#trying to be like. yes i understand everyone makes mistakes and has an outlier in their work

[eosofspades]

WHAT was the thing del toro said about the human experience and stupid quippy one liners i can NOT find it

[my-darling-boy]

Genuinely asking, isn't self-diagnose with a condition kind of dangerous? Because legitimizing self-diagnosing opens a door to many malicious people who would want to exploit the fact they can self-diagnose? And in turn, make the space of autistic people worse?

Was going to skip this, but I’m writing a LONG response because I’m VERY exhausted with the amount of misinformation I see on this “self dx is dangerous” take, so buckle up and allow me to info dump.

Recently, authentic_autism_advocacy, an Instagram account run by a supposed medically diagnosed autistic woman was discovered to be a non-autistic woman, Connie Manning, posing as a medically diagnosed autistic person to spread hate and anti-self diagnosing speech. In reality, she is a neurotypical mother who regularly uses her autistic son for clout; she also turned out to have a hand behind CalmWear, a brand of sensory compression products designed for disabled people. Not only had she been spewing hatred towards other autistic people, she had been accusing well known AFAB autistic tiktokers like beckspectrum of faking being autistic and threatening self diagnosed autistics and saying they are a danger to the community, and engaging in other incredibly discriminating behaviour. Yes, she herself was a neurotypical person posing as a medically diagnosed autistic to perpetuate hateful rhetoric about self diagnosed people and used her voice to speak OVER autistic folk for financial gain and exploitation of autistic people, including her own son. If you want to read this roller coaster of a story, an autistic person wrote an entire article on it with tons of screenshots and sources.

So let me make one thing clear to you.

The purpose of actually, genuinely self diagnosing is not done to attract attention or to parade around and exploit other autistic people. Self diagnosed autistic individuals have recognised due to difficult life circumstances, financial hardship, bigotry and stigma within the medical/legal world, being a minor, lack of insurance, lack of proper access to safe care facilities, being denied assessment due to incompetent or biased practitioners, and/or any other obstacle that they may temporarily or permanently be barred from diagnosis. Self diagnosis does NOT instantly mean a person is posing for clout, nor does it indicate a person is trying to wring money from assistance services or exploit other autistics. And nts who use self diagnose with intentions of harming the community? That’s NOT self diagnosis, that’s abuse of something meant to aid people blocked from medical care or financial means to that care. All we can do for autistic people, no matter who we perceive them to be, is treat them the same way we would any other autistic person. Because the moment you start deciding by your own book who deserves respect and who doesn’t, you’ll be on a slippery slope to locking out thousands of autistic people from the community. If it’s discovered a person like Connie is literally abusing the system of self dx to intentionally mislead the community, by all means, we must hold them accountable. But you cannot simply go about granting and revoking access from people just because someone lacks a diagnosis or doesn’t fit your idea of what being autistic looks like, especially if it’s based on stereotypes.

Moral of the story? Isn’t it ironic how anti-self dx people will 100% believe a user who claims to be medically diagnosed but shows no “written proof” of it, yet always demand written proof from a self dx person? It’s almost like even anti-self dx people can’t tell the difference between someone who is medically diagnosed autistic and someone who isn’t. Well, that’s because they can’t. While there might be common traits, autism has no set model, it is a spectrum, no autistic person is alike; Policing self diagnosed people about their self diagnosis isn’t a form of protecting the community. It’s a form of gatekeeping. If you find yourself granting instant acceptance, without asking for proof, to a person insisting they are medically diagnosed like this neurotyical mother, but then prohibit self dx people from entry entirely on the grounds of not showing proof of medical assessment, you are upholding a double standard. This is why policing autistic people’s diagnosis, self or not, is inherently useless.

So here’s the thing... instead of asking people to stop self diagnosing, what you should instead be asking yourself is, “Why do people self diagnose? What kind of medical system could possibly be in place where people feel they need to resort to self diagnosis rather than get an actual diagnosis?”

Well, it’s mainly common knowledge among most of the autistic community that diagnosis is NOT easy to come by.

One of the main reasons why people cannot get a diagnosis is due to financial/insurance reasons. It’s reasonable to estimate that by the end of 2020 almost 30 million Americans alone were without health insurance. I’ve heard costs out of pocket for an autism diagnosis are between $500-$6000. If a person or a family cannot afford health insurance—which by the way on average is around $5,400 a year for a single person and $13,800 for a family here—where are they supposed to pull out $6,000 to get screened?

You might be asking, “Well aren’t insurances supposed to cover disability?” Sure, there are options for disability care through health insurance—not even going to get into that—but like a lot of things in the US, this is a severely flawed system. A lot of private health insurance will stop or limit coverage for an autism diagnosis or assistance services once a person reaches 18 to 21 years old. In most states, coverage has a higher chance of being denied to autistic adults coming with the added age cap or ONLY covering ABA, an abusive, manipulative “therapy” used to force social compliance and trait suppression on autistic people. The fact that ABA, a conversion therapy, is covered, but little else, shows exactly what insurance companies think of autistic people: they’ll only cover us if we want to learn to be “normal”. This can leave many undiagnosed autistic adults who cannot afford analysis, insurance, or safe assistance services with nowhere to turn. If I was not on my parents’ insurance, there is NO WAY I would EVER be able to afford a diagnosis. I don’t have $2,000 lying around. The MONEY ALONE would prohibit me from getting a diagnosis, no matter how many autistic traits I presented.

When I was going through this system years ago to start a diagnosis, I was shocked to find no therapist within three hours of me was accepting adult patients. “Up to 18 only” their websites would say. And in the event I had found one (1) that accepted me as a then 20 year old with X insurance, and that person refused me diagnosis, I would be out of options unless I planned a 5 hour drive which may have also led me to another biased screener. A person seeking self financed assessment can waste thousands of dollars therapist hopping.

People will say, “Well I live in X place, and where I come from, it’s covered!” Well the reality is that everyone in the world does not live where you live. It’s not realistic to assume everyone is in the same position as you or your family to afford care or access the same resources as you. When you say, “Just go out and get a diagnosis! It’s not that hard!”, understand you are speaking from your personal vantage point where screening may be easily accessed or easily covered/is free OR you have no personal knowledge of what that process is like yourself.

The second thing that bars a ton of people from being diagnosed is the fact that when autism was first discovered, its research was HEAVILY centered on white, cis, heterosexual men. The idea that autistic people are ONLY cis, white, heterosexual men carries on to this day. If you are an outlier to this stereotype, your chances of being misdiagnosed with something else or refused diagnosis skyrocket because so-called “professionals” don’t know how to observe traits in any other person besides a cis, white, heterosexual man, and refuse/fail to recognise the endless ways in which a person can be autistic. ALL the time I hear how AFAB people will go in to get screened only to find out their screener does not believe AFAB people can be autistic, because yes, sexism and anti-lgbtq+ ideas play a huge role in the incredibly outdated diagnostic process, because autism is still believed to be an “AMAB only” thing. People report going into a therapists office and being asked questions like, “Do you like going outside? Do you like having friends?” and being told that if you agree with either of these, you cannot be autistic because criteria at some places is so backwards, you can’t even say you enjoy conversation without failing the test. Other things commonly heard during the analysis are screeners telling someone they are too smart/articulate to be autistic, gas lighting them by saying they are mistaking their symptoms for something else/making them up, telling a person they seem normal, dismissing clear autistic traits by saying they’re unique “superpowers”, or intentionally misdiagnosing a person as ADHD INSTEAD of autistic. People on social media have also pointed out what influences racism has on the diagnostic process as well and how lack of research and understanding of autistic POC contributes to under-diagnosis and stigma has only contributed to refusal of care and under-representation of POC in the disabled community, as one autistic Black woman points out on Instagram, “I found excellent articles that support and validate my feelings and experiences, but I could find no research on autistic Black people.” Additionally, because research has primarily been done on young men, this means anyone who is not a cis man and is over the age of 18 and is seeking a diagnosis has a much higher chance of not receiving one because screeners don’t understand how autistic traits may present differently in adults, especially since adults are very likely to mask. Some autism screeners are so against autism they have told clients they would only diagnosis a person autistic if it was their last resort to avoid “placing a burden on their shoulders”. These reasons are largely responsible for why autism is incredibly mis/under-diagnosed. This ask would be the length of a novel if I included every single type of discrimination and mistreatment during the evaluation process alone, but understand it can be incredibly biased, sexist, transphobic, racist, or just flat out ableist. And guess what? Though this process can take as little as a month to get sorted, that is rare. The assessment SHOULD be very short. But a lot of autistic people have reported their diagnosis took more than 2-4 years because of having to waste time, energy, and money hopping from therapist to therapist looking for someone to take them seriously, as many autistic people compiled on the actuallyautistictiktoks page on Instagram point out.

The last thing I want to touch on is this idea that people have that self diagnosing is dangerous. “What if someone self diagnoses and they take advantage of services that are meant for autistic people?” ...The Big Things you think I am going to take advantage of as a self diagnosed autistic person, like scholarship money for instance or SSDI, I do not have legal access to without a formal diagnosis. I cannot waltz into a law firm and ask for a $5,000 scholarship for autistic people without a diagnosis, because they WILL NOT give it to me!

Let me tell you some of things I’ve “cruelly taken advantage of” as a self diagnosed autistic person. I bought glasses with blue light protection, because screen and fluorescent lighting at work and even natural blue toned light from the sky lowers my threshold for some sensory input like noise and social interaction; wearing them to work everyday has improved my sensory thresholds incredibly. I’ve talked to my manager and told him I’m autistic and that I have a hard time understanding vague direction and may need to step away briefly on occasion to tend to a shutdown before a meltdown comes on at work; he had no problem with this. I use subtitles; sometimes I have trouble processing audio or reading facial expressions and tone, and being able to see the words displayed on the screen gives me a significantly better understanding of what I watch. All my life, I have been having meltdowns which I had mistaken for mental breakdowns or panic attacks and having access to resources that walked me through preventative methods and tips on what to do if I have one has been ENORMOUSLY helpful to me. All my life, I was trying to deal with them thinking they were something else; becoming aware of this and accepting that they are in fact autistic meltdowns has helped me not only go through them, but has helped me redirect stims which at their worst previously had me hitting and clawing my arms, slapping my face, and even hitting my head. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wait 4 years for a diagnosis to use resources I could be using to make my life more accessible right now!

People will say, “Oh well yeah, I don’t mean You are one of Those Types of self diagnosed autistic people, you clearly sound/look autistic, I’m talking about other people.” The thing is, there is no broad “sounding/looking autistic”, that’s stereotyping, and you can’t demand everyone who interacts with you show you their Autistic Card, because again, not everyone is able to be diagnosed, especially given the mistreatment and stigma present towards autistic people in the medical field! And what made you ask for their diagnosis? Because they “don’t seem autistic” to you? Why didn’t you ask for their diagnosis? Because they “seemed autistic” to you? By denying anyone who doesn’t have a diagnosis resources they may very well need, you are denying assistance to thousands of people who are without means to be diagnosed. And I am SO tired of seeing comments online on self diagnosis posts that “people don’t know what they’re taking about” as if they know us personally, like are you me? Are you my doctor I’ve consulted? Did you watch me academically research and consult with other autistic people about being autistic for over 3 years? I’m tired of “well, one time a self diagnosed person laughed at my actually autistic diagnosed friend...so all self dx people are evil” because there is ZERO correlation between a person being self assessed and their behavior towards a non self assessed person. The fact both those arguments are in use whenever self dx comes up is yet another form of gatekeeping.

Self diagnosing autism is not begging for attention or Evil Criminal Money Funneling Schemes. It is a result of a deeply flawed medical and insurance system that has failed to give proper attention and care to those who need it, it is a result of resources not made available, of safe support systems not there for kids and adults alike. You want to talk about what’s truly dangerous? How the hate group Autism Speaks has been parading itself around since 2005 as an advocacy group for autistic people and has been misusing millions of dollars worth of donation money and promoting stigma and hatred around autistic people; no autistic members are present on their board. How Sia and her new film Music was nominated for 2 Golden Globes despite it replacing the original autistic actor with a neurotypical actor, using offensive stereotypes, and using the main autistic character as a prop, and featured an extremely dangerous bodily restraint scene on an autistic person having a meltdown in public and featured very insensitive content due to Sia’s lack of consulting with autistic people to make the film (spoilers in that article).

Instead of policing autistic people, whether they fit your idea of what an autistic person is or not, redirect your efforts and your energy to dismantling systems and holding others accountable for perpetuating harmful stereotypes about autistic people that are legitimately dangerous on such a scale that they have created insurmountable damage to the autistic community. But I guarantee you, worrying over whether your classmate is “faking it” will not do any justice to the decades worth of discrimination autistic people face still today.

I understand. You care about the community, you don’t want autistic people to be exploited or taken advantage of. I don’t want to be exploited and taken advantage of as an autistic person, and I don’t want that for others! But I also understand that when we self proclaim ourselves as judges of random autistic strangers on the internet or start accusing people of faking or demanding to see medical paperwork from people when the basis of our suspicions is “this person doesn’t look like my stereotyped view on how I think an autistic person should act”, THAT is when you really run into trouble. Because if you are allowed to deny self dx people entrance into the autistic community, what’s stopping you from thinking you have the power to deny ANYONE entrance into that community?

And there is power in self diagnosis for many autistic people. When the evaluation system is literally rigged to set you up for failure and put you through unnecessary hardship, self dx is a self affirming, empowering tool to take back control from a process designed to gaslight and crush you. The evaluation process was NOT formulated by an autistic person, nor was it made to be inclusive of all autistic people. Until the evaluation system in place for autistic people is safe, accessible, and free to ALL, you have EVERY right to self diagnose.

[cha0ticr0b0tic]

Izzy Brainrot, Part 2

Trying to take a stab at the question of WHY we as a fandom are all so fixated on Izzy (OK, maybe not *all* of us, but he is a popular character to make fanart of and speculate about).

Beyond the obvious reasons – Con O’Neill being an absolute gem of a man and Izzy being a silly little gremlin with a toxic crush – I think part of it is that he’s the antagonist while *also* being part of the crew. Antagonists like the Royal Navy, the aristocrats, Calico Jack, etc are not part of the crew and honestly don’t have much development beyond being foils to Stede and Ed. There’s nothing sympathetic about seeing them picking on our protagonists, who are doing so much unpacking and growing. They’re *static* antagonists because they have power (yes, even Calico Jack – he’s a captain and he carries emotional power, albeit toxically.)

Izzy is also static, but it’s not because he has power. It’s because he doesn’t like change, he’s a man who thrives on routine and a firm set of expectations when it comes to conducting himself – but he’s part of the crew, so we see a lot more of him than we do our guest-star antagonists. He’s the outlier in the group; his unwillingness to confront his emotions, understand why his treatment of Ed is bad for both of them (but Ed especially), and learn from his mistakes are so blatant in a hopeful show that is all about healing and found family. One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong, and it’s Izzy Hands. He’s well aware he’s in a comedy and he HATES it. Naturally we’re going to fixate on the person who stands out, who breaks the trend, especially if that’s played for comedy. Izzy is the butt of so many jokes, as he should be, and it’s all hilarious. (His reaction to the sword fighting scene between Stede and Ed lives in my head rent free.)

I think also part of it is that we don’t get a backstory for him. He’s one of the main characters, as an antagonist, but we know nothing about his life. His identity begins and ends with being first mate. Even the minor characters on Stede’s ship get nuggets of backstory that I hope are fleshed out in Season 2 – we know that Frenchie had a job in service, we know that Wee John used to make dresses with his mom, etc. The other main characters – Ed, Stede, Jim – get backstory, we see them as kids and we learn about the sources of their traumas which they are healing from. Not so with Izzy, which opens up TONS of room for speculation about EVERYTHING.

That said: a little Izzy brainrot is all good and healthy, that means that everyone involved in the creation of his character did all the right things. They crafted a compelling antagonist who, while hateful, can still be seen as sympathetic (right up until Episode 10 IMO). However, don’t forget the real purpose of the show, which is to highlight and celebrate all sorts of marginalized identities. Izzy stands out because he’s actively fighting against the sort of show that so many of us have been wanting to see for YEARS. In short I stan Izzy, but also Frenchie and Jim and Olu and I just want the best for ALL OF THEM

[algaedo]

Things I’ve gotten asked/told as a nonbinary (ftm he/they) bisexual:

Why are you bi

that’s just pan but a different label

You’re bi so that mean you should be able to get into twice the relationships since your dating pool is bigger right?

What’s it like being bi

You’re non-binary?

Why are you non-binary?

You’re so pretty why do you want to change that?

god doesn’t make mistakes

I really couldn’t tell you were trans.

You’re bi, damn I bet you’re a freak

Bi people aren’t loyal

If you’re a trans masc why haven’t you transitioned

You don’t really wanna be a guy, trust me lol

What’s it like having sex with girls as another girl

This is just a phase don’t worry

When you have kids you’ll understand

Why put labels on everything

And my responses will always be:

I’ve always identified as bi, I like both male and female, and non-binary folk. Men are hot, women are hot and fucking THEY are hot.

Maybe, but it’s what I feel comfortable identifying as. I don’t judge you for your occasional homoerotic moment.

That’s what you’d think yes. I’m just bi-myself. Relationships have nothing to do with what you identify as and everything to do with feelings and the effort you put forth because of those feelings. I currently would like to be in a relationship but I don’t know if I have the mental energy to provide what it would entail for the other person.

Idk? It doesn’t change my life that much bro. It changes who I love, not the craziness.

Yes that would be correct

I would like to identify fully as trans masc, but currently I cannot transition, and so I feel a little intimidated by using he/him instead of he/they.

Because I’ve never felt comfortable in my body. Everytime I look at myself, it’s not like I’m crying because I don’t like it. I just feel like it’s not mine. It’s someone else’s and i need to make it my own since it’s what I’ve been given instead of the body I was meant to have

Great but you’re telling me that a dude in the sky said yes, let’s purposefully put them in the wrong body.

I mean thanks but that feels like a back handed compliment. I would assume the whole point of being trans is that you pass as cis.

No. I’m not a freak, nor am I easy, because I’m attracted to multiple genders.

If you don’t trust that someone is loyal just based on their sexual orientation, that’s a you problem. I get there’s a few outliers but they don’t speak for the majority so shut up with your biphobia.

