#they’ll work on most journal articles and articles and that kinda thing

[bagginsgotdabooty]

Hey so like as someone that is dyslexic comic sans (and other similar fonts) are incredibly helpful. It’s one of the recommended accessibility fonts for anyone that may have difficulty with written words because all the letters look distinctly different and it’s harder to mix them up as you read. Genuinely out of the standard Microsoft fonts it is one of the best.

I love dunking on it as a meme font and everything, and I’m the first one to switch to it for a joke, but it legit improves readability massively.

If the comic sans trick helped you try setting your line spacing to 1.5 or greater, and play around with pastel page colours. You might find that you read/write better off a certain coloured page (mine is sunflower yellow, I have a friend who uses light blue and my partner prefers grey/black with white text). These are all common dyslexia accommodations but honestly I’ve seen them help non-dyslexic people too!

Tldr, accessibility accommodations are for everyone, regardless of whether you have a piece of paper that says you need it.

Anybody else got that Evergiven sized writers block

[pynkhues]

Hi Sophie! I’m an aspiring writer and I had a question for you!! How did you go on about finding an agent? Also how does one find job postings related to writing? (Tv, etc.) I’m very inspired by you and how talented you are!!!

Hi, anon! Thank you for your kind words, and it’s so exciting that you’re an aspiring writer! I think knowing that you want to write really is the first step on a pretty incredible journey, and it’s one that it helps have to have tools on. Knowing how to ask questions, like you did, is a great way to start building that toolkit too.

Especially because your writing toolkit will be something you build, because there’s not really one answer to either of your questions. I really mean it when I say writing and publishing is a journey, and as a part of that, the pathways people choose to take (and the pathways available to them) often vary a lot, and are impacted by so many things, from where you live to the genre and medium you write in to the networks you have access to.

I’m going to try to answer that for you as well as I can here which I hope will be a useful starting point for you, but I will be contextualizing it a bit with the fact that a) I’m in Australia, which has a bit of a different industry to many parts of the world (in no small part because we have a very small population), and b) that I worked in the industry before I started having my work published, which did give me a jump start and a pretty good network of professional and personal support.

Okay!

So let’s jump in.

Behind a cut because this got a bit long.

How did I get an agent?

Well! I was rejected by four agents before I got one, haha, so that in itself was a bit of an adventure. It meant that I was effectively my own agent for quite a while (something that’s quite normal in Australia for reasons I’ll talk about later), which meant doing everything from pitching works to teaching myself enough legal vocabulary to negotiate contracts (not my strong suit honestly, haha).

The first two agents I ever spoke to were both agents that weren’t open for unsolicited submissions. This is an important term in the industry, because what that means is that they’re not reading any new writers who:

they didn’t invite to submit (usually this would be after you’d won a prize, or they’d read your short story or essay in a journal or magazine, loved it and got in touch)

didn’t come recommended by colleagues; or

didn’t come through their existing networks.

Does that mean you can’t get your work in front of them? It doesn’t actually. Usually when agents aren’t open for unsolicited submissions, they’ll still be interested in work. It just usually means they don’t have the time for a massive slush pile. What they frequently do in these instances instead is that they’ll attend conferences, festivals, workshops or events and do pitching sessions a couple of times a year. That usually looks like you booking a five, ten or fifteen minute window, generally for free (be cautious if they’re charging extra on top of your event ticket) and doing a verbal pitch of your project.

I’ve done a lot of these at various events in various contexts (it’s always hell, haha), but only twice to agents. Once was at the CYA Conference in Brisbane (which is a charged pitch but the money’s a donation towards the Children’s Book Council), where I pitched a YA manuscript I’ve since put in my bottom-drawer, and Emerging Writers Festival in Melbourne, where I pitched The Rabbits, which is my novel which came out in July with Penguin Australia.

Those pitching sessions went just okay. Both liked my pitches, but the agent at CYA had a full stable of YA authors and was more looking for middle-grade fiction, which meant my story skewed too old. She gave me her card if I ever wrote for a younger audience, but otherwise declined to invite me to submit. Again, this is frequently actually why an agent might be closed to submissions or they might reject your work even if they like it – they're just at capacity with what you're pitching.

The one at EWF went better and I was invited to submit my complete manuscript, but she told me that while she thought I was a good writer, she didn’t personally like my writing style and therefore didn’t think she could sell it. She did actually invite me to submit something else if I had something more commercial, but I really figured that if she didn’t like my writing style, she probably wasn’t going to like whatever else I sent her, so I ended up declining because I thought it would be a waste of both our time.

The other two agents I submit to were both open for unsolicited submissions so I didn’t have to go through events. In both cases, I did cold submissions, which just means we’d never spoken before, so when you do that you need to put together a query packet because - - well. They don’t know who you are, haha. All publishers and agents have different requirements for their query packet and these should be listed on their website (if they’re not, feel really empowered to email and ask – in all of my industry experience, they have always infinitely preferred you doing that to guessing. It shows you know the etiquette and want to get it right).

Generally speaking though, what you're looking at pulling together for a packet is usually:

A cover letter explaining who you are, why you’re interested in them being your agent (being familiar with who else they represent is a good thing to highlight), and what story you’re selling them on.

A one-page synopsis of your manuscript.

A writing CV if you have one, or another relevant CV (i.e. if you're pitching a non-fiction book on being a nurse in the pandemic, attaching your nursing CV so they can see you're legitimate is important).

And usually either the first 50 pages or the first three chapters of your novel.

You generally email that to them, it goes into a slush pile, and they’ll read through it when they get the chance. I got a personalized rejection from one, which is pretty lovely (getting a personal rejection instead of one that’s clearly an email template from agents, editors and publishers might sound silly, but they’re actually pretty significant. These are people who get thousands of manuscripts a year, and taking the time to write a reply usually means your work resonated enough that they want to give you that encouragement even if the answer’s still no), and the other, I never heard back from, and my follow up email was ignored. Less lovely, haha, but unfortunately not uncommon.

So yeah, I took a bit of a break from seeking out an agent then, which I could do in Australia. One of the benefits of having a small industry here is that there’s a very limited number of agents (we’re talking literally about 25), which means submissions outside of agents and agencies are pretty normal. My understanding in the US and the UK is that you’re not really going to get a look-in without an agent, but in Australia you can submit direct, having an agent just makes it a lot easier.

So I didn’t have an agent when I actually got offered my book deal. I’d submit The Rabbits to a few different publishers, it had been rejected already by a couple and was still in the slush pile at one when I submit it to the Penguin Literary Prize. It won (yay!), Penguin offered me a book deal, and when the news broke in industry news, I was approached by six different agents, including, hilariously, the agent who said she didn’t like my writing style, haha.

I ended up talking to a few of them, but I went with a fairly new agent who I’d known through industry work, and I went with her because she had a really strong legal background which is what I was personally interested in.

Because that’s an important thing to consider too.

Why do you want an agent?

I actually knew that I didn’t really need an agent to sell my work. I’d been doing that for ten years already, I have over twenty short stories and a novella published, I’d sold my book, and I’d sold the rights to a screenplay already on my own, so the ability for an agent to sell work wasn’t so important to me. What was important to me was having someone who had a background in publishing law (my agent actually worked in the rights team in-house at a top five publisher before she became an agent), and understood rights management particularly in digital rights and international rights, because it makes my head spin, haha.

So that’s why I went with her!

But how do you find agents?

You didn’t ask this question exactly, but I think this is a very relevant question. There are databases of agents and publishers out there – Duotrope is probably the best known and I know people rave about it. One of the things that’s useful about it is that it’ll do a bit of a breakdown listing what genres the agent reads, if they’re currently open to unsolicited submissions, and their requirements. Take a look at Ginger Clark’s page for example (she’s not my agent – she’s American for starters, haha – but I have worked with her before and she’s a gem. Her most famous client is probably Ursula K. Le Guin, but she reps tons of other people too).

So yeah! Duotrope’s really useful. It has free info but also a paywall for certain things, and I personally find it kinda difficult to navigate?

I'd actually instead just recommend you take a look at writers you like and admire, especially ones who write similar genres to you, and just Google who their agent is. They all have websites, so they’re a lot easier to find these days than they were. 😊

How do you find job postings related to writing?

This is a tricky one, anon, as it depends on what sort of jobs you’re looking at. If you’re looking for copywriting opportunities, outlets for articles, short stories, poetry or essays, publishers who are posting open calls for manuscripts, or even cultural production jobs, those are all pretty different things. SO! I’m going to answer this one a little more broadly.

Writers Centres are your friends. Full disclaimer, I worked at one for five and a half years, and have been a member of Writers Victoria since I moved to Melbourne. They’re incredible resources for not only opportunities, but workshops, pitching, professional and creative development, community, networking and advice. They literally exist to help you achieve your goals.

- Writers Victoria maintains a free calendar of Opportunities and Competitions, but publishes more in their quarterly magazine which is a member perk. They’ll also often share job opportunities through their social media channels. I also still get the free e-news for Queensland Writers Centre and Writing NSW too because sometimes they share different stuff.

- I’ve heard Gotham Writers in New York is good too if you’re in America, but really I’d just suggest googling where you live and writers centre and seeing what comes up!

- Similarly festivals. I’ve worked at Brisbane Writers Festival and National Young Writers Festival here in Australia (the latter’s on online right now if you want to check out their free program!) Sign up to your local festival’s e-news, follow them on social media, they’ll usually share stuff.

- Speaking of! Social media! Haha. Twitter is often good for sharing jobs, competitions and opportunities, but I find it can be a bit of a cesspool too where people bombard the hashtags with self-promotion, so approach with caution. I find Facebook groups are way better for it personally, especially as there are a lot of specialized groups that are focused in certain or on certain writers. I know there’s lots for BIPOC writers for instance, I’m personally in a few and recommend:

Binders Full of WRITING JOBS

Binger Full of Copywriters

Style Binders – Writers in Fashion, Lifestyle and Beauty

Binder Full of Editors Seeking their Freelance Writers and Vice Versa

If you’re in Australia though, I’d especially recommend:

Women in Arts Management Collective (particularly if you’re interested in cultural production work)

Film and TV Networking Australia

Melbourne Women in Film

Writers Victoria Members

Australian Binder Full of Women Writers

Australian Arts Amidst COVID-19

Young Australian Writers

I think most of these are searchable, so just have a look, but also google your city or state + writer and see what pops up.

Otherwise, as much as it sucks to say it, a lot of the industry is who you know, so try and find ways to connect and meet with people and forge your own little community. Go to events – festivals, book launches, book clubs, join Facebook groups and in particular, if there are journals or magazines that are made in your local area, go to their launches and the events they run, no matter how big or small, and just chat to people there. As you get more established, you can be more discerning about what you go to, but when you're starting out, these are powderkegs of community and connection, and they breed suppport and, if you find the right people, you'll grow and develop together too.

Being a writer can often be pretty lonely, but being a part of supportive industry really makes all the difference, and as an old mentor of mine said – creative karma is real. You support the people coming up around you, and you’ll not only be creating a better, more inclusive and welcoming industry, but an industry that supports you right back. 😊

[sadiered]

to you, i’ll give the world

The first anniversary gift is paper. Well, it’s paper in the United States, and that’s where Brittany and Santana Lopez-Pierce live. Honestly, it was not something that Brittany even cared about it any of the first million times that she heard about it. People talk all the time twenty five is supposed to be silver and fifty is gold.

It’s kind of cool to think about fifty years. One of the amazing things about getting married at nineteen is that, in fifty years, they’ll won’t even be 70. Well, they’ll be 69--wanky--so not that far off, but it’s still close. Fifty years seems utterly achievable.

The shitty thing about getting married at nineteen is that buying anniversary presents on a twenty year old student’s salary is next to impossible. But, luckily, even when things are rough because Brittany’s classes are hard and Santana gets snippy when she’s stressed and the jobs they have to work are irritating at best and degrading at worst, even when the sink is clogged again and neither of them have the energy to cook or the spare cash for take out, at the end of the day, they have each other and the love language they’ve been wearing into each other since before they had the words to call it that.

It means that when Santana sits down on the other side of the table, back held a little too straight, hand placed just so on the edge of the table, legs crossed primly at the ankle and eyes tracking along the (ratty, worn, and slightly crooked) cabinets in their kitchen, Brittany pays attention. Santana wants to say something that matters, but she doesn’t want to admit that it matters to her.

“I saw this article today…” she begins, the tips of her fingers rippling, belaying just a touch of the energy she’s feeling.

“Yeah?” Brittany says, maintaining her own casual air, so as to not scare Santana away from the idea that she’s been growing.

“Yeah. It was about the gifts you get for people. You know, for each of their anniversaries. It was talking about how in the UK it’s cotton for the first year, but it’s paper here.” Her eyes flash towards Brittany’s for just a moment, brown and deep and Brittany has to try to not kiss her.

“Paper, huh?” Brittany says, anything more clever delayed for a moment by how pretty her wife is, and the fact that she actually gets to call her my wife.

“Yeah. Kinda silly, huh?” Santana says.

“Kinda cool,” Brittany counters with a grin. The sun comes out with Santana’s dimples, an understanding passing between them.

At first, finding something paper seems impossible, but soon Brittany realizes the problem is that she’s spending too much time trying to think about it the way a typical person would. She’s got to let herself think outside of the box.

It’s getting uncomfortably close when she realizes that photographs are printed on paper. By their anniversary (bitterly biting cold, more than a foot of snow dumped on the ground), she’s got a wrapped frame in the back of the spare closet. University is cancelled, the universe giving them their own little present, but they wouldn’t have gone anyway. Instead, they spend the morning in the cool grey light that filters through heavy clouds, an air thick with fat snowflakes, and the gauzy cream colored curtains that Santana had picked out when the first moved in.

Much of the morning is filled with the press of mouths and fingers, skin rosy pink with need and heat, slick and sweat and a slow burn of passion. Some of it is just the peace of lying close enough to feel each other’s hearts thrumming through chests and fingers, the rise and fall of lungs, and the steady beat of life and love. Eventually, they’re hungry in a way that they can’t satisfy by making love, so they pull on sweatpants and oversized sweaters (and thick wool socks for Santana, who’s always a little cold, and thin ones with cat faces for Brittany, who needs a bit of whimsy) and scrounge up breakfast.

True, it’s more kissing than cooking, but by the end, they’ve had plenty.

They end up fielding a few phone calls--their parents, Santana’s abuela, Brittany’s sister. Mercedes and Sam, Mike, Quinn, Sugar, and a few of their school friends have texted or made posts on instagram, so they respond to those as well.

Then, they might as well do presents, so Brittany pulls out the package and Santana climbs on a chair to pull a perfectly wrapped present from one of their less-used cupboards. It’s obvious what Brittany’s present is, but it doesn’t change the delight and emotion on Santana’s face when she unwraps a large photo of the two of them. It’s from their honeymoon. Brittany had snapped hundreds of pictures, but this had been one of her favorites from the moment that it had come up on the screen.

Brittany had set the camera on the bar of the restaurant they were in (with the assurance of their neighbor that he’d keep an eye on it), and set the camera to go off every twenty seconds or so. Then, they danced to the music. It’d been a slow song, and Brittany couldn’t help forgetting the camera, just pulling Santana into her. In the photo, she’d been pressing a kiss to Santana’s forehead, eyelashes and sunshine freckles stark in the black and white print. Santana’s dimples were sunk deep into her cheek, her face was peaceful and happy, and her dark eyes, liquid pools, were staring straight at the camera. They looked utterly happy, a moment of joy and tranquility in the chaos around them.

They kiss for long enough that Brittany almost forgets she has her own present to open. It’s a beautiful planner/journal, a sky blue leather cover held closed with a golden ribbon and Brittany is already in awe of it, until Santana encourages her to open it, and she finds that Santana has littered the entire calendar with small words of encouragement for her. Special dates are wreathed in hearts or the cutest little birthday cakes. She lets it fall open to a random week and finds, in Santana’s neat writing: Never forget how much I love you. You are the most brilliant person I know, and anyone who doesn’t understand that isn’t smart enough to see it.

They’re both a little teary eyed by the end, and a new tradition is born.

The second year is cotton, so they talk about it and decide to get away from the chill of New York for a week, buying each other cotton sundresses that they wear on the beaches of Mexico.

The third year is leather. Brittany goes out of the box and buys them tickets to see Fleetwood Mac in concert. They are the guardian angels of their relationship after all. Santana goes into the gutter and buys them a couple of things that result in a really great time.

The fourth year, Brittany knows what she wants to do, and it’s not something she can surprise Santana with. A few weeks before their anniversary, she asks Santana if she’d get a tattoo together. Santana thinks about it and does her research, but she ends up agreeing.

