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liw-the-melancholic-apple · 5 years ago

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The first one - Bonusscenes in traditional written word

This is a smau and a zukoXreader, although i haven't decided how this ends yet.

Y/n has recently transferred to Ba Sing Se from Omashu university and meets the gaang through a schoolproject they do with sokka and suki.

Masterlist

Bonus 3: Partytime

It was a short walk from the metrostation to the park in which the party was held. Suki and Sokka had explained to you that their friend Haru had helped organise it. Apparently, it was a thing the Psychology department threw every year – that was to say the students of the Psych faculty. Haru was one of them and deeply involved in Campus life.

Sokka had said that you were going to be gobsmacked and mind boggled by the professionality with which the party would be set up and you had laughed. Shame on you for not believing him. He had been right.

The park was obviously of the public variety and so you expected a couple speakers, and crates of beer strewn about. What you didn’t expect were fairylights in every last tree and bush, a DJ set-up of the highest quality and amazing sound from all the speakers one could imagine, or three tents with bars in them, where drinks were reasonably priced. You hadn’t been expecting the benches, couches and tables made from pallets used in warehouses or the abundance of cushions and pillows. You hadn’t expected the camping chairs and the make-shift firepit. It was insane and you stood in awe as you failed to follow Suki.

“You coming?”, Aang laughed before he grabbed you by the hand. You first made your way to one of the bars, then, equipped with alcoholic goodness, Suki introduced you to Haru, who turned out to be an ex-roommate of Zuko’s. He also played guitar in what he called an inappropriately ambitious garage band, which intrigued you. But before you really got to interview him on any of that, he was disappeared by a friend of his.

Suki found a couple of her Kyoshi sorority sisters and introduced you to them and their partners. It turned out that your initial idea of fraternities and sororities was wrong: They were not all terrible and not all ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ were stuck up snobs. Suki was the best example of that. She was amazing and clever and smart. And very kind and not at all elitist. After all she was the one who invited you to this shindig. Her ‘sisters’ and their boyfriends and girlfriends, some of which were also in fraternities and sororities, were as kind and open as Suki was and you spent a good portion of your night learning names, trying to remember the history of the different organisations and their respective significance to BSSU, being taught simple fight stances and moves from the Kyoshi’s and laughing.

You laughed a lot. Only halfway through the night, hours later, after Sokka had joined you again, when you had lost all sense of being a stranger, you realised how desperate you’d been for this kind of interaction. This kind of laughing, dancing, making fun of people and talking bullshit. How much you had needed to be part of a group. How lonely you had actually been.

But at this moment, while you were trying to not spit out your beer as you listened to a story about Suki, expertly told by Mamoto, who was either someone’s boyfriend or someone’s brother – who knew? There were so many people and so many connections and a good deal of friends dating a friend’s ex – you didn’t think about what you’d needed for two months. You thought about … nothing? Everything? Really, you just let your thoughts drift, like you drifted yourself. From conversation to conversation, from person to person, from group to group, from subject to subject.

As nervous as you’d been standing in front of the dragon, as relaxed you were now. You didn’t really care about the music or the drink you had in your hand – you were not overdoing it, though, you were still new and needed to make a good expression – you cared about the company. And the company was excellent.

Bian, one of the Kyoshi-sisters, and her girlfriend Tuyet had claimed you after they found out about Gray Sky.

“A band? Like a proper band?”

“I mean that depends on your definition of ‘proper’ but, yeah? There were several people, playing several different instruments in order to create a coherent song.”

“Which means a proper band!”, Tuyet assured you.

“Have you ever played at a place? Or like an actual concert?”, Bian wanted to know.

“We used to play Friday nights at a bar.”

“Proper band!”, they both smiled at you.

“You should meet TaMing. She was a Kyoshi-sister before she dropped out of college. She plays in the same band as Haru.”

“Oh, I’ve met him. Seems nice.”

“Right, right. He is. Usually he brings his guitar to these things. At some point he will sit at the bonfire over there “, Bian explained, “and play some typical bonfire music. He’s good. You should go over there.”

“Not right now, though. I would first like to know what you think of Sokka!” Bian’s face was hard to read. You couldn’t tell if she liked or hated him but in a sense you also didn’t care. Your answer came instantly: “He’s great!” He was. A funny kind person with some brains. Admittedly, he didn’t look like a genius or ever put a lot of emphasis on how much excelled academically, but that didn’t take his intellect away. His jokes and nonchalant-ness were inviting and genuine and deceptively ‘hid’ his smarts. Sokka wasn’t intimidating when you first met him, but that didn’t mean that you shouldn’t be scared of him.

You were quite certain that you wouldn’t want to cross Sokka. You’d be dead. You’d be killed until dead. But it would look like an accident…

“Don’t you think he is a bit too goofy?”

“No, I don’t. I mean he sure is goofy, but I find that to be delightful.”

“Give it a couple more weeks.”

“You don’t like Sokka?”

“No, I like him! I just also find him annoying, I could do without all the dumb jokes. But he’s good to Suki and really, that’s the only thing that matters…If he makes her happy who am I to complain about some goofy puns, you know?” You liked Bian.

So, a little later you followed her to the camping chairs by the bonfire. This is where you met back up with Toph, who you now realised you hadn’t seen in a hot minute. Just like a bunch of the others. In the beginning of your little Kyoshi-session you had all but held hands with Suki and Katara, but Suki soon left you in order to wash someone’s head about their head – Wan is that you? In Ba Sing Se? – so you held on to Katara who vanished quickly after Suki with what looked like Aang.

Now you were reunited with Toph you brought out the bottle of Banana liqueur you got earlier that day. Toph tried some and declared you crazy. It was an acquired taste. While you were drinking your respective drinks Toph explained the general basics of the group to you:

“Well, you obviously know that Sokka and Suki are dating. That’s a nice spot to start. Suki is new, Sokka is old, meaning that I knew Sokka before I knew Suki. Suki just is Sokka’s girlfriend to me, you know. He went off to college and weeks later we were hearing about this badass girl he tried to get to like him. It was very entertaining.” You chuckled at the idea of Sokka trying to impress Suki before they were dating.

“Anyways, I heard about Suki because I was friends with Sokka in High School. Sort of. I was friends with Aang, who was friends with everyone in High School, because, well you’ve met him. He’s Aang. He’s friends with people. But he was pretty close to Katara and Sokka, after they met. And us four kinda became our own little core group.

So, Sokka, Katara, Aang and I are all old, while Suki, Zuko, Haru and you would be new.”

“Well”, you interrupted her, “I wouldn’t dream to compare my standing with you core group to Suki’s position. I just met you. She’s been dating Sokka for how long?”

“2 years 10 months.” That was quick. She just knew that. Off the top of her head. You made a mental note.

“And Zuko has probably been a part of your group for a while as well, right?”

“More or less since after he graduated. His time at uni did him well, I’d say. We ran into him around new year’s of his freshman-year here”, she whirled her arms around, hitting Tuyet in the face.

“Sorry, I thought you were further away. Anyways, he started being nice and I think we ended up together on New Year’s. And after that he bonded with Sokka in his first year here. So, you know, Suki – Zuko – Suki -Zuko – about the same time they joined.

And back then Zuko lived with Haru, so that’s how we met him.”

You kept drinking and chatting until Sokka burst onto the scene looking for Suki. When he couldn’t immediately find her, he asked you for the bottle of rum you still had.

“Listen, it’s late and I’m not waiting for my illusive girlfriend to bring me a drink, to start catching up!”, Sokka yelled after you commented on how much of the bottle he had emptied in just his first gulp. “I asked Suki to get my drink ready and await me, but she ignored that… No, Toph. No.”

He held the bottle out of her reach and twisted his shoulder weirdly, so that she’d never guess where exactly the rum was. He kept cradling the bottle while Haru and some friends found their way to the bonfire and – like Bian had promised – broke out the guitars. They were good. Really good. You hummed along to some of the songs and joined the choir of Toph, Sokka, Suki, Zuko and a bunch of strangers in the choruses of most others.

Suki took the bottle off Sokka, nearly as soon as she arrived, but when the 90’s boyband hits sounded through the park, Zuko gave it back to him.

“Poor Suki, will not agree with that”, you grinned as he caught you watching him.

“Maybe, but you will. Believe me”, Zuko said with a smirk and a wink.

He was right. With another two gulps of rum, Sokka was ready to not only sing solos but also presenting his version of well-known boyband-choreographies.

“You still judging me?” Zuko leaned over and gestured for the bottle of Banana liquor.

“Yes, sorta. I’m still feeling for Suki. She will not have a good time tonight.”

“You really underestimate Sokka, you know. He’ll be just fine. And so will she. Maybe a little exhausted because he’s going to be full of energy all night.”

“What about the hangover tomorrow?”

“They don’t live together.”

“Sounds like a technicality…”

“Meh”

With a look Zuko asked permission to try the Banana liquor and, with a look, you gave it to him. His face twisted in various amusing ways before nodding.

“Not what I expected. Gotta say it. But I think I may like it.”

“Take like, two more sips. You should be a fan after.”

He followed your instructions and grinned at you. “It is unique, I give you that.”

“You can always give me the bottle back.”

He kept it. What happened to it, you didn’t know but it never found it’s way back to you. Zuko either emptied it or he passed it on to someone. Not that you cared. Suki had reluctantly joined Sokka in his choreography and, surprisingly, so had Bian and Tuyet and some other Kyoshi sisters. Tuyet was pulling you from your seat to join. Toph pushed you off the chair and when all said and done you had been dancing stupid choreos of Sokka’s for about 80 minutes and missed Zuko leaving. Thus was created the mystery of the Banana liquor.

The night ended late. It was early morning and the birds were chirping when you carried the last of the boards that had made up the bars to the van. It would be locked and collected tomorrow by some Psychology student. Haru offered his parents’ house as refuge for the night as a reward for helping to tidy up. You all had gladly agreed. Sokka was still singing 90’s anthems to entertain you all and you weren’t the only ones tidying up. It was rather fun, really.

When you arrived at the house you didn’t really take in the details. You were shown a room and fell into the bed, fast asleep before your head hit the pillow.

#atla fanfic #atla zuko #smau #avatar: tla #zuko x y/n #zuko x reader

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dark-muse-iris · 6 years ago

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What’s your opinion of tumblr versus AO3 for beginning fanfiction writers?

Tumblr is a social media platform that would rather put money toward marketing ploys for rich investors than give their users what they want. They have repeatedly told us to open wide and then shit down our throats when it comes to fundamentals like formatting long text posts and searching for fics. Anyone who posts fics to Tumblr has to deal with that, and the bugs are always present because the app is often changing and usually not for the better. There are also reports that Tumblr is losing money. That’s something we should be paying attention to as users. The site may go the way of LiveJournal, which is why it’s critical to follow your favorite writer’s other social media.

Tumblr’s audience these days is a mixed bag when it comes to participation. My data pulls I have running on the back-end since I started here suggests that following the NSFW ban in December 2018, the interactions between readers and writers has tanked. I’m hearing the same on many, many writer blogs, which likely explains the resurgence of networks. It’s so hard to get our works circulated here now with the way Tumblr has changed their search bar. Getting a blog started and growing a following from zero is very hard to do. I think it’s harder now than it used to be. Is it impossible though? No. I’m still seeing new blogs do well, although admittedly it’s often because well-established blogs are going to bat for them. My own blog gained a large following that way.

AO3 is less visually enticing than Tumblr is, but they don’t have formatting bugs. They also allow for users to leave large text blocks of feedback (vs. multiple asks on Tumblr), save fics to read for later, and has a subscription system that will send you an email when your favorite writer updates. That should be enough of a reason to post there, since those are the lead complaints about Tumblr. Posting there has been a very positive experience for me in two significant areas: 1) the Hit count has proven to me that my fics are getting read whereas Tumblr makes me feel like a has-been, and 2) the feedback on AO3 is of higher quality and is more likely to talk about what I actually wrote. Back when I asked my blog which platform they preferred, the majority of respondents preferred AO3, mostly because of the Bookmarks and ability to leave longer feedback.