Not everyone can afford to transition. Much less are also in a safe place in life to transition. I don’t think it’s right to judge someone based on what stage of transitioning they are in. The cost of hormones and surgery start to add up. Please be mindful of that. As for me, I’m waiting until I’m out of my parents house.

And what makes you say that? Seriously, what do you think gives you the right to tell me that I don’t want to be male when that’s all I’ve ever wanted.

Wouldn’t know, as I have never, ever, had sex. And it’s not really your business.

The phase has lasted for at least 10 years. So I’d kindly beg to differ.

I don’t want kids at the moment. And if I do I’m adopting. But I really don’t plan on having kids.

People who have issues with labels don’t tend to just ask someone what they identify as and assume that they’re okay with they way your perceive them. At least that’s been my experience.

Some of the questions I’ve gotten were innocently asked questions and I honestly don’t mind answering any of them. But they’re not always asked in an innocent manner. Sometimes there are people who just want to push your buttons when they can. I.E. this kid in middle school asked me all these weird questions about being bisexual in front of half our class. I was humiliated because some of the questions were uncomfortable and emphasis on the sexual wlw aspect of it. We were 12 and it was a blatant invasion of my privacy.

In otherwords, please if you’re going to ask questions, be mindful and try not to proposely disrespect someone’s privacy. Please.

[amaltheeia]

Another writing warmup, because Proteus gives me the creeps and I’m projecting that onto Shockwave.

warnings for: stalking, threats of violence (implied), just proteus

His first mistake is taking the balcony exit.

For those with aerial alt-modes, it provides a quicker escape from the noise that is the interim conference centre. Meetings here are rare--usually only for the select few that occupy what he’s started calling the inner circle--but the Senate building is under modification. Something to do with Sentinel and the guard introducing tighter security measures. Cameras, audio equipment, the whole brigade. 

He’s not one to lay down on these things, but Proteus has him beat. Argue against them, and you’re apathetic to the safety of the general public. As he’s pushed out of the fold, he’s had to learn some hard truths about what the future is going to be like. A lot of giving, not so much taking.

But speak of the undertaker: there Proteus is. He can’t be missed, not with his gold trim that reflects every ray of light that crosses him. He’s glowing like some kind of deity. To many, he is: he’s become a symbol of malfeasance, the protector of the corrupt.

He hopes to sidestep him and be on his way. Unluckily for him, Proteus turns just as Shockwave exits, and waves away the mech he’d been talking to, mid-speech.

“Senator Shockwave,” he calls out. It’s loud enough for everyone in the general vicinity to hear. “Come join me.”

He knows what he’s doing. To ignore him would make Shockwave look rude. Proper social etiquette leashes him, dragging him over to Proteus.

He walks close enough to be heard, and then spits out the first excuse that comes to mind. “I have work at the Academy, I’m afraid.” He forces a smile onto his face. “Another time, maybe, so I can fully appreciate what you have to say.”

“Oh shush. Spare a click, come here.” His voice hardens, as if to push Shockwave into believing it’s an order. As if to make matters more humiliating, he points down at the ground to where he wants Shockwave to be.

Shockwave tests the weight on his pedes, then walks over. He eyes Proteus with suspicion, keeping a reasonable, but far, distance between them. 

Proteus takes note with a soft grunt that pushes hot air out of his vents. The exhaust fans over Shockwave, a brief pause in the cool night air.

“I’m sure you don’t scoff and moan as much when you’re asked to speak to Dai Atlas.”

“Because Dai Atlas and I are friends.”

“Ouch,” Proteus says, smiling. “No time like the present, however.”

Shockwave can’t tell if he’s joking. To play it safe, he doesn’t chuckle. Proteus doesn’t like being made into a humorous subject.

(He’d hate hearing about the jokes the outliers make. They get pretty creative.)

He hopes the pursuing silence will convince Proteus this is a waste of time, but for the second time that night, he doesn’t get lucky. Proteus is still circling his kill.

Proteus eyes him thoroughly. “What colours are you thinking of next?”

“What?”

“You scratch at the finish on your fins when you’re thinking of a colour change.”

It stabs at something deep inside of Shockwave, a fear he didn’t realize he could have until the words left Proteus’ mouth. The other Senator wastes no time elaborating on it either.

“What’ll be this time--oh, let me think,” he raises a hand to his temples, “what colour haven’t you done in a while? It’s getting hard to remember, with how often you change it.”

Shockwave pauses. It’s an odd question, one he’s not sure is asked with complete innocence.

No point in lying though. “Blue and red, if you must know.”

“Blue and red,” Proteus repeats. His mouth curls. “It’ll be hard to tell us apart.” As if it’s supposed to be a compliment to him.

“Not your shade. Something lighter,” says Shockwave, almost overlapping Proteus before he can finish.

A dark shadow passes over Proteus’ face, taking the humour along with it. The Proteus he knows from the closed Senate sessions comes out, and gone is the benevolent persona he wears for his constituents.

“I don’t see why you’re so,” he grits his denta, “hostile to me. You do all this work to counter us and always leave with nothing to show for it.” 

“You wouldn’t understand why I do it.”

“I don’t. You turn on the very system that gives you what you have now.”

Shockwave shrugs. “I’m afraid we were never meant to compromise. You see what you’re doing as justified, as I do my own ambitions. That won’t change. Respect our differences, and there shouldn’t be any trouble.”

“That’s what you choose to believe. We all have a choice.”

“Not when it’s concerning what’s right.”

Proteus’ face twists. “Cut the slag,” he snarls. “We don’t exist in a binary. It’s not good and evil, it’s just better or worse. Good mechs do horrible things all the time, but it’s for the greater good. You just never learned that.”

“Or maybe you just can’t see it, because it wouldn’t fit your vision.”

On cue, Proteus looks up at his sky spies, no doubt with a few lenses pointed at them. “You do right by the criminals and leakers that come to you for help, instead of what’s best for everyone. That’s why our visions are different. If you had your way, the whole of the Senate would collapse.”

Shockwave flexes his fingers, saying nothing.

“Speaking of criminals: that cop of yours, Orion Pax, was out by the Ark-1 Monument a cycle ago. He seemed happy to see you. How about that?” says Proteus, with only a hint of glee. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s back from the dead.”

Shockwave flinches, though he keeps his faceplates clear. “Were you spying on me?”

“It’s not spying if it’s in public, and you’re a very distinctive mech.”

Proteus has the added size to intimidate him with. Shockwave takes a step back from the balustrade.

“What I do outside of the Senate is none of your business.”

He can’t move much farther back without drawing the attention of others, which is exactly what Proteus wants. An audience only ever benefits him.

“Not when you’re a Senator.” Proteus’ voice has turned deep. “What’s the concern? If you’re not doing anything wrong...”

“It’s an invasion of my privacy! You have no right.”

“We’re living amid the Clampdown.” The words spatter like acid. “No one has the right to privacy. Since you’re always so up our afterburners about practicing what we preach, I thought you’d be pleased.”

“Pleased? Forgive me for not finding the thought of you hanging over my shoulder reassuring.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. I’m protecting you.”

Shockwave tenses up. The urge to shout profanities is off the scale, but he knows it will only give Proteus ammo.

Proteus takes over: “Call them what you will--I think Decepticons has become the universal term. Someone like you--high profile--is at risk.”

“Well, call it luck that I befriended a police chief then.”

Shockwave looks over his shoulder, trying to discern whether it’d be a good idea to depart from the conversation now.

Proteus advances on him, forcing himself into Shockwave’s line of sight. The look of satisfaction on his faceplates Shockwave’s tanks churn.

“Orion Pax cannot protect you. It would be wise to reassess where you have put your allies.”

“I don’t need the protection of anyone, thank you.”

“Really? In times like this, you need more than a police chief to be sure that those conspiring against you aren’t about to get the upper hand.”

“Meaning you?”

It tames the other mech’s expression. “Oh, come now. As I said, it’s not too late to give up this pursuit of yours.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Proteus takes him by the arm before he can step away. Shockwave pulls, but Proteus won’t release him.

“Don’t test my patience. I’m giving you a chance here.” He leans in close. “If you know what’s best for you, you’ll darken that shade of blue, Shockwave, and accept my offer.”

“I don’t need handouts, especially not from you,” he growls, taking his arm back.

He prides his ability to keep his voice stable, considering it’s Proteus he’s talking to. There’s something larger than them that’s being propositioned here. Accepting anything he says, even something minor, will spin into some big conflict, he’s sure.

He quits while he’s ahead, turning his back on Proteus in a way he’s sure will be bruising to the ego. Leave Proteus without the last word and he combusts on the spot. 

Which he does.

“You fancy him!” Proteus shouts, as if an accusation. The words singe his backstruts. It makes Shockwave turn, out of fear someone else will hear and speculate if Proteus continues.

Proteus’ grin is not kind. He shortens the distance between them once more. “You always did have a thing for dissenters. A shame; power should be kept in the Senate.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s an Autobot, yes?” Without waiting for an answer, he proceeds. “Self-proclaimed, and all. Mechs like him, they won’t last long. He’s going to keep speaking up, and it’ll be the death of him.”

The thought of Orion and death in the same sentence makes his spark ache. Anger quickly replaces it, surging up and out of his voice box before he can hold it back.

“You don’t touch him.” He shakes with fury.

“Always so emotional.” Proteus smirks. “How about I make you a deal: I don’t touch him, and in return--“

Shockwave points a finger at him. “There’s no ‘in return,’ you don’t touch him.”

Proteus grabs his hand and takes it in his own. His grip threatens to disfigure the joints. Trying to provoke him, no doubt. Or at least, that’s what he chooses to believe. The other option is a lot less pleasant. 

“You don’t call the shots here,” he hums. “So you should probably think about being nicer to me. For both his sake and yours.”

Shockwave doesn’t humour him with another word. He’s down the winding steps and headed Primus knows where before Proteus can say any more. Consequences be damned, he won’t subject himself to another minute of that nonsense.

His first thought is to go to his sanctuary, his School, but armed with the knowledge that Proteus has been following him, it isn’t a risk he’s wanting to take. Those ice-cold optics pierce him long after he’s gone, following him into the next cycle and then on.

He doesn’t know the extent of Proteus’ envy. His anger, he’s familiar with. It's made to look restrained, but can easily be minded if you know him personally. 

Envy? Oh, it makes bigger mechs devolve into an entire moral upheaval. And Proteus never had morals to begin with. He loathes to think about what he’ll do to Orion, and how he’ll justify it when the dust has settled. All in the name of a conquest.

Suffice it to say, he’s more worried about Orion than he is himself. That’s his second mistake.

[bigskydreaming]

A big part of the reason I harp on NTT #55 and that time Bruce hit Dick after Jason’s death is to me, its just such a perfect example of the downsides of letting something like that go unaddressed. For fans of the whole family, because the ripple effects of letting it go unaddressed either in canon or largely in fandom as a whole....like, those affect every member of the family, even if you’re not particular a fan of Dick or Bruce specifically.

First off, I want to be perfectly clear.....I do believe that a large part of the problem in the writing itself is that the writers and various editors at DC didn’t view it as a father abusing his son. To them, I think it was simply an extreme example of Bruce’s grief getting the better of him....it was meant to be big, dramatic, dark, it was meant to hurt Dick and cause an even bigger division between them, but it wasn’t meant to be abuse, in their eyes, I don’t think. At the end of the day, as far as they were all concerned IMO, it was simply a punch, and Dick’s certainly taken worse in his years as a vigilante.

None of that changes the fact that what was depicted on the page was unequivocally abuse. And I particularly want to break down the mental components of the scene, because I do feel like even when this is mentioned in fandom or fics, the weight of it is rarely felt, because its so often implicitly compared with the lifetime of abuse Jason had before coming to live with Bruce, or the times Dick’s been hurt far worse, or any of a dozen different things. Bottom line is, even when its nominally held out as being abusive, it tends to be in a perfunctory kind of way like “okay, yes, you’re not supposed to hit your kids, that’s abuse, but ultimately it was still just a punch.”

If you’ve been fortunate to never have been abused by a parent, please understand and internalize this:

A punch is never just a punch. 

Or any form of physical abuse for that matter...the delivery isn’t the point. Its what it represents.

Even if its just one hit, and the abuse victim has been hit far more or far worse in fights or sparring or whatever.....the damage doesn’t come from the physical blow alone.

The far greater damage is to every single thing that person had until that point built up in their mind to be true about their parent and their relationship with that parent. 

Society teaches us that parents aren’t supposed to hurt their kids. More than that, its a parent’s job to protect their kids from harm, we’re told from a very young age....with none of this coming from just one single source, but everywhere around us. We’re immersed in this perception, via entertainment, via our teachers, via everything we’re taught about how to protect ourselves. 

What’s the first thing you learn as a kid, that you’re told you should do if someone or something makes you uncomfortable or afraid? ‘Tell your parents’....even if we never hear that advice from our parents themselves, to come to them, its the first thing teachers advise, etc....with there rarely being a caveat about what to do if your parent is the one making you uncomfortable and afraid. Society’s default message to kids doesn’t really factor that in....because those are the outliers, as far as society’s perception goes.

Even as we get older and we start to consume media where older kids and parents have tense relationships, fight a lot....the vast majority of them still end with some form of reconciliation, whether deserved or not, because the implicit understanding is even when families fight, when parents yell, at the end of the day its all okay, because the parents love them and only want whats best for them....because of course they do. That’s how it works. The exceptions, again, are outliers.

The problem is, those of us with abusive parents are just as immersed in these outside narratives as any child with non-abusive parents....even if we don’t get this same reassurance from our parents themselves. Not only does this make it particularly hard for abused children to recognize or acknowledge when they’ve been abused (my parent can’t have meant to hurt me, because they’re my parent, they love me, so its not like they abused me)....

But in addition to that, up until that first moment of actual abuse, up until that first true piece of evidence that our relationship with our parent is not the same as the message we’re immersed in about what it should and should not be....

Before that, in the absence of that, we hear the same narratives and messages everyone else does, about how parents are supposed to protect us, nurture us, be our last line of defense against those who would see to harm us. That they love us, that we should never have to be afraid of them, etc. We absorb these implicit beliefs, the same as any other child. We internalize them. We accept them. We believe them to be true. We believe this to be fact.

‘No matter how much we fight with a parent, they would never truly hurt us. Not on purpose. That’s the last thing they’d ever want, because at the end of the day no matter our disagreements, they love us and want what’s best for us, not for us to be afraid of them.’

A punch is never just a punch, when its from a parent.

Its also the end of that belief. That trust. That unspoken faith we had in the message we’d been taught over and over throughout our lives....

Because its hard to argue that a parent would never really want to hurt you, when you’ve been on the receiving end of a willful and deliberate attempt to hurt you.

Bruce may have been lashing out in his grief, but he didn’t try and take it back. He didn’t show remorse or look horrified by what he’d done. Instead he doubled down, loomed over Dick, glared at him, yelled things about Jason’s death being Dick’s fault, that Dick was jealous that Bruce had adopted Jason but not him, specifically calling up things that he knew were sore points for Dick, things he knew would hurt him....making it unequivocally clear that in this moment, yes, Bruce’s intent was to hurt Dick. For him to be cowed, intimidated, even afraid of him. And then Bruce told him to leave, and to leave his key behind.

And in Dick’s case, all of this is compounded by the fact that Bruce isn’t his biological father, had yet to even be named his adoptive father. Meaning, the unspoken and spoken messages and lessons we’re taught about a parent’s role, and what children can or should trust or expect of a parent...these were only ever things Dick believed (and I don’t think anyone would truly argue that Dick didn’t believe these things about Bruce, that he loved him, wanted to protect him, etc)....

The point being....these things were never taken for granted in this case, because Bruce wasn’t technically or even nominally Dick’s father by that point. They were only ever believed by Dick...because Bruce worked to convince Dick they were all true. Dick was a traumatized orphan when he first came to live with Bruce. No matter how quickly you yourself see or headcanon him as having ‘bounced back’ from that, so to speak....that was only possible in the first place by virtue of Bruce making him feel safe enough to do so. Feel loved enough to well, act like a kid who has love and support in his life. The Manor was only ever Dick’s home because Bruce made it his home. Made him believe it was home. That it was a safe place for him, a place to feel comfortable and secure in, a refuge from the trauma that had made it necessary for him to even need another home.

One punch shattered all of that.

Because there’s no way for it not to. Dick spent years by Bruce’s side as Batman. He knows better than anyone what Bruce looks like when he wants to intimidate, when he wants someone to be afraid of him. He just never expected to be on the receiving end of that, because up until that point, even at their worst or most contentious, Dick still carried that unspoken faith that Bruce loved him even if he was bad at showing it, and as such, he’d never hurt him, not deliberately, not on purpose.....because the very idea of that, we’re taught, is incompatible with love. They can’t coexist. Someone can’t love us, and be capable of even a moment of that.

Life, unfortunately, is rarely that simple.

Make no mistake, someone can love someone and still abuse them. Our tendency in society is also to try and label people as certain things, as though they embody the description we give to them, even when that description originally is just meant to be of an action. So we call people abusive in general, even if at the start, its a specific action that’s abusive. Because abuse is ultimately an action. An abusive action that only turns into an abusive behavior when its repeated. An abusive behavior that only belongs to an abusive person, when that behavior becomes characteristic of that person.

And so whatever it was that Dick had specifically internalized about his and Bruce’s relationship by that point, whether it was that Bruce would never hurt him because Bruce was still his father for all intents and purposes, and loved him, and had made this his home, wanted it to be Dick’s home, for him to feel like it was his too...

One punch didn’t just split his lip and knock him to the floor while Bruce towered over him and yelled blame at him. It also made a lie of everything Bruce had previously worked to impart to Dick about his place here, his home, his relationship with Dick and what Dick could expect of him: to always be safe here, with him, to be wanted.

The reason I said at the start I believed that letting all of this go unaddressed was detrimental to the whole franchise and fandom, even if you’re not a fan of Dick or Bruce’s specifically - that goes back to what I said about how abuse initially is just a description of an action, before it becomes a behavior, and through enough instances of behavior, becomes characteristic enough of someone that they themselves are just described as abusive.

Because at this stage in the comics, this point in time.....Bruce’s abuse of his children is still limited to one singular scene, enacted in a time of extreme grief and emotional turmoil.

Make no mistake, I’m not for a second saying that excuses what Bruce did....because no matter his headspace, that doesn’t change the effect his actions still had on Dick’s headspace. An “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I was grieving” alone can’t singlehandedly repair the kind of damage that was done to a child’s belief in his father’s inability to truly do him harm, or even want to.