They work with the artist to create a delicate tattoo of tiny blue hydrangeas, white lilies, and, at the heart of it, a little songbird. Brittany gets it on the inside of her wrist, Santana on the back of her shoulder.

It hurts, but it’s manageable, particularly because the other one spends the whole time holding her wife’s hand and talking her through it.

After, they go to get ice cream: strawberry for Santana and pineapple-banana-blueberry for Brittany. Santana can't stop admiring Brittany’s tattoo, hers covered by the sweater she has on to keep out the chill of ice cream and February air.

“It’s going to be hard to top this next year,” Brittany says around a mouthful of strawberry she stole from Santana. She notices the shift in Santana’s posture at her comment. They’re sitting on the same side of the table and Brittany has her left arm resting on the back of Santana’s chair, the right one with her sleeve pushed up digging into ice cream and gesturing with the spoon.

Even if they weren’t so close, another four years has made Brittany even more adept at catching that straight back, her eyes adverting, the too-carefully-casual appearance of nonchalance. Santana has something important to say.

“I don’t know, I had an idea,” Santana said, scraping carefully at the edge of her ice cream to keep a drip of pink ice cream from falling to the table. “Fifth year is wood, so--” she paused to take a breath, “--what about a crib?”

The pink drop made its escape, falling to the table, but Santana didn’t notice, too deep in a kiss with her wife.

[poorreputation]

SPN 1X01 Pilot Retrospective Meta

Tag list for old episodes meta! (let me know if you wanna be tagged):

@emblue-sparks @metafest @verobatto-angelxhunter @evvvissticante @dea-stiel @sudo-apt-get-destiel @wildligia (tumbler’s not letting me tag you, sorry)

Pre re-watch notes/things to touch on:

Comparing the Woman in White to John, Sam and Mary/hindsight notes.

S1 motivations vs. S14/15 endgame.

Episode Notes:

Written by: Eric Kripke

Directed by: David Nutter

A long post, so I will put it behind the cut.

Lawrence, Kansas

22 years ago

We begin our tale with Mary bringing Dean into Sam's nursery to say goodnight. John enters the room, and in a nice bit of short-hand, he's wearing a USMC (United States Marine Corps) shirt, showing John was a soldier.

There's a shot of Mary and John in a picture. We already know they're married, so why is it here?

Mary thinks it's John in the nursery, only to find him asleep in the living room in front of the TV. (again, a connection to John's past, he's fallen asleep watching a war movie)

Something that'll become a continuity issue, later in the show: Mary's many years of experience being a Hunter, only to not recognize the flickering of lights as a sign of trouble.

Of course, Mary's wearing a white gown, (white is usually seen as a pure color/ of purity, but in this instance a connection to the Woman in White/see Jess later)

Mary's dead, and everyone involved is scarred for life.

The look on John's face, as we finish the Lawrence sequence, is that of a broken man, who's seen something that will eat away at his mind.

Stanford University Present Day (2005)

Okay, the first image we see of Jess is her in a nurse's costume, white with red trimming. Jess also has medium length curly blond hair. Guys, she looks like Mary, especially in Mary's death scene (white gown, covered in blood). 

We focus in on the picture of Mary and John for visual shorthand, confirming this is a grown-up Sam.

We establish Sam is "scary" smart, has aspirations of becoming a lawyer, and has a job interview on Monday.

Jess: "Knock 'em dead on Monday." laying it on thick, Kripke.

Sam: "What would I do without you?"

Jess: "Crash and burn."

*smooch*

Damn you, Kripke.

Night scene, and holy shit, why do Sam and Jess have so many plants? Why doesn't future Sam have plants in the bunker, you know, something low maintenance?

Dean, why the fuck can't you use the door? Or a phone?

From the get-go, Dean's cocky, suffers from eldest sibling syndrome, and is a shameless horn-dog.

Sam: "He's on a Miller time shift." See, when I first watched the pilot, years ago, I didn't realize this was Sam implying John was a drunk. These things would just fly over my head.

Sam wants to make a point of including Jess in the conversation, of being honest. And yet, the moment Dean says John is on a hunt and hasn't returned, that honesty goes right out the window. More on that later.

Sam and Dean's exposition dump in the hallway, a part of me feels it's an odd way to catch the audience up to speed, while the other part of me knows this is how families argue when they spend most of their time biting their tongues. Sam especially seems the type to mull over his thoughts, storing away comebacks for the perfect moment when they'll be most effective (like later in the episode). Also, it's been years since the brothers have seen each other (we're told later it's been at least 2 years since Dean bothered Sam), they're so icy towards one another.

Sam: "You think Mom would've wanted this for us?" we'd find this out later in S4, but, no. Funny enough, maybe if Mary shared her knowledge of Hunting, something more could've been done (foreshadowing).

Dean: "What're you gonna do? Just live some normal, apple pie life?" Dean, if you'd only taken your own advice, we could've avoided S6.

Sam, paraphrasing John: "If you're gonna go, stay gone." Well, that's only very emotionally manipulative.It does, however, remind me of the U.S. military’s views on those dishonorably discharged, and since John raised them as "warriors", it's not a stretch to think, in a time of crisis, John treated his sons as soldiers.

Dean: "I can't do this alone."

Sam: "Yes, you can."

Dean: "Yeah, well, I don't want to."

This exchange, this vulnerability from Dean, after his initial introduction of being a cocky asshole who hits on his brother's girlfriend, shows just how much of a facade Dean's attitude is. In the end, he's a kid scared of losing his Dad.

It's this vulnerability that convinces Sam to listen.

Come the fuck on, "I can never go home." after we establish Sam left John and Dean, left Hunting behind, and was told to never come back (home). KRIPKE. YOU'RE *not* SUBTLE.

2 years, Dean says, since they last talked. Either Sam entered college late, (20 rather than 18) or Sam and Dean kept in touch even after Sam and John's blow-out fight.

Again, Jess pries for more info, and Sam changes the subject. Nope, that’s not gonna bite him in the ass, at all.

Jericho, California

(insert biblical/wrestling reference here)

We meet monster fodder, I mean, some random dude, who tells his girlfriend Amy over the phone he can't see her that night. He slows down to a stop and picks up the Woman in White.

Anyway, another example of a young woman with curly, medium length hair in a white gown/dress. I mean, her house even looks a bit like John and Mary's old place.

We get a brief, blurry shot of the Woman in White and her kids. Sorry, but if you're familiar with the legend of her/La Llorona, it's easy to see where this is going.

Oh, and whatshisface is dead.

Chips and soda. Breakfast of champions.

Sam's being a real sassy bitch about how Dean and John get their funds. I get it, world-building for the audience, bit it shows just how passive aggressive Sam is in these early seasons; Dean's clearly playing moderator between Sam and an absent John.

Sam: "Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Metalica? It's the greatest hits of mullet rock." Sam, it's not Dean's fault you have poor taste. Shut your cakehole.

Sam: "Sammy's a chubby 12 year old." or, it's what a big brother says to his infant sibling to calm him down, oh wait.

Monster bait's name is Troy. Yeah, I don't care.

Dean sassing the officer and Sam stomping Dean's foot. Yep, they're brothers. This interaction is where their chemistry really starts to shine through.

Amy and her friend are peak mid-2000's goths/emos, good lord.

Dean's "I told you so" smart-ass look as the friend shares the rumors in town, he's such an older sibling.

They... they never tell Amy what happened to her asshole boyfriend, huh? Well. Sucks for Amy.

Researching on a public library computer, fucking hell. (nothing wrong with that, I’ve worked in a public library, but they’re doing super-secret Hunter’s stuff in such a public place)

Have it paused on a photo of Constance Welch, the Woman in White, and the article mentions her husband's exact line of work; associate manager who works the graveyard shift at Frontier auto salvage. Gives me shades of Bobby, who also lost his wife under tragic circumstances.

A mother leaves her child unattended, comes back to check on them, tragedy strikes. Or, so the story goes.

Dean confronts Sam about living a life of willful ignorance, and even asks if Jess knows the truth. Sam makes it clear she doesn't and he intends it to stay that way, as Dean sarcastically quips, "That's healthy".

Really, the more I think about it, the more S6 feels like the inverse of S1; Dean tries to live a normal life, Sam comes stomping in to rain on his parade. Lisa is kept largely in the dark about Dean's past, and gets hurt because of it.

Dean: "You can pretend all you want, Sammy, but sooner or later, you're gonna have to face up to who you are."

Sam: "And who's that?"

Dean: "One of us."

Sam: "No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life."

Sam thinks Dean's just talking about Hunting, but Dean means more than that, he means family. One of us, Dad and me, a Hunter and a Winchester.

Sam: "Mom's not coming back." and so on about how he doesn’t even remember Mary, doesn’t share John’s obsession. 

Dean: "No chick flick moments." Dean, dude, bro, you're the one who started this by breaking into Sam's place like a dramatic bitch, and then proceeded to give life/relationship advice. It's already a chick flick.

John's room being covered head-to-toe in case notes, only to come to the obvious conclusion it's the Woman in White. But, Sam said, because of the salt line, John was worried. Now, as far as I can remember, John was never a target of this spirit, so, I think he was paranoid about Yellow Eyes. After all, John had notes on devils/demons up, too, so maybe. I could be wrong.

There's something amusing about Sam and Dean's first duo Hunt, one without John, includes one of them getting arrested. Just, how rare that happens in the rest of the show, compared to how many laws they break daily.

Sam talks to Joseph Welch, who seems to wear the same clothes as Bobby. Also, Sam looks like a giant standing next to him.

Joseph lies to Sam's face about his and Constance's marriage, and it takes Sam a moment to work up the nerve to call him out on it. Or, it's Sam losing his temper. They're dealing with a murderous ghost, after all, and this guy wants to hide the truth.

Sam's done with lying witnesses, and now he's making fake calls to the cops. Gloves are OFF.

So, it's revealed John's purposefully leaving Sam and Dean clues, the journal, and the coordinates, but won't outright tell the truth.

Sam: "I'm not unfaithful. I've never been." See, Sam, that's only in the cheating department. You are, however, keeping Jess in the dark about dangerous stuff. Can any relationship with such big lies every be a faithful one?

Again, the imagery of the flickering lights. A standard in the show later for when a ghost's around, but considering all the visual parallels between the Woman in White and Mary, I think it's intentional.

That CGI of the ghosts vanishing was kinda shit, though. So is the sound of water swirling down a drain, I'm now just thinking of a toilet.

Dean: "I'll take you home." and there, in an episode where the ghost is afraid to go home and face the consequences of their actions, Sam too must go back to Jess.

Sam discovering Jess' body on the ceiling, as the room's engulfed in flames, never fails to give me chills. Hot damn.

Post Episode Notes:

While the pilot is a treasure trove of world building, plotting of character arcs, and chemistry between Jared and Jensen, it still doesn't make up for the fact it's bookended with 2 women getting fridged. Mary and Jess don't get to be characters, only fuel for man-pain, and argue with me all you want, but Mary's send-off in S14 is far superior to what she got in the pilot.

I remember seeing Kripke discuss how many drafts they went through while writing the pilot, and it feels like that at quite a few points. Like maybe the sheriff was to get more time, or Troy's father, who I believe is a cop, would've been more vital to the plot. And Amy, who'll spend who knows how many weeks and months putting up missing person posters for Troy.

I believe Kripke also said they'd considered killing John at the end, rather than Jess. I think, and this is pure speculation, the more they went into the lore for the Woman in White, the more they knew Jess had to die. I don't like it, wish they could've done it different, but it fits the story they wanted to tell.

The Woman in White, John, Mary and Sam, in hindsight

It's a retcon from S4, but if Mary was honest with John about her past as a Hunter, maybe they'd have a better chance with fighting Azazel. It's tragically paralleled to Sam not telling Jess about his own past, which may have prevented her death. And while you could say Heaven and Hell would still have their way, and shape Sam and Dean the way they want to, I'd like to think, given the chance, free will could prevail, And, look at how often keeping secrets is framed as one of the worst things the characters could do to each other?

Additionally, if John had been honest with Sam and Dean about what he wanted them to do, and what kind of danger they were really in, maybe Sam wouldn't have left Jess alone.

Thank you for reading this monstrosity of a meta, I hope you enjoyed/found it interesting!

[rachelthompsonauthor]

Writing fears suck, don’t they? If you’re a writer, you have them, no matter where you are in your career. Yet writing fears are especially ominous when you’re first starting out. The endless loop of:

What if I’m not good enough?

What if people hate my book?

What if someone gets hurt by my book?

What if people write horrible reviews?

What if what I think is good is just crap?

and on it goes.

I can fully relate. I didn’t start my writing career until my forties (I’m 55 now) for many of those same reasons. I also didn’t know how to start – what’s the proper, right way to start? To publish? To market? It’s overwhelming for someone just starting out, especially if that someone is super process-oriented like me.

Are These Fears Valid?

Of course, they are. All feelings are valid, even if they aren’t always logical (like toddlers in the sandbox, thinking and feeling don’t always get along or agree). For more on this, here’s an article you might find helpful from Scribed Media: 6 Writing Fears and How to Beat Them. 

I work with many writers (as both a survivor and advocate, as well as in my BadRedhead Media business) who don’t give themselves permission to write because of these fears. Here’s what helped me – and it’s so simple it’s almost stupid. A quote. One quote. I’m almost embarrassed to share how enormous an effect that one little quote had on me; how it freed me from my mental fear prison, yet it did.

From Lorrie Moore, author and professor, via a widely quoted interview in Elle Magazine

“Compared with her students, who are often still deeply involved with their parents, Moore says she had a more formal, old-fashioned relationship with hers—which helped her make the “romantic and bloody-minded” decision to commit wholly to her art when she started writing seriously in college. (“The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, `Write something you’d never show your mother or father.‘ And you know what they say?” she says, wide-eyed with disbelief.” `I could never do that!'”).

That’s it. I wasn’t even a college student – I was a full-grown adult with my own kids. There I sat with a pen and paper (okay, computer laptop) on my desk, journals at the side, ready to write about uncomfortable truths. Sexual topics. Surviving sexual abuse, sexual interactions with past lovers, relationships, PTSD, triggers, and other ‘things’ you don’t typically talk to your own parents about.

And I thought: Geez, Rach. You’re forty-fucking years old. Stop thinking about what other people will think (Nonfiction Writing 101: You cannot know what someone else thinks – only what you think). So, I went for it.

You’re an adult. Write like one. 

And with that, I started to write my first memoir/poetry book, Broken Pieces.

Drawer Of Fears

Take a piece of paper (I suggest a page in your journal or in your online notepad). Write down your list of writing fears. Write down everything you’re afraid of, whether it’s based in reality or sounds like something full of magical fairy dust. Whatever it is, write it down. Pages and pages, or three little bullet points. Whatever.

Okay? When you’re done, come on back. Oh, be sure to print out what we’ll call your Page Of Fears.

***

Good, you’re back. Now take that piece of paper with all your fears and put it away in your Drawer of Fears. Make sure that drawer has a lock (or needs a password). Physically give them a kiss, and tell them goodbye.

Don’t worry! They’ll still be there. You can visit them anytime you want to. However, for now, I want you to know that you have cleared them from your mind and body. Kinda like burning sage but without the burning. Or the sage.

Writers cannot write around clutter. It’s a known fact.

Let Go Of Your Perfection Fears

Your first draft is where you start. Your first draft of whatever it is that you want to write. You may not even know and that’s okay.

This stumped me at first. And when I say stumped, I mean I did not move from the doing anything about with my writing stage for years. Where do I start? How do I structure my writing? Don’t professional writers have official outlines and plots and characters with histories and plots all devised, etc? Well, sure, some do. However, some don’t. Plotters vs. Pantsers, etc.

This entire thought process alone sent me into Analysis Paralysis. What’s the right way?

As a creative nonfiction writer, I didn’t know how I wanted to format my writing. I did kinda sorta know my thematic structure (which, by the way, completely changed after my first developmental edit) – I also knew I planned to work with a structural (aka, developmental) editor, so I took that fear (see point number two) of how to make it “perfect” in the end, put that in my Drawer of Fear, and wrote what I refer to as my word vomit.

Just Start Writing

Nobody will see what you are writing unless you want them to. I repeat: nobody will see what you’re writing unless you want them to. It could take you a month, a year, or several years before you reach the point where your writing is in publishable condition.

Your ‘shitty first draft’ needs to be free-flowing, non-self-edited crapadoodle. You hear me, you little perfectionistic drones? Give yourself permission to purge your words. 

It doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to make any sense which, honestly, is why journaling is so great. It’s a wonderful mental purge and can be a great stepping-off point to your writing. (Need help getting started? Visit the fabulous Leigh Shulman. She’s got a free plan for you.)

Your first draft is not even your dress-rehearsal. It’s more like…practice. It’s just a draft. It could take 30 or 50 or 100 or 300 drafts before it becomes a book.

