the lesson ~

I can understand why some viewers might just want to write Yeonsangun off and not have any sympathy for him--he’s certainly not meant to evoke sympathy, methinks. I just personally find his character so compelling and well written and it’s very hard to watch the last glimmer of light get snuffed out by the darkness he’s willingly embracing. 

Heh, I feel like every time I write about this character, my thoughts are just all over the place. He’s the reason I keep coming back to this story--as cute as Chae-kyung is and as endearing as Yeok is, I’m not half as interested in them as I am in my foolish Yeonsangun. (I can’t believe he was 31 when he died! Goodness no wonder he was a mess of a king!) Sometimes it’s hard to watch historical dramas, because you know inevitably how things are going to turn out. It would have been nice if this had been more AU, but I’ll suffer to the end anyway. =) I just hope that when he’s deposed, Chae-kyung shows him a bit of pity; it’s not like he’s going to last very long afterward. 

Even so, I still find myself dreading losing him. I’m so fiercely attached to him; I haven’t been this attached to a character in a long time. I didn’t think I would dread his deposition and final days, but here I am, dreading it. 

In the end, I just think Lee Dong-Gun is incredible at bringing this character to life and fleshing him out as a complex human being. That such a character, who’s fallen to such depravity, can still evoke deep human emotions from me is something I truly appreciate, even though I just feel more and more despondent with each passing episode. This is how you do a tragedy right, I think. True tragedies are about characters with tragic flaws who, because they won’t face their flaws and overcome them, fall prey to them through no one’s fault but their own. 

[darkammarketing]

Getting Emotional│Building Customer Trust Is Key to Your Brand’s Future

Business is getting emotional when it comes to customer experience strategies. The traditional rational consumer model has been challenged by a more intuitive consumer model. Rather than viewing customers as essentially rational in their decision making, the role of emotion in our decision making has received an increasing amount of attention and consideration. It is also a key component of building customer trust.

The collaboration of fields and disciplines such as marketing, psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience have opened this relatively new view of consumer behavior, essentially flipping the dominant understanding of human nature. Aristotle declared the human being to be a rational animal.

However, humans are emotional beings. So, it follows that customer behavior is emotionally driven, almost entirely. And we have the science to back it up.

Neuroscientist Anthony Damasio developed a concept that he calls a somatic marker. The way it works is that an emotional experience – positive or negative – makes a lasting impression on our mind and memory, and it stored in such a way that it becomes part of a massive network of associations. This is so that the next time a potentially similar situation arises, our brain uses past experience to make quick intuitive decisions about how to handle this new situation, to engage or avoid. This all happens very quickly, often remaining an unconscious process that may only register as what we call a gut feeling, sixth sense, or intuition. These feelings evoke emotions that inform our reasoning processes from the initial reaction to settling on a conclusion to act in one way versus another, or not at all. In his book Descartes’ Error and elsewhere, Damasio argues that emotions are an essential aspect of our ability to reason and make any decisions at all.

You probably didn’t need a neuroscientist to tell you that emotion plays an incredibly large and important part of our lives. But it doesn’t hurt to have that confirmation. This, of course, applies to consumer behavior. Positive or negative experiences with your brand will either strengthen or erode consumer perception of your brand, whether engagement with your marketing and branding efforts or buying your product or dealing with your customer service after the sale.

Building customer trust and loyalty with a positive emotional connection

An increasingly important part of your customer’s emotional perception of your brand involves how much they feel able to trust your company. Earning and building customer trust has never been so necessary, but is also so easy to lose.

Feelings factor in every aspect of your customer’s evaluation of your brand. As described by Deloitte, “when a positive emotional connection is created with a brand, 92 percent of us are more likely to stay loyal to a brand, 88 percent are more likely to spend more, and 91 percent are willing to advocate on behalf of the brand.”

Consumer trust plummeted between 2016 and 2018, according to Gartner, with the greatest loss of trust among Millennials and multicultural consumers in the U.S.