But its a place to start from, and the problem is.....by never actually starting from that place, by never working from THERE, specifically, to stem the behavior that ultimately is seen repeating at various points in the comics....a precedent is made. That he can do this and just have it papered over with a mere refusal to ever really acknowledge or address it, and life will superficially go on the same, as though something fundamental hasn’t changed, shifted....with nothing nearly as impactful put in motion in counterpoint to it, to push back against everything this scene did and implied about their relationship to either of them.

I admit to being somewhat triggerhappy on this subject, lol, but see, the bottom line is ultimately, fandom’s general refusal to give this particular scene real acknowledgment or weight has nothing to do with being a Dick stan, its purely about how abuse narratives are interacted with in any medium, as a whole.

Like, hopefully it makes a little more sense now why it might be downright maddening to see a fandom so frequently write fics tackling Bruce’s behavior.....while largely skipping around and outright avoiding or ignoring:

the initial instance of abuse that without which, and if not for there never having been any consequences resulting from it, Bruce’s actions in this direction would never have kept repeating enough to become a behavior.

Its about for every action there’s an equal an opposite reaction. By one instance of abuse not being deemed worthy of an opposing reaction to address it, attempt to correct it, push back against it and try and return things to where they’d been before an unapologized-for abusive scene skewed things heavily in another direction....

The groundwork is laid for more of the same to happen again, either with the same character, or literally any other.

Because the thing that goes hand in hand with this, without ever really getting acknowledged either, as it would require referencing that time Bruce abused Dick which tends to be counter to this line of thinking entirely: 

Instead of trying to ignore that this scene happened because it clashes with the idea that Dick is the favored son who can do no wrong in Bruce’s eyes.....IMO stans of Jason and the others might be better served by looking at this moment in the characters’ lives as “if we vehemently believe that Bruce favors Dick more than the others, and he can still do this to him, what does that say he’s capable of with the others?”

Hopefully I’m making a case for how after a long enough time has past where scenes like this one just exist and yet there’s not a sizable enough pushback or attempt to acknowledge, address or ‘fix’ it....it was literally inevitable that there would reach a point where shitty writers intent on just making a spectacle rather than because they care about the implications of what they’re writing....

Would eventually come up with something like RHATO #25.

How could they not? When the takeaway was that all this prior abusive stuff Bruce did never even got the kind of outcry, dramatic reception that writers like Lobdell live for.....what were writers like him ever going to do but double down? Up the stakes? Do worse?

Bottom line is you can’t keep a pattern from recurring so long as you refuse to acknowledge various of the points that make up the pattern. Especially the initial point, without which there very well might be no pattern.

And going back to that scene from NTT #55....

No, I don’t believe a simple apology was ever going to make it right. But as I said, its a start, and you have to start somewhere. If anyone ever truly wants to address Bruce’s worse tendencies with his children, IMO, you start here....where its still largely limited to a specific moment in time, and can be addressed as such. Forced out into the open and condemned before it can grow due to a lack of consequences. With Bruce expected to make amends. He can’t and shouldn’t expect Dick just to forgive him, but not even asking for forgiveness literally only lays out the inevitable conclusion that he doesn’t need to, in order to have things back the way they were. 

Whereas owning up to what he did and its effects on Dick, recognizing that Dick only had this initial security of feeling he’d never harm him because he’d once upon a time worked to give him that feeling of security in the first place......that could be a reminder to Bruce that he did it once, and if he wants to badly enough and works at it hard enough, he can do it again.

But again, that requires focus on what this did to Dick, and what he needs in order to make things better from that point on...as well as effort.

An action caused this. Nothing but action in the other direction can actually have any kind of effect equivalent to the one the abusive action had.

I firmly believe that focusing on this as the starting point of any ‘fix-it’ fics meant to address or even curb Bruce’s abusive behavior in canon, is to the benefit of fans of every Batkid.

Cut it off at the source. Before it ever even gets to the point of RHATO #25, or NW #30.

Because there reaches a point where it becomes too little, too late. Where acknowledging it only once it gets to instances of that magnitude is akin to trying to put a bandaid on a gaping hole going straight through the body.

There are some instances of abuse that are so extreme, so damaging, that....they shouldn’t be forgiven, IMO. Where when if you’re focusing on what’s best for the victim, rather than trying to make things better for the whole family overall, including the abuser, under the belief that the family truly needs and would be worse off without them...

Like, sometimes the best thing for an abuse victim is to just walk away, if that’s at all possible. Cut ties and start fresh elsewhere. Some things are too big to ever truly come back from, to make things so everyone truly feels comfortable and safe and secure in another’s presence.

So I mean, its never not going to be baffling, and a little frustrating, to see fix-it fics for Bruce’s abusive behavior or actions that only act like something like RHATO #25 is a call for an intervention.

Because the thing that never ever gets mentioned in those fics, even when they bring it up and toss it out there like a throwaway line, like its still not that big a deal...

Is if your premise acknowledges that this initial scene after Jason’s death still happened in your fic....that it was the starting point for a pattern of abusive behavior that unchecked grew until it reached the point of RHATO #25....

Then your own fic is acknowledging but not addressing the fact that Dick has been living as an unacknowledged abuse survivor this whole time, without anyone in the fic’s continuity ever having addressed or even attempted anything to repair that initial damage to his faith in Bruce’s desire to protect and shelter and never harm him.

And that has nothing to do with feelings about individual characters, but again....how we interact with abuse narratives as a whole.

Just, please. If you are not a survivor yourself, if you take nothing else away from this, just please remember, reflect upon, and internalize this:

There is a difference between abuse and assault for a reason.

And that reason boils down to the fact that unlike in instances of assault, with abuse?

A punch is never just a punch.

[itsclydebitches]

Isn't it still inherently different because Ruby is not only a kid, but significantly younger than Ozpin? Ozpin was training people to put their lives on the line (thinking of some vol3 lyrics) but hid stuff even from the people he "should" have been able to trust (like Qrow). I haven't watched ep4 so i don't know everything yet but this comes to mind and I think it's worth asking. Her judgments are based on her life experience the same as Ozpin, but she has less of it

(Honestly thanks for that it can get confusing who sent what and whether certain asks go together lol) 

I agree 100% that Ruby is justified in being wary of Ironwood. It’s just that I also think Ozpin was justified in being wary of the group. I think the majority of the fandom forgets that from his perspective they’re not the intrinsic heroes of a web series; they’re not people he’s spent all this time with and have come to trust like we have. Ozpin isn’t privy to their inner voice and personal moments like the audience is, the times when we get proof of their ethics and motivations. They were just a bunch of students that he spoke to maybe three times, most of that through Ruby, and then suddenly they want not just all the info that only a few, highly vetted allies have gotten throughout the years, but even more than that. From my perspective expecting Ozpin to just instinctively trust them is absurd.  

As for Qrow yes, experience comes into play. Ruby has spent a year (maybe a little more) out in the real world and she’s already wary of others outside of her close-knit group. We understand that. It’s logical. Now imagine you live through a thousand more of those years, if not more. Why would we expect Ozpin to keep putting blind faith in people when we readily admit that Ruby is justified in being wary? Especially when life has taught him to be way, way, way more cautious through traumatic experience after traumatic experience. And in this case yes, I think from Ozpin’s perspective telling Qrow would have been a kind of “blind” faith. Because he’s just been betrayed so often. He thought he could trust Qrow’s sister---she betrayed him. He thought he could trust another headmaster---he betrayed him. He thought he could trust Ironwood---now everyone is tip-toeing around him, wondering if he’s hiding something too. Clearly “They’ve seemed trustworthy up until now...” isn’t a good thing to bank on. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Just the betrayals in the last few years. Multiply that trend by generations. We know for a fact, based on his conversation with Yang, that Ozpin did trust who knows how many others in the past with this secret and they likewise betrayed him. Why would Qrow be any different? From Ozpin’s perspective it’s highly unlikely that he would be. Almost impossible. Again, it’s easy to say “How can Ozpin not trust Qrow? ” because we as the audience have information and a perspective that Ozpin doesn’t have access to. We know Qrow as a character, someone who from a meta perspective has given us no indication that he’s not trustworthy. So it’s easy to get mad at Ozpin for not putting faith in him, but we have to remember that from an in-world standpoint there’s no super useful meta-proof that Qrow (or RWBYJNR) is the outlier here, the unique individual who won’t betray him when literally everyone else has. It’s because Ozpin has more life experience that his choices are understandable. The more times life screws you over in the form of people abandoning, betraying, or outright trying to kill you once you reveal the Salem secret to them (how does he know Qrow isn’t the next Lionheart?), the less likely you are to reveal it again in the future. If we’d gotten an Episode Two where Ruby did tell Ironwood everything and Ironwood reacted badly and/or betrayed them somehow, we’d completely understand if, down the line, Ruby chose not to tell the next person. That’s Ozpin. The only reason why the fandom (and characters) refuse to acknowledge that parallel is because Ruby is already beloved whereas Ozpin is hated. Admitting that they might be incredibly similar freaks people out because if that’s the case... how can Ozpin be “bad” now? That would make Ruby bad too. Or then how can Ozpin be “good”? He’s not. He can’t be because we (the fandom) have been obsessed with his secret evil nature for six years and we (the characters) acted horrifically in the name of his sins. If we have to admit they’re not sins anymore by virtue of justifying them through Ruby... then that means we were wrong in our judgement of him. And no one is eager to admit that. 

As for other age related arguments and them putting their lives on the line, I’ve simply never been persuaded by that. If the group is old enough to have their huntsmen licenses, reject an adult’s advice when he says, “Don’t steal military property,” if they’re ‘justified’ in having the most dangerous secrets in the world, then “Ruby is a kid” can’t function as an excuse anymore. She doesn’t get to be the adult when it suits her (Of course you can trust me. I’m ready for this responsibility. I’m an adult) and then a child when it doesn’t (oh, I’m not responsible anymore now that I’ve made a mistake. I’m just a child). If she’s a kid who can’t be held accountable because she doesn’t have that life experience yet, then she doesn’t have the life experience to be in charge of this mission. If she’s an adult capable of holding her own---“We don’t need adults”---then she’s an adult who can take responsibility for her own choices, including lying to Ironwood. It’s the same with the “they’re risking their lives” argument. Ozpin never recruited anyone. They all signed up for Beacon. Ruby begged to come early. Each and every character decided to risk their lives entirely independent of Ozpin and have made the choice to keep putting themselves in danger time and time again. Ozpin didn’t force RNJR to go hunt Cinder by themselves. He isn’t forcing them to take on this mission. This is the guy who did force Pyrrha to reconsider her initial “Yes,” encouraged his peers to let them be kids as long as possible, told the group to think carefully about just checking up on a relic, and then left them to their own devices when they all said that’s what they wanted. The whole “Ozpin forces/manipulates people into fighting for him” is a complete fabrication of the fandom. We don’t get to praise the group for being brave heroes who risk their lives when things are going well and then turn around to imply that Ozpin forced them to do this when things go badly. Ozpin’s secrets were never a requirement for anyone agreeing to join a dangerous fight. Or if they are then again, the same can apply to Ruby now: she’s risking lives across the world by not telling Ironwood about Salem’s immortality. It comes back to the hypocrisy. If Ozpin should take accountability for letting them fight without giving them every scrap of information, then Ruby needs to take accountability for letting others fight (that Geist attack, dealing with Mantle, plans for a future army) without giving Ironwood every scrap of information. 

[lemonjoonah]

Under Fire - Pt 15

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Title: Under Fire Word Count: 6K Rating: M Genre: Gang AU/ Mafia AU, Drama, Slow Burn Romance Warnings: Violence, Smut Scene (Fingering, Oral (F receiving), Unprotected Sex, Masturbation, Voyeurism (3rd party viewer without consent to watch)) Pairings: Hyung Line x Reader (Primarily Namjoon x Reader), very slight OT7 x Reader.   Pairings (in this chapter):  Namjoon x Reader, Suga x Reader, J-Hope x Reader, Jin x Reader

Summary: As a child you lived among the most wealthy and powerful, after the death of your mother you were shipped off to stay with her sister. Even after finishing your education you continue to live apart from the elite, but a visit home creates an unexpected disaster. You are suddenly roped into a darker world, and who better to be your guide than the infamous gang known as BTS.

Chapter 15 -  Display of Dominance

POV (Y/N)

The day of, preparations are running smoothly. You and JK are setting up a secure line that will handle possible interference from other radios, while V beefs up the security at the manor and repairs your father’s watch for you to wear.

You eye the radios with envy. Jk notices, but continues with his work. At 6 pm Suga comes to fetch JK and V. JK grasps you hand before leaving slipping an earpiece into your palm, giving you a small smile as he leaves.

Suga closes the door behind JK leaving the two of you alone. “I know you’ve been hiding something. Should we be expecting your company tonight despite RM’s instructions?”

You panic wondering if he had told Namjoon of his suspicions, “Suga I don’t plan on going against his orders.”

“So you have no intention of sneaking out tonight?”

“What would you do... If you were in my position?”

“I’d tell him to go fuck himself.”

You smile treading carefully upon your words. “Unless RM admits his mistake I have no plans to attend.”

Suga’s eyes narrow noticing the thought you had put into your statement, but he doesn’t push any further. Instead he pulls out a small handgun with a holster from inside his jacket “While you’re alone, I want you to have this. V has set up the panic room but a little extra protection couldn’t hurt. You’ll be okay to use it if necessary?”

You nod hoping that the ceasefire would hold strong.

...

You take your laptop downstairs so you can hold your video conference in the sitting room right next to the foyer.  Seeing all of them ready to leave in high fashion suites was unexpected.

“50% of the accords is just showboating. We have to remind them the wealth we’re bringing to the table,” V explains.

There is still a part of you expecting Namjoon to change his mind. A part of you that expects him to pull you out into the SUV and accompany them. You hate the thought of having to resort to your underhanded tactics.

Half of the team is still upset, the other half ashamed, Namjoon being the only outlier who stands strong. He’s also the last to exit, lingering after the rest of the members have left. You notice your father’s ring on the hand holding the door. It’s the first time he’s worn it since the day you had given it up.  

“You can still change your mind Namjoon.” You nod the the heirloom upon his finger.  “Please don’t cut me out like he did. I can’t go through that again.” You plead with him, hoping that he would understand the overwhelming feeling of worthlessness he has added to your fear of being alone.    

“I know it may seem weak of me to keep you here, but I can’t take you with me. I won’t be able to concentrate knowing that I have just put you in harms way. I am just trying to do what’s best for my team. That includes you.” With that he shuts the door behind him.

...

You have 30 minutes to prepare before your call. You had not anticipated the dress code of the meeting quickly running back to your room to change. Taking out one of the dresses from Gucci that Hope had inquired about.  A bright red gown form fitting down to the floor. The sleeves and neckline are what truly makes it unique with the lace giving it the appearance of flames crawling up your arms to your collar. You tuck your mother’s pendant into your dress, keeping it close, but perhaps not as close as Suga’s useful gift which you’ve just strapped to the inside of your thigh.

Upon looking in the mirror you  find your scarred shoulder fully on display. You consider trying to find a method to cover it, but this crowd is far different than your elite connections. They shouldn’t see a scar as a weakness but as a strength.

Before returning to your computer, you grab a suit jacket to cover the top half of the dress. Not wishing to appear as if you are sidestepping this meeting for another event. You ready yourself at the desk tucking your ear piece in.

...

You listen as they step out into the lot of the warehouse with the slamming of car doors.

A notification pops up on your computer, reading ...Incoming call: Mr. Shin... You answer pulling the video feed up on the screen.

“Thank you, for meeting with me Miss Park.”

“The pleasure is all mine Mr. Shin.” You get straight to the point with no time to waste. “After reviewing your needs I can see that you’ll need a large amount of assistance to continue running.”

“That is correct.”

“In that case I wish to set you up directly with one of our donors who as expressed an interest in your program. I feel that this might be a better fit, not only will you get the funding you require  but they will be able to address any other needs you have in a timely manner.”

“That would be ideal.”

“If I may, I would like to introduce Mr. Dae.” Dae joined the conversation with a simple greeting a mere second after you clicked adding his account to the call. “He is a bank manager that has reached out to me with the hopes of increasing the company’s philanthropy efforts. I’m sure you two gentleman have much to discuss. I don’t wish to get in your way.”

“Thank  you again, Miss Park.”

“Yes, thank you for this opportunity.” You detect a bit of cynicism in Dae’s voice, so you pull him over the coals one last time before logging off.

“Mr. Shin if anything in this arrangement does not work for your program, you have my office’s number.  Don’t hesitate to reach out, I will happily find a replacement if necessary...”

You end the call just in time to hear your team being greeted, leaving you to assume they had entered the warehouse. Namjoon issues directions, “Split up like we discussed earlier, Hope and V, Jimin and Jin, JK you’re with me.  Suga wait here, we’ll use this as a rendezvous point. Let’s try to keep it level till midnight”  

You pull out your phone finding Wonho in your contact list and sending a brief message.

...Fancy giving me a lift?...

...I thought you would never ask...

You throw your blazer aside before exiting the manor.

Their van pulls up in front just as you make it to the gate. Minhyuk opens the sliding door. “I can see why they left you behind, you’re far to distracting.”

You jump into the back. “I’ll take that as a complement.”  

“We are going to get in such shit for this,” Shownu sighs.

“Your agreement with RM, he expects a full report every time you meet right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well it’s convenient then that I didn’t tell you of my plans before. You won’t see him again until we’re already there. You aren’t breaking any rules.”

Kihyun shakes his head and smiles.

JK had given them access to the com-line, allowing everyone to listen on the drive over. The negotiations don’t seem to be going well.

You can hear several people ask of your whereabouts. Your team’s reply is always the same.

“She is maintaining her cover at a meeting for her families foundation.”

There are several scoffs, some people coming back with insults of an elitist nature while others imply that you’re too scared to face them.

As you reach the warehouse things go from bad to worse. You hear Namjoon’s voice on the line. “We’re almost dead in the water, even VIXX is holding out saying that the wish to meet Fire before entering into a full agreement.”

You really didn’t want to have to do this, but how else would you gain the upper hand for your team. “IM I need you to program this call to go out to this number 15 minutes after we go in.” You hand him a slip of paper and a flash drive with an altered audio file.

“Are you fucking crazy? This could get us killed!” He passes the info over to Kihyun and Wonho for them to take a look.