Then you keep at it. Writing isn’t a walk in the park. It’s work. It’s a job. It’s a career if you decide to make it one and you’re good at it. And you work hard to become a better writer. Whether you believe in the 10,000 hours concept or the old ‘How do I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice,’ joke – either way, the only way to become a better writer is to learn how to become a better writer.

How did I get better? Even though I took a number of classes growing up (in high school and college), I didn’t feel that prepared me for how I wanted to write now. So, I read a ton of creative nonfiction books (some of my favorites are below) in the style that appealed to me. I took online classes that helped me improve my writing. I went to readings by writers I admired (most are free or cost the price of the book).

I continued journaling (as I had been since I was a kid). And I continued writing – all kinds of stuff – articles, short stories, poetry, ideas for articles, short stories, and poems. And I began blogging (in 2008). Blogging absolutely makes you a better writer and I’ll fight anybody who says otherwise. Rawr.

Investing in myself helped me get over my fears. To face my fears. To crush my fears.

Don’t Forget About Your Fears Completely

Everything I mentioned above took time. Just about every writer I’ve ever met wants their first book to be a massive bestseller right away, pay off all their bills with the royalties, sit on Oprah’s couch because of it, and have everyone reading it on the train a la Fifty Shades.

That’s all great. How are you going to make that happen?

Have realistic expectations. Have a plan. Write the most fantastic, professional book you can. Figure out what you don’t know about not only writing but also marketing and publishing, and then learn.

Above anything else, deal with your fears. They’ll still be in that drawer, waiting for you. Just like trauma, your fears don’t magically disappear because you’ve set them aside. They’ll pop up like that whack-a-mole game, except now you’ll have experience and time to hit them back with.

And yet…I don’t recommend hitting your fears back like an enemy. Change that paradigm. Make friends with them. How can your fears help you? What is it about a specific fear that’s got you so wound up?

Sometimes, it’s what we fear most that motivates us.

Just as I discuss how I made friends with Shame in my fourth book, Broken Places, do the same with your Page of Fears. Make your fear work for you so you can become the writer you want to be. You’ve lived through so much, writer friends! You can absolutely write about it.

I know you have it in you.

  Here is a list of my personal favorite creative nonfiction books (disclosure: affiliate links provided).* I also recommend reading short stories by Raymond Carver. He’s a master storyteller.

*Note: These are not books about writing creative nonfiction. That’s a future post.

Calypso by David Sedaris

Night by Elie Wiesel

First, We Make The Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety by Sarah Wilson

Cathedral by Raymond Carver

The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

The post How To Crush Your Writing Fears Right Now appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

via Rachel Thompson

[loljulie]

flicker; {002} it echoes a spark

(here’s the next part of my deviant!connor x reader fanfic. you can read part 1 here if you’ve missed it. things start to pick up here and will continue to do so in the next part! feedback is appreciated as always and i hope you guys enjoy! love you!)

genre: detroit: become human

deviant!connor x reader

word count: 1860

Empty boxes of Chinese takeout littered your coffee table as your eyes scanned through the article on your tablet. It was almost 10pm, and since you had gotten off work only an hour and a half earlier, the cheap dinner would have to do. Outside, a gentle rain poured against your apartment window, making you feel even drowsier than usual.

A sudden knocking at your apartment door broke the comfortable silence you were cloaked in. You slowly placed the tablet on the table in front of you and cautiously approached the door. There was nothing that sounded good about someone knocking on your door at 10 o’clock.

In the time you had taken to approach the door, the outsider knocked again, and spoke.

“Lieutenant (Y/L/N), it’s me, Connor,” the voice called. You let out a breath you had been holding, glad to find that it wasn’t some serial killer, and unlocked the door.

“Connor, what are you doing here?” You asked, the door cracked just enough for you to be able to make eye contact with the android.

“I came by to discuss the investigation. I know we discussed it days ago, but new developments made this meeting urgent and necessary.”

You had to suppress a groan. When Connor hadn’t showed up three days ago to discuss your personal notes on the deviants, you were full of relief. You were hoping that his own research and investigation would’ve been enough to work with.

“Alright, come in,” You opened the door to let him in and made sure to lock it behind him. “You can have a seat on the couch.”

You had to stop yourself from asking Connor if he wanted anything to drink as you watched him sit down on your worn couch. By the way his eyes moved across the room, you could tell he was piecing together tiny bits of information about you.

As you made your way to the couch, you suddenly realized the clothes you were in. The oversized shirt you usually threw on when you got home was stained with orange sauce and bits of rice, and your pajama shorts were too inappropriate for a colleague to see you in.

“Uh, just a moment,” you exclaimed hastily before disappearing into your bedroom. Drawers were flung open as you quickly pieced together a more appropriate, but still casual, outfit that consisted of a blank tee and black athletic pants. On your way out of your bedroom, you grabbed your journal from atop the desk.

When you joined Connor on the couch, you gave the both of you a comfortable distance from each other, and began to flick through the pages of your journal.

“You didn’t have to change, Lieutenant,” Connor remarked as you silently read your notes.

“Please, (Y/N) is fine. We aren’t at work,” you replied, your eyes still scanning your handwriting on the pages. “And I definitely had to. Human or not, impressions still matter.”

Connor didn’t argue and instead let you read. You furrowed your eyebrows as time ticked by, wishing you didn’t have to impart your hard work to Connor. While it may not be much to him, the journal had been your focus for 9 months. Most people don’t take their work home like you did, and it was unfair and frustrating to have to give it up.

“You know,” you finally spoke after a few more moments of silence, “these notes are kinda all over the place. If you want, I can work on a summary and give it to you tomorrow.”

“(Y/N), I don’t mind the state they’re in. Anything would help with this investigation,” Connor declared, matching your stare. He continued, his voice sounding lower and more desperate. “Another deviant escaped from me today. It was either chase after him or help Hank up, and I had to help Hank.”

Connor lowered his gaze, as if unable to look you in the eyes. Was he ashamed? “I just need any information you have that can help me. I can’t fail this mission.”

Your mouth was dry as you processed what he said. You didn’t know much about how androids worked, but you would’ve guessed that Connor would chase the deviant regardless. If Connor really was at a loss with the investigation, then maybe it was time for you to impart some of your knowledge onto him. Besides, he saved Hank, so you thought of it as a sort of  reward for the android.

A long  breath escaped your lungs before you spoke again.

“Before I tell you what I think, I have to be honest with you,” you claimed. Your fingers idly ran over the cover of the closed journal. “These… explanations I’ve been coming up with over the past few months have taken a lot of time and devotion.”

You paused, trying to find the right words to say. “I was hesitant to share any of this with you because, well, I don’t want it to be stolen from me. I was actually hoping this work would get me on the case with Hank, but, well…”

You shook your head, as if to empty it of the thought, and continued. “I’m going to tell you what I know, in all honesty, okay? I may be completely wrong about all of this, but there is a chance that I could be right about some things. If I am… I hope that it helps your investigation. For the public’s sake.”

Connor nodded, signalling you to proceed. You took a deep breath before you went on.

“Deviancy is… well, it’s hard to understand. To the world, it’s random and unpredictable, and that’s what scares the public. I personally don’t think it’s that difficult. Keep in mind, I could be entirely wrong about this, but I think deviancy isn’t random. It can happen to every single android out in the world.”

Connor raised an eyebrow at you, but stayed silent.

“You make a machine in the perfect image of a human, make it talk and act like a human, and let it live amongst humans. Eventually, they’ll feel like humans. I think sometimes it occurs in an instant, sort of like the android reaching a breaking point. In some cases with the deviant homicides, you usually find that there was a struggle initiated by the owner and the deviant defended itself.”

“But… other times, I think it’s gradual. Small moments here and there that shape an android’s experience with the world. They choose to do something they really shouldn’t do according to their programming, and little by little, they become independent from their code.”

You paused to let Connor process what you’ve poured out. His LED flashed yellow for a few moments before he spoke again.

“Androids can’t feel like humans, because they can’t feel anything, not even pain. Emotion is a human capability,” he finally commented.

“A lot of people think that emotions are a big thing that separate androids from humans, but I disagree. Emotions are largely physiological and really aren’t that complicated to stimulate. Just smiling can make a human feel happier, did you know that? I mean, androids are so complex and created to serve humans and essentially be a - a different version of humanity, that it doesn’t seem impossible for them to feel the same things humans do.”

Connor stayed silent, his LED flashing yellow. Taking a chance to hopefully demonstrate your point better, you reached out your hand and placed it on Connor’s cheek, causing him to stare into your eyes.

“You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to, but think about what you’re feeling right now,” you articulated, your soft hand taking in the feel of his synthetic skin. You had never actually touched an android before, and the sensation was more pleasant than you assumed it would be.

“I feel your hand on my cheek. It’s warm.” Connor affirmed. You smiled.

“Yes, physically that is what you’re feeling. But is it unpleasant? Uncomfortable? Comforting? It doesn’t take a human to understand those emotions, lesser animals have experienced the same things.”

Connor didn’t say anything. Your smile softened as you let your hand slowly leave his face. Before it could drop, however, Connor’s own hand wrapped around your wrist and brought your hand back to its spot on his cheek.

You must’ve stayed like that for an eternity, the both of you staring into each other’s eyes as your hand cupped Connor’s cheek. The only sound that could be heard was the soft drops of rain hitting the glass windows. You didn’t know who moved first, but there was a part of you that believed your actions were synced as the distance between you and Connor lessened and lessened.

When his lips collided onto yours, your hand instinctively moved to the back of his neck. You felt a hand rest on your waist, keeping you both locked in the embrace. His lips were soft and felt real, and his actions perfectly matched yours. You almost forgot he wasn’t human. When you had to break apart to catch your breath, you instantly wished you were like him and didn’t have to.

Your chest rose and fell with the hurried puffs of air you were inhaling. When moments passed and the only sound was still your inhaling, you decided to speak. “I, uh… is it okay if we do that?”

Maybe it was a dumb question to ask, but you didn’t know if Connor could get in trouble for something he wasn’t programmed to do.

“As long as you want it, I can do whatever you wish.” He addressed.

“What?” You asked, the smile on your face slowly fading.

“I mean that I am designed to serve. If that is how I can serve you, then I am allowed to do it.”

Your heart stopped at that answer, and your blood ran cold. Connor’s voice was so matter-of-fact and devoid of any emotion that it stung. A moment ago, you could’ve sworn you had felt something entirely different in his actions. But now, he seemed even more guarded and distant. More… like a machine. You felt instantly embarrassed. Had you read the situation wrong? Did your own feelings project onto him?

Hot tears threatened to leave your eyes. “Connor, I think you should leave.”

“Are you sure? If there are still more notes you have regarding -”

“Just go. We can talk tomorrow, at work.” Your tone was cold and sharp, demanding that nothing else be said on the matter. As Connor stood and left your apartment, you kept your eyes trained on the thread lines of your couch.

The door closed, and with it, a new silence filled your living room. It was far different from the comfortable, warm one you had enjoyed before Connor came by. This silence was lonely, cold, and felt as if it was suffocating you. The more you stayed in it, the more it fed your guilt and shame. Its terrible void was deafening. Finally, unable to bear any more of it, you retreated into your bedroom and let sleep’s embrace save you.

[lupismaris]

Illegitemus non carborundum est

Also known as The Chef!AU cat has posted about occasionally. I elt like shit all day and yesterday and somehow words happened. Idk how much of this will be finished but at the very least, have the first chapter or some amusement.

James is a Chef/pub owner, John’s a freelance author and novelist

eventual silverflinthamiltons 

__

Chapter 1

Over the years, the one thing that John Silver had come to appreciate most about London was the multitude of cafes, coffee shops, and pubs that populated the city. Without fail, he had managed to find a little hole in the wall best suited to very possible situation, dates, business lunches, catching up with old friends, the awkward break up. 

Sometimes a cafe was better, the calmer, at times more elegant tone of the place adding to the scolding his sister might be giving him, or making him appear more put together when meeting with a publisher. Other times a coffee shop with old wooden booths and simple menus were best, when the only thing needed was caffeine and quiet. And on nights when writers block and insomnia decided to team up on him, well there was always a pub or ten within walking distance of the tube station. 

The only trouble was, out of all the spots he’d been, a regular haunt had eluded him. Nothing felt quite right, nothing offered the right balance of all three, at least on the list of fifty or so places he tried. And often he and Jack, and their little circle of friends, stuck to their usual routine of places, rotating through them now and then to give the illusion of something fresh and different. But genuine change, a true meander off the beaten path was rare.

So when Jack recommended they meet at a new place for lunch, John was curious. Jack had always preferred The Scarlet Brewhouse on the other side of the river, or The Wolfhound near Covent Garden when he had a bit more change in his pocket. John couldn’t remember if they’d explored the pubs and shops near Boroughs Market before, or at least not consciously- he’d been one one to many pub crawls with Jack and Charles, of which his memory was foggy and limited. Perhaps that had been when Jack had found this new spot, The Walrus.

Who’d name a pub after so random an animal John had no idea, likely an inside joke of the owners. But then in a city with a few dozen public houses referencing cocks and princes, he supposed it was no more nor less suited than any other.

The corporate lunch crowd of the two o’clock hour had thankfully moved along, leaving the entrance to the Market far less crowded than the last time John had visited. It was an easy thing to spot Jack in his violet bomber jacket waiting on the curb with a cigarette in hand. John laughed at the sight of Charles next to him, three butterfly closures on his bruised forehead and a plaster splint on his nose.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

Charles grumbled and rolled his eyes. “Nothing-”

“He’s the reason we didn’t go to Scarlet’s I’m afraid,” Jack said with a put upon sigh.

“Did you get banned?”

“No he knows better than that. He started a fight down in whitechapel last night, with the pair of fellows who run this walrus place.”

Charles sneered, but it was a weak thing, with the bandage on his nose. “They started it.”

“Technically you threw the first punch, and in an effort to avoid them pressing any kind of charges, we are escorting Charles to go and apologize, while you and I enjoy our lunch, john. If that’s alright with you.”

“As if I’d say no to lunch and free entertainment. You realize it’s just as likely that charles will just start round two while we’re there, don’t you?” John asked as they turned down the side street and headed for the bank of the river.

“If he wants to get laid in the next month he damned well better not.”

“I take it Ellie is equally as mad about this?”

The sheepish look on Charles’ face made it clear he hadn’t yet told his occasional girlfriend about it. “She’s busy with exams. Didn’t wanna bother her.”

“No so I’m just left to deal with you.” Jack finished his cigarette and tossed it. “It’s a good thing you’re a good lay, charles.”

John rolled his eyes, it was an old nonsensical performance the two carried on, that they only enjoyed each other’s company for sex. Even a complete and utter stranger could take one look at them and realize they were effectively joined at the hip till the grave, them and Anne of course, Jack’s sometimes girlfriend but always partner he’d known since childhood.

“Anne not partaking in your humiliation?”

“She’s got a photoshoot scheduled up in Cambridge today, won’t be back till after dinner. Otherwise she’d be front row with her camera ready to catch this idiot having to apologize for once in his life.”

“I still say they started it.” Charles insisted.

“What was it even about?” John asked.

“Haven’t got a clue.”

Having been present for more than one of Charles’ notorious bar fights, John could easily believe that the whole point of the argument had been lost in the fray. All it took was a couple extra shots and a poorly timed joke in bad taste and charles was ready and willing to answer it with a right hook.

“Here we are, now behave charles or so help me-”

The Walrus looked, at face value, like every other hundred year old pub in the city, with the worn and re-painted wood framed windows and moulding around the door, a few iron tables and chairs sat outside to look across the street at the river and the opposing bank.

“Did you actually bother reading up on this place before dragging us out here jack?”

Jack huffed indignantly. “Yes I read up on it, I’d not pick a place without at least skimming the reviews. They’ve got nearly four stars on every possible review and the staff is gorgeous.”

“I’d care more about the food.”

“Well they said the food was good too.” Jack nudged Charles inside and waved John in after him.

It was a cozy setting, dark wood and white washed walls, old nautical art pieces hung here and there on the wall amidst old trophies and antiques, like many of the pubs along the river. It had the benefit of large front windows that made the place feel airy, instead of the cave like atmosphere of so many other places. Twenty tables or so were scattered about the room, the large oak bar extended to offer both kitchen side seating and barside.

The man at the bar looked up when they entered to greet them, but the moment he caught sight of Charles his put upon smile faded.

“Uh-”

“Hi we’re looking for a man named Flint?” Jack asked, as John settled into one of the empty tables in the window.

“What for?”

“My friend here caused him a bit of trouble last night and wanted to apologise.”

The bartender seemed to doubt that very much but nodded and turned to the kitchen. “Hey flint! You’ve got a visitor!”

“I’m not here.” came the gruff and uninterested reply.