I do have a lot of opinions about both platforms, but the most important one is that the “us vs. them” business regarding reader-inserts vs. shipping fics has got to stop. A lot of Tumblr vs. AO3 talk is centered on that. I am still reading that shipping fics *belong* on AO3 and reader-inserts *belong* here, and that’s a crock of shit. That’s voluntarily limiting one’s audience because one might be scared to be a small fish in a big pond. If you open up your blog showing that kind of fear from the jump, you’ll look like you have no confidence and no one will want to read your stories, no matter the platform. I have been posting reader-inserts on AO3 for a while now and have had zero hate for it. It’s also worth noting that I get more feedback on AO3 even though AO3 subscribers are only 5% of the audience I have on Tumblr. That’s how awful the silent reader problem is here.

Whether a writer is new or not doesn’t really matter anymore, at least from where I’m sitting. I am a well-established blog with a large audience of thousands of people and I’m getting the same amount of traffic and feedback that I was when I was about 3 months old. Just because one fic does well doesn’t mean they all will. Your audience will change as the fandom changes, so it’s important to self-examine and truly know the why behind your choice to upload.

If your main goal is to get popular ASAP, neither are the platform for you. If your goal is to upload stories but you want to invest time in making pretty banners for everything, Tumblr is your best choice. (I upload on AO3 only, but I still make posts for all my fics on here because I like doing banners and they advertise my fics well enough). If you want to upload with the least amount of headaches and you want your fic to be discovered via tags, AO3 is the best call. That platform is also is very stable as a non-profit; it’s not going anywhere. There are also other platforms to consider.

At the end of the day, you can mix it up, get creative about your marketing, play it safe, etc. There is no “one size fits all” method to getting out there and growing an audience. Each fandom is different. Each genre and trope are different.

#queue: tips and tricks #anon #iris answers

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fulcrum-agent · 6 years ago

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8: What is one mistake you've made while roleplaying?

This is super personal, so it’s going under a cut.

Since towards the end of SWG’s original height, near the time City of Heroes launched, but before EQ2 landed, the person I was dating and living with brought up the idea of having our characters in different MMOs become couples.

It wasn’t all that much of a mistake, initially. Even though he and I parted ways, it didn’t have many immediate effects.

By GW2 and SW: TOR, I got into a fairly long term (10 years) relationship again with my first fiancee. Initially, we were in different states, so we made our TOR characters a couple - our group did about 2 years of pre-game RP - though that didn’t happen in GW2 because I nope out on Asura in that manner unless I’m playing an Asura.

And that’s where things became a long, spiralling mistake. Through several games, up till the relaunch of XIV, our main characters were always romantically involved.

Fast forward a bit to December 2013. I met someone in XIV who ended up becoming my main’s oathsworn (she’s not one for marriage, at all). He lived here in the same state as I do, just two hours away, so the fiancee and I went to meet him; sometime within that month, he became part of the Household, and we started dating OOC. My fiancee liked him well enough, but always was a touch wary of him; I wasn’t sure why till after a car wreck in November 2016.

He showed us an image of himself as a teenager/young 20 year old, and he looked uncannily like the person who high-level gaslighted me as a young teen (which is another story for another time). That was only rather reinforced during the next election primaries, as my CPTSD was shot from the car wreck, and I had a night terror that was almost entirely realistic (pro tip - if you get night terrors never use sleep masks because instead of the shadowy shapes you see in normal night terrors, it reverts to REM level image creation).

The night terror was that someone had come into my room, then got into the bed, and was forcibly turning me towards them, then trying to pull me to them in a very possessive, domineering manner. The face was obscured because there was bright light in the room behind him (as it I was apparently aware it was midday), but it was impossible to tell if it was the person who gaslighted me (one of the politicians here has a name from that mess, I don’t deal well with political season here) and the guy I met in XIV.

He was very good at manipulation, he was very mentally abusive. After my fiancee moved back home for a job in September 2014, this guy only got worse with the abuse. Although I had been gaslighted as a teen, the textbook type of gaslighting is a tad unfamiliar to me; after you have someone nearly hardwire your reality into something that almost belongs in a novel, it’s actually pretty fucking hard to recognise lesser abuse.

This person was also exceptionally controlling, telling me how to run my FC even after he’d stopped being an officer. Telling me how to write stories for the FC RPs, and getting super passive-aggressive if I didn’t agree to it, rather than trying to hash out better ideas together. He also was so insecure - coupled with his controlling nature, mind you - that he basically forced every single one of my character into some sort of relationship RP, and threw fits if it seemed like the few who weren’t attached got into relationship RP; after any one of them seemed to be getting romantically involved with someone, he rather pushed one of his characters into romancing that character, until I’d relent to it.

Initially, I wasn’t so bothered by it, I’d RP’d relationships with people I’d dated before at that point, and the time spent with my fiancee before this all happened had started conditioning me into it. It was after the first time this person demanded I stopped RP’ing with someone that things started to bother me.

Unfortunately, with this person, it all became conditioned into me. I tried several times to untangle my characters after we started having massive fights - which he never got into a fight with me unless we were alone, another massive manipulator/gaslighting trick - because at that point, he wasn’t playing XIV much, and because of the car wreck in 2016, he’d moved into the other room because I literally could not be touched without massive pain (well, more than usual, fuck you fibromyalgia). I wanted to be able to continue growth with my characters, especially my main character, but any progress I made lead to him having a fit over it, and another fight.

He also always insisted things weren’t as bad as they seemed. He used a borderline personality disorder trait, splitting, against me; he’d claim he hadn’t done anything terrible, and that I was just splitting - however, largely, I learned to handle my issues with splitting in the early 2000s, after I learned I had BPD, though admittedly, his shite made it very difficult not to have splitting occur more frequently.

Eventually, someone very dear to me was on Discord with me while I was laid up from a surgery. The kindness and caring that person was showing me had been waking me up to what was going on. The day this occurred, there had been a horrible fight before the guy left for work, cus I could literally not do anything, and had an issue with the bedding, and he flipped out about absolutely having to stay home and fix it when I could have just waited by going to sleep in a lazy-boy downstairs - which I had told him, but he made the almost executive decision to deal with it himself.

After my fiancee, our future houseboy, and this person saw what I wrote out to describe it, I managed to explain what happened to my mum, and when this guy got home that day, she told him he had to move out.

The freak out he had over that was amazing. He came upstairs, heard me laughing with the dearheart who was trying to help me get back to being at least mentally/emotionally functional, and just demanded I get off the call. He refused to accept the 24 hour rule, or that I actually did not feel up to it. I was so freaked out, that I didn’t disconnect the Discord call properly, I just pulled the headset out.

Little did myself and that dearheart know, at the time, but that flips Discord into speakerphone; he muted his mic, and listened to the whole incident. This guy yelled at me, demeaned me, and bullied me into a grand maul panic attack in which I lost the ability to speak, and even move. And instead of backing off, he threatened to get my panic medication and force the conversation to continue. I can’t even remember what caused him to back off from it, but he did. Plugged the headset back in, and found out that it never disconnected, and everything was finally heard.

That single thing snapped the last chain keeping me from ending things with that person. It took him a couple of months to move out, and he was still very aggressive frequently; I had to go to Philly for an appointment, and he was being so aggressive about spending the day there even though I had planned to spend time with the person who overheard the fight via Discord, the nurse took me back to the room, and immediately asked me about domestic violence (and that was really the first time I had a good cry about it - the appointment ended up being 2 hours, because their DVU came to talk to me).

I didn’t often take it laying down. I basically became a tiger that got cornered - I would unsheathe the claws, and lash out, in an attempt to get him to back away from me, frequently. Towards the end, I was having to do so several times a week. But it was either fight back, or be totally undone. Literally, the only thing that ever worked to stop him was psychological warfare.

However, even after all that, I discovered that what he did with XIV (in particular) had left some pretty lasting ramifications.

The first of which is that I discovered that it had literally become hardwired into my brain that the game is experienced with your significant other. I get extreme anxiety about things when someone I’m with has their characters romantically involved with others - which the fact that it’s a thing pisses me off greatly. For a time, I also had issues bothering with the MSQ, because that was something that was done with the ex for basically four years; that’s gotten significantly better, as I’ve done the past two patches without someone going through them with me.

The weirdness about character relationships isn’t going away though, even when the other person is only doing it 100% IC. I’m trying to break out of that mindset, but it’s fucking difficult as hell.

I also now get massive anxiety when a stranger starts any sort of flirty or romantic RP towards my characters. Even people I’ve known a few months trigger that anxiety. Because I don’t want them to do what the ex did again, now that I’ve figured out the lasting repercussions.

So, after all that, I feel like ever getting involved with relationship RP with someone I was dating was a huge mistake.

Thanks for the ask, @vianne-solainteau - sorry it was so ah…heavy.

#personal #rant-like #try not to think about this whole thing much #thank gods for the boy that helped me realise wtf was going on #vianne-solainteau #prompt answers

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theartofdreaming1 · 6 years ago

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Semester Reading List

Another 6 months have passed and that can only mean one thing: Another semester reading list! Here are the books I’ve read from April ‘18 until early October ‘18, including summaries and my thoughts on them:

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte:

Summary: When the mysterious and beautiful young widow Helen Graham becomes the new tenant at Wildfell Hall rumours immediately begin to swirl around her. As her neighbour Gilbert Markham comes to discover, Helen has painful secrets buried in her past that even his love for her cannot easily overcome.

Thoughts: I loved this one a lot! (I read it in, like, two or three days - and it’s a very thick book! but it’s just really good) I was pretty surprised at first when I found out that it begins telling the story from the male protagonist’s perspective (Gilbert); which is not what I expected, admittedly. The middle part of the book are excerpts from the female protagonist’s perspective (over the course of her courtship, then later marriage with her abusive husband) - it was really fascinating to catch such an intimate glimpse of Helen’s point of view and see it change over time... but it was also very nice to see how she’d always been a strong character, although at first more falling into that “woman as the savior of the man’s virtuous attributes” trap, before she realizes that if she wants her son not to grow up like his father, she has to leave (which is very big thing for that time, when you think about it) - and her husband’s manipulating behavior to keep her at his side (complete with the classic “you don’t love me as much as I love you”-accusation). In addition to that, it was also very nice to see Gilbert react to Helen’s diary entries with a lot of understanding and just being very respectful regarding her wishes from then on (he’d been acting a little douche-y and presumptuous at times prior to that) and also see Gilibert bond with Helen’s son... This book felt just very modern in the way it dealt with this serious topic of an abusive marriage, which made it a very fascinating read! (This was my first book written by a Bronte sister and I feel like I have picked the absolute winner with Tenant of Wildfell Hall :)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Summary: When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited, while he struggles to remain indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever.

Thoughts: I’ve already put my thoughts on P&P down in this post (I just read this Austen book very often ;)

The Darcys of Derbyshire by Abigail Reynolds:

Summary: During her trip to Derbyshire, Elizabeth Bennet longs to see the view from the famous Black Rocks, but her aunt and uncle refuse to allow her to ascend to the highest rock outcroppings alone. Elizabeth’s distress is only worsened by a chance encounter with Mr. Darcy - at least until he offers to accompany her to the Black Rocks. Unaware that the place has special significance for Fitzwilliam Darcy, she accepts his invitation. During their adventure, Darcy tells her the story of how his parents met and married despite many obstacles in their way; and like Darcy’s mother before her, Elizabeth learns there is more to the men of the Darcy family than meets the eye.

Thoughts: I really loved the story of Darcy’s parents, giving a little more backstory to the Darcy’s that came before the best-known Darcy of them all ;) The Lizzie/Darcy part of this book didn’t really work for me, though - it felt a little too fanfiction-y (read: romantic wish fulfillment that doesn’t exactly fit the proper nature of Jane Austen’s world... - or Darcy’s for that matter) for my taste. Nevertheless, it was still a very interesting read.

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells

Summary: A shipwrecked Edward Prendick finds himself stranded on a remote Noble island, the guest of a notorious scientist, Doctor Moreau. Disturbed by the cries of animals in pain, and by his encounters with half-bestial creatures, Prendick slowly realises his danger and the extremes of the Doctor’s experiments.