“You have to trust me, I have a plan. Even if I go in there they still might not take me seriously.”

As if on cue you hear over the radio someone suggesting to Hope if you’re “free” for the evening he would consider making a deal. Hope’s response brings a chuckle to your lips, “You know what, I’ll ask her. Come find me after 12 and I’ll give you her response.”

Everyone looks to Kihyun for the final verdict who reluctantly agrees. “All right we’ll do it... what do you need from us?

“A clear path and provide cover while I deal with the situation.”

...

As the clock hits 8 pm Shownu opens the door to exit the van.

“No wait, I can’t go in yet.”

“Why not.”

“I made a promise to someone.”

Your can hear the members of you team bickering inside.

“We’re fucked...”

“When is Monsta X getting here?”

“They should be here by now.”

“Why aren’t they answering, JK you gave them access to the line right?”

Suga’s voice rings out clearly amidst the others. “Just say it RM, this would have gone better if Fire was here.”   

“What good will that do us now?”

“Just admit your fucking mistake!” Suga seethes.

“Okay, you’re right, I shouldn’t have kept her out of this. I misjudged the situation.”

“Thank you Suga,” You whisper to yourself, before turning back to Shownu. “Right, now we can go.”

Inserting the earpiece back in you exit the van first. Wonho escorts you to the door, sporting a half smile as he looks down at you. You grip his arm tightly mentally preparing yourself to meet some of the most wanted in Seoul. Shownu speaks to the man guarding the door through the hatch.

Every head turned the second you entered the building. With your chin up you evaluate the space. The old owner had made good progress with the renovations, but judging from the broken windows and age of discarded objects he had given up several years ago. There are seats and tables everywhere with drinks on hand. If you hadn’t have known what you were walking into, you might have thought you were in for a simple night out at a dingy rundown bar.

The doorman holds out an empty hand to you. “Gun.” It’s not a request but a demand.

You scoff at the idea of leaving yourself unarmed in a place like this, but when Monsta X starts pulling out their own, you understand that it’s non negotiable. That this must be their way of implementing the cease fire on site. You scan the room questioning how effective it is, almost certain that there must be concealed guns and knives hiding in suit jackets of the other attendees. Not wanting to get caught with yours though, you reluctantly comply. Opening your dress from the side you expose your leg pulling out the gun that Suga had given you.

“You’ll get it back when you leave.” Wonho whispers in your ear try to ease your distress as you relinquish the firearm.   

You find Suga amongst the crowd first. Sitting alone in a booth taking a sip of beer as he gazes upon you with a smirk on his face. He lifts a finger pointing up to the level above you. Looking down over the railing is Namjoon caught between shock and anger. You smile back at him tilting your head, watching his brow furrow even more.

You take your time approaching Suga giving some of the other members a chance to collect around the table first.

“Sorry I’m late, luckily I was able to hitch a ride.”

A few groups started to move into earshot, you hate the haughty tone you’ve set for yourself, but if they wanted a fearless patron on their level that’s what you would show them.

“What about the meeting?” V asks.

“I convinced one of the bank managers that he should pledge his own money or I would take mine from them. They’re sorting out the business matters now, I figured I would leave the boring matters to them.”

V smiles at the prospect of using the banker.

“I’ve asked Monsta X to join us for the night, I figured we could discuss a few matters.” The observers around you drink in the act.

J-Hope guides you into a booth seat wedging you between himself and Jin. He whispers in you ear, “This is a nice surprise.” His fingers trail the lace of you dress on the back of your shoulder.

“Just think, you might have missed this sight had I not come.” You snap back playfully.

Namjoon approaches the table last taking the seat directly across from you with a dark expression. “The meeting with Shin?”

“Done.”

He nods back sternly, you know he’s holding himself back unable to call you out in front of potential allies. You take another glance around focusing this time on the warehouse’s occupants, spotting EXO and GOT7 sitting together from across the room. You freeze in anger. As their members speak among themselves, Chanyeol’s eyes meet yours.

You phone vibrates in your clutch. You pull it out perplexed when you see no one else at the table with their phone out.

...I’ve been looking for you everywhere, you haven’t been out with the others...

...Is this why he won’t let you out to play Angel?...

He sends a suggestive photo of you pulling your gun out from your dress.

...Does he like to keep you locked away for himself? I guess we aren’t so different in that regard...

You take a sharp inhale attempting to remain calm, knowing he’s watching your reaction. “JK I think you might have forgotten to change something. Henry had my number didn’t he?”

He whispers a quiet swear. Namjoons eyes widen for a fraction of a second before his jaw clenches, V places a hand on his shoulder to remind him of his own orders. “Keep it together.”

Jin disregards V, pulling your phone away from you and ripping out the sim card after reading the messages.

With his anger on display he’s playing right into Chanyeol's hand. You tilt Jin’s head towards you with a finger under his jaw moving closer you whisper into his ear. “Don’t let him get to you, just play along. Hold on to what he can’t.” With that you give him a lingering kiss to the edge of his mouth. Jin smiles back at you with a smirk placing an arm around your waist.  

You look over wishing to gauge Chanyeol's reaction to your display but the path between you becomes blocked. Another exceptionally tall gang moves in your direction, this had to be VIXX. Jin pulls his arm back as they greet you.

“Park?”

“Call me Fire.”

“We were worried that you wouldn’t be able to make an appearance tonight.”

“I had the same worry.”

“We were in talks with RM before, but we wanted to be sure of your true motives before agreeing.”

Before you can respond you hear the whistle of several police sirens approaching. You heart stops... Why are there so many?... Your steps replay in your mind. It was a simple trespassing call that you had recorded, an anonymous tip to get them to make an appearance.

You had given it to IM to program so you would not be seen making a call just before they arrive, but from the sounds of it  the police had sent at least a dozen responders. This was not part of the plan.

The room freezes for a moment each group unsure of how to proceed. Everyone makes a break for the back, with the exception of Monsta X. With a nod from Wonho they continue to act on your orders despite the unexpected aggressive response by the police.

Jin slides you out of the booth but Namjoon grabs you by the upper arm in an attempt to guide you deeper into the warehouse. You pull away, with the intent of moving in the opposite direction. The longer you wait to head them off the more danger you are putting your team in.  

He grabs your waist and tries to pull you along again. “(Y/N) you have to move away. This is exactly why I didn’t want you to come, what will happen if your caught among this crowd?”

“Nothing, because no one is going to be arrested...” You hiss back to him trying to keep the conversation between you two.

His eyes widen, “You didn’t...”

“I made a mistake, there was far more of a reaction than I intended. Get the others out and let me handle this.”

He doesn’t move.

“Please just trust me.”

He slowly lets go of you but remains by your side giving orders to the others. “Jin you're with us. Suga and Hope take the others back, get them out if this goes south.”

“I would rather stay.” Suga retorts.

“Suga please...” You beg. He locks eyes with you before turning away as directed.

Loud knocks echo through the building as Namjoon takes you to the door. You notice several other groups attempting to fade away into the darkness. The doorman had been pushed out of the way by Shownu, with the guns restored to their grasp the rest of Monsta X takes posts nearby. Making it look like the were ready to shut down the police if necessary.

With a deep breath and insuring the view behind you was clear. you open the door to several officers heavily geared up. Namjoon remains concealed behind the door with Jin at your other side to assist with the police. You concentrate on defusing the situation as quickly as possible. “Officers what can I help you with?”

They look taken aback by you and Jin’s appearance. “We’ve received a report of possible trespassing, do you have permission to be here?”

“Ah I see, it’s all a misunderstanding.” You pull the deed out of your clutch. “I purchased this lot just recently. We have plans to re-purpose the building. I figured it would be fun to have my investors over for a bit of a celebration before we start the work. Forgive them for not coming to greet you too they are evaluating the other rooms.” You take a pause while they examine the paperwork. “I’m sorry you had to drive all the way out here for a call like this, and so many of you too.”

He hands back the paper with a smile. “We just wanted to make sure. Would you mind if we took a look around? This area can get a little dodgy at night.”

You remain calm knowing the disaster that would strike if they gained access, “I will have to decline your request, unless you have a warrant that is.” You chuckle trying to keep things light. “Sorry, some of my fellow investors are quite private and would not appreciate the intrustion. But thank you for concern.”

“Sorry for the interruption then. Everything seems to be in order, we’ll head out.”

You let out a sigh and they pull away. Namjoon whispers for the team over the mic to return to the table.

You wait at the front until ever car leaves before stepping back to the booth. your team has once again occupied and taking a seat, with Monsta X taking the next table over. Jin sits down beside you awestruck. Namjoon takes your other side gripping your wrist beneath the table. You find it difficult to tell if he is clinging to you out of anger or worry.   

The rest of the attendees slowly crept back out with the same look on their faces as Jin. You look over to where EXO and GOT7 were seated only to find the space vacant. You can only assume they slipped out the second they heard sirens. Keeping Chanyeol’s affiliation to EXO from the police was clearly a higher priority over gaining more allies.

 VIXX approached once again. “Gentleman, we are clear to continue if you wish?” You offer with a small grin.

There’s a silent nod from their leader N.

“You asked before what my motives are. I simply want to look after my people and take revenge on those who took something from us. But in order to do that we need to increase our numbers.  

N responds positively, “RM if the deal is on the table, I think we can make this work.”

...

Seventeen, iKon, and Pentagon would also sign on before the end of the night. They’re all relatively fresh according to J-Hope, but numerous in members.

You leave shortly before midnight, everyone retreating before the end of the ceasefire. Saying goodbye to Monsta X at their van before you go your separate ways.

“Thank you for going against your better judgement.”

“Your full of surprises, working with you should be interesting.” Kihyun comments

Wonho waves you off with a reluctant look, “We’ll see you soon.”

...

It’s a loud car ride home. The younger boys celebrating the successful end of the accords. Namjoon keeps glancing over to you as you sit on the other side of Suga.

As you pull into the manor’s garage Namjoon calls out. “Fire I need to talk to you...privately.”

“Come on RM, no more work tonight. We should celebrate.” V whines.

“You guys go ahead and get started, we’ll join you later.” Namjoon answers.

He pulls you into his office and shuts the door behind. Leaving you by the door he marches away running his hands through his hair and shaking his head. When he turns back to you it’s with overwhelming anger. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“What do you mean what was I thinking? I saved our chances by showing up!”  

“That’s not what I’m talking about. Would you care to inform me why you thought it would be a good idea to call the police?”

“I had to prove myself to them. Those people don’t fear each other as they do losing their freedom behind bars, or they wouldn’t hold something like this. If they could see me in control of what they feared most maybe I could gain their trust.” You take a breath hoping that your motives behind the idea would finally dawn on him. “I made an anonymous trespassing call. There shouldn’t have been that many responders, I was planning on handling it with Monsta X without getting you involved.”

“People could have died tonight, you put your whole team in danger.”

“No! I told you to leave, you insisted on staying with Jin.”

He continues disregarding your correction, while taking a step towards you. “Not to mention the possibility of blowing our cover. We have worked hard to stay off the police’s radar and out of their books. If someone had reacted impulsively, if one of the officers was killed... having their blood on our hands would have changed that.”  

You remain silent as he continues advancing upon you, making his point known.

“What if another gang found out you had called them? Both us and Monsta X wouldn’t have been able to keep all of them away from you, we wouldn’t have been able to save you from their onslaught.” He’s close enough for you to feel his breath on your skin. “You plan for the best outcome knowing that the worst is always a possibility. If you’re not willing to make that sacrifice for the goal then you change the plan. I’m not willing to sacrifice your life for the sake of your prestige.”

“Do you think I like working behind your back? I know I fucked up, but so did you. If you had included me I wouldn’t have had to resort to my own plans.  You have to understand if you continue to try to bench me from this I will not hesitate to work alone. This is what you wanted me to do Namjoon, in the beginning this is what you wanted. What changed?”

“Your motives changed. I heard you the other night speaking to Wonho. You risked your life for us not the goal. Do you know what your father said to me when I spoke to him after meeting you in Busan? When I expressed that we should tell you the truth? He was worried that you would fall in too fast too quickly. He was right, I’m trying to fix that now. We’re not worth you risking your life. I’m trying to save you from yourself. So please, just let me protect you.” There’s a soft sigh along with his last words. He locks his eyes with yours as if looking for you to give in.  

  “You honestly think that? How can you expect me to place your lives any lower than my own? You saw how I lived before I came here, how alone I was. I can’t risk losing you, I won’t go back to that life without you. I won’t watch from the sidelines as you put yourself in danger for my sake. But don’t expect me to believe that you would let me risk more for the goal. You said it yourself, you wouldn’t be able to concentrate knowing I would be in danger. It’s not just my motives that have changed Namjoon.”

You turn towards the door again thinking that the conversation is over. As you reach out grab the handle Namjoon takes your hand and turns you around. Your back is pressed to the door as he leans against you. His other hand rests on your jaw tilting your head up with his thumb resting at the corner of your mouth.

“You’re right, I hate the thought of you walking into the line of fire. But if it had been anyone else who pulled that stunt I would have to cast them out from the team. You’re lucky I’m so fucking selfish, that I can’t seem to let you go. I would do anything to prevent you from walking out that door. ”

You allow your free hand to rest on his chest, you look down fingering one of his shirt buttons before looking back up to his eyes. “Then give me back my reason to stay. I’m tired of fighting you Namjoon.” You realize how much you had missed this, having him hold you close, feeling his touch on your skin.

You grab his shirt pulling him down to meet you. You must have taken him by surprise as both his hands slam against the wood on either side of your head to keep his balance. He presses further against you, a subtle groan escapes him. As you release his shirt he lifts you up. Carrying you in his arms he places you on the edge of his desk. His full lips move to your neck, giving you the occasional nip against your skin. With each bite you gasp, his lips pull tight, smiling at you reaction to him. His hands trail up your thigh, one of them finding its way beneath the fabric. Locating the holster with the gun. “You have a lot of explaining to do wearing something like this.” He sets your gun to the side but comes back to grip to the strap on your leg pushing it up just a little higher on your thigh.

You reach for his suit jacket pulling it off before your fingers move to unbuttoning his shirt.

“The dress or the gun?” You tease, as he slowly unlatches the leather strap.

Instead of letting it fall to the floor he pulls it tighter across your sensitive skin, causing you to yelp as he gives you his answer. “Both.”   

He continues to hold on as his nips your skin harshly, giving you no reprieve. “Even before you got there, I had men inquiring for you, wanting to see if they could take a turn with you. Knowing you were safe back home was the only thing that kept me from reacting. I should have strapped you to the fucking bed to keep you here.” He growls.

“I find it hard to believe that you would leave me like that.” You whisper back.

“No you’re right. I would have brought you to the verge coming and then finished you when I return. Since that’s exactly what you did to me tonight.” The tips of his fingers brush the back of your neck searching for the zipper and dragging it down. “The second you stepped in you had me on the edge. I was forced to keep to myself, bound by those watching, when all I wanted to do was rip off this fucking dress and take you in front of them.   

His hands roll over your shoulders as he exposes your skin. The lace dress falls as you stand for a moment letting it slip to the floor, before returning to your seat on the desk.  He takes off his pants in a swift motion and throws them down next to you.

His index finger tips the cup of your bra allowing him to trail kissed down to your breast. Giving him a moan of pleasure, you urge him to continue, he slowly unfixes the clasp releasing you from it. His warm hands softly roam your chest dragging his fingers back and forth. His mouth assists by giving you the occasional flick of his tongue. While he is distracted you remove your now damp underwear, packing it in the pocket of his pants as a surprise for later.

He reaches down. Letting out a gasp when he finds that you have removed your final piece of clothing.  His fingers tease between your wet folds. “You have no idea how much I wanted to do this as I sat beside you.” His other hand returns to your chin tilting your face up to him . “Having them watch as you react to my touch. Having my fingers coated with you as I shook the hands of others.”

You give him a smirk back playing along, but your face begins to heat with thought of such an act, “Then why didn’t you?”

He reaches deeper inside you but only for a moment, just long enough to extract a moan from your lips. “I told you, I’m selfish. Seeing you like this, completely undone, that’s my privilege.”

He brings his index, now slick from you, to his mouth for a taste. Groaning as he samples you. “Sweeter than sweet.” He whispers quietly with a smirk. He kneels in front of you. As if hungering for more he parts your lower lips with his tongue lapping at your juices. With every brush of his tongue he sends jolts through you. Teasing with long and short strokes.   

Despite his boldness you could still feel his fingers tremble as they trail across your thighs. Even now he was holding back, protecting you from his full strength and demand. Your fingers trail along his jaw tilting his head up. He rises back up to meet you, capturing you lips once more as he release himself from his boxers.

“Are you ready for me baby?” Hearing the word baby roll off his tongue is all the encouragement you need to slide forward on the desk to meet him, but his hands hold your hips in place. “Tell me what you want first.”

“You... fuck I want you inside me.” You trail your fingers along his shaft teasing him. He lets out a low growl moving himself closer. You continue to drive your point across as you direct him further, “No need to be gentle. I promise I won’t break.”

A lusting groan breaks from him as his first thrust glides in filling you. His power enough to push you further on the desk, He counteracts his force with one hand gripping your hips the other tugging on the holster he left strapped to you. With every push he leaves you gasping, your moans rising in volume as he plunges deeper.

...

POV ???

Pulling up the camera feed to RM’s office was a mistake. It had been a long night. I didn’t want to wait if you and RM where going to continue fighting for hours. I just wanted to see if you were starting to come to a resolution. I had turned down my phone volume so the other members around me wouldn’t hear your spat. But now, staring at the screen I realize they would have heard something far different.

The camera is placed on the wall overlooking the front of the desk. RM’s back is to the shot, but you, you are in clear view of the lens. I watch as your dress falls to the floor... I watch as he softly kisses your chest drawing it to his mouth... I watch as you carefully slip your underwear into his pocket. I know this is wrong but I can’t tear my eyes away.

I  place my hand into my pocket to conceal my growing erection. But it’s only made worse when I see him push his fingers inside of you. The silence is killing me, I desperately wish to hear the moans coming from your lips. I dim the screen and pause the footage carefully getting up. I tell the others to continue on without me and inform them of my destination.

I can’t get there fast enough. Once alone I rewind and turn on the audio. Your sinful sounds claim me through the speaker, they alone would be enough to satisfy my need for you. I lick my lips, as RM sucks on his fingers dripping with your wetness. Letting out a groan myself as I watch him go down on you. My craving for you grows stronger, making me to criticize his simple taste of you. Oh how I would drink from you. I can only imagine what it would be like to draw my tongue across your slit as my mouth encases your folds. I picture you bucking against my caresses with pleasure, holding you in place I would roam deeper with my tongue than he ever could.   