However, challenges are also opportunities. The experience economy, consumer data, and the technological power of AI and machine learning provide the tools for seizing opportunities to delight your customers on an individualized scale.

Create more effective branding. Deliver the right offers and experiences at the right time. Delight customers by connecting on an emotional level, understanding what they expect and what they value, and doing so with transparency that builds trust and lifelong customer relationships. 

Ways to build trust and emotional connection with your customers

To reach your customers where they are, with the right message, at the right time, and in a way that establishes and builds trust as well as connecting with them emotionally, the presumption is that you must know your customers. Understand what they need, want, and expect.

The deep customer insights on which this understanding and empathy are built can be gained from a robust CRM platform that gathers real-time customer information from across channels into a single, unified 360-degree view of the customer. Data gathered with purpose enables strong predictive analytics to help interpret the data and deliver actionable insights for customer engagement.

Building on this foundation, you can develop strategies for adjusting your business functions, processes, and channels to better serve your consumers in the ways they need and expect you to deliver on your brand promise.

Deliver great customer experiences

Customers don’t have time or patience for anything less than stellar customer experience. A study by Gartner shows that “Ease of use is a critical element of a positive experience. Online retailers have innovated continuously to reduce the instances of shopping cart abandonment and other blockers to completing a purchase transaction.”

Although it has been known for more than a decade, the experience gap remains a real challenge and opportunity, with about 80 percent of companies believing that they deliver phenomenal customer experiences, and about 8 percent of consumers agreeing. And in the experience economy, over 80 percent of companies expect to compete mostly or entirely on the basis of customer experience. Because doing otherwise is not a viable option.

Research by Forrester shows that consumers rate your brand based on feelings more than cold, hard facts and information. Increasingly, the key to great CX is to make it an exceptionally emotional experience across the entire customer journey. And do deliver on your brand promise, you must know and understand your customers, walking that fine line between knowing enough to create individualized experiences without being creepy and invasive.

Optimize CX with usability testing and UX research

Usability pioneers Jakob Nielsen and Donald Norman say user experience (UX) is a main brand differentiator in the digital world. They define UX as “the first requirement for exemplary user experience is to meet the exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother.”

UX and usability are different, however. Usability is “a quality attribute of the UI, covering whether the system is easy to learn, efficient to use, pleasant, and so forth.” User experience is a wider category, that, “In order to achieve high-quality user experience in a company’s offerings there must be a seamless merging of the services of multiple disciplines, including engineering, marketing, graphical and industrial design, and interface design.”

Certainly, costs for testing and implementing an adequate solution can vary dramatically from company to company or even channel to channel. Although it can be a big production, conducting usability testing doesn’t have to be a major undertaking or drain on time or resources. Having participants from your target audience test a website or app can help identify the most glaring problems and frustrations keeping customers from enjoying a positive experience with your company.

Be transparent

Again, Gartner finds that “along with ease of use, trust is a key component of a consumer’s satisfaction with a digital experience.”

Without that initial reason to trust your company with whatever data they must exchange as part of doing business with you, consumers are much less likely to do business with you in the first place. About 20 percent of non-users cite a lack of trust as their reason for spending their money and trusting their information with someone else.

Establishing trust with consumers upfront is no longer just a way to stand out as one of the “good guys,” it is a necessity if you want to do business. Here are some steps you can take to make your company more transparent, compliant, and competitive – and this will assist with building customer trust in the process.

Demonstrate good stewardship of customer data

The deck is already stacked against you when it comes to convincing consumers to share their data with you. The Marketo blog describes research findings, and “the trouble is, 65% of consumers are uncomfortable with their personal data being shared with for-profit firms, according to the Insights Network report.”

Even if you haven’t contributed to the problem of broken trust over customer data, the challenge is one you must meet and overcome.

Consider these steps toward earning consumer trust in the age of data breaches and GDPR:

Implement the technologies and expert resources (such as data scientists) needed to properly collect, store, manage, protect, and share customer data.

Collect data consensually; don’t buy it. The shortcut may be tempting, but you’re likely not getting the data that’s going to be useful to you or your prospective customers. They will know that you bought it; you will be at least that transparent.