Thoughts: Very creepy. Definitely an interesting read (it’s a classic, after all... I just recently read a Wonder Woman comic that had a very ‘Island of Doctor Moreau’-vibe to it, which was interesting) and very suspenseful in the second half. It definitely made a good point about the importance of ethics in science. There were a few moments that made me uncomfortable because they read kinda racist to me (I guess you could argue that that’s simply influenced by the mindset of the society and era back then, but that’s just something I really didn’t like at all.)

The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon

Summary: Since his debut in Detective Comics #27, Batman has been many things: a two-fisted detective; a planet-hopping gadabout; a campy Pop Art sensation; a pointy-eared master spy; and a grim ninja of the urban night, cycling through eras of dark melodrama and light comedy and back again. He is constantly changing, jumping from page to screen and beyond, and yet he remains one of our most revered cultural icons. In this witty, wise, and a fascinating history, MPR critic and self-proclaimed nerd Glen Weldon explains why we’ve continued to look to this masked man in the night - and what that devotion tells us about ourselves.

Thoughts: Very extensive, in-depth and interesting book about Batman and nerd culture; the language was sometimes very flowery, with lots of fancy descriptors (which sometimes threw me off a little), but overall very fun and cool! (Also, I’m just a huge Batman fangirl, I love reading this kind of stuff! ;)

Mr. Darcy’s Diary by Amanda Grange

Summary: The only place Darcy could share his innermost feelings... was the pages of his diary... Torn between his sense of duty to his family name and his growing passion for Elizabeth Bennet, all he can do is struggle not to fall in love.

Thoughts: I liked this one a lot better than ‘The Darcys of Derbyshire’, I’ve got to admit - it felt a lot more natural and fitting for ‘canon’ than the other P&P inspired book. I very much liked how Darcy’s Diary gave the reader context for Darcy’s prickliness in the beginning of Pride & Prejudice (having the Wickham/Georgiana situation happen not too long ago, for example). It was also nice to read about Darcy’s thoughts and feeling regarding his friendship with Bingley (and his feeling for Lizzie, of course ;) Darcy is one of my favorite characters so it was a lot of fun to be able to read this P&P companion from his point of view :)

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

Summary: Ray Bradbury brings wonders alive. For this peerless American storyteller, the most bewitching force in the universe is human nature. In these eighteen startling tales unfolding across a canvas of tattooed skin, living cities take their vengeance, technology awakens the most primal natural instincts, and dreams are carried aloft in junkyard rockets. Provocative and powerful, The Illustrated Man is a kaleidoscopic blending of magic, imagination, and truth—as exhilarating as interplanetary travel, as maddening as a walk in a million-year rain, and as comforting as simple, familiar rituals on the last night of the world.

Thoughts: I just absolutely adore Ray Bradbury’s short stories (even though they don’t not necessarily fall into the genres I usually read). There is just something about his writing that feels very natural and simple to me, while simultaneously being very layered and making me ponder about the deeper meaning of the stories I’ve just read. This book collects mainly creepy (and excellent) short stories like ‘The Veldt’ or ‘Zero Hour’ (’the Veldt’ is the first short story in this book and it’s so amazing; it had me at the edge of my seat throughout), but also a kinda sweet one like ‘The Rocket’ - I very much enjoyed reading this book!

Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World’s Most Famous Heroine by Tim Hanley

Summary: With her golden lasso and her bullet-deflecting bracelets, Wonder Woman is a beloved icon of female strength in a world of male superheroes. But this close look at her history portrays a complicated heroine who is more than just a female Superman. When they debuted in the 1940s, Wonder Woman comics advocated female superiority and the benefits of matriarchy; her adventures were also colored by bondage imagery and hidden lesbian leanings. In the decades that followed, Wonder Woman fell backward as American women began to step forward. Ultimately, Wonder Woman became a feminist symbol in the 1970s, and the curious details of her past were quickly forgotten. Exploring this lost history adds new dimensions to the world’s most beloved female character, and Wonder Woman Unbounds delves into her comic book and its spin-offs as wekk as motivations of her creators to showcase the peculiar journey of a twentieth-century icon.

Thoughts: Yet again, a really interesting and entertaining book by Tim Hanley about an awesome comic book lady! I already knew plenty about Wonder Woman, but there were still things I didn’t know about the world’s most famous superheroine. Plus, it’s always cool to learn more about the background and historical context behind the story of this amazing amazon!

Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold by Stephen Fry

Summary: No one loves and quarrels, desires and deceives as boldly or brilliantly as Greek gods and goddesses. In Stephen Fry's vivid retelling we gaze in wonder as wise Athena is born from the cracking open of the great head of Zeus and follow doomed Persephone into the dark and lonely realm of the Underworld. We shiver when Pandora opens her jar of evil torments and watch with joy as the legendary love affair between Eros and Psyche unfolds. Mythos captures these extraodinary myths for our modern age - in all their dazzling and deeply human relevance.

Thoughts: I always enjoyed reading the book about Greek myths that I’ve had as a child and I enjoy Stephen Fry’s humor, so I just had to buy this book when I saw it at my local bookstore - an excellent decision, as it turned out! Stephen Fry tells these ancient myths in such an entertaining and witty manner that I just couldn’t help but laugh out loud sometimes! It didn’t matter if I was already familiar with a particular myth or if it was one completely unknown to me, I was just completely glued to this book, eager to find out more and read Stephen Fry’s fun take on it! As this book doesn’t even begin to cover all the stories of Greek mythology that exist, I really hope that there will be a continuation of this book in the future :)

Catwoman: Soulstealer by Sarah J. Maas

Summary: Two years after escaping Gotham City’s slums, Selina Kyle returns as the mysterious and wealthy Holly Vanderhees. Batman is off on a vital mission and Gotham is at the mercy of the new thief on the prowl. Joined by the cunning Poison Ivy and notorious Harley Quinn, she wreaks havok across the city. Selina is playing a desperate game of cat and mouse. But with a dangerous threat from the past on her tail, will she be able to pull of the ultimate heist?

Thoughts: To be honest, I was pretty disappointed by this book of the DC Icons Series. It started out very promising and interesting with seventeen-year-old Selina living on her own, taking care of her sister, Maggie, who’s seriously ill. To be able to pay for the medical bills, Selina has become part of a street fighter gang, working for the mob boss Falcone. With this premise, I would have loved to just read a story about how Selina finds a way to break free from Falcone’s influence to do her own thing and become the kickass cat burglar we know and love - but instead, Selina is found out by the police and social services and then, at the precinct, gets offered one chance to escape the system to instead become an assassin for Talia al Ghul! A couple of years later, Selina returns to Gotham under the guise of socialite “Holly Vanderhees”. To me, Selina has alwas been someone who has been very independent and self-reliant and now to have her impressive skill set be traced back to the al Ghuls just doesn’t sit particularly well with me. Over the course of the rest of the book, Selina does team up with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, which is normally something I absolutely love (Gotham City Sirens, for the win!), but Ivy felt extremely off to me: too nice, too soft, too goody-two-shoes, I guess? I don’t know, it just didn’t feel right to me. In addition to all of that, Selina has to share her own book with Luke Fox, aka Batwing. I have nothing against Luke at all, and his backstory is definitely interesting, but a) due to his dealings with his PTSD (that gets triggered by loud noises such as gunshots which, for a vigilante, is just plain dangerous and I can’t imagine Bruce being nonchalant about this kind of thing when ‘recruiting’ someone with these kind of issues) and other problems, he’s not particularly good at the whole superheroing, which is a bummer and b) there is so much going on in his life that I simply felt that Luke should have just gotten his own book so his character could be thoroughly explored. Also, I just wasn’t digging the romance between Selina and Luke (that might be my inner BatCat shipper talking, but I wasn’t feeling the chemistry between these two at all.) My biggest issue with this book is, that while I was reading it, I had like three ideas for other Catwoman stories I would have rather read, making this book just a reminder of missed opportunities for me.

Lois Lane (Fallout trilogy) by Gwenda Bond

Summary: … a contemporary reimagining of teenage Lois Lane. She and her family have lived all over, but now they’re in Metrolpolis for good, and Lois is determined to stay quiet. Fit in. Maybe make a friend. As soon as she walks into her new high school, though, she can see it won’t be easy. A group known as the Warheads is making life miserable for another girl at school. They’re messing with her mind somehow, via the high-tech immersive video game they all play. Not cool. Armed with her wit and her new snazzy job as a reporter, Lois has her sights set on solving the mystery. But even she needs help sometimes. Thank goodness for her maybe-more-than-a-friend, someone she knows only by his screen name, SmallvilleGuy…

Thoughts: I’ve already read these books since I’ve started doing my reading lists, so you can find my thoughts on the first two books here and my thoughts on the third book here.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Summary: Sixteen years have passed since Grace was locked up, at the age of 16, for the cold-blooded murders of her employer and his housekeeper/lover. Her alleged accomplice in the crimes, James McDermot, paid the extreme sentence of the law and was hanged on November 21, 1843. But some thought Grace was innocent, and her sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment. After a spell in the Lunatic Asylum she now claims to have no memory of the murders, and so Dr. Simon Jordan tries to wake the part of Grace's mind which lies dormant. But what will he find?

Thoughts: I first found out about Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace through the Netflix series (which is really good!), so I knew most of the story already when I got myself the book. Turns out that the Netflix series is a pretty good adaptation of the book - still, the book offered more insights into the various characters (as books are wont to do) and I liked that the book wasn’t just simple narration from different points of view, but was also interspersed with excerpts from actual newspaper clippings, Susanna Moodie’s book and written confessions, as well as a poem at the beginning of each chapter and the occasional letter written by the characters. I did sometimes hit points during which reading was going pretty slow (maybe because it reads old-fashion-y, which is sometimes difficult for me as a non-native English speaker; maybe because it’s not exactly a short book you can just breeze through... I don’t know), but overall, it is a really intriguing story with multi-layered and complicated characters, which is always a win in my book (pun not intended)!

If you’d like to know more about these books (and/or my thoughts about them) feel free to message me at any time or leave an ask in my askbox! :)

The summaries are from the back of the books or amazon pages.

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ngakauaroha · 7 years ago

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It’s been a couple days, now. I had wanted to write this down then, but I couldn’t quite make the words happen the way I would have preferred. Hardly anyone follows this blog, and it isn’t my professional blog, nor is my actual full name associated, thus it should be alright.

As for the writing itself, I will place it under a read more. Just as a courtesy to those who may not wish to read my sentiments about meeting with him.

I guess I don’t know how to start putting my thoughts together, I’ve been staring at this for over an hour, probably longer, on and off. I obviously haven’t been neglecting to do other things, although it’s not officially my shift.

I guess I’ll give a potted history, and, for the sake of something that feels more personal, to me, let’s call my friend Porehu.

Porehu started contact with me to ask after the wellbeing of my department. This became a regular occurrence, until we had built enough trust that he began opening up about his issues, and I offered to help, which he accepted.

We met in person the first time because I had to come help him with such. We didn’t have time to talk about much more than just some vaguery about what we respectively do, due to the more pressing issues. I almost prefer not to count that one as a meeting, at all.

I conveyed to him I would like to be able to see him under more pleasant circumstances, and requested that we find another means to communicate through our letters, for professionalism’s sake, and, admittedly, because I wanted to be able to save these exchanges. I should reblog the ones I felt significant later.

I was nervous, but he was amenable, eager, even. And so we have our respective blogs, of course.

Which leads us to two and a half days ago. And the part I will be more detailed about.

We managed to get very lucky that our, busy and erratic, schedules lined up as soon as they did after out technical first meeting. I was expecting to wait a month or two, if not longer, for that to happen. I guess being mistaken in my guesses is a trend, here.

He brought his friend, who I had helped him with, but I think that friend is angry about how it all played out. But I don’t want to dwell on that. The friend seemed nice enough the first technical meeting, and seemed it at first. I’m sure he’ll go back to that soon enough. I hope so, for my friend’s sake.

Anyway, the location was a cliche one, I suppose, but I’m pretty sure Porehu’s friend was the only one at our table who had the faintest idea what was going on.

We talked about a lot of nothing, but, well, honestly hearing his voice was nice in ways I can’t describe. I tried to dedicate it to memory, so I can read his messages in the right voice, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the sound of his voice, last time, after all.

I say “a lot of nothing,” I guess it wasn’t “nothing,” exactly. Maybe it would count as “small talk,” I’m not quite sure, but it was stuff that builds a foundation to have more in depth discussions about some of the things we talked about on a surface level.