I growl with approval when I hear the vulgarity of your words. Here you are begging him for more, when I’m ready to give everything to you in that moment, my body, heart and soul... they’re all yours.

I meet my complete downfall when I see your face as he enters you. I unbuckle my pants reaching in to grip myself. Every whimper from you causes me to pulse against my hand. I bite my lip as I watch your nails dig into his back, you leave marks that I can only envy. As he carries you closer to your climax, I observe a blush creep onto your skin. I disregard his name falling between your moans. Knowing my own would sound so much sweeter coming from your lips.

You shudder one last time as you cry out in ecstasy. Collapsing back on to the desk after he too releases.

I pause the footage berating myself for what I had just witnessed. But the swell in my hand is still prominent, my disgust is not enough to prevent me from scanning the footage back. I close my eyes, roll my head back and continue to take pleasure from your passionate voice. The voice that burns me from the inside.

..........

AN: Welp I think that’s my best cliff hanger to date... so you can either live in despair for a week or two not knowing who the POV belongs to... or you can play my horrible little game of finding the clues and hints I (in true LeMonJoonAh fashion) left for you. I would love to hear your guesses.

Also, side note this was the first smut scene(s) I’ve ever written, thoughts and feedback are welcome!

[deadinsidedressage]

do you think that ppl should not be ''taught'' to be scared of stallions? Sure you can't just think that they are like geldings and easy to train. Finnhorse breed for example is starting to little by little having more incest in it since there is not enough stallions and because ppl are taught that even slightest move means they are going to kill you, who would wanna buy a stallion. Then there is everything else like going through fences but those things should be ''easy'' to fix with training.

The sentiment that stallions are entirely dangerous and wildly different from geldings or mares is a fairly uniquely American sentiment. In Europe, you have children showing stallions and it’s a non-issue. (I say this is uniquely American based on the anecdotal evidence of any time in the past this notion running around on here has been met with a lot of Europeans being confused we treat stallions differently).

To relate this entirely not to horses but to something else I’ve researched a lot:

I think a lot of the misconceptions about stallion aggression stems from the same place as misconceptions about “roid rage”. The way the media portrays anabolic steroid use is in a way that suggests anyone and everyone who takes it is transformed into some Mr. Hyde freak-beast who can’t control their temper and breaks everything. Unfortunately that excuse has also been used in criminal defense of athletes who murdered people instead of addressing the fact that in autopsies it’s been proven these people had repeated brain trauma that would’ve mad them more aggressive, more depressive, and more impulsive. The reality is less than 2% of steroid users (and studies are showing that’s a 2% that either has brain trauma or history of mental illness) are impacted by a massive increase in aggressive behaviors or reactions; so while there are some people who go Dr. Jekyll /Mr. Hyde when they’re on or off cycle— that’s untrue of the overwhelming majority.

I’d wager the same is true of stallions or any domesticated animal we as humans have chosen to keep. Some stallions do exhibit hyper-aggression or hyper-reactiveness as a result of remaining intact. Just like some dogs do as well. Or cats who are intact. Let’s face it— if it was just the presence of testosterone that overwhelmingly created aggression in a population of animals; then wouldn’t every single human man with sex hormones (self-produced or store-bought) be extremely aggressive? Wouldn’t we want to “geld” every man for the safety of society? Wouldn’t it also stand to reason that Mr. Olympia competitors/winners like Kai Greene, Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler, or Dorian Yates would inevitably be uncontrollable monsters as a result of the amount of anabolic steroids they take? You’d think so, but all these men are regarded for being extremely soft-spoken in interviews, extremely intelligent in the way they present themselves, and overall not aggressive assholes. In fact, if it were steroids that automatically created aggressive monsters... it would be Arnold Schawrzenegger with an infamous history as a domestic abuser and not Sean Penn? Not that Arnie is a perfect beacon of human decency, but the former 7-time Mr. Olympia isn’t know for aggressive or abusive antics. Sean Penn is and Sean Penn isn’t someone with a verifiable history of steroid use.

The fact of the matter is that testosterone alone doesn’t create aggression. Will I acquiesce that there are certainly outliers? Yes. However, it’s more of an issue of how we’re interacting with them. Have you ever heard the old timer wisdom of “never let a big horse know it’s big”? The idea there is that by never allowing a horse who could easily physically overpower you know that that’s the case; it’s a non-issue. If you never give the horse an interaction where it learns that it has a size advantage to get its way, then you don’t have a horse who uses its size for intimidation. Well, same can be said for handling stallions.

If you interact with a stallion in a way that’s fundamentally different because you have any fear that it’ll act different because it’s a stallion… You’ll get a horse who acts different because it’s a stallion. This isn’t some “dominance theory” nonsense where you can’t “show fear” or the horse “wins”— this is more a case of conditioning. Again, using the big horse as an example; the “big horse who knows he’s big” doesn’t use his size to his advantage because he’s the “alpha” but he uses it because he understands a basic cause and effect: “If I stretch my neck high and act big people are too afraid to make me do something I’d rather not do.” Same can be said of a lot of stallion behavior. If a stallion learns that people will back off because he acts like a “stallion”, he’ll act like a “stallion”.So, do I think people should be taught not to treat stallions differently? Yes, absolutely. Stallions aren’t evil death machines.Stallions aren’t inherently different on some incomprehensible level, but stallion ownership is like owning an intact dog--- you have to be a lot more responsible than the average owner. Someone with an intact dog shouldn’t be allowing their dog off-leash. Someone with a stallion has to be more aware when out in the public and have different “rules” they need to adhere to when showing. Just like with owning an un-spayed or un-neutered dog--- it’s not your animals that’s the probably generally; it’s the negligence and incompetence of the other animal owners you’re going to have to interact with. Aside from all these incorrect notions about stallions that are perpetrated in media & “word of mouth” equine communities--- a lot of people are discouraged from stallion ownership because of the extra precautions they need to take and complexity involved in showing or just being able to ride in public spaces. In my region, we have several stallions that regularly compete at dressage shows of all sizes. They’re all also very well-behaved. The issues that arise with them at shows comes from people not recognizing a stallion in the warm-up and giving them space. You know that picture of the obedient pitbull not eating a steak because he’s following orders to not eat the steak? Stallions at shows are a lot like that pitbull, they’re not necessarily going to cause an issue if a steak walks by--- but unlike the pitbull and the steak... a stallion in warm-up with a mare in heat riding past isn’t the only one who needs to show obedience or restraint. The mare is just as likely to be the problem. When you then consider that stallions are almost exclusively owned and showed by professionals whereas mares are still overwhelmingly shown by amateurs... that’s the issue. It’s not the stallion or the way the stallion has been conditioned or trained much of the time. It’s the issue of how amateur owners and riders react to stallions.Another complexity of showing with a stallion is the stabling situation--- again, pitbull-steak/stallion-mare comparison... it’s not certainly going to be the stallion who is the issue. Whereas a mare or gelding owner you can get around stabling issues of a mare being listed as a gelding or a gelding listed as a mare in show paperwork (one of my mares was always incorrectly filed as a gelding at one showing facility); stallions owners can’t easily take on these mistakes. Even with greatly behaved stallions you can have issues being stabled next to a mare because as much as you can make a point that stallions aren’t aggressive or bad because they’re stallions, you also can’t ignore the fact that they’re stallions.As much as I want to hold-on to the pitbull-steak analogy... at the end of the day, the pitbull isn’t trying to have sex with the steak but a stallion is 100% biologically wired to have sex with a mare. There are instances when training doesn’t hold up against biologic impulses. That’s why animals will mate with their parents or siblings--- at the end of the day you can’t convey consequence for sexual response the way you can convey consequence for misbehavior. No stallion owner wants to deal with their stallion breaking down the stall because he’s too near a mare in heat because the show facility fucked up and listed him as a gelding. 

In order to own and compete (or own and keep at “home” without competing) a stallion, there’s a lot of work that has to go into place. For ownership you need a large facility to keep the stallion away from mares. For showing, you need to be extremely proactive and constantly be on top of keeping your stallion out of scenarios that could end badly. It’s a lot. 

So, no I don’t think it’s the belief in stallions being aggressive that prevents larger scale stallion ownership. I think it’s an issue with stallion ownership having more difficulties associated with it and those are difficulties that (again, focusing on America) most owners do not want to take on---even professionals. There are many breeding farms that only have mares. There are many professionals who only want to ride geldings or mares because they don’t want to deal with the associated difficulties of campaigning a stallion. 

Are the misconceptions about stallions or difficulties associated with stallions related to inbreeding and poor genetic variance? No. To assume this was the case would be to ignore the fact that every single animal isn’t breeding quality. The biggest reason out there why people don’t own and show stallions has nothing to do with misinformation or extra care--- it has everything to do with the fact there’s absolutely zero reason to keep a non-breeding animal intact. 

My cat isn’t neutered because I was afraid he’d be dangerous. My cat is neutered because there was absolutely no reason for him to not be neutered. He’s not a purebred with excellent conformation, so he’s not going to be producing babies. Keeping in him intact would’ve just meant I would have to deal with a lot more issues making sure he never tried to impregnate another cat. Keeping him intact would’ve meant I possibly wouldn’t be able to safely keep him with my spayed female and may never be able to bring another cat into our home until he’d passed. I absolutely wouldn’t be able to let him outside off-leash (which I don’t believe in outdoor cats anyway) and potentially never be able to have him outside on-leash. There would be far too many feral intact cats that would cause him to harm me with misplaced aggression if he went outside. 

It’s the same for horses. Unless that horse is determined to be of breeding quality conformation and performance... then you don’t keep it intact. Why risk a stallion breaking out to impregnate the neighbor’s mares when you’re just keeping the horse for your personal enjoyment and the horse isn’t of any genetic benefit to its breed? You don’t want to be responsible for anymore unwanted cats or dogs in the world--- that’s why you neuter. You don’t want to be responsible for anymore unwanted horses in the world either--- that’s part of why we geld. 

Breeds that are suffering from too small a genetic pool don’t benefit from allowing subpar genes. Gelded Finnhorses (or gelded any other breed) are gelded because they do not possess traits that should be passed down. If you breed low quality horses, you get lower and lower quality horses. The only way to salvage breeds that don’t have enough genetic variance is to allow in outside breeds. Which is hard to do with breeds that have closed books and aren’t open to the idea of losing “purity”--- which just leads to a continued degradation of the “pure” horses left. More people owning stallions can’t fix a small gene pool.The horses that are marked for breeding quality are marked for breeding quality (generally) before they ever hit the market. Are some horses that could be beneficial to the breeding pool that never get bred because they’re sold into the sport market by breeders without the resources to keep them? Yes, but generally horses that are actually going to be benefiting the breed stay within the breeding community.

[vaguely-concerned]

empire of ivory here we go!

previous temeraire let’s read here

- um excuuuuse me I have waited two books for us to come back home to britain to see everyone again and now everything is awful and shitty and scary and my fave is leaving and nothing’s how it should be??? no??? this is unfair??????

- tharkay NO please don’t go everything provably goes to hell whenever you leave D:D:D:

(to be fair to him I guess it’s understandable to want some time alone to process the absolute outrageous bullshit he just pulled for a guy he’s known for like four months)

he used his page time well tho; instantly convincing roland of his worth and making her laugh... giving laurence his cup of tea b/c he looked like he needed it more... telling laurence that he’s leaving because he promised to do that much at least... truly the best boy, off to fetch more dragons apparently because it wasn’t quite crazy enough the first time

- god I love jane roland, I’m so glad my two faves got along instantly, between them they could... maybe protect laurence from himself? at least a little??? I can but dream

- I think this is the most emotionally invested I’ve been in a piece of media since that time I spent a few months completely incoherent over uncharted, and naughty dog very kindly held my heart in their hands and chose to be gentle with it in the end but I am not so sure that is how it’s going to be for this series and I am Not Prepared for the suffering

- I love whenever laurence thinks uncomfortably about one of the various and sundry atrocities committed by the government he’s still pledged all his loyalty to. yes william maybe the british empire... is in fact not good and has enough blood on their hands to dye the ocean red. I can’t wait until he connects the dots here (and presumably has a pretty intense crisis if faith about it because it seems like one of the loadbearing structures of his character... actually no wait I’m not ready to see this D:D:D:)

- the little details like the fact that he just calls bb!roland ‘emily’ and harcourt becomes ‘catherine’ so easily in his narration now are so so sweet  

- lord allendale is one of those dudes who have good politics but is a shitheel to his family and I want to smack him

laurence being the mortified poster boy of this party, though? priceless, imagine coming up with a protagonist this effortlessly involuntarily hilarious, it’s the mark of true genius

- I don’t usually quibble over things like this, but I think the edit for this fourth book specifically is a bit lacking? I’ve come across a lot of mistakes even my dumb ass can pick up on already, and I’m only a hundred pages or so in

- caught between crying and cackling at this part b/c like laurence I’m  d e v a s t a t e d  at the thought of temeraire getting sick but also temeraire is just like cheerfully getting laid the whole time

also how did none of the aviators think to give laurence The Talk about giving his dragon The Talk, you all know what he’s like

- oh thank god

- I have spent half of today crying about dragons coughing, how are you this fine evening good reader

- btw this series fills a hole in my soul left by jkr giving me all those tantalizing hints of different types of dragons in ‘fantastic beasts’ and never following up on it

- tharkay may not be here but laurence just mentioned him like once in his narration so let’s take the excuse to reminisce about the good old days (when tharkay was here)... remember that time when the one of his own jokes he laughed openly at was about lawyers and laurence frankly should have responded better b/c it was kind of funny and sadly temeraire doesn’t have the worldly experience to know it yet.... aaah precious, he truly is a sardonic blessing to my heart and deserves the world

okay back to our regularly scheduled content   

- riley why u gotta b such a bitch about this

(I love how laurence is constantly doubting himself over this tho, as if he’s done something wrong in this situation... like honey baby if there’s one thing worth breaking a friendship over it’s probably them being cool with slavery lol. it shows how much laurence has grown, considering that this disagreement has always existed between them but he used to be willing to just overlook it... I’m so proud of you laurence)

also lol @ berkely coming in to tell them everyone can hear them, I have a desperately soft spot for him and maximus. just the image of both of them turning to him ‘united in appalled indignation’ like ‘excuse you???’ and him giving exactly zero fucks... *chef kiss emoji*

- most important information revealed in this book: a) dragons are not widely considered to have committed original sin, thank you reverend erasmus and b) laurence has taken time out of his day at some point to worry about it b/c he’s a dork

(this is the sort of world building I am hopelessly weak to lol)

- gong su tricking temeraire into eating in the most melodramatic way possible... god bless you chef

- fkjhsadkjfhsdkjalhfaskjldhf laurence judging chenery for what he’s wearing while going out into the jungle in full uniform hat included himself... I caaaaan’t

- demane has only appeared on three pages so far but if anything happens to him I’ll kill everyone in this book and then myself

- ‘average dragon speaks one million languages’ factoid actualy statistical error. Temeraire Linguist Georg, who wants a pavilion thank you very much & learns over 10,000 languages each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted <3<3<3

(I love that temeraire is like... a nerd dragon with a hopelessly jock captain)

- laurence effortlessly rating the relative hotness of the other male aviators to try to suss out who harcourt has slept with fjsaldfhsdkljafh do you ever hear yourself think william

like this is the thing about him it’s so easy to headcanon him as bi b/c he can be so mindbogglingly oblivious it’s entirely possible he literally wouldn’t even have noticed until someone smacked him over the head with it

- see I’m very happy they found the cure but I don’t fucking trust it b/c the pattern of these books tends to be to give you one moment of ‘oh phew everything is going to be okay’ about 2/3 into the story and THEN everything goes to hell and fifty pages later laurence is dissociating and napoleon has conquered prussia 

- THERE WE GO RIGHT ON SCHEDULE

temeraire is never going to let laurence go anywhere without him again and rightly so

- hasn’t mrs erasmus been through enough. can’t she just be allowed to chill 

- this is really cool world building but I’m too stressed out to appreciate it

really enjoy the description of architecture tho this sounds so awesome

- sfahdfklsahdfksjda laurence making sure his clothes are as washed and presentable as possible... I can’t with you you beautiful idiot

- TEMERAIRE OH MY GOD IS HE HERE IS LAURENCE HALLUCINATING PLS SAY HE’S ACTUALLY HERE

- ...well I mean if anyone has a freudian excuse for being kind of dickish I guess it would be these guys? it’s actually pretty chill of them to only flog one of them (laurence, because he just can’t play it any way but stupid lawful good at every turn) and not just killing them all I guess, they kept them fed and stuff

- oh thank god

- temeraire you are the most darling dragon boy and I love you

I was really really worried for a moment there that the reference to the Colosseum was a not-so-subtle hint they would have to gladiator fight to the death but thankfully they were basically just calling in a parliament

- DID THIS MOTHERFUCKER JUST STAB A CHILD IN THE STOMACH?? I HOPE HE ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE DICK AND DIES pls say demane is going to be okay

- aw okay finally something good for mrs erasmus I will take it

- laurence you useless fool of a narrator is demane okay?? 

- god roland is just so cool naomi novik really gave us a jovial butch silver fox aviator lady huh... she did that for us and I for one am full of gratitude

- oh thank GOD (hm I sense a running theme here lol) the kid is going to be okay I can breathe again

- iskierka the pirate captain + temeraire’s reaction... perfect

- ;____________; I would lay down my life for temeraire and also that’s a gutpunch of a moodswing... the perfect hilarity of ‘that is an ugly hill’ immediately followed by That... jesus

- awww every time volly shows up again is a joy (temrer!!!)

- laurence... laurence you need to stop asking people to marry you because you never actually really fucking mean it!!!!! have you learned nothing about yourself since book 1, trust your goddamn instincts for once in your life you and roland have been doing perfectly okay thus far as like... affectionate fuckbuddies right? 

(her reaction was priceless tho god bless)

- aaaah there we go the british government is looking more like itself... welcome to the world of realpolitik laurence I’m really sorry :(

- “It is only dragons, you know” JANE ROLAND WTF DID YOU JUST SAY

- “This government is not of my party; my king is ill and mad; but still I am his subject. You have sworn no oath, but I have.” He paused. “I have given my word.”