Be transparent about everything above. Let customers know the who, what, where, when, and how of your data collection practices.

Grant customers hassle-free access to the data you have about them. And allow a delete option.

Not only will you earn trust and goodwill with consumers, but you will also be well on your way to compliance.

Understand and reflect your customers’ values and concerns

As seen on the Marketo blog, your customer wants to be the hero, and it’s up to you to enable that in a forward and transparent way. “Empower your customers with the feeling that investing in your products or services makes them a hero. Draw a clear, straight line from their point-of-purchase to the impact they’ll have on the world.”

According to Gartner, “In a recent survey, we learned that 70% of consumers expect brands to take positions on social issues that are being debated at large, particularly if they are relevant to their business.”

Again, the assumption is that to empower customers to live their values, you first understand your customers, including what they value and why. Understanding and empathy will always be the foundation of your strategy to connect with your customers emotionally, even as you both evolve.

The post Getting Emotional│Building Customer Trust Is Key to Your Brand’s Future appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from https://adobe.ly/325tlPl via IFTTT via Blogger http://bit.ly/2uhsK0w

[thecreativeseries]

Amber Jones New Zealand Photographer and Filmmaker

INTERVIEW WITH OCEAN PHOTOGRAPHER AND FILMMAKER @amberandfriendsphotography

Amber Jones is Photographer and Videographer from the Hawkes Bay of New Zealand. A surfer, morning lover, self-confessed introvert and adventurer.  

Ambers work is captivating and her love for the ocean and what lies beneath is evident in her imagery. The passion amber has for storytelling and it’s ability to create real and lasting change is what makes her such an inspirational creative. She works closely with her forever fiancé Riley Elliot a Shark Scientist and waterman.

Firstly, can you start with a little bit about yourself? 

As potentially the biggest introvert in the world, my imagery is my own dialogue of communicating these epic things to the world instead of using words, which I’d fumble the shit out of in front of a crowd ha ha.

What would you say inspires your current vision? 

The ocean is the lifeblood of Earth and many incredible shows happen within it on a daily basis. It is the perfect training ground because it’s never the same conditions - Especially here in NZ.

It’s super volatile and easily affected by winds, tide & swell so it’s a constant photographic university!

How would you describe your photography style? 

Evoking emotion out of the viewer is usually at the forefront of my work, no matter what the subject. I want them to feel the same way I felt as I clicked the shutter and so far, the feedback has been spot on so I’m on track with my mission.

What drew you to capture the ocean the way you do? 

As an underwater photographer/videographer. I am treated to these spectacular shows put on by the water and it’s inhabitants on a daily basis. I wondered if I were to share this imagery around people would resonate with it and end up respecting it the same way I do, and ultimately wanting to protect it.

It’s really easy to look at a beach in New Zealand and think how ‘clean’ and ‘pretty’ it is compared to say, our neighbours over in Indonesia and the Pacific but if you look really closely at the sand you’ll see thousands of micro plastics which is really only the beginning of our problem here. If people learn to value something they’ll want to protect it so it’s there tomorrow and that’s the mission with my ocean based photography.

Can you give a breakdown of the equipment you use to create your work? 

I keep things really simple with a Canon 1Dxii and a two lenses - a 50mm and a 16-35m, and of course the Aquatica housing which lets me take my kit in the water at depths of up to 100m!

What would be your favourite lens and why? 

Hands-down the 50mm. I’m obsessed. It can shoot down to 1.4 so the depth is insane. It means I can really put my own unique take on the surf & wildlife stuff which are a fairly saturated market these days.

What are your go to settings when you shoot in the ocean? 

Never, ever the same! The ocean is completely different one day from the next - even hourly - so my settings are always completely different, which makes it all the more exciting!

Do you have a favourite location you prefer to shoot? 

It may be biased but home in the Coromandel for sure. Against the stunning white sand beach and mountainous backdrop we have an abundance of sharks and waves. It’s not called ‘Paradise Coast’ for nothing!