Also of note, Porehu gave me a name. I think my guess about why he was so shy, even the first time we met, about it was right. And this was where his friend got mean. Porehu seemed to have a hard time with his name, and his friend made fun of the name he gave me.

Friend aside, if I am right, and it is the name those close to him use (I told him it could be anything at all), then that is a deep level of trust, and I will not betray that trust.

I don’t think I know how to process a lot of this, honestly. I don’t want to sound like I don’t adore my friends. I do. But, well, I remember hearing something about how when you become an adult, one of the things you realize is that a lot of your friends in high school are only friends because you see each other every day. I also know there are plenty of friends who would never be friends outside of work. That doesn’t make those friends any less wonderful, at all.

Point is, there’s something uniquely wonderful about this situation, whatever it’s called. Porehu goes out of his way to contact me, and, unlike others who are regularly contacting me, he hasn’t made a single request of me. I offered my help, he accepted. He isn’t using me solely as a means to contact others within my department, he even focuses on me as a person. I do get others who do, but they don’t open a dialogue in the same way, and as much as I would love to, I am unlikely to meet many, if any, of those people. Even if I did, well, shared experience means Porehu “gets it” a bit better than most.

A contact who had no ulterior motives to contact me is, I suppose, a good basis to build something like a friendship on. I’m still not clear on when “friendship” is versus when “acquaintance” is, but I already know that that’s one of those “ask a dozen people, expect thirteen answers” sort of questions. I guess it’ll fall into place on its own. Like everything else seems to have been.

I am not glad his friend hasn’t been doing well, but...well, that enabled us to meet, properly. I wish the catalyst had been something less unpleasant. But I can’t change that.

I find myself nervous, again, should he read this, that I’m not making sense, or that I’m going to come off all wrong, but it is what it is. I’m also worried, irrationally, about how well things have gone thus far. I suppose sometimes, things like that grow on you over time. Not in the way a person grows on you, though I suppose one could accurately say Porehu has done that exact thing.

While I don’t know labels, yet, I do think of us as companions, in the sort of “traveling companions” sense. While I haven’t cashed in on his own offers to help, I want to believe he has some knowledge that’ll be helpful. He seems to really want to be able to help, and I want him to be able to, if he wants to.

There are so many emotions, even still. I’m sure I’ll be lightly teased, though I sort of deserve it, I guess.

His hands were soft, and his eyes as well. That’s the best way to describe that.

I’m going to stop before I devolve into gibbering nonsense by trying to put simple words to something as complex as emotions and make them “adequate descriptors.”

We’re hoping for sometime next week. I’m going to schedule for my day off, so that my boss doesn’t...worry.

#porehu #kanohi kitea

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rebaenrose · 4 years ago

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Tim has COVID-19

This was my husband’s first post about finding out he had covid. He posts on Facebook but said I can share here.

I Have COVID-19If all intentions prove fruitful, I plan to document this journey, even if in tiny snapshots. And we certainly hope the journey is as short and as sweet as possible.The idea being that we have all lived this nightmare for well over a year, yet for some of us it is still this strange thing that "other" people get. It is even somewhat common in human nature to hear tales and say to oneself "well, they must have been careless."

Another reason to document this is that, while most of us try to keep up on the news, the stories of symptoms, statistics, probabilities and mortality rates are mind-boggling and confusing. Perhaps a story from a friend can help bring it home.There is no doubt that, especially with this disease, every story is different. Thankfully, thus far my story is insignificant. If it stays that way, so much the better. If not, perhaps it can serve as a cautionary tale to the reader.In some ways it started last Sunday (Feb 21).

On that day Erol hosted a Zoom call with fellow NYU Acting school grads. I graduated in 1982 and have not seen these people in all that time. 38 years. NYU was the most significant series of events in my life, other than getting married. And because my acting career is non-existent in comparison to my fellow alumni, it was a very emotional meeting for me.In fact, I think I was still emotionally impacted by the meeting on Monday afternoon, when I started feeling weaker than usual and the aches in my body a bit more severe. Also, concentration was poor, which for me is the most alarming of all. I have been burning my candle at both ends now for many months on end.

As a computer contractor, work is feast or famine and, for some crazy reason, during COVID it has been a feast… and I’ve been taking advantage of it.Naturally, however, in this time of COVID, when you feel more than usually fatigued or sore, there is cause for concern. And the brain fog is really worrisome.

Tuesday I worked from home and by mid-day the aches were accompanied by chills, major fatigue and some minor coughing, continued brain fog. By Tuesday night we determined that I had temperatures in the high 98s, low 99s. I guess you call that a mild temperature. Tuesday night the fever broke. I slept in, which for me means 7AM. I felt much better and even the brain fog seemed to lift. In this disorienting world of COVID, I think general confusion and anxiety can often be confused with brain fog. Who’s to say?Because I’d been sick, I worked the rest of the week from home.

Rebecca and I discussed regularly the possibility that it had been COVID. Because Rebecca has fibromyalgia, it was super important that we find out as soon as possible. We scheduled a test for 7AM on Wednesday.Still felt fine most of the day Wednesday. Periodic coughing. No chest tightness, no fever, no shortness of breath, taste and smell just fine. Rebecca was pretty much fine as well, except for the usual aches and pains of fibromyalgia.

I will take a pause here to mention that I am not the CrossFit guy from FaceBook 3 years ago. In our first year in Utah, I did bicycle to and from work every day and take the stairs up and down 6 flights several times a day. I also had access to the Capitol gym, which I used a few times a week. But no other regular exercise routine. In our 2nd year, I no longer have access to the stairs or gym and I had two bicycle accidents. With the onset of the winter, I began taking the car in. I look forward to returning to the bicycle, but for now my life is pretty sedentary.

But unfortunately there is more. At the outbreak of the pandemic, I was an ex-smoker. For some inexplicable, stupid, non-thinking reason I picked up smoking again. That’s right, smart computer programmer Tim picked up smoking at a time when full lung capacity and function are more crucial than at any other time in recent history. I have no excuse.We did not get results back until Thursday.

Positive for me and Negative for Rebecca. WTF!!!???We immediately scheduled another test. In fact, we opted for the “gold standard” swab (which would take a few days), as well as the rapid result test. Within an hour we learned, once again, that I was positive and Rebecca Negative. By mid-day Friday I got my gold standard test back, confirming for the 3rd time that I was positive. Friday we began quarantine in earnest. A call from a friendly county official confirmed that for any day in which we are closer than 6 feet for more than 15 minutes CUMULATIVE, we have to set the quarantine back another 10-14 days.

Of course, we presume that by now Rebecca must be infected. But who knows? Maybe not. We tried to begin living as separately as possible. I took the living room, but there is no door. And of course we share the bathroom and kitchen regularly. A seemingly impossible situation.Meanwhile, neither of our health conditions changed, though Rebecca had a headache for a few days running.We are very lucky in that we have a rental unit in the basement. And especially lucky that our current renter was vacating on Monday, so one of us could move down there.

And super extraordinarily lucky that our tenant decided to move out 2 days early!!!!So yesterday, Sunday, I have moved to the basement and we are truly separate now. And that is sad, but I guess necessary.Sunday night I began having some congestion again and some sneezing. Today, Monday, I woke up feeling better. I’d call it an extremely mild cold at this point.So, how did this happen? Rebecca and I have been “good” since nearly the beginning of the pandemic. Or at least when most people starting getting on board with social distancing and masking. Granted, in the beginning the masks were home-made and flimsy.

Rebecca and I have had disagreements about the degree to which to adhere to safety precautions. Basically, any new guideline that came out, Rebecca was on it: infrared cleaners, double-masking, N-95, whatever came along. My philosophy was looser, which may account for my infection. I also had more exposure: I went to work 3-4 times per week. I have an office all to myself and I keep the door closed. While in the office, I don’t wear a mask. But WHENEVER I leave the office, I wear a mask. Admittedly not often two masks. I do have a supply of masks at work that I change every few days.

Did I ever “forget” and venture into the halls without a mask? Yes. Not often. Probably 5-8 times over the course of the entire year, and not at all in the past 2 weeks that I can remember. Did we go out into public? Yes, visits to Home Depot, Costco, our local grocery store (and a few other specialty stores), WalMart (which we always found to be the scariest and we would get the hell out of there as fast as possible) and the local 7-11. Always wearing masks and always staying 6 feet from people if at all possible.Was I ever in a social situation where I took my mask off, maybe to eat and maybe to converse a bit.

Again, yes, a few times over the course of the past year. Did we ever go to restaurants? In the beginning, we took a few more risks and that has tapered off to not going at all. I’d say that during the pandemic we may have been in 4-9 restaurants. I can think of Dee’s (a local diner), the Other Place (not sure if we actually dined there), a bar in Sundance, Utah. One particular restaurant visit was on February 4th, 20 days before my symptoms appeared. I was given a free dinner at Ruth Chris’ Steak house in exchange for listening to a retirement spiel. I wore my mask, kept my distance, was seated alone at my own table several feet from others, and the entire event involved only about 10-12 people. But of course all you need is one. Deliveries? Yes, plenty. Drive-throughs? Probably more than we should: we may have picked up food in a drive-through between 15-30 times over the pandemic.Did I ever get closer than 6 feet to people in stores? Yes of course, it’s hard to avoid.

One disagreement Rebecca and I had was in regards to the outdoors. I was of the opinion that if you’re further than 6 feet from people out in the open, it’s perfectly okay to have your mask off. If you see someone coming, slip it on. While she sort of agreed with that in spirit, she still wore her mask all the time and also noted that I did not ALWAYS “slip it on” when we passed people. This is true – I took the risk that passing someone briefly in the open air was probably low risk, especially if I hold my breath before I pass them and don’t inhale again for several feet afterwards.A final note regarding symptoms: several weeks ago, a few of my toes started getting sore. Swollen and itchy. Rebecca suspected athlete’s foot, so we got some medication. However, the medication did not really seem to help much. After Googling “COVID toes”, I see that my toes probably fit into that category. This is not an official diagnosis, nor does it make much sense, unless I’ve had COVID for a very long time (several weeks). ��

If I’ve had it that long and Rebecca is still negative, she is truly WONDER WOMAN! Rebecca is getting another test today, Monday. Today, Monday, I now have a very slight cold, I’m still having a bit of trouble focusing, and the two toes are still slightly swollen, although it has subsided somewhat. I should also mention that they feel a bit numb. They no longer itch, but feel numb. Perhaps that is the result of the hydrocortisone I applied.

But how am I FEELING? IE, not my symptoms, but my emotions? I would say that generally I am more worried that afraid. And I generally put those worries in the back of my mind and focus on all the things I need to do. Emotions are powerful parts of our existence, but I am one of those people for whom emotions are generally in the background and often unrecognizable at first. I think it took me nearly 4 years to finally start grieving my father’s death. When a volcano threatened our house on the Big Island, I was genuinely excited about keeping up on the news – again, I did not really feel grief over that event for nearly a year. In some ways I guess my psychological makeup is a good thing – I mean, don’t the gurus of philosophy teach us to try and live in the present and not the past or future? I have the knowledge that I have COVID and I have the knowledge of how to care for myself in the meantime (including not smoking!!!!), but for now I have few symptoms. It would do me very little good to live in fear; might even be detrimental. Of course, emotions are not spigots that we can willfully turn on or off. It just happens to be that I am that kind of person. I would venture to guess that if this were to develop into full-fledged COVID, however, I will be terrified. I had asthma as a child and I do know what it’s like to not be able to breathe. It is terrifying.And now you are up to date.We will keep FaceBook posted.

#TimandRebeccaShow #covid

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feisty-mary · 8 years ago

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Reasons Why Marrying William Sloan Is the Best Decision of Your Life (Part 2)

Wow, Part 1 made me realize that there are more people who romanced Mr. Sloan than I originally thought! I just have to say, congratulations on your good taste in men. ;)

To those who have expressed interest in replaying the books to choose this sexy businessman, DO IT! YOU WON’T REGRET IT. Mr. Sloan is a total sweetheart who will sweep you off your feet and raise your expectations of partners so high it’s practically a crime.

Notes.

- From this point on I’ll refer to the businessman as Mr. Sloan, as he is more familiarly known.