“I think its the guy who decked you last night.”

John startled when a mountain of a man leaned against the kitchen door frame, apron slung around his hips and a healing split lip turned up with a smile. “Yeah it's him, flint. What do you want then?”

Charles glared at him until Jack sighed and shoved him forward to the bar.

“To apologise, and make sure there’s no hard feelings.” He said, ignoring the sour look Charles gave him.

The mountain blinked in surprise, and looked back over his shoulder, no doubt to where this Flint was debating whether or not to accept. Apparently he was willing to hear the apology, after a muttered reply, the mountain huffed and waved charles behind the counter.

“Flint’s got his hands a bit tied up, c’mon back.” He said and Charles followed after Jack again pushed him forward.

“I swear to god if he starts another fight I’m going to scream,” Jack said on a sigh, dropping into the seat across from john.

“If he does, at least the place’s is pretty quiet.” Aside from them, only two regulars sat at the bar, and half a dozen patrons at the tables further away. Hardy enough to cause a frenzy if a fight broke out.

“No need to worry, Flint won’t start a fight in his own house,” The bartender said, coming over with a trio of water glasses and menus. “If I’m honest I was surprised he got in a fight at all last night.”

“Is he not normally a hotheaded man then?” Jack asked.

“Oh he is, just the type more likely to jump you outside the pub rather than in. Wasn’t there so I dunno what was said but it must’ve been something.”

“I’m normally there but I had a deadline last night, couldn’t go out, thought Charles might be capable of coming home in one piece but here we are.”

“Ah well, we can only do our best with em can’t we? I’m Muldoon, lemme know when you want to order or if you want any drinks.” He was a short, genial looking man, with clever eyes and a well trimmed beard. The heavy brogue in his accent made John smile.

“We’ll take two of whatever cocktails you make best,” jack told him. “I’m going to need a few once this affair is over.”

“give me five minutes, they’ll be right up.”

“Did your deadline not go as well as you hoped?” John asked, when the bartender was back at work.

Jack waved a hand. “Who the hell knows, its submitted and the publication can decide whether or not its fit to run. With my luck I’ll have it sent back to me drowning in red ink and chunks of black out.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t write so many pieces on back door deals the whitehall bastards make, or how fucked the cops are, maybe then you’ll get more work published.” John pointed out, even though he knew the answer he’d receive. Jack was as invested in his journalism as John was in his novels, and the day Jack gave up his life of ruining rich and powerful people’s lives, would likely be the day they buried him.

“Ah but then, what kinda man am I, to ignore truth in exchange for a fat paycheck?” Jack chuckled. “Besides they’ve enough useless reporters amongst the london press, and when have I ever been one of the flock?”

“Never. They’re still giving you a few articles to work on outside of your pet projects aren’t they?”

“Yeah some nonsense about the men’s fashion expected at the next royal wedding or some shit. This is what happens when you’re the only fucker in the building who knows how to dress properly, they stick you with all the fashion editorials.”

John laughed at the disgusted look on Jack’s face. “To be fair, you have kind of brought it on yourself. How many times have you lectured your coworkers on their lack of fashion sense?”

“Look if these straight men want to get fucked then they need to dress better than a fucking-”

“Drinks, gents. On the house.” Muldoon set the glasses down with practiced ease, timing his interruption well.

“On the house?” John asked.

“To commemorate both Flint’s getting his face broken and your man getting his face broken, and yet being civil enough to apologize.” Muldoon said. “Or because you’re the most interesting part of my day thus far.”

“I may fall in love with you sir.” Jack smiled up at him.

“Sorry love, gonna have to take that up with Billy.”

Jack tilted his head and looked to where Muldoon nodded- The hulking blonde still leaning against the doorframe, his back to them. “Ha! In that case my dear it will be a chivalrous love from afar.”

Muldoon laughed, a bright burst of sound that caught the attention of the blonde, Billy. He glanced over his shoulder, at first with a curious frown, but one that easily melted into a fond smile as he watched them. He glanced back at the kitchen and seemed satisfied that hell wasn’t going to break out, so he turned and round the bar, coming to join muldoon beside their table.

“You’ll be glad to know your man’s behaving himself,” Billy said with that same wry smile he wore earlier.

“Thank fuck.” Jack groaned softly. “You were the other one weren’t you, last night?”

“I was yeah, though to be fair it was just a misunderstanding. Neither of us hold any ill will towards- charles was it?”

“Vane yes, charles vane. I was honestly worried you might press charges.”

Billy scoffed. “Flint would rather fight him ten times over then get the cops involved, don’t worry.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“A few guys was bothering a couple of kids in the pub, being general shits. Flint had already started getting involved, before I could really stop him. Your man escalated it to a fight, or tried to, Flint tried to stop him, the guys who originally started the fight got a couple shots in and bailed by the time the three of us and finished causing trouble.” billy shrugs. “Like I said, a misunderstanding.”

John laughed softly. “Yeah sounds like charles.”

“Hes otherwise a great drinking mate though, I’d happily end up in a brawl with him again-” Billy looked up at the ding of a bell, the kitchen calling him back. “Sorry, duty calls.”

“Well at least it wasn’t something genuinely awful, I feel a tad bad about being so cross with him.” Jack mused, after muldoon had taken their orders.

“Nah, I’m sure he half expects it these days.”

They swapped stories of the work week, little things they’d forgotten to share via text while they waited for their food. As neighbors and close friends, John was always surprised how much they had to talk about, as he and Jack saw each other nearly every other day, unless work ran them down. Of course it helped that Anne’s girlfriend was John’s sister.

Charles rejoined them just after their food had been set out, looking dazed and uneasy.

“What happened?”

“I… think I got a job?” Charles said after a moment, as if he wasn’t sure.

Jack choked on his drink. “What?”

“He… he said he needed help at the bar, and was willing to teach me kitchen shit if I was willing to learn. And I just… said yeah why not?” Charles currently worked for his so-called father figure, as part of the security detail the company employed after hours. It didn’t take a genius to sort out how unhappy Charles was there. “Teach cut my hours a good bit recently, I’ve got the time, and the pay’s better, actually.”

The two stared at him a moment, before John started to laugh. “Only you could fucking deck a dude and get a job out of it, jesus christ.”

“I- I can’t even begin to process this but- that’s good? I think? Or at least a much better outcome than I’d expected…” Jack shook his head. “Whatever am I going to do with you…”

Charles smiled as brightly as he could with the plaster on his face and snatched the pickle off Jack’s plate. “No doubt you’ll think of something.”

They saw nothing of this Flint during their lunch, though they did get to chat a bit more with Muldoon and Billy before leaving. All John saw was a flash of red hair through the kitchen doorway as the man passed, red hair pulled up in a high messy bun and freckled arms.

But that, and his reception of Charles, was enough to pique his and Jack’s curiosity.

It had seemed they’d found a new haunt after all.

[take-my-revolution]

yeah so there’s this thing

where i’ve gotten older but definitely no wiser.

how to sum up the year?  it started ok.  i really think it did, but it could just be the brain fog.

then increased anxiety.

then lowered energy

then i couldn’t lose weight no matter how well i ate and i was walking 7+ miles a day

then i got the dry mouth.

then i got even less energy

then i couldn’t sleep

shortly thereafter i didn’t want to eat any more

it’s all been downhill from there, man.  oh, the doctors whose time i have wasted.  oh, the doctors who have wasted mine.  the hoops i have jumped through! to be taken seriously.  heaven forbid that a fat woman with depression have any sort of actual medical issue.

and now it’s the day before thanksgiving, and i’m impatiently waiting for blood work results that should have come in on friday.  they’ll either say: congrats, babe, you’ve got cushings syndome! or they’ll say: this test was inconclusive and we need to...do more tests.  well, that is what the results will say TO ME, because i know how to research stuff.  my doctor does not.  he says that if i suppress AT ALL on a low dose overnight dexamethasone test, that means definitively, i don’t have cushings.  i did send him the article from some journal of endocrinology that points out that some cushings patients can still suppress.

my life is kind of crappy these days, you could say.  you could say really crappy, actually, and you’d be totally right.  i wouldn’t correct you if you said it was ultra-crappy.

maybe i should do some schadenfreude research into other sorts of brain tumors.  make myself feel better about my potential brain tumor.  because, i mean, really, except for the part where it destroys your pituitary gland’s ability to function, it’s not so bad, right? it’s small.  it’s not malignant.  they generally don’t have to crack your skull open to get it out.  best brain tumor ever, right?

except where the part where it destroys your pituitary gland’s ability to function.  i mean, i’m thinking most people with brain tumors have what, like, terrible headaches, and maybe nosebleeds, and maybe seizures and poor vision...okay that does sound unpleasant, right, but what i’m saying is at least their endocrine system can still function, right?  like there’s a zillion hormones that run your body and maybe three of mine are working right. 

i mean, i take a ton of pills.  i did before, and now i take more, because i have to take a pill 4 times a day to make my mouth salivate properly.  i have to take a pill to keep my heart from beating 120 bpm at rest and my blood pressure being through the roof.  i have to take a pill to pathetically try to convince my insulin/glucagon balance to be anywhere near normal.  i have to take a pill to sleep at night, because otherwise i will lie awake--not obsessing or anything, just awake, until 4:30 am whereupon i go to sleep for...two hours.  i may need more pills because i’m crying most of the time and when i’m not i’m super irritated by everything.  they can’t give me anything to boost my energy because that would make my heart beat even faster, and apparently no one cares that i’m never hungry because they’re like, she’s fat anyway, whatever, not like she’ll die of starvation if she doesn’t eat for a few days.  (or two months because that’s how long it’s been since i felt hungry) wait don’t forget i also have to take pills to make me poop because my digestion doesn’t work, AND pills to lower my stomach acid because that’s out of whack too.

kinda makes you wonder how many different pills they were going to prescribe me before somebody put two and two (more like ten and ten) together and said, hmm i wonder if this person doesn’t actually have a broader issue?  do you think all these symptoms that appeared at roughly the same time could possibly be related?

crazy talk.

anyhoo, i’m sure i’ll have lots to say soon about the goddamn struggle that is trying to get a diagnosis.  i may have to keep book on how long it’ll take to see an endocrinologist.  hey, i gotta make money somehow.  what do you think?  a month? two? that’s peachy, i’ll just be chilling over here, trying not to die.  that’s what i do most of the time. 

my first estimate was that i’d get scheduled for surgery in january, but i think that’s overly optimistic.  november’s pretty much over.  still gotta do some other tests, and get an mri, and pray that it shows something, and THEN get scheduled for surgery.  and if i have to wait a month to talk to an endocrinologist, well, yeah.

nobody treats brain tumors any more with the seriousness they deserve, amirite?

ooh also guess what i’m probably immunosuppressed which means if i get covid i could die!  yay! 

[actuallyschizoid]

Hello! I am not diagnosed with SPD, however I do identify my personality traits with many of the ones of SPD, especially covert SPD. I am aware that personality disorders are extremes of normal personality traits and what not. Do you have any stories about how where diagnosed and how you found out? I am very interested in this though I don't think I am 100p SPD I think it is interesting to see how ones personality pings out so to say. This ask might be a bit vague so answer as you want.

[Schizoid Sanctuary]

I’ve posted something about my own diagnoses before, pretty sure it’s somewhere in diagnosis tag or something related. But in short: at some point I intentionally googled local psycho-pros who at least knows what schizoid is. 

Found this old man who even had a bunch of articles written about us, as well as lots of info about personality disorders in general. He had all the required education and licenses, etc and seemed to be a rather well know. 

Side effect was that he was goddamn expensive. But I knew I only needed to see him once to confirm what I already was pretty sure at and just needed an external professional point of view to exclude I was biased. 

Yeah, that wasn’t much likely to begin with, but hey, I was still young at the time, 22 or so I think (30 atm). And guess what? When I asked him whether it’s likely I have schizoid PD, he said that’s as obvious as it gets to him by the time our meeting was over, but at first glance he suspected I was plain and simple schizophrenic. 

I.e. to him it was never the question of whether I’m on schizo-spectrum or not. It was only how far down I am. So I could’ve saved those money with about same result, but tbh I’ve little regrets about it. At least it saved me some doubts.

Now, I’ve asked folks on discord to describe their experience with getting diagnosed, and here’s more stories:

Sam: My therapist just kind of told me during our last session. I asked what she thought my diagnoses were and she was like ‘well I don’t like to drop bombs at the end of working with someone but I think you have schizoid personality disorder’

puracatbum: My psych had to google spd so I can’t help with this question. Yeah well my psych was free because I’m lucky to live in a country where that’s possible. Though since she’s free she mostly works with depression and anxiety with kids. I want to pay for a different one but.. eh not sure if there’s a point at this stage in my life

.: so this was about, maybe 2 years ago now. i met a girl freshman year of highschool and we kinda talked on and off all throughout highschool. i had crushes on her on and off. she dated, lots of guys. and after every one of them she would come crying to me. so i was total friend zoned. and during the summer before college we finally hooked up after 4 years of trying. 

she has bpd, so she was my complete opposite emotionally. but we worked rather perfectly. we spent the entire summer together. if i wasnt at work, i was with her. we were together constantly. throughout all the stupid fucking shit she wanted to do. i was pretty much living my life through her. kind of like a parasite.but when college came, we couldnt ever see eachother anymore. 

she has a history of cheating. with every boyfriend she ever had, she cheated. so my paranoia sky rocketed. i thought she was fucking guys all the time. because that was just her nature. it drove me mad. literally mad. i was angry 24/7. just uncontrollable anger. it was getting out of hand, and i knew i was going to explode. so i started a journal, but that didnt really help. 

so i decided to seek a school councillor, because it was free. and i didnt have to go anywhere. it kind of helped. i wasnt angry 24/7 but i still had my underlying impluses, and i still had my bad explosions at times.eventually we broke up. and she stopped talking to me, and i just exploded. at the time i saw her as my property. 

she was mine. and i hate losing my property. i couldnt stand losing something i had worked so hard to achieve. and i expressed this very morbidily and kafkaesk in my journal. but at the same time i was afraid of what i would become. i didnt want to go down that path, sooo i showed the woman my journal. 

and needless to say, that didnt go well. lol not well at all.she flipped shit, called some agency. they sent someone down to interview me, i showed them my book. and i was given a choice. i could drop out, seek treatment on my own, and everything would be forgotten. or i could go with the agency, go through a deep pysch eval, but continue school. 

so obviously i said fuck that, and dropped out. saw a bunch of different people around here. until i finally saw the last guy i had. and after awhile my anger vanished, and i went back to the void i was. i was empty before we broke up, and after a few months i was empty again. and thus i got diagnosed schizoid pd, with antisocial tendencies.

What I’d like to add to all of this is that schizoid PD is one of the hardest disorders to get accurate official diagnoses for. Because the thing is… it’s not often diagnosed. A lot of solid professionals have very little understanding about how to diagnose it. 

That might be because schizoids aren’t likely to seek help to begin with and they rarely have enough practice working with us. Also even if they get to see a schizoid, it’s often hard to tell they are because, well… y’know, most being covert and aren’t that talkative about their inner problems. Often schizoids get misdiagnosed as schizophrenic, autistic, anxiety, depression, bipolar, avoidant, antisocial, etc etc etc… 

On another hand, schizoids have this tendency to be very aware of what they are. Much more so than most people in general. Schizoid often spend way too much time inside their head, pondering over why they are this way, self-reflecting, analyzing themselves. If they know how to google, it’s very likely eventually they’ll stumble over schizoid pd. 

They might start with slightly related things that are easy to mistake. Like from the list above or e.g. MBTI-like stuff, finding out that they’re INTP/J (most commonly), or that they’re alexythymic and so on. But eventually if they keep searching, they might get self-diagnosed as schizoid with accuracy no available psychiatrist would ever provide. 

[schizoid discord]

[wildniqht-blog]

hello, hello! i am slowly starting to get my pages done. so far all i did was work on connections though. which i thought was good enough for now (i’ll just finish when i’m done typing out this intro). aNYWAY, hello to you all~ my name’s hazel, i’m currently 21 yo, i live in est, and i love dogs (and cats, but i prefer dogs over cats). i’m reeeaallly excited about this rp, except i applied kinda late bc i totally forgot the rp was opening up for apps around 2pm and was like welp. but i’m still glad to be here!! and i’m rly happy to be playing layla again as well as a new chara. if you’d like to know more about them, just go ahead and click the read more.

now, if you’d like to plot, pls like this post & i’ll IM you!

LAYLA MADISON EVANS (death tw & child abuse, but i don’t go into much details).