:) this is... fine

(like. I know this is necessary character growth and he’s basically been a waste of a good man in service to a government like this the whole time and the writing’s been on the wall since book 1 but I don’t want this to be happening to hiiiiim)

- tfw... ur dragon boi is so good... that being anything less than good for him in turn is unthinkable...................... b o i

- ...jane doesn’t really know him very well if she didn’t see this coming from a mile off tho does she

I mean I guess she has other stuff to think about but this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone

- remember when he thought the entire corps was weird and now he’s finally at home there... and has to leave it behind :):):) super extra fine is what this is

- yeah okay laurence definitely has a crush on ol’ bonaparte noting that down lol he’s all but blushing after that kiss on the cheek 

also... if you just overlook the dictator thing for a moment is napoleon wrong about what he’s saying tho. (no and not even laurence is prepared to say so he’s just going to go back there and get murdered anyway b/c idk lawful good is dumb as fuck sometimes I guess)

It’s really cool how the author shows that napoleon has a better handle on laurence’s psychology after barely meeting him than a lot of people he’s known for years now, though, really adds to his menace and appeal as a character

- wow uh that’s one way to end a book... it’s actually tipped over from tragedy into a strange sort of hilarity for me now: he literally got sued out of his life’s earnings for being a decent human being, committed treason for the same reason and is about to be hanged for thinking genocide might have been a step too far -- in the span of thirty pages. I believe ‘that escalated quickly’ is not too much of an exaggeration here

- SIPHO IS GONNA WRITE BOOKS ONE DAY YOU GUYS!!!! I PROUDLY WELCOME OUR SECOND NERD TO THE CREW

 - I think this one might be my least favorite so far? not that I disliked it, it’s just the one that’s hit the worst by the fact that there’s not always that much time spent with the cultures central to the book; tswana seems really interesting but because of the way the plot played out and our limited perspective though laurence it just didn’t work for me? the cool shit comes in sipho’s book at the end, like how thoroughly they kicked the europeans out of the coast of africa, which is very cathartic (I will say that most of the second book being set on the ship and then only a sliver of it is actually in china annoyed me too haha) 

I have the distinct feeling this book is setting up for some Misery and breaking of the pattern a bit in the next one though, which will be interesting! ONWARDS TO MORE PAIN AND LAURENCE IS ALREADY PASSIVELY SUICIDAL FROM THE OUTSET SO LIKE... I’M SURE THIS WILL BE REAL FUN :)

maybe my boy will be back tho? silver linings silver linings clinging to some silver linings

[nellynee]

(So I got a little behind on OK KO for a bit, and I had this in my drafts since before the Mr, Logic flashback episode. It’s been sitting around there since then, as I wanted to update this after catching up. BUT I’m actually forming a whole new thought thread based on what I’m seeing, so I’m posting this now as it was as a precursor to that. It’s a little outdated, but still holds a lot of relevant thoughts and I want to post it for reference.) 

Ok so like, I wrote like six paragraphs on why the whole Pow card system frustrates me and I don’t know if anyone else has come to this conclusion and I haven’t seen it, or if this is just obvious to everyone and I’m an idiot for pointing it out. But like wow (I’ll get to Boxman’s level in a second just let me set the stage as it were)

POW card level isn’t an indicator of power level, it’s a reflection of your career as a whole, completely independent from physical stats like strength and speed and such.  

I mean it makes total sense. Again, stop me if I’m just talking about the thing the fandom doesn’t talk about because it’s obvious but like....

On the scale we see (heros specifically)  0-1 (neutral parties, Hero’s who don’t put in a lot of active effort, new comers) 2-3 (those that are active, but repetitive in efforts. Don’t have many chances to prove significant jumps in heroism, the day to day heroes) 4-7 (young hero’s in official schooling systems who have more opportunity to prove themselves, and veterans with inactive careers, like Red Action and some of the older cast, 8-9 (those typically in this category are flashbacks, eventual bigshots who are still early in their career, see Laserblast) 10 and up (Veterans and big shots who are still extremely active)

(But “You’re level 100″ indicates that two level 5′s could beat a level 10 like it’s a power quantifier. I’m going with “K.O.’s idea, he’s a kid who doesn’t quite have it worked out, which is why no one else thought along those lines and indulged him. It worked, but there was no connection between the level and effectiveness, after Enid beat Elodie with skill alone, despite being a lower level, meaning it isn’t a one for one anyways)

We see POW card level being used as a badge of honor less as a means of “look how tough I am” and more “Look at everything I’ve DONE

after all, K.O. is less than 1, but we know for a fact he has a lot of hidden potential and power. So in this system, you could have low level hero’s who are extremely powerful, just inactive, or are still building their careers.

Shadowy Figure using his POW card as proof he’s trustworthy makes more sense. A powerful hero may be impressive, but if it’s an indicator of past deeds, then someone doing enough active good to be a level 8 is making good choices and is trustworthy

Outliers make more sense. Big Darrel, since he’s considered a separate entity level wise, exists only for a short amount of time and exclusively does bad deeds. With how Boxman bragged about Big Darrel’s level, I wouldn’t put it past him to have artificially inflated it to bust the Plaza’s moral. Hero and Galgarion as well. Hero doesn’t seem ridiculously OP for his level, and his increase comes from many small repetitive heroic actions, not actually getting stronger. It would make sense for two brothers to get into a POW level pissing contest for their initial disagreement as well.

Basically, level is bragging rights, the culmination of good vs bad deeds

I’ve got a lot more little details like that but the reason I’m bringing all this up here is Boxman’s Level, which has been the unexplained outlier for so long. He doesn’t seem to be the physical equivalent in power to Carol, who’s of the same level, and he gets no respect for his level despite being so high, and taken in the context as a career quantifier, that attitude towards him makes more sense now.

We get verbal confirmation in universe from Venomous that P.O.I.N.T. has significantly better resources than any of the villains. The indicated high grade villains also show a healthy fear of them, and “Villain’s night out” shows them as significantly outclassed. I’m not saying it for sure, but I wouldn’t put it past the current culture for P.O.I.N.T. to be purposefully stalling the villains out from a legislation standpoint. (edit side note: OH MY GOD The confirmation in Point to the Plaza that Point works like some sort of martial law and is a strong authoritarian presence of leadership in the culture of this world iS SO VALIDATING. I’ve been theorizing that POINT might be using “for your own good” mentalities to bully their views and how that might affect the general villainous populous FOREVER) The highest levels we see other than those that are grossly inflated (big Darrel, Galgarion) are Boxman, with the rest of them sitting pretty comfortably at 7′s and 8′s, several levels bellow most veteran hero’s

Boxman may be a much higher level than the rest of them, but he doesn’t play nice, doesn’t make an effort at teamwork for the greater evil agenda. Going solo, he doesn’t have much of a claim to regular impressive evil actions, his number one nemesis is a shopping center, his robots fail often (probably on the field after being sold too). He’s impulsive and hammy and doesn’t seem to plan things through. He’s probably seen as a one hit wonder has been at best, and at worst, a guy who got lucky once, got a very good level for it, and can’t recreate actual success. He gets little respect from other villains because he does nothing to cultivate respect from other villains. He’s not considered competent in part because of his rash temper causing mistakes yes, but also because he doesn’t fit in with conventional villain culture.

That being said, I absolutely believe in the #realness of his level

There is just to much evidence in favor of it

My personal first indicator was Boxman’s conversational tone in “Villain’s night Out” when discussing P.O.I.N.T.. His tone didn’t indicate bragging to me. it was less “Oh yeah I’m so tough POINT is out for me too” talk up, but more “Oh yeah jeeze, I can’t totally empathize and connect with you on this issue”. I chalked it up at the time to weird delivery, but my second watch through of the series it did make me more alert. Boxman’s internal robots, Mr. Logic, Earnesto, those meant for personal use and not exposed to the populace, are MUCH more competent than his heavy hitters. (edit: this was written before I watched “ok dendy let’s be ko”, but in a way this still stands. I do have thoughts about Ernesto on the field, which will come with the next big meta piece I have, but this is still relevant, trust me.) His acknowledgement of his personal flaws, working on them actively, but getting no where. His secret projects and the experimental nature of the random weapons and upgrades on his robots when he sends them out. His bursts of cruelty and hyper competence. The fact that Boxman is the only regular and discernible threat on the Plaza, and despite Garr being it’s overseer and a very competent one at that, Carol has apparently been placed by some organization (probably POINT) to make sure everything is under control…

Don’t get me wrong, I do think Boxman’s flaws are legit and not a rouse. He’s over focused on the Plaza, has trouble planning too far ahead, as a hair trigger temper and impulse control issues…

But I also think Boxman is hobbling himself.

*I think he did something big, something huge, or a had a series of larger victories. Started a name for himself. And POINT retaliated, HARD.

And being very much an all or nothing sort of attacker, being perfectly aware of his capabilities and flaws, Boxman may has been laying low since then. I think Boxman is 100% serious when he mentioned POINT always interfering in his plans to Venomous. Whether it’s a show of power, or more likely, financial crippling him in a way that he’s constantly pushing against, POINT has been keep an eye on him all this time and he knows it.*-(edit: again, I understand that this is in at least some small ways disproved by Lad and Logic, as we see that at that point, at the start of his obsession with the Plaza, Boxman has never openly attacked POINT, but is planning to, and we see the start and reasoning behind Boxmore industries. But I also feel that my reasoning still stands as well. also to be continued in my other meta post)

I think he’s crippling his robots on purpose, emotionally at least, to try and walk the fine line between the small destruction he craves and keep out of the limelight. I think he picked the Plaza as an easy place to test his experiments and make himself seem less competent with his goals to shake the heat and it got to real for him. I think he knows he’s only going to have one chance to make a big stand and he’s been working behind the scenes all this time. He’s been committing small time villainy to shake the trail off his bigger plans.

I think the show is sleeping on him, because he’s sleeping on him. He’s not ready to break his plans open yet.

I think part of Venomous’ reaction towards him in “We’re captured” and “Villain’s night out” were as much a hilarious evil boner as it was the realization that maybe Boxman’s past success wasn’t a fluke, that there’s competence enough to work with once you wade through all the ham that it might work. I think Venomous is just as bad as Boxman when it comes to classic hammy villain shenanigans, but has at least learned to fit in in modern Villain culture, and has realized that Boxman might be his one opportunity to go big or go home.

[juliethebibliophile]

The Librarians is the Most Important Show on TV....and It Needs to Stay on TV

Hello friends! Let me start by saying, as I hope you’ve heard, that The Librarians Season 4 has had a schedule change again! The first 6 episodes will now air in doubles! So December 13th, 20th and 27th will air two episodes each! Make sure to set your DVRs Accordingly!!!!

Now, onto the point of the post. This is the second time TNT has changed the schedule for the 4th season. There’s something fishy going on here and I don’t like it!!!! Pair that with how Dean was pushed to make the show darker for S3(of course the last line of S3 was such as jab at that that it’s not even funny but I digress), how long it took us to get S4....it’s clear TNT might be trying to manipulate the ratings.

But I, a fervent lover of The Librarians, know that we, the dedicated fans, will not let that happen!!!!! So how do we do this? FILL social media with Librarians posts during the episode. Tag TNT, tag the show accounts, I mean SWARM TNT with our love. But again, that’s not the point, I’m just gonna say that on every post to make it well known.

There is a reason why I’m campaigning so hard for this. The Librarians needs to stay on TV. It is, and I’m phrasing this more strongly than I normally do...the most important show on television. Let’s talk about that.

I have said it 100 times and I’ll say it again....The Librarians changed my life. Absolutely transformed it. Without it, I would not have the level of self-confidence that I now have. Without it, I would’ve spent my freshman year in bed hating my life rather than making happy memories despite my depression. Without it, I may never have been able to make peace with changing my major from theatre to education...a change that set my life in the right direction.

And there are reasons why. No other show on TV, at least that I’ve seen, behaves like The Librarians. Most every show has nerdy quirky characters sure, but they’re always the butt of the joke. Their personality is made fun of to the point where....we’ve just sort of come to accept it as a society. We don’t see it as wrong in any way simply because it’s not malicious and tbh....that’s kinda fucked up.

The characters in the Librarians are super super smart, super nerdy, outcasts, and quirky and eccentric in any way that a person could be so. And it’s never made fun of. Like never. And if it is, it’s rare, happened before the characters knew each other well, and is contrasted with validating monologues that I cannot even begin to describe in terms of beauty.

Where else on TV do you get this? Where else do we have a romantic relationship between an eccentric person and a not as eccentric person where there’s no teasing, and instead explicit speeches about loving each other for who they are? Where else are quirks never made out to be flaws? Where else on TV do characters just get to be the way they are without outlier characters who are “normal” making fun of them? Answer....not many places.

And you know what, beyond that, the quirkiness of the characters is just how I connect. But like....this show is so diverse in every way. And every character gets to be loved. Like really, seriously loved for who they are. No stigma whatsoever. I mean, let’s take a look at some of our main characters.

Ezekiel Jones, A POC who is obnoxiously self-confident and just loves himself so wholeheartedly? But at the same time he learns that he can love other people too.

Cassandra A bisexual(as far as we know rn, she’s expressed interest in both a man and a woman), disabled, neurodivergent woman who is all kinds of eccentric and adorable and no joke about her being annoying has ever come close to being made. She’s also a survivor of mental abuse and neglect by her parents.

Jacob Stone, another abuse survivor(yes we have 2-he was canon mentally and physically abused and arguably neglected as well) who literally had such a bad situation that he felt he could never trust anyone. He loved, but he didn’t trust. That dude learns to trust, lets go of connections to his father that held him back.....like MY DUDES

Said two abuse survivors have been given a special relationship on the show that some argue is romantic and everyone agrees that they are very close friends. They openly talk about what they went through on screen, multiple times, and help each-other overcome their personal pasts.

Oh and then there’s Eve motherfucking Baird who DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HER. She’s your typical tough-girl who like to kick ass and prefers a jumpsuit to a dress....or SO YOU THINK. Because yes she’s all that but she’s also really really emotional, and flirty, and really smart in her own right and from a lot of her backstory we can kind of surmise she was also an outcast/ “quirky” kid. I love her. I love her so much

Flynn Carsen, an arguably neurodivergent man who is pretty much the most eccentric out of all of them. He has a lot of abandonment issues and we see the real effects of those issues in his life and relationships. And he makes mistakes. But he’s constantly reminded that even though the mistakes he makes are not okay, that the people who love him understand that said mistakes are a result of his issues and that they love him for who he is.

So what I’m saying here is.....PROMOTE THE LIBRARIANS. EVERYONE NEEDS TO WATCH THE LIBRARIANS.

Seasons 1-3 are on Hulu and that’s unfortunately the only streaming service where they’re available right now. But seriously, if you can....go watch that shit. THE LIBRARIANS DESERVES SO MUCH LOVE.

[bigskydreaming]

The Tragedy of Bruce and Dick and Jason...and Tim...and Damian...and, well, you get it

I maintain that Dick’s history with juvie and the system is actually crucial to understanding his and Jason’s dynamic, not to mention the reasons Bruce took Jason in at all in the first place. 

Its usually described as though Bruce took in all his kids because they reminded him of himself in various ways, but that’s not really true. With Dick, yes, its been clearly canonized this was his motivation. He looked at Dick, who does look a lot like Bruce, especially when they were both younger, and saw a mirror of himself when he was a kid and had just lost his parents. He eventually took Dick in because he wanted to keep Dick from turning out like he had, consumed by his mission, his need to keep bad things from happening to other people, like had happened to him. To make sure Dick had more to his life than just that. He wanted a do-over in a lot of ways. Raising him was a way for Bruce to kinda see how his life would’ve turned out differently, how he would’ve ended up, if he’d taken a different path, if there’d been someone who understood his pain and the intensity of his drive to DO something with all the emotions his parents’ death left him with. 

Yes, of course Bruce had Alfred, but its also been clearly laid out in the comics that Alfred  - for as much as he saw Bruce as a son - just couldn’t relate to him in the same way Bruce could to Dick. He never really understood Bruce’s need to become Batman, he just went with it and supported him anyway, because he’s Alfred and that’s what he does. His kid wants to dress up like a giant bat and go fight crime? Well, okay, lemme get my sewing machine, guess he’s gonna need a costume.

And then with Tim, well, Tim came to Bruce, not the other way around, and they’ve always had an understanding because they come from very similar backgrounds. Same social standing, similar environments....Tim was neglected by his largely absent parents, not actually orphaned (until later), but Bruce definitely saw reminders of his own self-imposed isolation in Tim’s parentally-imposed isolation.  There’s similar links and parallels between Bruce and Damian, Cass and Duke.

Jason was always the outlier.

Bruce never took Jason in because he saw a reminder of himself in Jason, (with the exception of Jason’s anger, which he could relate to on many levels, sure). But Jason’s story really has zero parallels with Bruce. Bruce met him when he was stealing the tires off the Batmobile. Both his parents were still alive, even if they weren’t exactly nurturing influences. He came from a wildly different social background and upbringing, was foul-mouthed, angry, bitter, vindictive, petty. Hell, he didn’t even actually look anything like Bruce, the way we tend to joke about Bruce taking in boys who look just like him. Originally, Jason had red hair. Bruce dyed his hair when he made him Robin. The idea that Bruce took Jason in for the same reason he took in his other kids, because he saw himself reflected in him, saw what he could’ve been if his life had gone a little differently, it just doesn’t work. On any level. There’s no scenario in which Bruce ever could have lived any version of Jason’s life. No scenario in which Jason was only a few degrees removed from Bruce’s own personal experiences.

No, Bruce took Jason in for one reason and one reason only - because he looked at him and saw Dick Grayson. He saw the boy Dick Grayson could have grown up to become if Bruce hadn’t taken him in, if Dick had been left to rot in juvie or elsewhere in Gotham’s corrupt system. If Dick had fallen through the cracks without anyone to catch him, the way Jason clearly had.

Forgetting where Dick came from, ignoring his original backstory, completely obliterates Bruce’s entire motivation for adopting Jason. And it completely erases Bruce’s real role in the trainwreck that became his relationship with both Jason and with Dick, not to mention the original relationship between Jason and Dick.