- Read Part 1 before proceeding with this part. They both cover the first book, and most points are interconnected.

—————————————————————————

4. Book 1, Chapter 3. During their date in Venice, Mr. Sloan takes MC to Ristorante Oliviero for the best Italian food in the city. Without asking MC, he orders for her.

MC readily calls him out on it. “excuse u?? I can speak for myself and vote and own land and open a checking account? why are you bossing me around like I wanna choke on your dick??? oh wait”

Mr. Sloan is unfazed, although he tells MC to trust him in this particular instance. We let it go begrudgingly, although to be fair, the food he orders turns out to be amazing.

You have to admit, this kind of behavior on your first date raises a lot of red flags. Who wants to be in a relationship with a guy who decides for you without your permission?

To make sense of this, we fast forward to Book 1, Chapter 11, where something similar happens. Here Mr. Sloan returns to the cruise ship for his second date with MC. Honestly at this point I’m not even complaining because he flies back to her as soon as he can just to take her to Paris for a date??

Admittedly, he surprises her under the assumption that MC will readily agree/has nothing planned for the rest of the day herself. (Although, to be fair, surprises do have a way of ruining your own plans. That’s kind of the point!)

Here we’re given the option to tell him that he can’t expect us to leave for the Paris trip at a moment’s notice. A good option, too, since we’re trying to be as lowkey thirsty as possible we get to remind him that respect for each other’s time is kind of a thing. Besides, if you’re going to start a relationship with someone you might as well establish a list of acceptable and unacceptable bullshit between the two of you early on, right?

When MC calls him out, his reaction is surprising; he looks positively contrite. The panels above show him acknowledging his mistake, his tone completely different from when we first call him out in Book 1, Chapter 3. What’s more, he inadvertently reveals that he’s been listening to MC, after all, particularly about that advice to “let loose”. We don’t see him dance until Book 1, Chapter 18 (refer to reason 3 in Part 1), but it is clear even at this point how he’s making an attempt to match MC’s adventurousness and spend more time with her.

Just to put that in perspective, it’s useful to remember that he’s a CEO. In that particular line of work there is very little room for anything messes with plans, blueprints, and established timelines. That he is willing to make time for MC despite his busy schedule (because those meetings were probably scheduled months in advance and rescheduling them would be hell) says something about how much he must really consider being with her as his priority.

What I really want to underscore is how these separate chapters show us Mr. Sloan’s learning curve when it comes to romancing MC - and it’s clear he learns pretty darn fast. I had misgivings about his reaction to us calling him out on his take-charge attitude in Book 1, Chapter 3 but I like how it seems to have been deliberately written that way so we can see how he learns from it several chapters later.

He gets even better at it by the time we reach Book 2, Chapter 16, the night when he proposes to MC for the second time. He surprises her when he shows up at Nomade, and what do you know, this time he directly asks if she has plans for the evening before inviting her to Casablanca.

Did you see that? Yes, that’s character development.

5. Because Mr. Sloan is simply the best kind of life partner anyone can possibly ask for. Book 1 Chapter 18 reveals a lot about what we can expect from him as MC’s husband. As I’ve pointed out in reason 1 of Part 1, one of the things I really like about him is his foresight and how it always comes into play even in his relationship with MC, consistent with his work as an investor. He’s always thinking long term.

One of the ways the conversation with Mr. Sloan in this chapter is so distinctively him is that he doesn’t talk much about feelings anymore. That’s not to say he doesn’t reiterate them, because he does, at least in the beginning. But they don’t take up most of the things that’s said between him and MC.

What do they talk about, though? Well, they talk about important questions in relationships, like where they will live in the future and what MC thinks of having kids (in fact, this surprises MC herself, as shown in the panels below). Perhaps not everyone will agree with me on this, but the way I see it is that this man is already absolutely certain of what he feels for MC. As far as he’s concerned, the dating phase is done, which is why he’s already set that aside and moved on to the next one: planning their future together. Whatever MC’s misgivings might be, it’s clear at this point that Mr. Sloan has given their relationship some pretty serious consideration.

It’s also worth noting that when MC asks him what he thinks their future will look like, he tells her that she can tell him what she wants and he will just make them come true.

In Book 2, Chapter 8, he even goes as far as asking her, “hypothetically speaking”, where his next vacation house should be located.

Going back to reason 4 above makes it easier to see how Mr. Sloan’s character develops - he changes from someone who will make MC’s dietary choices for her to someone who looks at her as a partner with whom he can plan a future life together. It’s these small things, these subtle changes in his words and actions that tell us he’s been paying attention and learning from his interaction with MC. That perhaps their time together has actually changed him, and as cliche as it sounds, maybe even changed him for the better.

6. Mr. Sloan owns a winery. That’s literally it; who the hell turns down someone who owns a goddamn winery? Oh, and by the way? He names a bottle of wine after MC.

7. Because he knows his priorities, and it’s MC above anything else. In Book 2, Chapter 9, Rashad, Mr. Sloan’s very own best friend, warns MC that there’s a very big price to pay in being in a relationship with a CEO.

As hostile as Rashad delivers his warning, he makes a very valid point. Book 2, Chapter 9 perfectly underscores this when MC asks Mr. Sloan to go back to bed with her but he sadly turns her down, telling her he has to prepare for another business trip.

Before the chapter draws to a close, MC considers this silently, wondering if Rashad is right for warning her after all.

Surprisingly enough, in Book 2, Chapter 17, we see Mr. Sloan bite the bullet and very openly discuss Rashad’s thoughts on his relationship with MC.

I admit I did not see this coming; I thought it would be one of the things they’d conveniently overlook to give some sort of disadvantage to a potential relationship with Mr. Sloan. I mean, at least give the other suitors a fighting chance, Mr. Sloan?? lmao~

True to his nature as a businessman who most likely considers all angles of a particular negotiation before proceeding, Mr. Sloan talks to MC about his work-life balance and asks her what she thinks of it.

We try to be subtle about it, but suddenly Mr. Sloan says these magic words: “Consider it gone.”

Even MC does a double-take. Because… well, he can’t do that! He can’t just set aside his businesses for MC! Excuse me?? That’s like… totally sweet and romantic I cannot believe?????

I swear I didn’t cry. Maybe.

8. Because his proposals are so on point! Mr. Sloan proposed twice to my MC Alyanna because I’ve been loyal to him since the first book hahaha. Let me just spend some time on these proposals because they’re both beautiful and so well-thought-out.

Book 1, Chapter 19. First proposal.

I didn’t realize this until I was almost done with this list, but all the points I’ve listed up until now are mentioned and/or alluded to in his marriage proposal. I don’t want to gloat (who am I kidding, I totally do), but I can say with 100% confidence that our businessman’s first marriage proposal is the best of them all.

For example, he gather’s MC’s family members to witness the whole thing. One of the key themes in Rules of Engagement is family, and the first book does a good job at letting us see the strong bond between the four siblings. This being said, I thought it was very smart and thoughtful of Mr. Sloan to call them to witness what is arguably one of the most significant moments in MC’s life. It appears he knows what’s important to MC and he considers them important to him, too.

He also talks about how being with her has changed him, particularly about him dancing, as I’ve discussed in Part 1. In the left panel below, he mentions how MC makes him laugh, but also that she calls him out, unlike other people who appear to be intimidated by “Mr. Sloan from magazines”. I found this to be a nice touch; it gives the feeling that we’ve gone full circle and the time spent with him really helped build up their relationship.

The (intended?) symbolism is a nice, touch, too - Mr. Sloan proposes in the same place where he first met MC. If we go back to Book 1, Chapter 2, his very own words on the night they meet is “I’m not proposing that we get engaged. I just want to take you out for a romantic night. No strings attached.” Funny how he comes to propose many chapters later, at the very same restaurant and to the very same woman whom he once said those words to.

This is equal parts adorable and amusing.

In the left panel above, Mr. Sloan recalls the unfortunate (but absolutely hilarious) mix-up during his date with MC in Paris. It’s funny because you can tell he’s been thinking about that little mishap since it happened, and yes, his thoughts all along must have been, “Holy shit that was very embarrassing I swear I will never do that in my life.”

And yet here he is, several weeks (?) later, proposing in front of MC’s family and friends and possibly other people from the cruise. And you know what? He does it anyway. He braves his embarrassment and his discomfort anyway, because he’s decided that it’s okay, because it makes him the happiest, too.

It’s also interesting how he says, “Now, I’d like to put myself out here on a limb for once.” If we want to be very technical about it, “putting someone out on a limb” means “being in a dangerous position” or “doing something risky”. Well, okay, you say. Proposing is inherently risky, isn’t it, because there’s always a chance you’ll get turned down? Mr. Sloan is just acknowledging that fact.

Except, you have to remember he’s a businessman. Taking risks is literally what he does for a living. And if his wealth is any indication, he’s a very successful risk-taker. I actually interpret this as a very subtle way of him telling us how compared to closing business deals, he considers proposing to MC as probably one of the riskiest things he has ever done in his life hahaha.

Book 2, Chapter 17. Second proposal.

I was kidding; of course both of Mr. Sloan’s proposals to MC are better than the others! ;) If anything, his proposal in the Sahara is even better than his first one, because not only does he mention the moments they share together, he also mentions the times they don’t - and how even those form part of the reasons why he wants to spend the rest of his life with MC.

The four panels above show just how much MC has changed him, and I adore it.

But, of course, just to be fair to Mr. Sloan, we tell him this isn’t necessary. My MC isn’t here to impose anything on him, so she tells him he doesn’t have to change for her. He gives what is arguably the best response, as shown in the panels below.

Thank you, Mr. Sloan, for wanting to be that person who will dance with me in my lame black dress in a piazza in Venice. *wipes tears*

The rest of his proposal is absolutely magic, just like how he sees MC in his life.

I told myself I would let the panels above speak for themselves but ohmygod can we just acknowledge how much punch they pack because you can definitely tell that Mr. Sloan is speaking from the heart. This is exactly their love story. It’s a simple tale of two people finding someone whom they can dance in a piazza with, whom they constantly think about even when they’re far apart, and whom they’ll willingly make sacrifices for, because they put them as priority above all others.

It’s not all that complicated, but then again whoever said the best love stories need to be? ;)

BONUS!

9. This isn’t exactly a reason but I just wanted to add that Mr. Sloan planned the second proposal for weeks! Planning is his thing, okay, he’s good at that and he has plenty of money to show for it lmao. Here’s his hella cute reaction when we point this out (MC: “You’ve been planning this for weeks?”).

Dear @ god just please let me marry him already??

Also hey isn’t it funny that Mr. Sloan proposed to us in the Sahara? ahahahaha was our thirst that obvious?????

—————————————————————————

Okay, that’s it, folks! This took a while but I hope you enjoyed this because I did! Thanks for reading and please don’t hesitate to shoot me a holler if you wanna squeal about Mr. Sloan! ;)

#william x mc #rules of engagement #william sloan #playchoices #choices stories you play #reasons why marrying william sloan is the best decision of your life #i'm so fucking tired goddammit william i swear if i didn't love you as much as i do #i probably missed some points but what part of mr. sloan is perfect do you not understand #fucking finally i can focus on school because this is done ahahaha #leaving something unfinished stresses me out #seriously tho i can't wait to marry william sloan let me live pb!!#I have feelings

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wheredidhiseyebrowsgo · 8 years ago

Text

@whatrparks asked for an update on accidental relationship and pining. Here’s the pining update and I’ll probably do the accidental relationship one tomorrow! - Anastasia

Daddy Dearest by StilinskiSexual (CurlyLahey)

(1/? I 186 I Explicit I Sterek)

Derek Hale is a strong, independent dad who don't need no man.

Then why does he fantasize about bending his son's new kindergarten teacher over his desk, and wants to cook him dinner?

Derek Hale is a single dad to baby Isaac and baby Liam and swears he doesn't need anyone else, that is until he meets the most handsome man he's ever seen with eyes that feel like home. No, he hasn't been reading Erica's Romance novels.

won't sleep by triggeringthehealing (froggydarren)

(1/1 I 303 I General I Sterek)

He doesn’t sleep because on those nights, he doesn’t want to. Because on those nights, he finds a spot where he can see the sky, where he can keep his eyes on the bright circle in the darkness around it.