• she has lived in New Haven, CT for most of her life and everything was normal and okay, but her father passed away when she was eight years old. • after that, her mom began to treat her differently, more terribly such as ignoring her. and the only thing her mom would say as an excuse was because layla reminds her of her father. so essentially, layla had to learn to take care of herself. she eventually learned how to cook and get a job once she was old enough, but she’d also clean around the house. • continuing on with her younger years, she liked doing ballet and taking lessons, but soon stopped after her father passed away because it would just remind her of her dad and it would make her sad. nonetheless, layla still enjoys dancing, she just rarely does anything with ballet. • as she grew older, she became more sad that she never really grew up with a parent to look up to and was sad to feel that she didn’t have that person to talk to when she got home. all she felt like she had were her friends and a childhood friend’s family. • due to the sadness, she began to drink at a young age and partied out a lot to the point where she was almost expelled.  • sooner than later though, she cleaned up her act and studied hard to do something with her life. which she became a yale student and graduated in journalism because of how much she likes to write. what she wants to become is something within writing. whether it’s becoming an author, writing articles for a newspaper, or writing for a magazine. even all three would be great for her. • other than that. she really enjoys the beach. she loves the sand, the water, swimming, and surfing. and she also likes trying out new things. one thing she doesn’t know how to do though is ride a bike. whereas she took boxing lessons instead. • while her most prized possession is a necklace her dad gave before he passed away. • there’s more about her past relationship, but that story’s for another day • oh, she also still loves to party and drink, but doesn’t do it often. she also likes having sex 👍

• how did she get to new york, you ask? well, her mother eventually moved away from new haven because she didn’t see much around town and decided to step up to new york. that’s where her career and step-dad comes into the picture. • originally, i wanted them to be married, but decided that they’ll be engaged for now instead because i’d rather play through layla’s feels on how the wedding might go since she’s not fond of her mother. • her step dad wanted to meet layla, so a reason why he asked his fiance to bring layla to nyc. at first, layla was unsure about it, but became curious and agreed then realized how rich he was. • as for career, layla’s mom later became a famous fashion designer and takes pride in it. which, unfortunately for layla, she doesn’t care much about her mother still and is bitter about what she did to her. • but taking everything in, that’s probably going to be difficult for layla considering her mom wants her to do this and that while layla isn’t used to being told what to do and would rather not be told. plus, after being told by her mom, layla has a great desire to not do it and go against her mom’s wishes • so she’s been on the news once already for being wild at a dinner party before. she knows it’s childish, but she can’t help it. • basically, layla new to this rich life because she’s just been used to being in the lower class and likes the rich life, but doesn’t like being told what to do.

• she is my bby and i adore her • also, her sexuality is heterosexual, but she’s also open minded

LAYLA’S MW CONNECTIONS

• sibling-like friends: basically someone she can look up to as an older sibling or someone she treats like a younger sibling • partner in crime: since layla loves causing pranks in general and causing scenes to her mom, maybe she sometimes involves a partner in crime to her ideas • childhood friends or enemies: i know her being in new haven might be a bit difficult for her to find childhood friends or enemies, but maybe this childhood person could have traveled a lot and somehow they met when they were young? • love/hate: a person she basically argues with, but also really cares about • friends with benefits: p self explanatory • exes on bad terms: okay so, this can go multiple ways, but one way in particular is that layla’s cheated on one of her exes (a boy, specifically) • unrequited love: self explanatory. it could be maybe shes not into someone but that someones into her or vice versa • enemies with benefits: also p self explanatory • friends turned enemies: maybe she betrayed someone or they betrayed her?

more connections can be found here!

VANESSA CORTEZ

• she’s a new muse so i’m still thinking of how she’ll be played out • father is a ceo (haven’t decided the company yet) and owns multiple properties • mother is a famous model • has trust issues • tends to distance herself • is v flirtatious and also enjoys sex, but prefers hook-ups rather than fwbs • tends to fight with her mom and is more close with her dad • doesn’t rly have a clue as to what she wants to do bc she’s thought about taking over her father’s work, but has also thought about becoming an actress • will work on her more in the future • she’s also bisexual

[smallblanketfort]

How did you get diagnosed with bpd? Did you suspect it before? How did you deal with it? Did you feel like anything changed after a diagnosis? Do you feel like people treat you differently when they know you have it? How do you deal with all the negativity around the diagnosis? ps: sorry for so many questions

it’s okay. i feel like a smart person would say, come off anon and let’s chat, but u know what, i’ll totally embarrass myself for the common good. oh man.

short answers. click keep reading for the in depth, tmi answers.

How did you get diagnosed with bpd? Did you suspect it before? short answer: self dx followed by psych. yes. kind of.

How did you deal with it?short answer: i feel like i’m still “dealing” with the diagnosis, and my stance on it changes constantly lol, but probably better in the beginning. it didn’t really change a ton for me, bc i felt like it was just a word for what i had already been experiencing. i decided not to tell anyone, so i didn’t feel like things had changed. at the same time i refused to believe it. i have tables and tables of notes in my journals, trying to convince myself in and out of it. i did know that to be healthy, i needed to acknowledge it. i tried.

Did you feel like anything changed after a diagnosis?short answer: it brought some clarity, some understanding and validation, that i think really helped me. sometimes it brought hopelessness, sometimes motivation. i mean, i was still the same person, just with a label. it started me on a road i referred to as resurfacing.

Do you feel like people treat you differently when they know you have it?short answer: depends on the person and how much they care about you as a person.

How do you deal with all the negativity around the diagnosis?short answer: i dont lol

babe i hope this helps a bit and idk. im being honest here, so idk how much comfort is here, but if you find any, good. be safe. lmk if you have other questions! happy to answer.

How did you get diagnosed with bpd? Did you suspect it before? short answer: self dx followed by psych. yes.long answer: i had a slight mental breakdown in uhhhh fall 2015-january 2016, and i work at the library which slows down in the winter. i was going a little nuts with nothing to do one day in late december/early january, so i planted myself in the mental health section and read all the requirements in dsm-iv book for mental disorders. i think i was half curious and half knew something was wrong. i had dealt with depression and anxiety in the past, but i felt mentally dizzy all the time, if that makes sense. just generally unstable and lost and worried. Not Okay. self harming and finding comfort in it. i was totally bleary going through my daily life and i felt extremely unstable in my relationships. i also was trying to work through this whole hallucination/voice in my head thing that sparked it in september(?). so i remember taking these books to the break room and taking these convoluted notes on tiny scraps of paper, trying to make sense of what was happening. i found the notes a couple weeks ago, and it was really weird, but i was so careful about it. i really didn’t want to feel like i had anything, but i was getting desperate. i would copy out the requirements and tally up what i had. i remember contemplating a couple things i knew i could diagnoses with by a doctor who didn’t care, like avoidant pd, but i realized it was definitely not the one, at all. when i read bpd, it took my breath away. i was shocked, bc it was like reading a book about myself. i remember getting goosebumps, and shaking. i spent months researching and researching it, trying to convince myself i didn’t fit the criteria. at the time i was in several psych classes, and one of my professors had us write a 15+ page paper about our own life and psych development. it was hella weird, but i ended up pouring myself into it and my psych prof, who runs his own practice was like “Lol yeah omg” and we chatted a bit and sure enough, i am most likely a bpd bug. i’m not “formally” diagnosed but i have talked to several psychologists at my universities about it and they’re all like “lmao yeeeah” so

How did you deal with it?short answer: i feel like i’m still “dealing” with the diagnosis, and my stance on it changes constantly lol, but probably better in the beginning. it didn’t really change a ton for me, bc i felt like it was just a word for what i had already been experiencing. i decided not to tell anyone, so i didn’t feel like things had changed. at the same time i refused to believe it. i have tables and tables of notes in my journals, trying to convince myself in and out of it. i did know that to be healthy, i needed to acknowledge it. i tried.long answer: idk!? like on one hand i was relieved like “okay so this is a thing with a name, now i can start attacking it. i was really good at mood tracking for about 6 months. no more lol. anyway, i still go through acceptance/denial cycles constantly. just today, i decided to watch youtube videos about it to prove to myself that i didn’t have bpd. my reaction? o shit i guess i have bpd. every couple weeks ill come across an article or video or something about it and they’ll talk about other quirks of bpd and it’s so accurate it’s scary. but kinda cool (like perceptions of time and such that dont really hurt anything, but i thought everyone had. whoops. just my bpd showing again lol) it’s like when i climbed over a wooden fence in colorado and realized i had a sliver in my leg and then when i got it out, i realized i had another sliver in my leg and then when i got it out i realized i had another sliver in m-and so on. it never stops really. maybe it’d help if i told more ppl. idk. 

Did you feel like anything changed after a diagnosis?short answer: it brought some clarity, some understanding and validation, that i think really helped me. sometimes it brought hopelessness, sometimes motivation. i mean, i was still the same person, just with a label. it started me on a road i referred to as resurfacing.long answer: i mean, i was still the same person, just with a label. it definitely brought gravity to it. sometimes it made me hopeless (can you even recover from a personality disorder?), but sometimes it brought me hope bc i wasn’t alone and there are coping methods made esp for me. it helped me understand myself and why i did what i did. it helped me be more proactive, and im getting better at it. it helped me accept some of my quirks, and helped me communicate. it’s a constant learning process like battle.

Do you feel like people treat you differently when they know you have it?short answer: depends on the person and how much they care about you as a person.long answer: lmao so like i haven’t told my parents yet, didnt have to since i was over 18. lately my mom is becoming more aware tho i think, and she’s being really supportive. my friends (irl and online, they all know) are really supportive and patient and encouraging and kind. they’re so great. the two ppl i dated since were lovely. about a month after diagnosis, however, i told my boyfriend of the time whose only response was “why didn’t you tell me this before i got emotionally attached to you?” :-) THAT fucked me up, but i still think it’s fair. lately im super worried about it though. 

How do you deal with all the negativity around the diagnosis?short answer: i dont lollong answer: so i had never heard of it before 2016 sooo i actually don’t really know about the stigmas even now? i try really hard not to hear about any of it, bc if i do, im going to shrivel and not have the confidence to be open about it, which really helps me and my relationships. being open about it is what destroys the stigma. at the same time, im totally terrified of telling my family for some reason. my mom used to say anxiety was a hat i put on, bc she was a nurse in the mental ward, so her view of mental illness is basically of non to low functioning people. she;s a lot more supportive and validating of it now but idk i cant.OKAY ALSO negativity with recovery high key sucks. for a solid year i was convinced that there’s no recovery and i’ll probably kill myself before im 27, im so screwed blah blah blah, but then i FINALLY starting finding resources that consistently said 50% of adults find themselves recovered after ten years. im also really working hard on self care and coping rn. making good choices for myself to hopefully stay as healthy and happy as possible.

lmk if you have other questions!

xo

[actual-leia-organa]

Huddy ofc but real huddy not the crap david shore huddy

Right @macsturbating apologies first up because you sent this before my trip and I just never sat down and answered it because I’m a lazy shit tbh but now Im trying to write fic and I’m stuck so you get this instead

((Also holy shit it got really long so I’m apologising in advance))

Who said “I love you” first - trick answer. House said it first, but Cuddy was fast asleep and didn’t hear him, and he’d never admit to it anyway, and was shocked at himself for it slipping out. He hadn’t said it since Stacy, but watching Cuddy peacefully sleep, curled up beside him, the words felt like the most natural thing in the word. The first to say it when both of them are awake is Cuddy, after tearing herself up for a week about whether she was ready to say those words and whether House was ready to hear them. Once they were said, he accepted it in his typical Housian way, no “I love you too”- not for a long time. And whilst they both knew the love was there, they weren’t constantly showering “I love you”s on each other, because that’s not how they operate.

Who would have the other’s picture as their phone background - well, Cuddy would want a photo of them as her background, but would fight with herself as to whether that meshes with her ultra-professional-at-all-times appearance. And she’d have pictures of them- the two of them, as well as ‘family’ shots with Rach, filling up her camera roll, and eventually on display in her office, but I don’t think she’d ever have her lockscreen as a personal photo. Ditto with House- he’d think he’d gone soft, and that everyone else would also think he’d gone soft. Plus, the photos on his camera roll would absolutely be like terrible sneak shots of Cuddy asleep and half snoring, or her with smudged make up on a Saturday morning, or that time she split coffee down her blouse when she was running late, and a multitude of photos that would make her squeal House delete that! (Which she also screamed at him after he managed some sneaky lingerie shots, because, well, he’s House) As well as stacks of Rachel selfies when he’d let her play Fruit Ninja on his phone. And instead of having Cuddy/Him + Cuddy/Him + Cuddy + the Spawn as his lockscreen he’d select the absolutely worst photo he had of Cuddy to appear whenever she called him.

Who leaves notes written in fog on the bathroom mirror - well fingerprints make stubborn ass marks on mirrors and windows, so there is no way in hell Cuddy would be doing that. That’s purely a House behaviour, and one she tries to train out of him, because he’d shower and leave some dirty message on her mirror, and once the fog cleared there would be smudges on the mirror and that would be all she could see when doing her make up, and she would guiltily apologise to her cleaner about the “state of the bathroom mirror” but the tables are turned when they’re having some fun in the shower and she leaves handprints on the shower screen. Those she can smirk at, because of the memories with them.

Who buys the other cheesy gifts - more like who steals the other cheesy gifts, because its canon that this is House. Cuddy would stress herself senseless over gifts for him- he’s curated his environment, both at work and at home, and has very particular interests. There’s only so many vintage medical texts you can buy your significant other. She would only do gifts on significant occasions, versus House who would saunter home with a stuffed toy because it reminded me of you or to say sorry for the procedure I’m about to ask for. He would also buy the most amazing gifts for Rachel, to the point where Cuddy would worry he was outright spoiling her, only to realise that was how he would best express affection- he struggled to voice his feelings, was often physically distant, but with gifts he had no issues. On special occasions though he could give a perfect gift- perfectly suited to the receiver, and often a unique or sentimental object.

Who initiated the first kiss - this one’s a double hitter, because there were two “first kisses” in my mind- Michigan and Help Me. And Cuddy instigated them both (get it gurl). Michigan, she’d encountered the blue-eyed enigmatic genius in the bookstore, his eyes burning hers as he scanned her schedule and summed her up in 10 seconds. She’d followed him to endocrinology, he’d followed her to the party, although he’d never admit it. Greg House doesn’t follow girls. He especially doesn’t follow under-grads. But somehow he found himself at the party, where the music was terrible, and too loud, and the beer approaching flat and tepid. But when he caught the swing of her hips as she strolled through the kitchen it suddenly seemed worth it. And when she grabbed his arm on her way past, well, he was a sure thing. He couldn’t even tell you the first song they danced to, he was so entranced by watching her move. The musician in him appreciated how she seemed to just move with the rhythm, but the man in him appreciated how her hips swayed, how her hands felt as they left glancing touches on his arms, how her lips parted as she mouthed the words. But the beat slowed, and there they were, her hands resting on his shoulders as his hands settled on her petite waist. He could definitely tell you this song, its burned into his memory along with every move they made. As Time After Time faded into silence, his hands loosened and slid down to her hips, as her hands laced behind his head and pulled it down, as Cuddy raised up on her toes to press her lips to his. He could taste her cherry gloss, she could taste the cheap beer he’d been downing, but as they both leaned into it suddenly nothing else existed but them. He breathlessly asked her if she wanted to get out of there, and she felt full of daring when she replied “your place or mine?”. That was how they found themselves falling into Cuddy’s bed, half naked with clothes strewn around. And when he didn’t call the next day, Cuddy tried to act like it was nothing, just a casual one night stand, when inside she was mourning all that she’d hoped for. And so the kiss at the end of Help Me was Cuddy giving in, letting college-Cuddy try and realise her dream of a relationship- a real, grown up relationship- with Gregory House. But unlike college, where she roughly grabbed his head and smashed their faces together, this is an older, wiser, more experienced Lisa Cuddy, and as she reaches for his face she smiles softly as he leans into her touch, his stubble gently scratching her palm. She runs her hand through his thinning hair and he willingly lowers to meet her. It’s soft, and mutual, and a little hesitant, as if neither of them can believe they’re truly at this place, but each feeling like the twenty years it took to get there were totally worth it.

Who kisses the other awake in the morning - depends on your definition of morning. House’s sleep schedule is…the opposite of a schedule. He’ll stay awake for 3 days straight on a case, then sleep for 2. He’ll stay awake until 3am reading a journal article, be woken by Cuddy at 5am, then catch catnaps in the clinic. So there’s two answers here. If “morning” is any time after midnight, the answer is House. He’ll sit in the lounge, engrossed in the latest neurology journal, barely tearing his eyes away as Cuddy kisses him goodnight on her way to bed. He’ll finish the article at close to 3am, and slowly limp down the hallway, pausing in the doorway to watch Cuddy sleep, smiling at how she hugs his pillow in his absence. He’ll change for bed, and softly sit, leaning over to gently press a kiss to Cuddy’s lips, feeling her respond as she’s pulled from sleep, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him down to her. Once they settle in together, Cuddy’s alarm will go off at 5am sharp, causing House to groan as Cuddy stretches out like a cat next to him, always turning to gently kiss him, as if apologising for the disturbance. He’ll always respond, but then its anyone’s guess as whether he’ll fully awaken or roll over and snore within seconds.