Is there somewhere you are dying to shoot but you haven’t had the chance yet? 

Tahiti! I can imagine it has natural elements similar to NZ but a thousand times warmer!

You can spend hours in the water what keeps you motivated? 

The personal evolution. I always leave the water having learned something or have a newfound respect for someone/thing.

Have you ever had an experience in the ocean that really scared you? 

I have had much more scary moments in big waves than with the sharks I like to photograph that’s for sure! It’s all about feeling comfortable in your environment and you achieve that by spending the time to learn about the specific activity.

For me, I feel completely helpless in big swells because I haven’t spent much time doing it, but thanks to my partner Riley & the knowledge he’s shared I feel completely at ease swimming with a 12ft pregnant Mako shark.

Can you tell me about any unpleasant encounters with marine life? 

To this day I can honestly say that the most unpleasant encounter I’ve had is with seasickness. I just can’t shake it no matter what I eat/drink/think!

What do you enjoy most about your career as a photographer? 

Telling stories and giving people a window into a world they wouldn’t usually get access to and convincing them to cherish the ocean as much as we (partner/shark scientist Riley and I) do.

Most humans aren’t ignorant or malicious people - they just haven’t had access to the information about the conditions of our oceans and wildlife, so if I can aid in that process using a natural gift then that’s what I’ll do, because the biggest mistake we can make is to think ‘someone else will do it’!

When you are not in the water what are your other passions?

My dog, Kona - The other love of my life ha ha.

How do you continue to evolve as a photographer? 

The internet is both a blessing and a burden with the plethora of information out there. I watch a few tutorials and vlogs by people who I think are pushing the envelope of content and then inject my own spin and style on them. I also try and shoot a lot of passion projects to keep the fire ignited.

Among all your work what is your most memorable capture? 

So hard!! I have two events which really stick out; One was purely because it was my first ‘hands on’ shark dive with my camera. Riley had made me sit on the boat for the first few sessions so that I could watch the behaviours of the Blue Shark from the safety of the boat, then after hours of studying his Go Pro footage we went out one morning, chummed up, and found the ‘dream’ shark to work with.

He gave me the all-clear to jump in with this relatively large, but chilled out Blue shark and I will never, ever forget that moment. The water was uncharacteristically clear and calm and as soon as I entered the water it was like the entire universe stood still. I was full of adrenaline yet blanketed in this unexplainable calm, watching this peaceful creature weave itself through Riley and I.

the second was producing my first documentary “Hinemoana” this year which is a celebration of female surfing in New Zealand. It was a passion project with a script that had been sitting on my hard drive for almost three years when the opportunity came up to work with an American production company (Triglass Productions) to bring it to life.

After a few Skype calls I completely trusted their vision for the film and they flew over in March and we smashed it out in a week! Mother Nature delivered the goods to both coasts over the course of the week so we have one incredible film currently being cut in the USA for release hopefully by September! Watch this space!!

What is something you wish you had known when you first started your journey in photography?

To stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and stick to my own mission.

How do to keep yourself physically fit to be able to do what you do? 

My dog Kona will NEVER let me sleep in past 7am so we’re up and at ‘em every morning for a walk or run. In Summer, my life consists of running, surfing & diving so I don’t have to consciously try and keep fit but in Winter I unfortunately have to rely on our little gym here and make sure I commit to at least two days a week among the dog running.

What methods do you use for editing? Can you explain your workflow? 

I use the Adobe creative suite simply because all the controls translate within each other and its easy to navigate once you get the hang of only a few things. There are so many tutorials out there which keep me on my toes and learning new tricks!

Who would you say are your greatest influencers and inspirations? 

Cristina Mittermeier (photographer/speaker/Sea Legacy) - is an incredible advocate for the environment using her storytelling skills to make a difference, I love everything she stands for. Danielle Clayton (owner/founder Salt Gypsy) - Danny introduced me to the world of sustainable fashion and really opened my eyes to being a conscious consumer. She really empowered me to use my storytelling capabilities for brands doing good shit in the world & I’ll be forever grateful for our paths crossing. Riley -  He’s always pushing me to be a better person, in and out of the water and is my constant source of underwater inspiration.