Pretty, Pale (and Mine) by OverMyFreckledBody

(1/1 I 591 I Mature I Jennifer/Kali)

From the first time Kali has set eyes on Julia, she's known, wanted.

Julia's got pale, perfect skin. Kali wants to mark it.

Real Life, Love by QuickLikeLight

(1/1 I 829 I General I Scott/Lydia)

The sound of Lydia’s key in the lock makes him breathe a small sigh of relief. Lydia’s home. She’ll know what to do.

Nonsexual Favors by 42hrb

(1/1 I 851 I Teen I Sterek)

Derek gets a text from Stiles in the middle of the night asking for help. He'll always help Stiles.

The Twenty Dollar Date by Lacrosse_CandyCorn_Puns

(1/1 I 904 I General I Sterek)

Derek pines, Stiles pines, and Finstock just wants the cafeteria to stop serving those god awful fish tacos. Is that too much to ask?!

The Line by inatshej

(1/1 I 931 I Explicit I Sterek)

They spend the whole hour discussing the topic. Both leave with the list of the books to read. The line between them, so clear before – Derek is a TA, Stiles is a student – becomes blurry.

Strawberries and Lemonade by mikkimouse

(1/1 I 992 I Teen I Sterek)

Stiles had volunteered to help Derek out with the garden out at the pack house this summer, though also admittedly, he’d done so because he was nursing the most unrequited of unrequited crushes. Spending all summer staring at Derek’s well-muscled back and ass seemed like both the best and worst idea in the world at the same time, and Stiles had absolutely zero sense of self-preservation.

That's Just My Face Stiles by 42hrb

(1/1 I 1,040 I Teen I Sterek)

After Scott manages to break all the centerpieces for Lydia and Jackson's wedding Stiles and Derek are stuck together making new ones.

meat cute by bleep0bleep

(1/1 I 1,046 I Teen I Sterek)

Stiles sees it when he’s grocery shopping, the display hardly touched, people opting for the cheaper, non-heart shaped packages of steak. He gets it, he really does, after all, what’s the point of buying specially packaged meats for your significant other if you’re just gonna take the thing out of the box and cook it, anyways?

But if you had a werewolf sweetheart, this would be awesome, right?

Stiles snaps a photo and sends it to Kira, asking if she’s got a present for Scott yet. She texts him back a second later with, aw thanks i already got him a present when i went xmas shopping tho

And then: u should give it to ur werewolf ;)

Stiles stares at his phone, because he doesn’t have a werewolf. Well, technically he has a crush on a werewolf, but that doesn’t really count.

He buys the steak anyways.

Derek's bad luck? by Lonelyirises

(2/2 I 1,401 I General I Sterek)

For a few seconds he couldn’t believe his eyes, when he saw the mole speckled specimen of beauty was standing a few feet away from him, in process of moving heavy looking boxes in to the next house. And the second Derek got over the disbelief he realized his whole world had come crashing down. Why did the universe hate him so much?

Derek had left the his hometown, unable to deal with the heartache and moved to this “nowhere” town about 3 hours away from Beacon Hills, the day Stiles had married Lydia. What was more pathetic? Stiles had no idea Derek existed. And yet… and yet after everything Derek had gone through, and left behind, Stiles was moving in, right next door to him. Derek couldn’t believe his bad luck.

Under Development by dr_girlfriend

(1/? I 1,411 I Teen I Sterek)

Environmental lawyer Derek Hale is determined to stop the planned defacement of his beloved Beacon Hills Preserve by the mammoth Starr Development company. To do so, he makes a deal with the devil himself — Stiles Starr, the brash young scion of the Starr family and COO of Starr Development. Derek hates Stiles at first sight. Mieczysław Stilinski, on the other hand, is someone that Derek could grow to like...or even love.

Praise Jesus for Stiles Stilinki's Hot Bod by TheChosenOneIamNot

(2/? I 1,508 I Mature I Sterek)

Derek and Stiles have been officially dating for six months now and everything is going great, except for one small thing. He's never seen Stiles shirtless despite many heated makeout sessions that end in one or both having to change their pants. Obviously this must be due to Stiles lack of self esteem and must be remedied immediately. With the packs help, hopefully Derek will be able to get into Stiles pants (and shirt) before he dies of sexual frustration.

I Want You to Show Me by hazelNuts

(1/1 I 1,510 I General I Sterek)

Stiles slides out of his car and softly closes the door, wincing when the hinges groan. He trails behind Derek as they walk to his house, close enough that he can intervene if necessary, but far enough away that he knows he won’t wake Derek up. When they arrive at his place, he sits on the porch steps, pulls out his phone, and waits.

Pizza with a Side of Panic by SnazzyJazzyH

(1/1 I 1,767 I Teen I Sterek)

Stiles hates pizza but that sure doesn't stop him from ordering pizza from Hale of a Pizza. Although the hot delivery guy probably had something to do with it.

Last Call by Inell

(1/1 I 1,822 I Teen I Stiles/Danny/Jackson)

Stiles decides to drown his sorrows but the bar owners aren’t cooperating with his plan.

Girl Crushed by ExpectroPatronum74

(1/1 I 2,111 I Mature I Sterek)

Derek is in love with Stiles and has been for months, but he has a problem. Stiles is dating Malia and Derek's chances are not looking too good.

Haven't you heard the rumours? by fairyfey

(1/1 I 2,162 I Teen I Sterek)

Stiles is a drama teacher who tends to overshare, Derek is a nerdy english teacher who somehow makes cardigans sexy and the students think they should be together.

We’re both high school teachers and my students ship us but I won’t let them tell you au

Eating habits by SourwolfZiam

(1/1 I 2,355 I Mature I Sterek)

"Have you ever eaten your own barf? "Stiles"

Or, Stiles and Derek get their shit together.

starry eyed and nerdified by haleofStilesheart

(1/1 I 2,392 I General I Sterek)

For the past two weeks Stiles has been leaving Derek anonymous love notes. Derek finally guesses who his secret admirer is.

quoting Rhett Butler by haleofStilesheart

(1/1 I 2,445 I Teen I Sterek)

Stiles has a bad habit of dating complete assholes. Good thing Derek's there to knock some sense into him.

what in carnation? by haleofStilesheart

(1/1 I 2,985 I General I Sterek)

Deliveryman wasn't exactly Derek's dream job but it helped put him through school so he couldn't complain. Especially since it helped him meet the love of his life.

I Fell in Love with My Best Friend (2.0) by DerekHaleGirl97

(1/1 I 3,515 I Not Rated I Sterek)

Now I realize you are the only one It's never too late to show it. Grow old together, Have feelings we had before Back when we were so innocent

I pray for all your love Girl, our love is so unreal I just wanna reach and touch you, squeeze you, somebody pinch me (I must be dreaming) This is something like a movie And I don't know how it ends, girl But I fell in love with my best friend...

Grand Jeté by thekissballad (kkpsigirl)

(1/1 I 3,753 I General I Sterek)

“I don't mean to be rude, Dad,” she said toward Stiles before turning back to Derek, “but as you saw, Mr. Hale, he's not the most graceful person.”

Stiles snorted, turned red and covered his face while his daughter continued. “I don't want him to perform a grand jeté and hurt himself. He needs to be able to catch all the bad guys. So...” she trailed off, looking between both men.

Code Sea Witch by ANTchan

(1/1 I 4,975 I General I Sterek)

At Lydia Martin’s Nereid Crown they have a code: “Somebody asked for the Sea Witch.”

Recipe for the heart. by skyblue993

(3/5 I 5,018 I Teen I Sterek)

It's the last year of high school and Stiles is ready to leave everything behind but there's only one thing he wants to do before leaving for college; Conquer Derek's heart.

To Move On is to Grow by WhisperedWords12

(1/1 I 5,886 I Explicit I Stiles/Everyone)

Stiles decided to put on the collar that marked him as a sub for public use at 16. By law, it was the youngest he is allowed to, and was the only one in his year to do so. It's when Scott gets bitten and Derek comes into town that everything changes.

What You Need by dragon_temeraire

(1/1 I 6,230 I Explicit I Sterek)

Derek is an alpha with unusual desires.

Shadows We Make by Alwaysdreaming95

(3/? I 8,728 I Teen I Sterek)

After Defeating the Nogistune Stiles twin, Jada, ends up coming back to Beacon Hills after living in Ireland. The only problem in this family reunion is abondoment and the trouble that follows her home. She tries to deal with her past traumas and her nightmares. This is a story that follows Jada in her journey to deal with the alpha and his pack that wants her dea and her new... old life in Beacon Hills.

Sevens and Eights by calrissian18

(1/1 I 10,092 I Teen I Sterek)

Stiles has a bandage slung under his chin like a disembodied helmet strap when Derek first meets him. It’s complemented by a chipped front tooth and a scrape of road rash across his cheek.

Mischief and a SourWolf by LoneWolf1993

(6/? I 12,520 I Not Rated I Sterek I MCD)

It's been four months since Derek left Beacon Hills and has began to settle into his new life. Until he gets a message from the life he left that has him coming back to the reason he left in the first place.

Easy, Cheesy by crookedcig

(6/? I 18,881 I Teen I Sterek)

Derek sets his kitchen on fire (a little bit). Stiles is a firefighter called to the scene. Derek communicates his anger with eyebrows alone, and Stiles falls in lust. Slowly, they both fall in more than that.

aka what happens when I try to write how their lives would be different if Laura had refused to ever go back to California.

I like to be called cupcake, too. by ellsaba (laceydean)

(16/? I 18,855 I Teen I Sterek)

It look a long time to come up with a name for the bakery.

Or, it took a long time for Stiles to accept that “no, we’re not going to call it Stilinski’s Bakeski’s, what is wrong with you, it’s not even your business”. Which, yeah, wasn’t one of his greater ideas, but it was one of his ideas. Plural.

Unbreakable by rufferto, SlasherFiend

(3/? I 42,478 I Explicit I Petopher)

After a particularly unsettling week alone in the house he used to share with the wife he loved, Chris has had a little bit too much to drink. Normally he can deal with pain and feelings. Normally he can sort everything out and soldier forward. When he is at the end of his rope there is something that he needs to do and someone who can help him if he chooses to. So he leaves himself open practically inviting the Werewolf to come kill him. But it’s not a fight he wants. A little more than ten years ago he had an affair with Peter Hale. At that time period, he’d needed someone, something to pull him out of the path he was on before it was too late. Before he became Gerard. Peter had been that person. Peter had been the only one to get through to him, make him talk. Peter was the reason Allison didn’t get trained at a young age. Chris handled the ending of it badly. He’d hurt Peter who had fallen in love with him. In spite of being in love, he’d chosen his family. Now he needs that again, he’s falling into that pit and only one man can pull him out of it, if he chooses to.

#teen wolf #sterek #stiles stilinski #derek hale #pininig #petopher #Peter Hale #chris argent #danny mahealani #Jackson Whittemore #rating: e #rating: g #25kto50k #less than 10k #pining

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sophiebot-blog1 · 8 years ago

Text

Red

Cross-posted from AO3

[Original] [Alt ending]

Summary:

The first time someone tells you that they love you, the words are written on your skin. Gold for platonic love, red for romantic. Of course, people don't often say 'I love you' directly, but Tony in particular tends to give really strange marks.

A lot of people had unusual words from Tony Stark, and Bucky wasn't sure why he wasn't one of them.

The first time he saw Steve’s the two of them were in the kitchen. Calling it ‘the’ kitchen was probably a misnomer - there were lots of kitchens in Avengers Tower, but in the two weeks since he had arrived at the Manhattan skyscraper he hadn’t left Steve’s apartment so, for now, Steve’s kitchen was the kitchen.

Steve was frying eggs on the stove while Bucky watched from his spot leaning against a wall. He noticed the words then, tucked into the crook of Steve’s right elbow. Those are new, he thought. It was hard sometimes, sorting out which memories were real, especially the ones from his previous life that Hydra had tried so hard to erase, but he was pretty confident that Steve hadn’t had that particular set of words when he knew him before.

He leaned over to peer at the mark more closely. “Hey…Capsicle?”

Steve turned to look at him, smiling, as he always did when Bucky managed to say anything more than a curt ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but also a bit confused. “What did you say, Buck?