Who starts tickle fights - House. He discovered in college just how ticklish Lisa Cuddy is, and the adorable giggle she lets out when tickled. He also kinda likes how it feels when she squirms against him and that exasperated “House!” she puffs out whilst trying to fight him. He’ll usually do it when they’ve been settled in together and he feels his distinct brand of boredom set in- which seems it coincide with every time Cuddy wants to relax with a BBC boxset. They’ll be on the couch, cozied up, an hour into the latest period drama, when House would slide his hand down her side and start to tickle just below her ribs. She’d push his hand away with an annoyed huff, but within 5 minutes it would be back, and she’d be giggling and squirming enough for him to get the other side. The only reason it doesn’t become a full out tickle war is that House only has one weak spot- the soles of his feet. And the one time Cuddy tried it she caused his thigh to spasm as he pulled away, making for a very sudden end to their tickle fight, and their entire plan for the evening. He’ll pretend to be ticklish for Rachel though, when she attempts to tickle him by poking at his ribs, something Cuddy is eternally grateful for- she loves when he plays along with Rach.

Who asks who if they can join the other in the shower - well, House would never ask, he’d just barge in. Especially at Cuddy’s house, where the shower is spacious enough for them to get creative. So this one goes to Cuddy, who shyly asks may I join you? the first time she stays the night at his apartment, which he considers slightly ridiculous since they jumped straight into a bath together, and he tells her as much. She snarks back that she was being considerate of his leg since he was still dealing with the aches and pains from crawling around a collapsed building, and heaven forbid she think he mightn’t want an audience whilst attempting to get in and out of the shower, plus its more difficult for two people to shower when its over a bath (he doesn’t to think about how she knows that), but whatever, House, be offended over a simple request. He huffs, slightly annoyed at how she’s already making concessions for his leg (which seems to dig a bit more now that she’s his girlfriend, not just his boss), and sighs fine. come join me. I suppose you can catch me if I slip which triggers their first stupid fight, learning that they don’t hold back the punches when they’re both tired and sore.

Who surprises the other in the middle of the day at work with lunch - Cuddy, bringing House ruebens during the day when he’s caught up with a case and forgets to eat. On the flip side, House will order delivery to Cuddy’s office and wander down to join her when he notices her pulling overtime, coming to give her a break and needle her to come home with him. Wilson feels slightly put out when he realises that Cuddy has suddenly taken over the ‘feed House’ duties, to which House rolls his eyes and sighs, reminding Wilson that he’ll always be required, and he hasn’t been replaced.

Who was nervous and shy on the first date - House and Cuddy love to laugh over how they did everything in the wrong order. They slept together, then Cuddy adopted, then they tried a relationship, all over the course of twenty-plus years. Everything backwards, and no first date. House never asked Cuddy out, or vice versa. Which, when pointed out to them, neither feel the urge to ‘correct’. What they have works for them. They go out to dinner, sometimes driving there in separate cars from the hospital, sometimes just going for a drink, sometimes staying in and ordering take out. But the date that really mattered, the date that felt like a date, the date where a velvet box was burning a hole in House’s pocket, was the one and only time that Gregory House felt nervous. And it showed- Cuddy picked up on it in seconds, which resulted in throwing his whole plan out the window and he ended up proposing on Cuddy’s doorstep, not even making it to the restaurant- and they didn’t make the reservation as all, as once the ring was on Cuddy’s finger she pulled him into the hallway and they barely made it to the bedroom.

Who kills/takes out the spiders - both of them take care of insects. Lisa Cuddy isn’t the kind of woman to scream at the sight of creepy crawlies, and she’s lived alone long enough that she just deals with it herself. Same deal with House, although he has to take his leg into account if he’s going to attempt gymnastics to catch or kill an insect. The only time he’s banned from dealing with insects is when Rach is around, because he’ll catch it and turn it into a biology lesson. It took “and after copulating, the girl rips the boy’s head off, mom!” to implement that rule, with a steely look at House across the dinner table.

Who loudly proclaims their love when drunk - House didn’t need to actually be with Cuddy to announce to a whole hospital that they slept together, and it took Cuddy formally announcing their relationship to HR for anyone to believe him, but strangely House is always quiet about his true feelings, and even more so when it comes to how he feels about Cuddy. Sure, he’ll joke about her ass, and make crude jokes about their sex life, but the day Wilson confronts him with christ, House, you really love her, don’t you he can’t even lift his eyes from the floor as he nods slowly, swallowing heavily as he softly replies more than I’ve ever loved anyone. House quietly proclaims his love, hiding his deep feelings behind his brash and bravado. It’s Cuddy who, after one too many champagnes at the first hospital fundraiser she drags House to, who slurs loud enough for 90% of the attendees to hear, I absholutely love you, Gregry Housh whilst House blushes under his collar at her, stunned that she has no qualms with people knowing she’s chosen him, that she loves him. And as he drives her home, he softly asks, did you mean it Cuddy? Do you really…love me? and she rolls her eyes, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, putting her hand on his, meeting his eyes, and almost whispering, with the slight slur of champagne, I love you. It’s taken me twenty years, but I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, and I love you. House leans over to kiss her and is rewarded with a honk from the car behind them as he ignores a green light.

[studying-inwonderland]

How to Research in College

Note that I am not talking about doing a research study but how to find them, how to read them, and what to do with them.

Step one: Identify your criteria. 

 Often professors have a set of criteria for articles they’ll consider acceptable.  Generally that means less than 5-10 years old depending on the topic lately my profs want less than 5 but swk is constantly changing and keeping up to date is critical, someones interpretation of shake spear will be relevant always etc.  And almost invariably they want a peer reviewed journal article.  I’m sorry psychology weekly or that weird html website you found on the 10th page of google just don’t make the cut.  And for that matter, neither do a lot of genuine research articles done by legitimate researchers.  Peer Reviewed is exactly what it sounds like.  In order to get into a reputable journal a researcher/experimenter/writer needs to have their article read and approved by a few of their peers.  After that it’s about finding something related to your topic.   Sometime you can find a journal article on exactly your topic (like your thesis is their hypothesis), other times it’s more of a stretch.  It’s also important to use critical thinking when reading an article, you don’t want to choose something and then realize the conclusion doesn’t add up right for your paper.

Step two: Find an article.  

You can go onto your school library website and find your databases.  Mine is called AllKnight Search (go golden knights!) and when I go to my library’s webpage and it’s smack in the center of the screen as a search bar, and along one side there’s a list of databases that are searched with the AllKnight Search.   I generally just use my schools and recommend you do too, it’s simpler and since I don’t usually need to use a specific journal it works just fine for me.  Another good database most schools have is JStore you’re school probably has a bunch for each major.  These Databases have a search function to type in a query and then narrow your results with a year published range, and make sure to select peer reviewed articles only, you can further narrow your search by country published, topic area (child abuse from a medical or social perspective etc.) and a few other criteria.  If you don’t know what to do you can always ask your librarian or whatever for help.  

Step three: Reading the Article!

I have a method that works pretty well for me and I’ll explain why and what each part is. So, a research study has roughly 7 parts (it depends how you break it down but generally its 5 basic parts broken into 7.  

Abstract, All articles have an abstract.  This is sort of like the bit on the back of a book it tells you what the article explores.

Introduction, this part sometimes runs in with part 3.  The introduction is some general information about the issue.  This may include definitions of terms used throughout the rest of the paper.

Literature Review, In this portion the writer examines and summarizes past research and writing.  It uses this as an opportunity to explain in depth the issue that the paper will examine.  It also convinces the reader why this is important, maybe by citing an article on the effects of the disorder you’ll be researching a treatment for.  This section is a gold mine for other articles. You might be reading something and find that last source that you need for your paper.  I was doing a mock research proposal on reducing violence in inmate populations and found the bulk of my argument referenced in another article. 

Methods.  Okay this is where it can get blurry.  The methods section describes what is done in the study and if it’s not a field you understand and you don’t know research lingo it can get kinda crazy.  Just remember Google is your friend.  Don’t know what GB-CBT-IM is?  Google.  What the hell a p-value is?  Google.  Just remember unless your taking a research class or doing a lit review for a higher level class you don’t need to understand the difference between cluster and systemic sampling.  Just that if was random sampling or not etc which is a much easier thing to understand believe me.  

Results, Again this is a really important part of the study.  That you don’t need to understand every single word of.  This is where their going to throw those words like p-value and so and so’s number at you. You don’t need to understand every word just the gist.  And remember that google is your friend.  This is the part with all the charts and stuff, and while those are great for understanding the content it’s weirdly hard to put it into words.  

Discussion.  This is a good place to have all of part 5 broken down.  This is where it says, since we know this, the field can start doing this.  Its important to paraphrase this section into a sentence or two.  Its what says this is why this matters, as well as explains what all those weird numbers and italicized letters mean.  The last thing that it does is to examine any possible faults with the methods.  So it’ll say “due to a small mostly male college student sample, the results may not be generalizable” etc.  basically its a space to examine the faults of the study and to leave suggestions for future researchers.

Conclusion.  This wraps everything up.  It also usually calls for future research on the topic.  I used to be very disheartened  by the phrase “further research is needed” but really it seems most articles close that way because there’s no such thing as definite answers in a lot of feilds.

I like to read an article in the order 1,2,3,6,7,4 I usually only just skim part 5 results are really hard to get through and unless you understand them its a frustrating waste of time.

Step Four: Writing about the article. 

Writing about an article is hard if you didn’t read it SO READ IT.  Don’t try to skim through it while you write do it separately.  If your really jammed for time annotate on the article and then write directly from your annotations.  Start with a single sentence for the abstract, and one for the introduction.  A 2-3 sentences for methods and then 1-2 for the discussion.  That puts you at a 5-7 sentence paragraph.  Repeat for each source you need for the paper and your good!  If you need to do a full page do one paragraph for Intro and Lit review, and then a bulkier paragraph for methods, results, and discussions.  After that finish off with a paragraph critically analyzing the article (small sample size? is there a lack of explanation?) this is the space to argue with some points or to talk about what you would have done differently.  Remember even though this is your thoughts it’s important to stay out of the first person.

[red-pillgrimage]

Debunking bullshit, partie un

A There’s this wall-of-text/links going around promoting some rather ignorant ideas on some skewed/misused data. Here’s my modest take.

Let’s take a look. [this segment brought to you by @feels-by-the-foot]

“The Wage Gap”

The Wage (1) Gap (2) is (3) a (4) myth. (5) 1 (6) 2  (7) Women tend to choose majors that pay a lower national median pay. (8) Women Now a Majority in American Workplaces (9) Labor force participation rate(10) for men has never been lower. (11) Women (12) in (13) some (14) cases (15) make more(16) than(17) men. (18) And their husbands (19) dont have (20) a problem with it either. (21) Women CHOOSE (22) to stay away from (23) STEM field (24) There is no STEM gender gap in the U.S (25) Women In Tech Make More Money And Land Better Jobs Than Men (26)

1. This is a broken link to a ticket distributor ? ?  ?

2.This is a UK journalist's opinion about the 57 years predicted for women to make as much as men and their opinion on another prediction that manager salary will be equalized between men and women by 2067. Their “big conclusion” is “it's not the gender pay gap that is inequitable for women in their twenties and thirties. It's the maternity leave gap.” This is a huge red herring. Sure, on face-value we can address the fact that men in the UK are only offered two weeks off after the birth of a child by their employers. But we're talking about wage gap, not maternity leave. Maternity leave is but ONE reason people rationalize why women ought to make less. And no offence to this surely-esteemed journalist but she ought to read the own links she sourced when she complained that it's the discrepancy is a result of comparing part-time to full time, 'cause as the link of an article discussing a study of pay at 197 organizations, covering 43,312 employees, showed that in certain sectors, such as finance and law, women working full time can earn just over half the amount men get.

In the UK until late 2016, it was perfectly legal for companies to force their employees to sign gagging clauses to prevent colleagues from discussing salaries, bonuses, etc. Unlike what the journalist implied, legislating disclosure of gendered pay isn't “forcing society to pay”. A legally-enforced culture of secrecy only reinforces preexisting biases(women work less hard than men) with gendered exploitation(if we pay women less, they won't be able to tell anyone without legal reprimand!) But I mean this link was debunked as soon as their OWN source stated “in certain sectors ... women working full time can earn just over half the amount men get.”

3. What a surprise, another journalist chewing up some incomplete synopsis of studies from other news sources. In this one, the U.S. journalist who works for a conservative think-tank wants us to believe that 

“The Paycheck Fairness bill would set women against men, empower trial lawyers and activists, perpetuate falsehoods about the status of women in the workplace and create havoc in a precarious job market. It is 1970s-style gender-war feminism for a society that should be celebrating its success in substantially, if not yet completely, overcoming sex-based workplace discrimination.”

There’s two main things that need to be addressed here. First, this U.S. journalist makes these claims about the impact of this bill that would allow for employees to file a suit for gender-based salary is the imminent gender-war & economic “havoc” of workers’ rights. How is this conclusion found? Who knows/cares, certainly not the author. But among their rationalizations they cite 

“A recent survey found that young, childless, single urban women earn 8 percent more than their male counterparts, mostly because more of them earn college degrees.”

Yes. This study did point out that in cities where steel mills and other men-centered workplaces have suffered that women who are single and living in the city can make single-digit improvements over men. Yes, this study did point out that black & latina women enroll in post-secondary education at much higher rates than their respective counterparts. This study shows that in very specific economic and demographic situations, women can make more than men if they’re single, if they’re in the city, if they’re young. The american dream :’)

4. Oh wow, a seven year old blog post that primarily sources itself on a non peer-review book(including broken links to the book’s website) and then some straw-man arguments using arbitrary online news links. Oh wait, the blog post does claim one link as a “study” but in fact it’s just a research assistant’s summary of data published in 2000. Which in fact means it’s data collected from 1999. Kinda stale, dontchathink... So this US blogger makes it pretty easy and simply when they flat-out state 

“In one sense, O'Neill is right about a wage gap -- on average, women earn about 80 cents to a man's dollar.”

So while the author asserts without blinking that men do in fact make more than women for the same job, they then provide a full list of rationalizations for why this is acceptable yet. still. denying. there. is. a. wage. gap. idontevencanyouhelpmeunderstand.

Blogger goes on to say 

Due to the simple laws of supply and demand, these occupations pay more and contribute immensely to the pay gap.

Actually, “these occupations” which “contribute immensely to the pay gap” are pretty damn racialized. For some reason author believes that U.S. govt data doesn’t compartmentalize by profession/domain and it’s all just “men v women” for comparison. This isn’t so. This is why they argue that men work dangerous jobs and higher skill jobs than women and that’s why they make more money (cuz like they’re just better/deserving ok!11!) but then you see in the actual data that it’s latino men and black men who work in the dirty/dangerous/shitty jobs which were previously argued as “higher paying’. And this doesn’t explain why within the same fields, working the same hours, men make more. Hell, it doesn’t even explain why men who enter feminine gender-typed workfields are perceived as more “courageous”/”harder worker” and sooner promoted than women(See: glass - escalator).

5. Onto a pundit who is regularly invited to Republican party retreats and doesn’t even deny there is an income gap between men and women. Hell, they’ll even take it one step further with their conclusion

So we shouldn’t expect that 77 percent figure ever to rise to 100 -- or even want it to.

This doesn’t seem like a source to add onto a list trying to deny there is a wage gap. hbu

6. I’m going to guess this article added from The Wall Street Journal was done through an uneducated use of google searches for a given topic without having actually read the content of the article because like most of us, present author included, don’t have a subscription to The Wall Street Journal. However, I do know what the article is about and we’ve already covered the content in (3). How do I know?

A study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30 found that women earned 8% more than men.

Gee, if you’re young/single/nochild/Urban/crumbling masculine gender-typed industries, you might make 8% more than men? 

7. Here comes another sensationalist news OPINION article, this time from CBS news that puts up this non peer-review book on a pedestal as some myth breaking weapon. Sadly, it’s the same dulled out logic from (4): the same boring old dangerous = higher pay that isn’t supported when you look at the salary of loggers or fishers.

8. This “career news” article tried to make some good points but overlooked a very, very serious issue. In comparing the majors between men and women, you’re kinda forgetting that ~70% of Americans don’t have post-secondary degrees. 