Brands like Toms, Salt Gypsy & Patagonia for lifting the lid on traditional surf wear and challenging the market to be better, both environmentally and socially.

Lastly do you have any advice you would give someone starting out in photography? 

Stick to your own aesthetic and shoot things you’re most passionate about and it’ll shine through in your imagery.

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[thesinglesjukebox]

KENDRICK LAMAR FT. RIHANNA - LOYALTY. [6.57] It's what keeps you all coming back every day, right?

Julian Axelrod: Kendrick ascended to rap royalty long ago, but my favorite moments come when he allows himself to be a normal person. In his quieter moments he can convey weariness, isolation and insecurity better than most rappers. So I like how "LOYALTY." feels refreshingly low-key for such a high-profile collaboration, like Kendrick and Rihanna are just two preteens flirting over the phone. Each boast is adorned with a half-smirk, and even the ad-libs are affirmations of admiration. And though our players might have never met before recording this track, they evoke the comfort and ease of a decade-long relationship. Kendrick's tests of loyalty come from a place of weakness. "I done been down so long, lost hope": Now that you've seen me at my worst, will you still love me? But as Kendrick shows, that openness is its own kind of strength. [8]

Ryo Miyauchi: This sounds like a much needed vacation for the two, who both flex their resumes under different monikers like they're trying to take the edge off from their day jobs. That said, the too-casual nature behind this collaboration is only excused because of who they actually are to the public. Kung Fu Kenny and Bad Girl RiRi adds no matter to this big question of loyalty; it's Kendrick Lamar and Rihanna who brings the actual weight to the rather loose song. [6]

Nortey Dowuona: Kung Fu Kenny has been the one iteration of Kendrick so far I haven't been able to fully get with, and this, feels like a tipping point towards something that doesn't bode well for Kendrick down the road. But the raps are solid enough, and Rihanna is perfect on this. (Plus, the video is bananas. STREET SHARKS WAS A GOOD SHOW.) [7]

Austin Brown: The song moves in with a chunky sluggishness that usually deters me, but I can't deny that every time Rihanna does her "loyalty, loyalty, loyalty" vocal run, I jolt up. And after a few listens and a more attentive look at the lyrics, a song reveals itself with an easily missable sensitivity towards the slippery meaning of the word. With Kendrick Lamar having long since rocketed into the stratosphere of rap stardom and Rihanna suddenly pivoting towards auteurship, it's a real question for the both of them. Tell me who you're loyal to, indeed. [7]

Alfred Soto: Kendrick Lamar is never duller than when he affects a cynicism about women that is the most perfunctory consequence of Telling It Like It Is. Rihanna contributes a scratch vocal. [4]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: In which Kendrick's signature "Halle Berry or Hallelujah" moralism gets flipped on its head. Where submission to pleasure in the now becomes an investment for a sustained relationship. As the "24K Magic" sample fills the empty space of "LOYALTY." with cloudy smoke, Kendrick and Rihanna banter back and forth with effortless cool. They put on names ("Kung Fu Kenny," "Bad Girl RiRi"), trade cheeky remarks ("I'm a savage, I'm a asshole, I'm a king"; "It's so hard to be humble"), and interpolate songs of old ("It's a secret society, all we ask is trust"; "Shimmy ya, shimmy ya, shimmy ya rock"). The (sub)text is serious though, and it channels lazy summer afternoons spent doing nothing in particular, where bonds between people are strengthened in an unspoken-but-understood manner. Rihanna sounds particularly comfortable as she avoids the pitfalls of familiar trap flows, something that plagued some of her previous songs." Kendrick? Well, he's got my loyalty. [7]