Bucky grunted and gestured at Steve’s arm; talking was still hard, and anyways Steve usually knew what he meant. Steve looked at where Bucky was pointing and laughed. “Oh hah yeah, that’s from Tony, he gives strange ones. Honestly it could be a lot worse, just ask Natasha sometime.”

Bucky nodded and went back to leaning against the wall. Steve resumed his cooking, but a hand came up to rub at his shoulder briefly. Bucky frowned, knowing that used to be his spot, where the golden words he spoke as a child sat. They faded sometime while Steve was in the ice, while Bucky was being turned into a different person entirely. Bucky rubbed at the spot on his chest where Steve’s ‘I’m here for you, Buck’ had appeared just a few days earlier. He wasn’t ready to give Steve new words yet, but having his mark made it a little easier to think he would be some day.

(Keep reading link warning)

---

As the weeks went on he left his self-imposed exile and explored more of the tower, although he was still wary and tense more often than not. He had begun to interact with the other Avengers sometimes, which is how he wound up on this particular day sharing a training room with Natasha. She had offered to spar with him, but, no, he didn’t quite trust himself enough to do that yet. Thankfully, she accepted his ‘No, thanks’ without any pressure to discuss the issue. Bucky liked that about Natasha. He liked a lot of things about Natasha actually, including the way she had shrugged off his apologies for shooting her.

“Avengers house rule number one,” she had stated, “it doesn’t count if you were brain washed.” He had thought her eyes had slid to Clint in that moment but if any of the, admittedly hazy, memories he kept getting were accurate then he had to wonder if she was talking about herself.

They had been doing their separate exercises for a half hour before he remembered the comment Steve had said about Natasha’s mark. It was another half hour before he managed to bring it up.

“Um…” On the other side of the room Natasha turned and looked at him expectantly. “Um…Steve said…you…he said to ask about your mark? From Stark? It’s….strange?” Natasha smirked and pulled up her shirt, exposing her stomach which was almost completely covered in writing. Bucky walked closer and examined the scrawling script.

Look, you've got to stop hiding knives all over the place. I mean, trust me, I love it when you freak out our guests by seemingly pulling them out of thin air, but I keep finding them in our cereal boxes which can't be safe and why are you grinning like that?

By the he got to the end Bucky’s eyebrows were nearly to his hairline and Natasha’s smirk had continued to grow. “He talked for so long that I actually started to feel the words coming in before he had finished.” Marks forming always burned just a little bit. They also usually came in a few seconds after the speaker was done talking, but clearly that wasn’t always the case. After now having spent some time around Stark it didn’t surprise Bucky that he managed to leave such a lengthy mark.

“But how is that a love statement?” He knew that the marks rarely directly said ‘I love you,’ but this seemed more of an admonishment than anything else. “Tony’s complicated,” Natasha shrugged, pulling her shirt back down, “and we didn’t start off on the best foot. Who I was, what I did, it bothered him for a while. This was when he finally moved past that.” He was starting to get up the nerve to ask her about the other mark he could see, the little bit of red peeking out from her shorts, but apparently the conversation was over because Natasha was turning back to her workout. He really did like Natasha.

---

He still wasn’t sure that he should be cleared for shooting practice, but no one else seemed to share his worries, and Clint was pretty calm in the lane next to his. It was routine at this point, spending time with other residents of the tower. He hung out with Tony in his workshop, meditated with Bruce, and now apparently shot targets with Clint.

Clint’s arms were bare today, and Bucky could see several sets of marks littering his skin. It wasn’t that Clint normally wore sleeves or anything, but he did tend to be covered in bandages and tape, which meant that this was the first time all of his skin was on display. Bucky was able to pick out Natasha’s words, only because of their recent discussion about all of her marks. He was a little surprised at first that she had shared that with him, but she placed her words on his ankle not long after that so it was maybe less strange than he had first thought.

On Clint’s left forearm directly under Natasha’s golden mark was a red set of words. Clint hadn’t mentioned having anyone, and if he normally kept it wrapped up then it was probably not something Bucky should ask about; loved ones were weaknesses, and if Clint wanted to keep his private then that wasn’t something Bucky would mess with. There was another set of words, though, that Bucky was pretty sure he knew the owner of even without being told.

“Tony?” He said, reaching over and tapping at the archer’s bicep. Clint looked down and grinned, “Oh yeah, no idea how you were able to figure that out.” Sarcasm. Bucky was getting better at sarcasm. Part of the reason he had guessed it was Tony’s was because it was another reprimand like Natasha’s, but really who else would be saying something like that to Clint.

“I was repelling from the roof, trying to see if I could get past JARVIS that way, when Tony comes running out onto the balcony screaming, ‘Damn it birdbrain stop hanging off the side of my building!’” Clint chuckled as he traced the words. “When I got back inside I got a twenty minute lecture about not doing stupid shit and how he wasn’t going to scrape me off the sidewalk if I fell. Which, psh, like I don’t know how to climb a building, c’mon Stark, but I can appreciate that he was worried.”

“Is it weird having an insult on your arm?”

“What, birdbrain? That’s not really an insult, that’s just Tony, he’s snarky. Hey, Tony Snark!” He snorted at his own joke. “Ah sorry that was bad, but seriously, you should hear how he talks to people he doesn’t like. I think a lot of people assume they’re in that camp until they watch him absolutely destroy some douchebag with, like, two words. Nah, it was hard to figure out before the mark appeared, but birdbrain is a fucking term of endearment.”

That was…something, at least. Bucky had started to get worried the inventor didn’t actually want him around, just wasn’t cruel enough to kick him out of the workshop. According to Clint he’d most likely never hear any obvious confirmation of friendship, but it was a more significant sign that he hadn’t been outright rejected. He could work with that; Tony probably just took a while to warm up to people.

---

Bucky had been living in Avengers Tower for three months before he finally met Thor. The god arrived on the landing pad in a flash of light and a clap of thunder, striding into the team common area and announcing his presence with a booming voice as if anyone hadn’t noticed a crazy rainbow portal deposit an alien on their doorstep.

Everyone loved Thor, and it wasn’t hard to see why. He was easy to talk to, easy to listen to, fun to be around, just an overall enjoyable person. That was probably why it only took Bucky a few days to ask him about the words on his neckline. “’Make sure you visit next time you decide to slum it with us mere mortals.’ I’m guessing that’s from Tony?”

“Aye.” Thor nodded and smiled. “I was pleased to be given them so quickly, it was a good sign. Warriors should be able to build bonds easily with those they fight alongside.”

Bucky was frowning at this point, one of his earlier theories beginning to crumble. “Quickly?”

“Indeed. After bringing my brother home, I visited Midgard several times to see my Lady Jane. The Avengers were eventually called upon again, and once we had vanquished our foes Anthony gave me these words. Since then I have tried to be more balanced in my social visits, although I admit I am more frequently with Jane.”

He had thought that Tony just took a long time to accept people, but his mark on Thor essentially boiled down to the result of two interactions, really just a few days if he was remembering the battle stories correctly. It was possible though that it was just because it was Thor. Hell, Bucky was already half in love with him; the guy was just that approachable. It made sense really that he won respect and friendship so easily if he was supposed to be king of an alien realm someday and oh boy, that wasn’t something he had quite managed to wrap his head around yet. He let the conversation drop then. One person’s experience wasn’t enough to disprove his theory as to why he didn’t have Tony’s words yet.

---

He traipsed down the stairs to Bruce’s lab, punched in his code on the keypad and walked inside. Tony hadn’t been in his workshop, and this was the most likely other place he could be found. Bucky stepped easily around the stacks of books and tables with strange chemicals on them. He was more familiar with Tony’s workshop, but he had spent a fair amount of time in here watching the two ‘do science’ as Tony might say.

As he rounded the edge of a desk and reached Bruce, the man looked up from whatever he had been scribbling in his notebook. “Oh, hey Bucky, are you looking for Tony?”

“Yeah, have you seen him?”

“I think he said he was going to talk to Clint, something about new arrows?”

“Ok, thanks.”

“Sure thing, see you later.”

He turned halfway around and then stopped, deciding now was as good a time as ever to ask. “Hey, Bruce, do you know…Thor said he got Tony’s words really fast…is that normal? For Tony, I mean.”

Bruce snorted. “Oh, most definitely.” He pulled up his pants leg, revealing first a set of red words, ‘I’m glad you came back,’ but then higher were Tony’s, ‘How's my favorite science bro!,’ exclamation point and all. “I had barely gotten settled in this lab before he came barreling in and gave me these. Pepper says he’s always been like this. It’s gotten him in trouble before, making the wrong choices about who to let in, but,” he shrugged, “he can’t help that he cares about people.”

Bucky did some kind of a nod in acknowledgement, trying not to react strangely to the conversation. “Alright, thanks again.” As he turned and maneuvered his way back out of the lab and up the stairs, he finally admitted to himself that he was hurt. Out of everyone in this century he considered Tony to be his best friend. Well, other than Steve, but that was different.

He and Tony were always hanging out together, talking, laughing, and he had thought it was good. Now he wasn’t sure what it was. At this point he had words from Steve, Natasha, and even Clint, and alright so maybe he hadn’t been able to give them to anyone other than Steve so far, but it didn’t seem like Tony took having words as a prerequisite to giving them.

If Tony was showing Clint new arrows they were probably in the shooting range. Bucky walked past the door that would lead him there and instead headed towards his room.

---

After hiding out for a few days, Bucky couldn’t take it anymore. He marched into the workshop to finally confront the engineer who was currently hunched over a table tinkering.

“What the fuck is your deal, Stark?!” His shout was loud in the basement room, causing Tony to jump. He put down the wrench he had been using to work on…something, and turned to look at Bucky, clearly very confused.

“I just don’t get it!” Bucky continued to shout while walking to him, “Everyone in this tower and half their families have your words! Apparently it takes you all of two seconds to decide you care about someone, even if you do leave the weirdest fucking marks. I’ve been hanging out down here, thinking we were having a good time, thinking that if you hated my guts you would’ve gotten rid of me a long time ago, but I just don’t know anymore! I could see you not liking me when I first got here, that makes sense, I was a mess, but I have other people’s words now so clearly I’m not completely unlovable. And alright, getting Steve’s words wasn’t really a shocker to anyone, and Natasha and I have a history, albeit a weird as shit history, but I even have words from Clint now! I’m not saying I don’t like Clint, I do, but I don’t think I even spend half as much time with him as I do just sitting on your shitty couch, so I don’t understand why I have his words and I don’t have yours!”

Tony was staring at him like a deer stuck in headlights, and it was really understandable because Bucky was pretty sure that was the most he had said at one time since coming to the tower. The minutes stretched on and Tony continued to stare. He kept opening his mouth like he was about to say something but then didn’t. Bucky scowled and moved to turn away.

A hand shot out to grab his wrist. Brown eyes stared up at him from a nerve-wracked face. With a voice so quiet it almost couldn’t be heard, Tony whispered, “Mine will be red.”

A moment passed, and then Bucky began to feel the familiar heat work its way across his sternum. He tugged open the collar of his shirt and peered down. The angle was too harsh for him to read the words, but they were definitely there, and they were a bright, brilliant red.

“Oh, thank God.”

Tony didn’t move for a second, but then he looked down and watched the red words creep across his wrist. The tension drained out of his body and he grinned up at Bucky. At the same time, Bucky pulled him straight into a searing kiss.

A lot of people had unusual words from Tony Stark, but Bucky thought his were the best.

#winteriron #tony stark #bucky barnes #tony x bucky #soulmate au #ish #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #clint barton #thor odinson #bruce banner #background relationships #not civil war compliant #because no #Red #mine #This is super old but I wanted a tumblr blog for prompts and easier communication #so...cross post

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andreburton8-blog · 7 years ago

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People Management Practices 101

Mentoring, counseling and supervising people is one of the best parts of my job – actively helping people grow and be successful drives me. Admittedly, I have made some mistakes in managing people along the way, but I learned from those mistakes, made course corrections and established some solid follower relationships as a result. This post highlights a couple of practices I picked up along the way.

Understand your people’s interests and priorities first.