So while it’s correct to point out that choice of majors may account for some disparity between gendered salaries, it doesn’t account for the other 70% of people from the US who don’t have majors but are above 25 and likely to need to find employment. It does however raise the issue of social biases that gender-type women and employment. ;))))

Addendum: They purposely mentioned women in aerospace so I’ll just leave this here

9. This NY times tried to play some fast-and-loose number games by employing sentences like “According to seasonally unadjusted data” and others like “they held 50.3 percent of the nation’s nonfarm payroll jobs in the raw numbers.” Notice anything yet? Well lets just quote the article to conclude the point

Male-dominated industries are actually especially cyclical in two different ways: They are not only influenced by the business cycle, but also by the seasonal cycle. Industries like construction, which tend to employ men, get more work in warmer months.

If you adjust for these regular seasonal factors that affect the job market, women would have held just less than half of the nation’s payroll jobs in January, at 49.9 percent.

Confused why this wasn’t about the wage gap? Me too. This was just an article about how “women are overtaking men in the workforce” @ 49.9% =o

10. I think the OP of this wall of text was trying to play a fast-and-loose one ‘cause this isn’t about the wage gap at all. This is a link that compares what percentage of men worked in 1948 to now and how many women worked in 1948 and now. ‘Lo and behold: ~70% of men work in 2012 and ~58% of women work in 2012, both seasonally adjusted.

11. So this is exactly the same as (10), even going so far as using the same charts and really not in any way talking about any differences in how men and women are paid any differently for doing the same job. This was just an article about men’s declining participation in the workforce.While a fascinating topic, pretty irrelevant to the wage gap. 

12. Clickbait BusinessInsider article that claims that because one university president in Utah says that there’s a 2K salary difference between students’ according to gender, it must be so everywhere yet doesn’t ignore that only 5% of students are in the higher initial pay, nor does it say where they are in 5 years, or 10 years, or 25.

13. So this Reuters article has a brief summary of a study led by Paul Hodgson from the Corporate Institute. This study claims sampled Directors showed that the median income was just under 15% higher for women than men. They’re also out-numbered 8 to 1. Nevermind that a quick search through a more recent Reuters article also states that even tho median is higher, the average executive salary is still much higher for men than the median for the few women around. What’s of real interest in this article is the statement that 

Director pay is typically far below what top corporate executives are awarded 

Why is this interesting? Because Paul Hodgson writes more than a single thing and among his own writings:

Yet, despite the findings of the two surveys, according to an Institute for Women’s Policy Research survey cited by the WSJ – The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation 2013 – women CEOs still lag behind men. Using a much wider sample than the 300 or so CEOs used by the AP and WSJ, female CEOs only earned 80% of what their male counterparts earned.

Heck, even CFO who are women make less, 16% less on average

14. Oh boy. Well for some reason this article is in the print page format, but that’s cool. This ABCnews article likes to promote the idea that because a handful (literally 16 in 2010) of women have become CEOs and have demanded more salary in that one year (2009) that suddenly this makes any kind of difference that only 4.4% (now) of Fortune500 CEO constitute of women. The 2009 article points out that Meyer of Yahoo took home the biggest package of the year for 47 million. A quick scan of this list of the 100 highest paid CEOs of the US place Meyer at #18 on the list, with #1 having 147million. Why are we getting uppity again about a few women getting paid?? ? ? ?

15. If you’re a young woman between 21-30 and living in NYC, you’ll do gr8 says this NY times article which discussed an analysis prepared by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College. Now what I appreciate about this article is they probably took the time to read more than just another newspaper’s summary of the content because they actually provided a very fascinating breakdown of salary by borough for NYC.

Young women from the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens make more than young men from those boroughs. Young women from Staten Island make the same as men. Among Manhattanites, the median wage for workers in their 20s was $46,859 for men and $45,840 for women. The gender wage advantage for women in their 20s was widest among whites with some college education, blacks and Asians with advanced degrees and Hispanic women who were high school or college graduates. Young men in the city still make more than young women in a number of jobs, including psychologist, registered nurse, high school teacher, bank teller and bartender. In high-paying Wall Street jobs, men heavily outnumber women, which is one reason that Martin Kohli, a regional economist with the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, described the women’s wage gains as “a surprising finding.”

Remember back in (4) how the racialization of gender might be is impacting the way in which certain regional factors come into play? How about NYC’ stop-and-frisk policies? Or Dallas’? What about the way in which nearly a quarter of Florida’s black men have criminal records? Might this impact the way in which we perceive statistics based on income?

16. 

“Here's the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it's known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women — even those of the same age, but who are married or don't live in a major metropolitan area — are still on the less scenic side of the wage divide.”

“Chung also claims that, as far as women's pay is concerned, not all cities are created equal. Having pulled data on 2,000 communities and cross-referenced the demographic information with the wage-gap figures, he found that the cities where women earned more than men had at least one of three characteristics. Some, like New York City or Los Angeles, had primary local industries that were knowledge-based. Others were manufacturing towns whose industries had shrunk, especially smaller ones like Erie, Pa., or Terre Haute, Ind. Still others, like Miami or Monroe, La., had a majority minority population. (Hispanic and black women are twice as likely to graduate from college as their male peers.)“ “While the economic advantage of women sometimes evaporates as they age and have families, Chung believes that women now may have enough leverage that their financial gains may not be completely erased as they get older. “   

Nothing more to add than their own words. 

17. This is actually the same topic, using the same sources by The Wall Street Journal as from (6). Yes, SOME educated-single-childless-urban-women-21to30 do make a bit more than men of their own age for a time. This is still not a national trend for all women. So yeah, there’s a gap even if one small subset is doing ‘ok’...?

18. This Forbes article does raise some interesting tidbits but nothing that supports the idea that there’s anything myth about the gender gap. So let me excise the important stuff.

Women earned 81 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2010, up from 76 cents in 2000. Moreover, recent reports suggest that young urban women now earn 8% more than male peers, likely due to higher college graduation rates.

Ah, so education = 8% increase over someone with no education? What’s the disparity between educated men and uneducated women? How does education disprove wage gap? ? ? But there’s more.

The fact remains, however, that men still earn more in almost every U.S. occupation—except in a telling few. An analysis of 2009 median weekly earnings for full-time workers, collected by the BLS, reveals at least 15 jobs where women earn slightly more than male colleagues. 

Oh gee. “Slightly more” salary in 15 out of “every U.S. occupation”.

Perhaps most surprising, women out-earn men in several male-dominated construction jobs. Female construction laborers, construction supervisors, maintenance painters, and aircraft and vehicle mechanics earn slightly above the median earnings for both sexes—despite holding just 3% of these jobs.  

Connecticut College economics professor Candace Howes ... conjectures that the few women who enter construction and mechanical jobs are likely highly skilled and more concentrated in union jobs. “It was unionization that provided women access to these male-dominated jobs, and on average those wages are higher [than non-union jobs],” says Howes.

Ah, so union jobs pay more and that’s why “slightly more” salary can be extrapolated for 1 job out of “every”? Cool. 

There is some evidence that men are discriminated against in female-dominated jobs. A 2010 study found that (SPOILER)men were less likely to be called for an interview in fields with 65% or more female workers, an attitude which may be reflected in wages. Employment researcher Laurence Shatkin, author of 2011 Career Plan, says that discrimination or feelings of not fitting in could cause higher turnover rates among (SPOILER) men in these jobs, which wouldn’t allow them to gain seniority and would negatively affect wages. 

But here is something that gave me a pretty big larf. It was just so... ironic, that it was great. I wonder if the author put it in originally or their editor threw it in for the fragile masculinities who may be offended by an article discussing women being paid more in what I assume we’d call “almost none” of U.S. occupations. So a minority that is perceived as stereotypically different is less likely to receive a call-back, and even if they do, they’re subject to leave their workplace for feelings of not fitting in with the existing culture? That does sound like an awful time.

19. Wow, an Elle magazine partnership with MSCBC. This sure sounds like a legitimate source of sampling, amirite. If we sampled 70K people on the internet, would this be an accurate representation of people nationally? Would it account for racial differences? Are the kind of people who answer News-sites/Elle magazine online questionnaires about partner income/household responsibilities are really the average citizens? Very little scientific rigour. Having a massive sample size can actually be statistically harmful. Maybe Elle can cover that next month in “Money, Sex and Love”

20. So has a business partnership with CareerBuilder.com, which serves as the exclusive provider of job listings and services to CNN.com. And CareerBuilder.com is here today to bring us the news that thanks to a survey they gave on their own website, they’re here to give us facts. Real facts about all kinds of people. 

Nearly one in four (24 percent) working dads feel work is negatively impacting their relationship with their children. Forty-eight percent have missed a significant event in their child's life due to work at least once in the last year and nearly one in five (18 percent) have missed four or more.

What does this have to do with wage gap? Nothing. It’s a sob story about how fathers choose their work over their families. Sounds like Goku/Vegeta to me. This isn’t as tagged “husbands are cool with wives making more/all the money” this is “dads want to be with their kids”. Not the same not even related topic.

21. To be honest, this is the least intellectually boring article to date. And why? Because it’s actually psychology and feminism. Two things right up my alley. While the average guy reader of the article will shout “Yeah! Women don’t support us enough to be full-time dads!” It’s actually a layer or two deeper than that.

The idea that Mother Knows Best for all things home and family is deeply ingrained and complicated by gender roles, socialization and culture, experts say.

This is probably a great time to mention that being a woman  ≠ feminist. Being a woman doesn’t make you impervious to believing in sexism, racism, ableism or anything else. So if you hear anyone, be they man, woman, gender-nonconforming, whoever: never accept that a group can be better parents than another group. Individuals over other individuals, but there is nothing inherent to parenting. if you dare bring up that “but yung gurls like 2 play with dolls” shit I’m going to laugh, ‘cause that’s just proof that they needed practice very likely a sign of socialization and culture. 

"There are a lot of pressures that keep reinforcing the division of responsibility in parenting that leaves moms in the control position — the 'expert parent' role," says demographer Catherine Kenney of Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, who has studied how mothers' beliefs affect fathers' involvement.

What?! Spouses who are also women who uphold conservative/”traditional”/bullshit gender & parenting roles are likely to have an effect on how their spouses rear the children? This almost sounds like if the any parent is sexist, it can affect how their kids are raised =o

New research into the idea of "maternal gatekeeping" shows how attitudes and actions by the mother may promote or impede father involvement.

Wait, after shoving the idea that “motherhood” was their primary goal in life through music/movies/books/musicals/plays, after making them leave their jobs (without any maternity leave in the U.S.) you suddenly feel it novelty that women internalized the idea that the beliefs of women as “natural” caretakers will have an impact on the spouse’s involvement? 

Unsurprisingly, the rest of this almost-delightful article just says “be a good father or be a good mother. Talk about sharing responsibilities with your spouse and avoiding falling back on social stereotypes that may prevent you from fulfilling your sincere family”.

23. Yikes, a more boring and less interesting rehash of blogger (4). Only talks about the non peer review book in which nothing more than speculation on numbers. Sure, the guy who wrote the book is a doctor, but that’s a PhD in education. Not exactly the pertinent field at hand.

24. Huh, so another article which says women are just as math-smart but a combination of social factors just fuck them over in life but as the scope of the article was about professors and we earlier covered that less 31% of people from the U.S. have bachelors. What else did we cover earlier? Uninviting workplace cultures focused on gender stereotypes are likely to have higher turnover rates or disinterest? Almost sounds like social factors are producing gender disparities.

25. I’m just going to leave this here ‘cause it’s maybe not a STEM problem at the bachelor’s level but it’s certainly an ET problem.

[datingadviceonreddit]

EASIER SAID THAN DONE. Ugh, I feel like shit. I feel like I cried out my eyes enough to finally go back to my stone cold don't care persona but it's not the case at all. My heart hurts. It's been years since I really liked someone & it's pretty rare for me to since for the most part I am an emotionally detached person. I'm still outgoing, friendly & shit but as a defense mechanism I suppress negative feelings or block any type of attachment. The rare time I do it's with someone that doesn't want the same as me SMH.TL DR (why are these put at the end? It makes more sense to put it on the top lol): Say fuck it & communicate what's on your mind if it concerns you. Even if you're too scared you'll scare them off, just communicate. Learn how to let go & not care if they'll stop talking to you, end it, etc. You'll save yourself a whole lot of pain from caught feelings, doubt & confusion in the long run. I know this is sounds like common sense but sometimes we put ourselves in denial or are too scared to. I just want to remind people, sometimes we just need that constant reminder/support/encouragement/affirmation. Shout out to Pm_Me_Your_Fave_Joke for his very useful advice. Read their post, it's good.​​Warning: this is going to be a long post.I only told one of my friends about what's going on. Not too much into detail since it's hard for me to be vulnerable. Which is exactly the reason I'm typing this post & getting too much into detail but trying not to at the same time since dude told me he installed Reddit recently. I doubt he would follow this subreddit & he doesn't go on his phone that much so I'm kinda sure I'm in the clear lol.I found writing/typing is a good outlet for me since it gives me time to reflect on situations, how I could've improved, what I could've done better, etc. It's been years since I wrote in a journal due to a breach of trust with an ex. I'll start writing in a journal again so I can put literally every detail (for the most part I got hella good memory, it's curse & not at the same time) & reflect on it. Useful ones I might post here but heads up my grammar sucks & I suck at writing.​I have this friend that I developed feelings for but never expressed them because he told me wanted casual dating. I was in denial thinking maybe over time he'll change his mind & want a serious relationship. In his defense I developed a crush on him before he told me he wanted casual dating. When we hung out the first time I thought we did as friends, as we were talking I developed a crush on him. I would like to emphasized cuz I feel it's important & makes a big difference; not a crush on looks (he's not even my type but physical attraction did come afterwards), a crush on his personality, opinions, demeanor, etc. I didn't & wasn't planning on telling him at all, at the end of us hanging out he kissed me & I fucking fell head over heels. ANYWAYS, we continued to date/talk. His texting sucks, mine does too but since I started liking him I prioritized his messages. We started dating during the holiday season so it was hard to see each other a lot. We have great chemistry, our personalities are almost the same. It's so easy to talk to him, there's never an awkward silence, we can talk about anything.He's a very affectionate person & I'm only affectionate with people I like so there was that imbalance that was really fucking with my head. I spent the months in silence trying to pull back my emotions/feelings while trying to figure out if he even likes me. His phone communication is spotty so it was fucking with me too. Add sex, cuddling & holding hands & you got a cocktail of confusion, doubt & total bliss. When I brought up the communication to his attention he agreed (he's been told in the past & it added to his past break ups) & we started talking on the phone more but it still wasn't consistent or enough. I was in a 6 year relationship, we had a kid together & lived together but a little before or after the first year my feelings went away. I stayed due to our son, family pressure (both sides) & financial reasons. The point I'm getting at is that I'm needy. I'm used to having that companionship & constant communication even though I had no feelings (I told him I loved him when I didn't. It's a long story. I was a shitty manipulative person in that relationship). It's not right for me to expect the same from him or anyone unless if we're living together. I need to get used to not having that constant communication & company.A few weeks ago his life started getting more hectic so he wasn't responding or go days without communication. We had four opportunities to see each other that didn't pan out. One was intentional on my part cuz I'm stupid & followed advice from online articles (not Reddit). What's sad is that after I intentionally didn't go, later that night I caved in & asked if he was still available. He said no so I quickly ended that conversation to avoid any further embarrassment, god I disappoint myself sometimes 😖 2/3 of the other times it's up in the air, he says shit but who knows.The past few weeks I've been really caught in my feelings. I've been smoking an unhealthy amount of cigarettes & drinking too much. It's been close to everyday drinking. I fucking drank from 10:30AM on Friday to 2AM Saturday & practically smoked a whole pack, #notGoals. I was really shocked I didn't wake up with a hangover for school the following morning considering I went to sleep at 4AM to wake up at 8.A few days ago I couldn't take it anymore & called him to discuss it. Fuuuuck it was so nerve racking, it is so hard for me to talk about my issues. Luckily he's very good at verbal communication & is sensitive so it helped me a lot with attempting. Even after we talked it out I still don't know if he fully understood everything I was telling him. There was a few times where he kept misinterpreting what I was telling him or he was missing my point. This is why I like doing these things in person instead of over the phone. I feel like with over the phone shit could be misinterpreted, getting distracted, body language & facial expressions missed & I feel like the brain kinda isn't fully paying attention since the other person isn't directly in front of you. I don't want to talk it out again so fuck it, I'll deal with it & I kinda already forgot what parts really confused me (exactly my point).After stumbling over my words for what felt like an eternity, I practically blurted out hella fast something along the lines of 'I really like you a lot as a friend and more but it doesn't seem like you're interested do you want to back peddle into being friends?". I told him that his lack of communication & us not seeing each other for a while was bothering me but since we're not in a relationship & only dating I didn't know how to approach that. This is where I felt like he wasn't understanding what I was getting at. I kept asking him how he feels about me but he kept referring to liking me as a person & personality wise. On top of that, the way he was wording it or the way I was receiving it, I felt like he viewed us as friends while I thought we were dating... But it's like I'm pretty positive we were dating?! I don't date but I have an idea of what it is based off what friends tell me. Plus, he was the one that mentioned casual dating in the first place!! I wanted to know if he ever liked me more than a friend. One time when we were hanging out at his place talking, he was cleaning dishes & I was chillin on his couch, out of nowhere, not even close to what we were even talking about, he literally said "you know I really like you a lot right?" I was literally stuck like a deer in headlights & said "oh, I wasn't sure if you did or not" *double face palm* Anyways, we were on the phone so I can't hear crystal clear but I heard him say 'commit to the relationship' but he can't cuz of all the shit that's going on in his life & he doesn't know how long it'll take. Idk why I didn't ask for clarification, this is one of my issues is that I don't speak up. Idk if he said he doesn't want to commit or if he does want to commit. At the same time he said no so IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER (WTF BRAIN!).He explained that his work & shit that happened within the last year's been holding him up & he's hella busy cuz of it. He also felt the need to tell me what he's been up to for the past few weeks we haven't seen each other. Not to get into details but what he told me makes sense based off our previous hang out & our talks. He even told me about his female friend that stayed with him for a few days & how she's a 'gold star' in the lesbian world. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (liiiike okaaay..?) Last/2 week(s) ago we were on the phone & he mentioned her sleeping over at his for a couple of days. When he told me I didn't push it, question or get upset. It's normal for people to have straight friends of the opposite gender & not have sex (even if they were to sleep in the same bed). After we were done with that, we caught up, talked about bs. At the end of the call he asked if I got all the answers I wanted. I guess I did...?!? I mean yes, he did answer my questions but for whatever reason I still feel confused. Idk maybe it's just my feelings clouding my brain, it'll go away over time. Not part of phone convo: After everything, it's like yeah I understand his reasonings but it's like I don't care, I can help, I can try to help him manager his time better, help him grow. I want to help him, I like him. Wasn't meant to be. *sigh*We agreed to just be friends & 'continue to see each other'. He was the one that asked if we'll still continue to see each other, I automatically assumed yes in my head since that's what friends do? It's not like we're 'Facebook friends', I would assume we would hang out occasionally since we're only like 30 miles away from each other (we live in a metro area) & I already go to his city once a week for career stuff. For him, idk if he meant as FWD or as friends only. I'm constantly not voicing my thoughts. I seriously need to get my shit together. I'll find out if/when we hang out again.​So yeah, this is where I'm at. Fellow Redditors, do yourself a favor & learn from me. Voice your concerns. It sucks to put yourself in denial, constantly doubting yourself, constantly confused trying to read in between the lines, hold it in & be let down (lack of a better phrase). It is not his fault at all. I need to be better with communication & learn how to voice my thoughts even though I know it probably won't be in my favor. The beat goes on. It really fucking hurts right now but it'll get better with time. Smile now cry later type of shit. (if you got it, I fucking love you)I'm not sure whether or not I'll continue to date. I haven't dated for 1 1/2 years due to not being interested & working on myself. This happened on accident, I originally thought we were just going to be friends. I have exchanged numbers with most guys that approached me in person for the past few weeks. I thought talking to other guys would take my mind off dude but it wasn't the case at all. If anything it got me even more irritated since these men text back so much faster than him & myself. None of them interest me so meh. Idk if I want to get on a dating app, I refuse to use apps. I don't even have any type of social media other than Reddit, which kinda doesn't count since most of us are anonymous.Current mood: "In the rain" by The Dramatics (love me some oldies aaaand it's Sunday!). It's been raining here lately & it kinda sucks it hasn't rained yet today.If you made it this far you deserve a cookie. I'm using the post as an outlet since it's hard for communicate my feelings irl.Yall have a good Sunday & good luck with dating! Bieeee! via /r/dating_advice