Joshua Copperman: Clearly, if he's gotta make a video, he's gonna make it look sexy - each video that he's put out has been increasingly cinematic, and this one tops them all. Sharks charging through the ground, Kendrick and Rihanna doing a trust fall on a skyscraper, and a car crash that ties directly to the DNA video. It makes the song itself sound bigger than it does on its own - flipping the shrill talkbox from 24K Magic is inspired, but the video makes it into something more dramatic. The song itself is the pop side of Kendrick without question, down to the similar structure of the verses, and, along with "Love", K.Dot at his most accessible. Which is not a bad thing at all! DAMN. proved his ability to sonically compete with the rest of mainstream rap if he wanted to, but it'll be interesting to see if he retreats into himself again or continues on this pop trajectory. Or he does an artfully directed action-comedy co-starring Vince Staples, which is the best-case scenario. [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[darkammarketing]

Getting Emotional│Building Customer Trust Is Key to Your Brand’s Future

Business is getting emotional when it comes to customer experience strategies. The traditional rational consumer model has been challenged by a more intuitive consumer model. Rather than viewing customers as essentially rational in their decision making, the role of emotion in our decision making has received an increasing amount of attention and consideration. It is also a key component of building customer trust.

The collaboration of fields and disciplines such as marketing, psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience have opened this relatively new view of consumer behavior, essentially flipping the dominant understanding of human nature. Aristotle declared the human being to be a rational animal.

However, humans are emotional beings. So, it follows that customer behavior is emotionally driven, almost entirely. And we have the science to back it up.

Neuroscientist Anthony Damasio developed a concept that he calls a somatic marker. The way it works is that an emotional experience – positive or negative – makes a lasting impression on our mind and memory, and it stored in such a way that it becomes part of a massive network of associations. This is so that the next time a potentially similar situation arises, our brain uses past experience to make quick intuitive decisions about how to handle this new situation, to engage or avoid. This all happens very quickly, often remaining an unconscious process that may only register as what we call a gut feeling, sixth sense, or intuition. These feelings evoke emotions that inform our reasoning processes from the initial reaction to settling on a conclusion to act in one way versus another, or not at all. In his book Descartes’ Error and elsewhere, Damasio argues that emotions are an essential aspect of our ability to reason and make any decisions at all.

You probably didn’t need a neuroscientist to tell you that emotion plays an incredibly large and important part of our lives. But it doesn’t hurt to have that confirmation. This, of course, applies to consumer behavior. Positive or negative experiences with your brand will either strengthen or erode consumer perception of your brand, whether engagement with your marketing and branding efforts or buying your product or dealing with your customer service after the sale.

Building customer trust and loyalty with a positive emotional connection

An increasingly important part of your customer’s emotional perception of your brand involves how much they feel able to trust your company. Earning and building customer trust has never been so necessary, but is also so easy to lose.

Feelings factor in every aspect of your customer’s evaluation of your brand. As described by Deloitte, “when a positive emotional connection is created with a brand, 92 percent of us are more likely to stay loyal to a brand, 88 percent are more likely to spend more, and 91 percent are willing to advocate on behalf of the brand.”

Consumer trust plummeted between 2016 and 2018, according to Gartner, with the greatest loss of trust among Millennials and multicultural consumers in the U.S.

However, challenges are also opportunities. The experience economy, consumer data, and the technological power of AI and machine learning provide the tools for seizing opportunities to delight your customers on an individualized scale.

Create more effective branding. Deliver the right offers and experiences at the right time. Delight customers by connecting on an emotional level, understanding what they expect and what they value, and doing so with transparency that builds trust and lifelong customer relationships. 

Ways to build trust and emotional connection with your customers

To reach your customers where they are, with the right message, at the right time, and in a way that establishes and builds trust as well as connecting with them emotionally, the presumption is that you must know your customers. Understand what they need, want, and expect.

The deep customer insights on which this understanding and empathy are built can be gained from a robust CRM platform that gathers real-time customer information from across channels into a single, unified 360-degree view of the customer. Data gathered with purpose enables strong predictive analytics to help interpret the data and deliver actionable insights for customer engagement.

Building on this foundation, you can develop strategies for adjusting your business functions, processes, and channels to better serve your consumers in the ways they need and expect you to deliver on your brand promise.