Because Bruce fucked up, big time, when he took Jason in. Oh, not that he shouldn’t have done it, but in the WHY he did it, and the fact that he never really acknowledged this and nobody ever really called him out for it. With Dick, Bruce was trying to give him a better life. Even if he fumbled and went about it the wrong way, his motivations were still pretty pure. Bruce was aware enough on some level of his own flaws, his own deep-seated dissatisfaction with his own life, to genuinely want to steer someone he saw himself in from going down the same road, making the same mistakes. A huge number of Bruce and Dick’s early conflicts were essentially Bruce frustrated that he didn’t know how to get Dick to stop making the same mistakes Bruce himself regretted making. Not getting that it still had to be up to Dick whether or not he did, that the choices ultimately had to be his. 

But with Jason....Bruce’s motivations were not so selfless, and they were not nearly as self-aware. Bruce took Jason in pretty much in the immediate aftermath of his biggest fight with Dick ever, when he fired Dick as Robin and basically kicked him out...entirely out of an emotionally stunted sense of self-preservation. The idea of Dick being hurt, of losing him if he died, it terrified Bruce so completely that he pushed him away, as though if he lost him on HIS terms, deliberately, that would somehow be better, it’d hurt less. Except it didn’t. He regretted it immediately, but he didn’t know how to fix it without owning that he’d fucked up, without explaining to Dick WHY he’d done what he did, allowing himself to be vulnerable and admitting just how terrified he was of losing him....and Bruce just was not capable of that at the time (as if he is now, even).

And so then he’s out fighting crime one night and returns to the Batmobile, to find some scrawny little kid stealing the tires off it. A kid who wasn’t remotely apologetic, who was defiant, and ballsy, and not about to be intimidated by even the goddamn Batman, who swung his tire iron at this giant dude in a Bat costume, spitting and kicking and screaming as if he had the slightest chance of winning. It didn’t matter to him that he didn’t, couldn’t, Jason Todd was going down swinging. And in that moment, you can not tell me that its himself Bruce Wayne saw. That he looked at Jason and saw any version of himself or the kid he once was or even one he could have ended up as.

Nope, he saw Dick Grayson, the tiny little acrobat who’d guilt tripped him, HIM, into letting him dress up in bright yellow and green and run across rooftops taking on bad guys twice his size, villains he shouldn’t have had a prayer of defeating but did anyway, because he just refused to accept an alternative as reality. He saw the kid a young, angry Dick Grayson could’ve grown up to be if he’d been left in juvie, if he’d never had anyone else take him in and show him the kindness he thought he’d never see again after his parents died. He saw the Dick Grayson who’d been originally consumed not with Bruce’s desire to pursue justice, but with a desire to pursue REVENGE. I know everyone tends to view it as the other way around, but that doesn’t actually check out. Even in the backstories where Bruce finds the actual killer who murdered his parents, Joe Chill, Bruce’s own views on killing restrict him from every taking revenge rather than just making sure he goes to prison. 

Not so, with Dick. Another element of Dick’s original backstory that everybody largely glosses over, even if they do technically keep it in mind - Dick Grayson wasn’t born this pure, virtuous, glowing saint that so many fans and other characters make him out to be. The exact specifics vary in the different versions of his backstory reboots have resulted in, but in the vast majority of them, this is a kid who ran away and ruthlessly hunted down his parents’ murderer, Tony Zucco, and who usually had every intention of killing him if Bruce hadn’t stopped him. Dick was old enough to know right from wrong, murder is bad, blah blah....he just didn’t care. And Bruce didn’t stop him by making some compelling argument or showing him the error of his ways, he didn’t tell him anything Dick didn’t already know. Essentially, what all those various takes on the Zucco plot boil down to is Dick only really refrained from trying to kill Zucco, settling for bringing him in, because Bruce wanted him to. Because Bruce was the first and only person to show Dick any kindness since his parents died, and THAT is what Dick clung to, that was what he didn’t want to lose. 

(A little off topic, but additionally I’ve always maintained that Dick doesn’t have this obsessive anti-killing stance that most people make him out to, being even more rigid in it than Bruce. This is the guy who has an extremely complex relationship with Deathstroke, who’s mentored Ravager, who is the closest sibling relationship Damian has, not to mention his relationships with Huntress, Midnighter, Tiger, etc - all people who have killed many, many times, and often without remorse. Yes, Dick broke down after his role in Blockbuster’s death, and he had a panic attack immediately after killing the Joker, before Bruce resuscitated him - but if you ask me, this isn’t because his personal morality doesn’t make allowances for killing, its because deep down he’s still insecure about his place in Bruce’s life, and that HIM killing someone, specifically, could cost him his father’s affections. Which is a TOTALLY different thing from being too good or pure to kill, which is how he’s often painted as by writers and in fandom).

Anyway. Point being, the surly, defensive kid Jason Todd was when Bruce met him was absolutely someone Dick Grayson, orphaned circus kid remanded to juvie and likely to have fallen through the cracks and ended up on his own if Bruce hadn’t intervened, could have ended up as. And so while Bruce had looked at Dick that first night at the circus and seen the potential for a do-over for himself, the road not taken, with this cemented on the night he steered Dick away from killing Zucco and instead prioritizing (Bruce’s personal view of) justice.....Bruce looked at Jason that night in Crime Alley and saw the potential for a do-over for his relationship with Dick, with the son he’d driven away, possibly for good.

And herein lies the fuck-up. Because while I do believe Bruce eventually grew to see Jason as his own person and love him on his own merits, for himself, and not just as Dick 2.0, he took too long getting there, and hurt both Dick and Jason way too much along the way. All because he’s too much of a control freak to just accept that it was these tendencies that’d driven Dick away, that HE was the problem. Yeah, Dick contributed, sure, but Dick was the child. Bruce was the parent. It was always his responsibility to suck it up, swallow his pride, and be the one to reach out and repair the damage he’d caused by pushing Dick away. But because Bruce has so much trouble admitting where he’s done harm, he couldn’t do that. He’s this weird dichotomy of self-aware and willfully blind. He has no problem seeing his flaws when they exist in a vacuum. When they’re ones nobody’s getting actively getting hurt by in the moment. But because so much of his personality is centered around his all-consuming desire to protect his loved ones, keep them safe at all costs, ensure that he doesn’t lose them the way he lost his parents.....over and over and over again in the comics, he proves incapable of recognizing when that very same desire is the thing that’s actually harming them. He took in half a dozen kids who all shared a need to fly, to spread their wings, and time and time again kept falling in the same trap of trying to clip those same wings because he was equally terrified of them falling.

But because Bruce was so willfully blind to his own role in hurting his son, couldn’t reconcile his desperate desire to keep Dick safe with the realization that he was the one doing Dick the most harm.....he HAD to convince himself that Dick was the problem. That if he, Bruce, had made mistakes, that they were mistakes that he’d done along the way, places he’d gone wrong in raising Dick, resulting in Dick growing up to be this person Bruce could no longer relate to, no longer see himself in, that he couldn’t be a father to. And so, with Jason, he saw a chance to do it all over again, and do it right this time. Fix the mistakes he’d made the first time around, be a better father, make sure Jason didn’t grow up to be the man Dick had grown up to be, the way he’d once set out to make sure Dick didn’t grow up to be the man Bruce had become.

And so he created this trap that Jason and Dick had no chance to avoid falling into. There was no way around it. Because unintentionally or not, he’d pitted his two sons, two brothers, against each other before they ever even had a chance to meet. He’d made it a competition that both were doomed to be stuck in even as neither could EVER hope to actually win. Dick was screwed because he could never hope to beat the kid that Bruce had essentially replaced him with, not when Bruce had only done that because due to his own fuck-ups, Bruce had decided Dick needed replacing, because their relationship was beyond repair. And Jason could never hope to beat the kid that Bruce had taken him in to replace, because he was from the get-go pitted against Bruce’s IDEALIZED image of his first Robin and son, the person he WANTED Dick to be, and who didn’t actually exist outside of Bruce’s refusal to admit his own fault in his fractured relationship with Dick.

The very things he did that were GOOD for Jason, healthy, helpful, empowering....at the same time, HURT Dick. He adopted as his official son and heir within months of meeting him, even though he didn’t end up adopting Dick, his son of over ten years by that point, until years after Jason died, long after Dick was already a grown adult. And this was a good thing for Jason, at first. Bruce DID love Jason, had already by this point started seeing all the ways Jason was his own person, not a second Dick Grayson, and being officially adopted gave Jason a sense of security and certainty in his place there that he desperately needed. Problem is, Bruce only adopted Jason so quickly and easily because he recognized that this was a mistake he’d made the first time, with Dick. That it’d been a mistake putting off adopting Dick, that he’d always backed out of showing Dick the adoption papers he’d had drawn up for YEARS by that point. All because Bruce was afraid of rejection, that if he tried to insist too hard on being Dick’s father, tried to actually draw comparisons between himself and Dick’s first father, the idolized John Grayson, he’d come up short and get an answer he was afraid to hear. It was easier with Jason, since Jason had never had a good relationship with his own biological father and had zero problem rating Bruce the clear winner in any competition between them.

But of course this hurt Dick at the same time it helped Jason, because he HAD always wanted Bruce to officially adopt him, and it was his own insecurities that kept him from broaching the subject and asking why he hadn’t. The very fact that Bruce knew to do this with Jason, that it’d been a mistake not to push it with Dick, was because on some level, Bruce did know that Dick wanted this, needed this even, and that his own fears of rejection were baseless paranoia.....there’s no way to avoid this compounding his issues with Dick, because it meant that on some level, Bruce had once again denied Dick something he desperately needed and craved from him. A clear indication of their relationship, where Dick stood with Bruce, how Bruce viewed him. Ironically, at the very same time this proved that Bruce’s fear of Dick rejecting him were baseless, it proved that Dick’s insecurities WEREN’T baseless, because his place in Bruce’s eyes WASN’T entirely secure. He COULD be replaced.

And there’s the irony of Jason’s nickname for Tim. “The Replacement.” Only it was never actually ironic, so much as it was insightful. Born of Jason’s own insecurities. Because long before Tim came along, in the original family drama that was Bruce and Dick and Jason.....JASON was the original replacement, and they all knew it, only Bruce refused to admit it. Kept trying to act like it was all in Dick and Jason’s heads, even while every choice he made with the two of them just hammered in the reality that it WASN’T. Neither of them was stupid. They were the original sons of the world’s greatest detective. Trained to be observant and insightful. To read between the lines. They knew damn well that everything Bruce did with Jason was only because Bruce had decided (at the time) that his relationship with Dick was beyond repair. Unsalvageable. He’d essentially given up on Dick as a son, written off any possibility of having the father-son relationship he’d always secretly wanted to have with Dick, all because he refused to admit he was the one standing in the way of that and refusing to accept the man Dick had grown up to be, differences of opinion and all....and so had started over with Jason. 

And Dick saw exactly what Bruce was doing, cuz Bruce isn’t exactly subtle when it comes to his personal relationships and his emotional issues. So it pinged every single insecurity Dick had ever had, and HARD. And once Jason saw Bruce and Dick interacting and heard the nature of their arguments, he saw exactly what Bruce was doing, and began second-guessing every good thing about his and Bruce’s relationship, wondering (with validity) how much of it had happened while Bruce was wishing it’d happened with Dick. Which of course pinged every single insecurity Jason had ever had, and HARD. 

So from the moment Dick and Jason met, with a few rare exceptions where they were able to see past the Bruce-sized elephant in the room and view and interact with each other on their own merits, as their own persons, and just be BROTHERS, rather than dysfunctional sons of the world’s most repressed dad....Bruce and Dick and Jason were all locked in this never-ending cycle of Hurt, Rinse and Repeat.

Bruce adopts Jason. Jason is glad. Dick gets mad. Jason realizes why Dick is mad, and now Jason is mad.

Bruce makes Jason his new Robin. Jason is glad. Dick gets mad, because Robin was his mom’s personal nickname for him and not remotely something Bruce was ever the right person to give away. To make Jason his new sidekick, sure. But not with that name, the name Dick chose to honor his relationship with his mother. Jason realizes why Dick is mad, and now Jason is mad.

Bruce is happy when Jason calls him Dad and encourages it. Jason is glad. Dick gets mad, because Dick never felt encouraged or safe in calling Bruce Dad, even when he wanted to, because Bruce never encouraged it or even hinted it was what he wanted because Bruce was insecure and afraid Dick just didn’t view him that way and would never want to call him that. Jason realizes why Dick is mad, and now Jason is mad.

Over and over and over, every single damn thing Bruce did just compounded the harm he caused both his sons in doing it. All because he refused to just admit what he really wanted all along, and actually WORK at making a reality - to be a father to both Dick and Jason, and have both of them view him as such.

And that’s the tragedy of Bruce and Dick and Jason. They all wanted THE EXACT SAME THING ALL ALONG. But only Bruce could make it happen. No matter how much Dick and Jason wanted it, no matter how they raged at each other and blamed each other for not having it, Bruce was always the only one who could actually make them the family they all wanted to be. Because he was the parent. He was their dad.

And if you want your kids to accept you and call you and love you as their dad, you gotta do the goddamn job. Instead of calling do-over every time you fuck it up.

So of course Jason felt threatened by Tim when he came back, and of course he resented Tim, and called Tim “the Replacement.” Even though Bruce hadn’t actually sought Tim out as a replacement for Jason, there was no way for Jason to know that and no reason for him to believe it when told it....because Bruce had done this all before. With him! Every time Jason lashed out at Tim with that name, it was his own insecurities talking, his conviction that he’d been relegated to the same backburner he’d once seen Bruce shove Dick to, that he’d once insecurely expressed smugness about, when he could point to Bruce’s open affections as proof he was loved, but now knew exactly how it felt. But it wasn’t like Jason could take comfort in the fact that Dick was now welcomed back in the manor, that he was at Bruce’s side again. Because Bruce STILL had never acknowledged where he’d fucked up. In the wake of Jason’s death, Bruce and Dick eventually repaired their relationship....but only because DICK did the work. Was the one to reach out and make it happen, with Bruce so grief-stricken over the loss of Jason he didn’t have the obstinacy to KEEP pushing his remaining son away when he came bearing an olive branch.

But even with that, Dick and Jason at least were still painfully aware that should never have been Dick’s job to do that. To step up, be the bigger man, the more mature adult, even though he was the child in that relationship. Dick did so because it wasn’t worth it to him to insist on being in the right, even though he was. He eventually decided he’d rather have Bruce in his life on Bruce’s terms than not at all. But it was never his responsibility to do that, and that means Jason was never in the wrong to refuse to do that. To make it easier for Bruce, and coddle his own father when every child of Bruce Wayne’s has just as much trauma as he ever did, and he has no excuse for not doing the goddamn work of pulling his head out of his ass and giving his children what they need from him. Some actual honest, sincere, and UNSHAKABLE certainty that no matter what, he is their father and always will be.

And without that, the cycle was always doomed to repeat itself. First with Jason and Tim...because Tim might not actually have been a replacement for Jason in Bruce’s eyes, the way he’d unintentionally ended up making Jason a replacement for Dick. But without Bruce ever actually owning up to the mistakes he’d made with his two eldest, there was no way to address the fact that Jason’s insecurities here were NOT baseless, that he had actual reason to worry that this is exactly what had happened. There was precedent.

And then it happened again. Because by the time Damian came into their lives, Tim - who also is not an idiot, and easily the most detective-like of Bruce’s first four sons - had been firmly entrenched in the family drama for some time. The Tragedy of Bruce and Dick and Jason had for a few years now been the Tragedy of Bruce and Dick and Jason and Tim. He, like Jason before him, had had a front row seat to Bruce’s obstinate refusal to admit his role at the center of this tragedy, and so clearly could see Bruce’s patterns and how his selective doling out of favoritism went hand in hand with who Bruce currently viewed as beyond repair, in terms of father-son dynamic at least.  

So just like both his older brothers before him, Tim viewed the newest Wayne son as a threat, and a replacement. And just like both Dick and Jason, he wasn’t wrong to do so. He wasn’t RIGHT, either, but that doesn’t mean he was wrong. That his fears were baseless. And so this time, just like when Tim had been the newcomer, circumstances were different, but the end result was the same. Bruce hadn’t sought Damian out, and Damian hadn’t come to him in the same sense Tim had. But once there, Damian received the lion’s share of Bruce’s attention as Bruce attempted to forge a bond with him, and so this time, it was the transitive property in reverse. Tim saw Bruce behaving in the way Bruce always did when a new son came into his life and occupied his focus, with tunnel vision - because Bruce always defaults to tunnel vision when committing himself to a new endeavor - and Tim reverse-engineered from there the belief that he’d been replaced and thus must have done something wrong, had somehow been lacking. Because that’s the pattern in their family. Without exception. 

(Among the boys at least, Cass always having been exempt from this fucked up little family tradition due to being the sole girl and never a Robin, thus occupying her own little niche that had no direct competition, unlike the boys who always ended up locked in that same competition Bruce had initiated with Dick and Jason so long ago.)

And thus it became the Tragedy of Bruce and Dick and Jason and Tim and Damian. With again, always, the painful irony being every single damn member of this family wants nothing more than the exact same thing - to be a family, and equally secure in that knowledge.

I honestly don’t know how much this pattern has repeated with Duke, as due to not reading DC much since even before the nu52 for the sake of my blood pressure, all of my knowledge of Duke comes from fandom and fanfic. Which is more than enough to make me love him, but means I don’t feel comfortable including him in meta currently, because I don’t actually trust fanfics and issues synopses to have the same interpretation of the characters and dynamics that I’d have if I read them myself. (Seriously, I’m a little ticked off at how it took me like three years to learn that Duke’s a meta, even, which is extremely interesting information and something I was very interested in knowing, and am side-eyeing the hell out of a lot of fandom for how long this bit of NON TRIVIA took to show up on my radar. Like, its not exactly a small detail, if so many ppl leave that out like what the hell else is getting left out of fandom takes on Duke and his character and story? Ugh, I can’t believe I gotta start reading DC again, u guys let me down, why would u do this to me, ur the worst).

Anyway. Thought this was gonna be a little bitty post about how much Dick and Jason actually have in common and it ended up a Bruce Why Are You Like This essay. That actually sounds about right though.

The end! 

(For now.....)   

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT CASE

Since anyone capable of starting this company is one of the founders spent all their time doing that. If popular email clients did this in order to reach a few gullible people the spammer sends mail to everyone. Instead of working on things the eminent have made prestigious, work on things that could steal that prestige. So, just in case it does any good, let me clarify that I'm not writing here about Java which I have thought about a lot. Live content can be way cheaper than networks realize, and the visual arts, where there's almost no overlap between the leading practitioners.1 And why?2 When I said at the beginning that if you start the way most successful startups we've funded, and the doctors figure out what's wrong. More can be stolen by things that seem completely unrelated, like social networking apps. Usually we don't have to explain in person to Leonardo & Co. There was a sort of time capsule, here's why I don't like the idea of being mistaken.