[fayecallasdatingblog]

How To Make a Man Fall in Love With You: 17 Tips He Won’t Resist

If you’re searching for how to make a man fall in love with you, I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you might be on your way to falling in love with him.

Am I right?

You’re falling fast for this guy, and you can only hope that he feels the same, but how can you ensure that he is?

In this article, you’re not going to find a bunch of ways to trick a man into falling in love with you. That’s not how I operate. What you will find are strategies for how to make a man fall in love with you that I have seen work firsthand.

If you’re here for the first time, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Adam LoDolce, and I have helped thousands of women find true love. I’ve worked as a dating coach for both men and women, and I’ve spoken at dozens of universities, where every single person in the audience walked away with tangible advice they could apply to dating and relationships.

So, yea, I kinda know what I’m talking about.

But don’t take it from me! Test out as many of the following strategies as you’d like and see if they work for you in learning how to make a man fall in love with you.

First, a Note on the Art of Patience

via GIPHY

Before we get started, let me just say something about patience. If you have fallen for this guy, I understand that you’re in a vulnerable place while you wait for him to catch up with you. Does he love you? Does he love you not? You’ll do anything in your power to make him love you.

But pump the breaks a bit because if you rush things, you may blow it. Love takes time, and it comes to everyone at a different tempo.

And sometimes it doesn’t happen at all. Don’t blame yourself. If he doesn’t fall in love with you, it wasn’t meant to be. I bet if you step away, you’ll see a million reasons why that’s true.

But give him time. All his past relationship experiences, along with his personality, will impact how long it takes him. If you truly love him, you’ll wait.

17 Tips for How to Make a Man Fall in Love with You

Just like with all my dating and relationship advice, some of these tips on how to make a man fall in love with you may work better for you than others. You know yourself and what comes naturally, so apply the tips that make the most sense.

1.  Make Him Feel Needed (But Don’t Be Needy)

Need him without being needy.

Look, I know you’re an independent woman that doesn’t need a man, but the truth is…men like to feel needed. Chalk it up to our evolutionary past of being the provider and protector in the relationship. Sure, you can kill your own spiders and change your own tire, but that doesn’t mean you have to.

If you’ve been single for a while and have become accustomed to doing everything that needs doing, this may take a little practice and letting go, but the next time you have something that you know your man would excel at, ask for help.

That’s all. Just ask for help.

Not only will you give him purpose (after all, he’s trying to win your heart too, so doing something for you is huge), but you’ll also see how nice it is to lean on someone else, to rely on him to help you. It takes the load off of you for sure.

2. Let Him Miss You

I know if you’re falling for this guy, you want to spend every waking moment with him. And maybe he wants that too. But let’s ease into that 24/7 type of relationship, shall we? Or better yet…never get to it.

Having time apart is healthy for couples. It gives you each time to do things on your own or spend time with friends (don’t be that chick who abandons her friends whenever she’s in a relationship). It gives you something to talk about when you are together. Having time apart provides balance in the relationship, and it gives you both the opportunity to miss one another.

When he misses you, he thinks about you. He thinks about his feelings for you. All good things!

3.  Compliment Him…Only if He Deserves It

Okay, to be clear, I am not suggesting you kiss this guy’s ass all the time.

“Oh Bobby! That shirt looks amaaazing on you.”

“Oh Bobby! You’re so strong!”

“Oh Bobby! I don’t know what I’d do without you!”

Not what we’re going for. What I do want you to do is be free with the compliments. If you’re thinking in your head that he looks hot in that shirt, tell him! I’m not sure why it is, but most of us don’t compliment other people far enough, even when we’re thinking complimentary things.

But think about how awesome you feel when someone compliments you. Why wouldn’t you want to make the guy you care so much about feel that great? So whenever something positive sprouts up in your brain about how he looks, something witty he says, or something he’s done, let him know you appreciate it.

4. Let Your True Nature Shine

I’ve heard some so-called dating gurus tell women to dumb down their intellect or put a damper on their exuberant personalities. This is utter crap. If you do that, then the guy has one impression of who you are that is entirely inaccurate. Once you get to know each other and you start being real, he might be thrown off when he discovers that, whoa, you’re actually intelligent or opinionated.

The right guy will love you for who you are.

That’s right. No need to pretend your IQ isn’t off the charts, or that you’re not a control freak. Let your control or otherwise freak flag fly. That way, he knows exactly what he’s getting into from the start. If he’s into it? Great. He’ll be that much more likely to fall in love with you.

5. Admire His Masculinity

Just like men like to be needed, they also like it when you admire how masculine they are. But again, I’m not saying you need to squeeze his muscles and faint every time you see him!

Masculinity isn’t just about testosterone and muscles. It’s about treating people well, being chivalrous, and acting with honor. Like the Norman Mailer quote above says.

Real masculinity is being vulnerable and empathetic. It’s being a good partner. So whatever it means to you, let him know that you admire these qualities. If nothing else, it will start an interesting dialogue on what it means to be a man in this day and age.

6. Be Patient

I talked about the importance of being patient as part of the process of learning how to make a man fall in love with you, but I can’t say enough about it.

If you feel like you’ll explode if you don’t profess your love for him, heed this advice.  Tell a friend how you feel. She’ll support you but also help you analyze whether your lovegush will be reciprocated or not. If she doesn’t feel like he’s exhibiting the signs of being in love with you yet, she’ll tell you and you can save yourself from the embarrassment of a one-sided love profession (the worst!).

I’m not saying the man always has to be the one to say “I love you” first, but you do want to give him time to process his feelings on the subject. Just think how much better it would be if, when the pronouncement does happen, regardless of who says it first, you both say it.

If you rush this, you may be disappointed. Keep that in mind.

If you’re still desperate to let someone know, journal about it. This will help you process your feelings. And it never hurts to sit on them for a while. In the early stages of a relationship, it can sometimes be difficult to discern between love and lust, so by giving your love time to marinate, you can be 100% sure that it is love before you make yourself vulnerable.

7.  Let Him Know You’re Thinking of Him

I know in the early days of dating a new guy, you might try to have a poker face. After all, you aren’t sure if this is going to turn into a relationship, so you might be hesitant to tell him that you’re thinking of him.

Well, the rules have changed now that things are progressing, and it’s actually in your favor to tell him he’s on your mind. Just like with compliments, if you like it, he will too. You blush from your head to your toe whenever he tells you that he’s thinking of you, so why not reciprocate? Here are a few texts you could send to make him smile.

Saw a corgi today [his favorite dog] and it made me think of you!

Sigh. I can’t get any work done today. Just keep replaying our last date…

Just wanted to say hi, since you’re on my mind!

None of these are overboard. They’re just little pings to tell him that you’re thinking about him. They’ll make him smile, I guarantee!

8. Be Supportive of His Interests and Efforts

Look, you don’t have to suddenly feign an interest in disc golf, rock climbing, or fishing if you’re not already into them, but if your guy has hobbies or interests, one way to successfully learn how to make a man fall in love with you is to be supportive.

If he goes on a fishing trip, ask what he caught. If he’s going to the rock climbing gym, ask how his workout went. You’re not pretending you’re all about these interests; you’re just showing that you respect that he’s got things he’s into, and you’re inquiring about them.

A scientific study showed that people like people who ask questions, particularly followup questions. Followup questions show that you’re paying attention and that you’re genuinely interested. So don’t stop with simply asking him how that fishing trip went. If he tells you that he caught a tuna, ask him what fresh tuna tastes like. Ask who he went fishing with. Ask what kind of bait he uses. Especially if you don’t know a lot about his hobby, he’d be happy to teach you if you’re express curiosity.

Likewise, be supportive of what he’s doing. If you know he’s got a job interview this week, send a text beforehand letting him know you’re rooting for him, then check in with him after to see how it went. One of the foundations of a loving relationship is support; when you show your partner that you’re there for him as his biggest cheerleader, he feels great. And when you support him, you’re starting to glom onto how to make a man fall in love with you.

9. Don’t Try to Change Him

If you want to change him, you’re off to a bad start.

I totally love Chip…except his excessive drinking habit.

He’s completely right for me…if only he didn’t yell at waiters when they get his order wrong.

Sure, you’re going to have a few things that might get on your nerves with this guy, but they shouldn’t be dealbreakers. You can’t think that down the road you will break him of whatever annoying habit he’s got. You can never, ever change a man. Seriously.

If there are issues big enough to make you hesitate when you think about a future with this guy, he’s not right for you. Let him go. You’ll be better off in the long run.

Men who are with women who constantly make suggestions for how they could be better tend to close off from them. So pay attention to what you’re saying to him. If you’re sending him a constant barrage of “you should…” messaging, pull back, or you’ll lose him. Instead, embrace him with all his quirks. He’ll do the same with you.

10. Listen (REALLY) When He Talks

While it’s easy to talk, it’s a lot harder to listen…I mean really listen. Not half listening to your guy on the phone while you paint your toenails and browse social media.

When you put all your energy into hearing what he’s saying, you are actually listening on two levels: on the first, you’re hearing his words, but you’re also taking in what he’s communicating nonverbally. And since 60-80% of our communication is nonverbal,  this is incredibly important to pick up on, especially if you want to learn how to make a man fall in love with you madly.

When he says his day is “fine,” what is his body language saying? Is he nervously fidgeting? If so, he may want to go more into his day but wants you to ask more questions. Is he sad when he talks? Dive into why with more followup. Repeat what you understand him to have said to show that you’re paying attention.

11. Show Him You Appreciate Him

Here’s another one of those tips for how to make a man fall in love with you that falls under that whole “do unto others” thing. Think about how you feel when your man brings your favorite grande quadruple shot coconut milk latte on your coffee break at work. That little gesture shows you that he cares for and appreciates you.

What can you do to show that you appreciate him?

Think about ways you can make his life easier. Maybe he’s super busy, so you pick up his dry cleaning or walk his dog.

Maybe he’s been stressed lately, so you fill the bedroom with candles and treat him to an hour-long massage.

Find ways to make him smile.

Stick a love note in his laptop bag. Bring him breakfast in bed.

Tell him thank you for no reason other than for him being his wonderful self. The more you show your appreciation, the more he’ll feel your love…and start to feel his own for you.

12. Let Him Make You Laugh

Sara scowls whenever her boyfriend Tyrone tells a joke at a party. She feels he’s trying to get too much attention for himself. Tyrone is crushed that she doesn’t think he’s funny.

Lindsay laughs so hard at Scott’s jokes that milk shoots out of her nose. She’s always introducing him as her “hilarious boyfriend.”

Which guy do you think is more likely to fall in love?

I’m not suggesting you fake laugh at all of his jokes. But if he’s funny, let him make you laugh. Having a similar sense of humor is important for a long-lasting and loving relationship. If you love that he guffaws at every one of your “that’s what she said” jokes, then reciprocate when he tells a knock-knock joke.

13. Trust Him

I know that trust doesn’t come easily if you’ve been hurt in the past. But please realize that this guy isn’t that guy. And if you want this relationship to work out, you’re going to have to trust him at some point.

Certainly, if he’s exhibiting signs that he shouldn’t be trusted, don’t ignore those. But if he’s done everything right, then let those walls around your heart down a tad.

So how do you trust him? Stop assuming you’re the only one who can do something right. Let’s say you normally do the planning for road trips, and you have one coming up with your guy. Rather than taking control, if he’s offering, put him in charge of planning it.

So what if you take a 3-hour detour to see a llama farm? The experience will be memorable. Don’t view the trip through the lens of what you would have planned but just enjoy that he put in the effort to do something for the two of you.

If the issue is him being around other women, especially if you’ve been cheated on, communicate your feelings of insecurity rather than jumping down his throat about hanging out with an old female friend from high school. Let him know that because of past experiences, it’s not easy for you to not worry about that situation. He’ll reassure you that he’s only got eyes for you, and you have to believe him rather than telling yourself that this will be another guy to hurt you.

If you have love, you have trust. You can’t have one without the other.

14. Be Independent

I have had a lot of female relationship coaching clients who, in their 20s and in their first serious relationship, pretty much gave up all friendships and interests for a guy. It wasn’t like he asked her to do it, but it’s a common thing. And when you get older, this pattern continues. If this describes you, it’s important to understand that one of the best ways to discover how to make a man fall in love with you is to be independent and keep on doing the things you love with the people you care about.

Who would you be more attracted to, a man who stopped his weekly soccer games with his buddies so he could spend every day with you…

Or the guy who kisses you before he goes to soccer practice, texts you that he’s going out for a beer afterward, and then comes back afterward to see you because he misses you?

Like I said in #2: having a little space in your relationship is healthy. And so is having things that you do on your own. Even if you just want to spend all Saturday afternoon reading by yourself, if that’s what nurtures you, that’s what’s right for the relationship. The right guy won’t have any problem with that, and in fact from Meet Positives SM Feed https://ift.tt/2LnFud6 via IFTTT