Deliver great customer experiences

Customers don’t have time or patience for anything less than stellar customer experience. A study by Gartner shows that “Ease of use is a critical element of a positive experience. Online retailers have innovated continuously to reduce the instances of shopping cart abandonment and other blockers to completing a purchase transaction.”

Although it has been known for more than a decade, the experience gap remains a real challenge and opportunity, with about 80 percent of companies believing that they deliver phenomenal customer experiences, and about 8 percent of consumers agreeing. And in the experience economy, over 80 percent of companies expect to compete mostly or entirely on the basis of customer experience. Because doing otherwise is not a viable option.

Research by Forrester shows that consumers rate your brand based on feelings more than cold, hard facts and information. Increasingly, the key to great CX is to make it an exceptionally emotional experience across the entire customer journey. And do deliver on your brand promise, you must know and understand your customers, walking that fine line between knowing enough to create individualized experiences without being creepy and invasive.

Optimize CX with usability testing and UX research

Usability pioneers Jakob Nielsen and Donald Norman say user experience (UX) is a main brand differentiator in the digital world. They define UX as “the first requirement for exemplary user experience is to meet the exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother.”

UX and usability are different, however. Usability is “a quality attribute of the UI, covering whether the system is easy to learn, efficient to use, pleasant, and so forth.” User experience is a wider category, that, “In order to achieve high-quality user experience in a company’s offerings there must be a seamless merging of the services of multiple disciplines, including engineering, marketing, graphical and industrial design, and interface design.”

Certainly, costs for testing and implementing an adequate solution can vary dramatically from company to company or even channel to channel. Although it can be a big production, conducting usability testing doesn’t have to be a major undertaking or drain on time or resources. Having participants from your target audience test a website or app can help identify the most glaring problems and frustrations keeping customers from enjoying a positive experience with your company.

Be transparent

Again, Gartner finds that “along with ease of use, trust is a key component of a consumer’s satisfaction with a digital experience.”

Without that initial reason to trust your company with whatever data they must exchange as part of doing business with you, consumers are much less likely to do business with you in the first place. About 20 percent of non-users cite a lack of trust as their reason for spending their money and trusting their information with someone else.

Establishing trust with consumers upfront is no longer just a way to stand out as one of the “good guys,” it is a necessity if you want to do business. Here are some steps you can take to make your company more transparent, compliant, and competitive – and this will assist with building customer trust in the process.

Demonstrate good stewardship of customer data

The deck is already stacked against you when it comes to convincing consumers to share their data with you. The Marketo blog describes research findings, and “the trouble is, 65% of consumers are uncomfortable with their personal data being shared with for-profit firms, according to the Insights Network report.”

Even if you haven’t contributed to the problem of broken trust over customer data, the challenge is one you must meet and overcome.

Consider these steps toward earning consumer trust in the age of data breaches and GDPR:

Implement the technologies and expert resources (such as data scientists) needed to properly collect, store, manage, protect, and share customer data.

Collect data consensually; don’t buy it. The shortcut may be tempting, but you’re likely not getting the data that’s going to be useful to you or your prospective customers. They will know that you bought it; you will be at least that transparent.

Be transparent about everything above. Let customers know the who, what, where, when, and how of your data collection practices.

Grant customers hassle-free access to the data you have about them. And allow a delete option.

Not only will you earn trust and goodwill with consumers, but you will also be well on your way to compliance.

Understand and reflect your customers’ values and concerns

As seen on the Marketo blog, your customer wants to be the hero, and it’s up to you to enable that in a forward and transparent way. “Empower your customers with the feeling that investing in your products or services makes them a hero. Draw a clear, straight line from their point-of-purchase to the impact they’ll have on the world.”

According to Gartner, “In a recent survey, we learned that 70% of consumers expect brands to take positions on social issues that are being debated at large, particularly if they are relevant to their business.”

Again, the assumption is that to empower customers to live their values, you first understand your customers, including what they value and why. Understanding and empathy will always be the foundation of your strategy to connect with your customers emotionally, even as you both evolve.

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