Before discussing expectations and assigning tasks, I spend time with team members understanding their interests and priorities first. Putting their interests first helps me build some level of trust, identify ways I can continue to keep people engaged on the project and proactively evaluate who’s really at risk of leaving the project before we deliver.

I start with outlining the following six engagement factors.

Work – the types of activities you perform on projects/engagements – e.g. tech strategy, testing, PMO, configuration management, development, etc

People – who you work with and whether you enjoy working with them

Opportunity – opportunity to learn and grow and advance your career

Benefits – how much you get paid, dental/medical insurance options, 401K

Work-Life Balance – the ability to balance personal life with work life

Company – the brand and reputation of the company you work for

I then ask the person to rank the factors, from 1 to 6, in order of how important the factors are to them and explain the ranking rationale for each factor. For example, fresh-out-of-college person might say:

Opportunity - I want to get promoted early.

Benefits - Pay is totally important to me.

People - Since I want to travel, I would like to be on a project with people I enjoy being with for the entire day.

Work - I will take on whatever role is needed to get the job done.

Company - The company I work for is not that important as long as I’m growing and getting paid.

Work-Life Balance - I don’t have a family, am cool with travel and putting in the hours to learn new tools and industries as needed.

Experienced-person-with-a-family might say:

Work-Life Balance - I have a family and need to be home during the week to take care of the kids.

Benefits - Pay and insurance for my family is important.

Work - I just want to enjoy the work that I do.

Company - Brand reputation is important if I need to change companies.

Opportunity - I understand the trade-off with work-life balance for opportunity and am completely cool with that.

People - People are important but since I am prioritizing work-life balance, I won’t be able to engage in extra-curricular activities with people. As long as the people are qualified to get the job done, that’s all that matters to me right now.

Ranking the factors by priority helps you discuss trade-offs. For example, if the resource prioritizes work-life balance, many times it comes at the cost of opportunity and benefits (so it may not be right to rank benefits and work-life balance side-by-side on the priority list).

I then ask the resource to tell me how satisfied they are against each factor and explain the satisfaction ranking rationale. For example, the experienced-person-with-a-family said:

Work-Life Balance, satisfaction ranking = 5. For the last month, I had to put in 55 hours which made it difficult to engage with my kids after work. I’m cool with doing this on occasion but I’m unclear on whether this will continue for an extended period of time.

Benefits, satisfaction ranking = 5. I looked at pay for people with similar levels of experience at other companies and believe I’m significantly underpaid.

Work, satisfaction ranking = 5. I’ve been stuck doing the same thing for the last year. I’m bored.

Company, satisfaction ranking = 1. The company carries a great brand reputation. I get instant credibility when talking to people outside the company about my area of expertise.

Opportunity, satisfaction ranking = 3. Although it’s not a high priority, it would be great if I could get a picture of what I can do to move into a new role.

People, satisfaction ranking = 2. he people on my project and at the firm are pretty smart and fun to hang out with when I get a chance to socialize.

Although there are high and low satisfaction ratings across factors, notice that for the top three factors (work-life balance, benefits and work) have the lowest satisfaction ratings, putting the person at risk of leaving. In this situation, I take the time to probe all the top three factors. Focusing on work-life balance to help illustrate, here are some examples of follow-up statements one could respond back with:

“I completely understand your concern and sorry for not addressing this proactively sooner. We have plans to bring on additional resources in two weeks. You should see your hours come back to normal in a month and a half once the resources are onboarded and ramped up. I know it’s a lot to ask of you but in the meantime, are there tasks I can pull off your plate to help reduce some of the hours?”

“I understand that you have to drop off and pick up the kids on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Would working remote on those days help address work-life balance concerns?”

“I know you wanted to pick up some hands-on development tasks. It may not address your immediate work-life balance concerns (which we’re working through) but if we hand some of your current tasks to Joe, do you think that would at least help with your concerns over work engagement?”

Once we’ve worked through the problem areas, I ask the person to setup a follow-up meeting so I have time to follow-up on action items where applicable and/or verify whether there has been improvement.

Be honest but start with the positives when giving feedback.

Delivering the tough messages is always difficult. It important to deliver honest feedback otherwise you may not be fair to the rest of the team (who may be picking up the slack). Not being honest also doesn’t help your person learn and grow.

When giving feedback, I always start with the positives – e.g. “in the meeting last week, great presentation, the one summary slide was clear and concise about what you wanted to get out of the meeting, please do continue doing that”. When delivering the constructive feedback, I always try to recall a time that I might have struggled with the same feedback point. If I did struggle as well, I always say that I still struggle with it (if I am) and what steps I’ve taken to address it.

For example, I had to tell someone that his written communication skills needed significant improvement. When delivering the feedback, I mentioned that I too struggled with writing earlier in my career but in order to improve, I decided to write a mini-biography. I never published the biography, but in the process of writing it, I found myself paying attention to how other people write, their style and so on. I became better at writing as a result, I won’t say I can put out Pulitzer prize winning material, but marching towards a goal helped me put structure and discipline into the process. I also pointed the person to resources in the company that helps people improve writing skills – training sessions, books, coaches, etc.

I have found that saying that I struggled with the same issue (when I actually have) helps me 1. appear honest (in an attempt to build trust), 2. avoid looking like a hypocrite (if my writing issue ever came up) and 3. makes the recommendation a little more real (like if Andre did it, I can do it too because he has descent writing skills).

Thanks for taking the time to read. Please let me know if you have any practices, tips or techniques you’d like to share!

#Consulting #ProjectManagement #peoplemanagement

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medicalmarijuana-news · 8 years ago

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Soundwaves: Pairing Cannabis with Binaural Beats

I stumbled upon binaural beats a few months back as I was lying awake one midnight trying to force sleep. After tossing and turning for what felt like an eternity, I fired up my laptop in defeat and typed a quick Google search: “fast ways to fall asleep.” I was then directed to a curious phenomenon called binaural beats – the method of combining two different tones on separate wavelengths (usually with noise-cancelling headphones at hand) in order to create an auditory hallucination.

Apparently, when set to proper frequencies, these tones may induce relaxation, creativity, lucid dreaming, and a number of other behaviors from a simple combination of sounds. Some – well, most – consider binaural beats to be a basic placebo effect when held to their lucid dreaming capabilities, and the phenomenon is hardly taken seriously in the medical field for its supposed anti-anxiety properties.

Evidence in favor of binaural beats and their reaction in the brain is murky at best, but with thousands of uploaded videos across YouTube (and millions of views and listens), they seem to be a popular choice for those needing to escape reality with vivid dreams, or maintain better focus during work or school.

The possibility of inducing lucid dreams piqued my curiosity most while reading personal accounts of binaural beats effects – so much so that I ended up popping on my own noise-cancelling headphones to give binaural beats a try. The result? I now frequently listen to binaural beats for at least an hour before bed every other night.

Admittedly, they work for me – I don’t lucid dream per se, but I definitely experience extremely vivid dreams, which I had never had before. Many of these dreams I remember well the next day, and even into the following week. Sometimes fantastical things occur; other times, I just sit and have conversations with people I haven’t seen in a very long time.

Interestingly, I was never a dreamer prior to listening to binaural beats (or, if I was, I never remembered), so if this is all a coincidence, it’s a pretty unique and fun one. Sometimes I’m excited to fall asleep just to see what my dreams will be.

Where Did Binaural Beats Come From?

In 1973, biophysicist Dr. Gerald Oster published “Auditory Beats in the Brain,” where he studied the physical effects of binaural beats. Oster was highly interested in experimental and fringe theories, so binaural beats were right up his alley. His study was inspired by Heinrich W. Dove, a Prussian physicist and meteorologist who was similarly interested in experimental science and first discovered binaural beats in 1839. Dove found that the human capability to hear binaural beats was a form of evolutionary adaptation.

As explained by Oster, “What is the neurological basis of binaural beats? The simplest explanation is that the number of nerve impulses from each ear and the route they travel to the brain are determined by the frequency of the incident sound, and that the two nerve signals interact somewhere in the brain.” These ‘interactions’ seem to be what causes vivid dreaming or creativity – in short, the confusion of the ear firing connections in the brain.

It’s important to note that Oster did not study the dream or relaxation states of his patients while they listened to binaural beats; only auditory frequencies and how they were heard by his subjects. The conclusions of binaural beats’ effects on behavioral issues have mostly come from the educated guesses of observers who are not scientists, but who regularly engage in binaural beats sessions.

During his study, Oster also found that certain people could not pick up binaural beats tones the same way others could. He states, “It may be significant that some of those who could not hear the beats suffered from Parkinson’s disease,” though there is no follow up as to why that might occur for Parkinson’s patients. Oster also observed differences in how the sexes hear binaural beats:

“It appears that some women do show marked variations in the perception of binaural beats during the menstrual cycle. When the beats are not heard, the women often hear two separate tones. Men, on the other hand, show no variation during the month. These results suggest that the binaural-beat spectrum may be influenced by the level of estrogen in the blood.”

Years later, in 2007, the National College of Natural Medicine published a study on binaural beats and how they relate to the mentality of human subjects. It concluded, “Binaural beat technology may exhibit positive effect on self-reported psychologic measures, especially anxiety.”

The conclusion warrants skepticism and stronger belief in a placebo effect being at play, especially when psychological elements were “self-reported” before the study. However, the college’s study was steeped in behavioral outcomes which is what listeners mostly cling to; Oster’s study, by contrast, focused on physical outcomes.

There are other studies that have been performed involving behavior and binaural beats, but they all come to similar conclusions and hardly any seem to move from a ‘pilot stage’ – either the funding runs out or interest is low.

Later, the National College of Natural Medicine ran another study on binaural beats effects, and found that “There was an increase of the Profile of Mood States depression subscale in the experimental condition relative to the control condition. There was also a significant decrease in immediate verbal memory recall in the experimental condition compared to control condition.”

Yet these negative conclusions are a far cry from personal accounts linked to binaural beats. On any dedicated binaural beats YouTube channel, for instance, one can easily find hundreds of reports of positive and active lucid dreaming or relaxation from its users.

Pairing Cannabis with Relaxing Beats

I wrote this article because I have experienced the vivid dreaming that comes with listening to binaural beats, and I have read accounts of people pairing binaural beats with cannabis to either better focus on meditation or to bring about stronger and longer dreams. I wanted to give that pairing a shot and see for myself what type of effect cannabis would have on my own binaural beats sessions. I also wanted to encourage others to give it a try, especially those who already listen to binaural beats and have been curious about complementing the beats with cannabis as I was.

Since I had a bit of extra indica-heavy Lavender lying around, I took a few hits, switched on one of my favorite binaural beats sleeping tracks (below), and proceeded to melt into my bed.

Lo and behold, the experiment didn’t go as I had hoped – I couldn’t fully shut off my mind as I usually can when I listen to binaural beats without the influence of cannabis. I was thinking about everything, yet nothing in particular. My brain seemed to be more awake than usual, and I actually had a bit more trouble falling asleep.

Riding on the powerful placebo effect that I have presumably been experiencing from day one with binaural beats, I wanted it to really shine during my cannabis pairing; instead, it seemed to fall flat. My dreams were, dishearteningly, unmemorable, although I do know I had at least one. Of course, it’s important to factor marijuana’s tendency to inhibit dreams into any expectations.

Even if binaural beat-induced dreams weren’t everything I hoped they would be, something else did intrigue me while listening: I felt I was hearing the beats in a unique rhythm that I hadn’t heard while listening with a sober mind. It was as though I was more in tune and picking up on sounds I had otherwise shut out. With that in mind, I could definitely see binaural beats being a useful tool to incorporate into certain types of meditation, even if they’re mostly seen as a flamboyant sibling to regular old white noise. I’m also also curious to see if the more creative and focused binaural tracks would pair well with an energetic, sativa-dominant strain.

If you’re interested in trying binaural beats paired with different strains of cannabis, I certainly recommend doing so to see what happens. Experiences will likely vary for each individual, and you may well end up getting a better night’s sleep than ever, or experiencing an unexpected bump in creative flow.

Have you tried pairing binaural beats with cannabis? Share your experiences in the comments!

Hannah Meadows

Hannah Meadows is an editorial intern at Leafly, where she contributes to lifestyle content.

The post Soundwaves: Pairing Cannabis with Binaural Beats appeared first on Leafly.

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