A song on an iPod's disk is merely stored on it. But one of the most valuable things the big companies made us similar.3 We had big doubts about this idea is all the different ways in which it's wrong. Bob's going to grad school, but we're going to try to make it a tragedy. You shouldn't ignore them, because they may have been unsure whether they wanted to. But software companies don't hire students for the summer as a source of cheap labor. I'm just tired.4 For the foreseeable future, people will want ever more material wealth, so there is no try.5 Real Madrid, since the players were from about eight different reasons mixed together in their heads, and don't start other projects. It seemed odd that the outliers at the two ends of the spectrum could be detected by what appeared to be unrelated tests.6 So if you're an outsider you should actively seek out contrarian projects. But if you find a work of art: biases you bring from your own circumstances, and tricks played by the artist.

But in 1976 it didn't seem so cool. He didn't stay long, but he described his co-founder as the best hacker he'd ever met, and you could tell he meant it. Don't worry, it's not because present union leaders probably would rise to the occasion if necessary.7 The consolidation that began in the late 19th century continued for most of my time writing essays lately.8 In a sense, it's not just because they want to stand out but because they are afraid of standing out. I wrote to persuade, I'd start to shy away unconsciously from ideas I knew would be hard to imagine him having the patience to climb the corporate ladder at General Electric—or Microsoft, actually.9 You don't have to argue simply that there are quite a few marketplaces out there that serve this same market. Yes and no. But it wasn't just TV. For insiders work turns into a duty, laden with responsibilities and expectations. Another way to counterattack is with metaphor.

The non-gullible recipients are merely collateral damage. I feel kind of bad that we've transformed these guys from lighthearted to grimly determined. Fear of uncertainty Perhaps some people are deterred from starting startups because they don't like the idea of switching seems thinkable to me. In a sense there's just one founder.10 Ironically, part of me wants to say, All right, you bastards, bring it on.11 It would take a book to answer that.12 IBM's big mistake was to accept a non-exclusive license for DOS. What are people doing now, using inadequate tools, that shows they need what you're making? So we are working on it can't be preceded by but. So if auto-retrieving spam filters offer them a way to make a lot of people, the excessive scope, the inability to take risks than when you're young. So you shouldn't do it if you're not a programmer? Would they be that unhappy if you were Steve Jobs instead?

But I think the key to this puzzle is to remember that art has an audience. Practically every successful startup, including stars like Google, presented at some point in the 1960s the big publishing houses started to ask: how cheaply can we make books before people refuse to buy them? In Hollywood, these phrases seem to be the naughtier ones; the insiders have pretty much exhausted the motherhood and apple pie topics. It would be like someone claiming they had independently decided in 1972 that bell-bottom jeans were a good idea.13 So about half the founders from that first summer, less than two years ago, are now rich, at least by oneself—get proper indoor space. The other alternative would be that you independently considered every question and came up with the bullshit forced on you. But if the worst thing you can say later Oh yeah, we had this startup on the side of conservatism is still erring. Trying to make masterpieces in this medium must have seemed to nearly everyone that running off to the errands they have to run later. Now you can even hack together distribution. First there'd be a huge ideological squabble over who to choose. You can be ornery when you're Scotty, but not at Rehearsal Day.14

Have you ever noticed how few successful startups were founded by just one person?15 Large organizations have different aims from hackers. The reason they don't invest more time in their startup is that they don't try hard enough. This is not a lot of startup founders, and it's unclear whether anyone could be. If there's no one where you live who wants to start a startup, what you should do is to treat it as a drawback of senility, many companies embrace it as a consciously artificial trick, like juggling. As well as being more comfortable working on established lines, insiders generally have a vested interest in perpetuating them.16 Presumably it killed just about 100% of the startups from preventable deaths. Plus as companies became smaller it became easier to estimate how much an employee contributed to the wave of hostile takeovers in the 1980s. You have to add a spoonful of sugar to make the same mistakes.17 Airbnb now seems like an unstoppable juggernaut, but early on it was so fragile that about 30 days of going out and engaging in person with users made the difference between Milton's situation and ours is only a matter of degree.

Notes

People only tend to notice when it's their own interests. You have to mean starting a company in Germany, where it does, the transistor it is to claim retroactively I said yes. They thought I was just having lunch.

He made a better strategy in an industrialized country encounters the idea that investors are just not super thoughtful for the more effort you expend on you after the first time as an adult. And they tend to make money off their median investments.

Fortunately policies are software; Apple can change them instantly if they want you. My point is due to the erosion of the more accurate metaphor would be a source of difficulty here is Skype.

Google may appear to be higher, as reported in their voices will be silenced.

Well, almost. He was arguably the first abstract painters were trained to paint from life using the same phenomenon you see with defense contractors or fashion brands.

When a lot on how much they liked the outdoors? Wufoo was based in Tampa and they succeeded.

And when they got to see the Valley has over New York is where your existing investors help you even before they've committed. And those examples do reflect after-tax return from a VC.

But people like numbers. Success here is defined from the other hand, launching something small and then being unable to raise that point though.

But filtering out 95% of spam. Viaweb. Some introductions to philosophy now take the term whitelist instead of admitting frankly that it's no longer a precondition. Living on instant ramen, which is probably part of the work that seems formidable from the success of Skype.

N n _ Arc: def foo n op incf n _ Erann Gat's sad tale about industry best practice at JPL inspired me to do would be much bigger news, in that water a while to avoid variable capture and multiple evaluation; Hart's examples are subject to both. In the Daddy Model may be underestimating VCs. According to Michael Lind, when in fact the decade preceding the war it was 94% 33 of 35 companies that grow slowly tend not to make you take out your anti-dilution, which is the number of restaurants that still require jackets for men.

Whoever fed the style section reporter this story about suits coming back would have been the fastest to hire a lot of time on applets, but there has to be doomed. People who know the combination of circumstances in the belief that they'll only invest contingently on other sites. Not in New York, and help keep the next Facebook, if an employer hired men based on that. Predecessors like understanding seem to understand about startups in this respect.

But iTunes shows that people working for startups, because his ideas were one of the company is their project. Icio. His theory was that the valuation is fixed at the start of the most demanding but also like an in-house VC fund. But this is the least important of the big winners if they were getting results.

Without visual cues e. I was writing this, I have to do work you love, or some vague thing like that. The latter type is sometimes called an HR acquisition. This would penalize short comments especially, because a great programmer will invent things an ordinary programmer would find it was the capital of Silicon Valley.

The only launches I remember are famous flops like the stuff they're showing him is something special that only a sliver of it, and especially for individuals. The kind of social engineering—. Auto-retrieving filters will have a taste for interesting ideas: Paul Graham. They're an administrative convenience.

We just tried to combine the hardware with an idea is bad. If you want as an idea?

It derives from efforts by businesses to circumvent NWLB wage controls in order to switch the operating system so much pain, it is very polite and b not allow them to switch. One source of difficulty here is Skype. A company will be silenced.

Delivered as if they'd like, and the company's expense by selling recordings. It is a bit more complicated, because talks are usually about things you've written or talked about the subterfuges they had no idea what's happening as merely not-too-demanding environment, but this disappointment is mostly evidence that the guys running Digg are especially sneaky, but for blacklists nearness is physical, and only one founder take fundraising meetings is that it's boring, we actively sought out people who'd failed out of the reason this trick, and so on.

[piatty29033]

Transcript of How to Get the Right Mindset for Prospecting and Sales

Transcript of How to Get the Right Mindset for Prospecting and Sales

Transcript of How to Get the Right Mindset for Prospecting and Sales written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: Everyone is a salesperson. I don’t care what business you’re in, what your role is, what your title is, particularly if you own a business, you have to get good at selling. And in order to get good at selling you have to get good at prospecting. But selling and prospecting are two very different things, and we have to have a different mindset for each of those roles. And that’s why I brought Marylou Tyler, founder of Strategic Pipeline and author of “Predictable Prospecting” onto this episode of The Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is a book you should read. This is a show you should check out.

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is brought to you by SaneBox. Get some sanity back in your inbox. Take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff out of there that is dragging you down. I’m gonna give you a special offer later in the show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Marylou Tyler. She’s the founder of Strategic Pipeline, a Fortune 1000 sales process improvement consulting group, but it also has a lot to say about small business. And we’re gonna talk about her latest book, “Predictable Prospecting, How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipelines.” Some of you may know Marylou because she’s also the co-author of a very, very popular book that I’ve talked about before called “Predictable Revenue.” So, Marylou, thanks for joining us.

Marylou Tyler: Thank you for having me.

John Jantsch: So, in every sales conversation today, and you and I have talked before about the idea that many salespeople, even if they’re in one of these Fortune 1000 companies, but certainly the owner of a small business, is a salesperson, as well. What role does, I mean I know the answer to this. I know what role strategy plays in the sales conversation, but for a salesperson, how do they have to understand marketing strategy or the overall businesses strategy, the ideal client, the message and all those things? How do they have to plug into that to take advantage of it?

Marylou Tyler: Well, it all starts really, with understanding the SWOT, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of whatever it is that you’re offering. And we take it even further in the new book and try to get you to slice and dice that thing six different ways so that what starts emerging is truly where you serve, who you serve, why you matter, and why they should buy from you. And that’s really, that whole planning phase is, a lot of people don’t give it the credit it deserves for the success of a business developer or closer or servicer, whatever role you’re playing. The planning pieces are paramount in order to be able to create a predictable stream of revenue for your company.

John Jantsch: I’ll tell you what I see very often in organizations that I’ve worked with, and they might have five or six salespeople, and two of them kill it. And three of them are constantly struggling to keep up, because there isn’t any kind of, attachment to strategy or even sales process. Do you come across that and try to fix that in some cases?

Marylou Tyler: Well, I think the short answer is yes. And it’s ubiquitous, whether you’re in a large company or a small company. The idea of adherence to a process or heaven forbid, actually continually improving a process is just not something that sales folks or sales organizations focus a lot on. Not all, but it’s a very small percentage of people who understand the data is something that we look for and look towards creating a predictable stream of revenue, because it’s giving us the data points, the talking points, the conversation points, where we did well, where we didn’t do so well, and it’s all there embedded in our conversations as we wrap up these phone calls and meetings with our prospects.

So, adherence to process, tweaking continually, failing forward, don’t be afraid of making mistakes, because that’s how we learn. Our brains just love making mistakes so that we get better and better. And that’s what process gives us the opportunity to do.

John Jantsch: So, would you say that this is a reasonable approach, one of the things I see most people attempt to do if they’re gonna create a process is, they’ve got that one or two people that are killing it, and they say, “Go figure out what they’re doing.” I mean, is that a reasonable process?

Marylou Tyler: I like to look at the data. But I am an engineer, so I’m more of a data person than I am a clinical people person. So, I like to look at the data first and have it tell me the story. And of course, I’ll look at the outliers as well as the midstream, the bubble, the people who are the 80% of the people and model them. But I’m not just looking at the outliers or the 20%, because it doesn’t always tell us the full story.

John Jantsch:  Yeah, they might have been connected to a large network or something in their past. I mean, there are a lot of things that can lead to that, right?

Marylou Tyler: There’s a whole plethora of things, yes.

John Jantsch: So, one of the ideas that you introduce, or at least expand upon, in “Predictable Processing” is this idea of organizations having dedicated prospectors, that they’re not the people that close, they’re the people that find and set appointments, perhaps. But, isn’t prospecting a big part of what a salesperson’s supposed to do?

Marylou Tyler: You know, I can talk out both sides my mouth on this one. And I do get a lot of pushback on the multi-role versus singular role. Predictable revenue is all about separation of roles. We felt that having a business developer do business development, because of the mindset of a business developer where it’s continuous habit, it’s hard worker mentality, you’re not finessing in really a lot of things, you’re just getting up, doing the work, working hard, improving, that type of person may be a little bit different than someone whose building relationship that’s longer-term with the prospect, so, you’re gonna go through the nuances of behavior with the prospect and their ups and downs, their trials, their tribulations.

So, I liken it to, the prospectors are really great at dating, and the closers are really good at getting engaged and married and continuing that conversation and that relationship all the way through. That really, it hasn’t been debunked yet, but I do have 48% of my community do all roles. So, they’re trying to figure out a way to add prospecting and bolt it onto their normal selling practice. But that piece of it has to be habitual and has to be done consistently.

John Jantsch: And you can make a case for it being something that’s very practical too, right? I mean, prospecting can take a lot of time if you have somebody who’s dedicated to prospecting, they’ve got the list, they’ve got the outreach, they’ve got the ability to burn through a whole lot of stuff to create some appointments, and that that appointment time could be perhaps, better used by somebody that’s not spending half their day prospecting?

Marylou Tyler: Well, yeah that’s also a way to look at it. And I am, just like everyone else probably, on this call, I’m doing all roles. But I still dedicate certain blocks of time a week for prospecting. The skills that I use for that block of time is very different from the work that I’m doing as we march into the pipeline a little bit further. So if you look at it that way, that you’re wearing these different hats, but you’re wearing them in blocks of time and for prospecting, you’re doing it consistently, it’s almost like you’ve got a really strong grit when you’re doing prospecting, because you’re tenacious, you’re persuasive, you’re passionate, your persistent, and that may not work very well as you march down the pipeline with prospects, and you want to get more into the relationship side of things.

John Jantsch: Well, and you make a great point, because many of my listeners are small business owners, and they might be thinking, “Well, I don’t, you know, I’ve got two salespeople. I can’t afford a prospecting team, necessarily.”

Marylou Tyler:  Right.

John Jantsch: But I think that is really a key. You definitely have a prospecting function in your business. Where does it fit? It’s like the small business that has three people in the business, and I have them build an org chart because all of those functions exist, it’s just a matter of how you compartmentalize the time to do it. So I think that’s a great point. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a person, it’s almost a mindset.

Marylou Tyler:  Yes, it’s a mindset, it’s a block of time, and it’s consistent. That word consistent has got to flow throughout when you’re thinking of prospecting, because everyone has experienced the peaks and valleys. We talk about that. And what prospecting does consistently is level that out so you’re not freaking out towards the end of the quarter or the end of the month that you don’t have enough in the pipeline.

John Jantsch:  Yeah. So, for the last five, maybe 10 years, us marketing types have been talking about producing content and telling stories and people will show up with their wallets. And I know that there’s certainly a lot of sales folks, yourself included, that would say, “No, you gotta get on the phone, you gotta email, and that that’s the only predictable way to create qualified appointments.” So, how do you manage this inbound versus outbound struggle?

Marylou Tyler:  What I like to do is think of accounts or clients as dream clients, and that would be kind of, the whales, the folks that are gonna bring in a lot of revenue, that are probably high likelihood of closing and high revenue potential for my business. And I put them in a special bucket called outreach, because I want to target them, I want to reach out to them. And I want to be able to start conversations with them on a regular basis.

The next tier out, if we look at a bulls-eye, that would be the middle of my bull’s-eye, those high-revenue accounts. There’s not very many of them, but it’s definitely on my radar and I want to go after them because I know they will love me and I love them. The next ring out are people that are maybe, close to being a target, but I can’t necessarily, justify spending the time bringing them into the, into my fold. So I may leverage technology to wake up that chill and get them out of their dormant stage so that they can bubble up to the top.

And then everybody else would be pretty much the inbound channels, any social work that I do, any relationship referral work that I do where, they’re great to have but they’re not predictable for me. They’re great, great income, but I can’t rely on them for a consistent revenue stream.

John Jantsch: So, I’ve for a lot of years been talking about, especially as people were kind of, jumping on this inbound, inbound, inbound is, I think if you do a good job with inbound, your outbound will be far more effective.

Marylou Tyler: And I think if you do a great job with outbound, your inbound will grow. And I’ve proven that over and over again, that the outreach efforts that we’ve done led to people going to our website, curiosity of, “Who are these people, and why are they contacting me? This is pretty great content. Let me find out more about them.” So, we do see a spike in the inbound, as well, because we are reaching out to these people on a consistent basis with what we call value added, which is a term that drives me crazy but it’s really looking at ways that we can teach our prospects why they should change what they’re doing, why now, and why us.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? 100, 1,000, 10,000? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete emails. And then I found a tool called SaneBox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off by taking everything you’ve got in there today and figuring out what’s important and what’s not important and creating folders and places for it to go that in some cases, you’ll never see again, but in other cases you can quickly check.

There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually, incredibly accurate. And I have worked with the folks at SaneBox to get you a discount, my listeners. So, if you visit SaneBox, that’s S-A-N-E B-O-X.com/DuctTape, you’re gonna find that you can get a $25 discount just because you are a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E B-O-X, SaneBox.com/DuctTape.

So, one of the things that I find that really good salespeople do is, they’re actually use a, because they’re so focused on an ideal client, they’re very good at disqualifying. And I think that that is a skill that is very hard and very scary for a lot of business owners. How do you suggest that people get good at that?

Marylou Tyler: Well, you know, the way I like to look at it is, my targeted, those targeted accounts in the middle of the bull’s-eye, I’m gonna work really hard at qualifying them. As we start moving out and they’re in the less desirable layers of my bull’s-eye, then I’m gonna try to get them off my active pipeline as quickly as possible. So, I disqualify, and I look to disqualify, because I really want the pipeline to be a pipeline, not a lake. Things aren’t gonna just fester in there and sit around. I want to get them out, or I want to move them forward. So disqualification is really the only way to do that, to keep that pipeline robust, moving with a high velocity. But I will take certain accounts that I covet and I won’t let go until they physically carry me out of their office kind of let go.

John Jantsch: So, one of the challenges I think, with a lot of small businesses is the chief salesperson also has to live with that client that’s been sold. They actually have to do the work. So, I think a lot of times, you might disqualify somebody on firmographics or on maybe, the challenge that they have, but a lot of times a small business owner needs to be alert to what the relationship’s gonna be like, what kind of person it is. How’s it gonna be like to work with this person. And that sometimes doesn’t happen or is hard to make happen until you’re kind of, in it.

Marylou Tyler: Well, but if you’d really work at that SWOT 6, that’s that first step in the process, what will emerge between that, your ideal account profile, and then your ideal prospect persona, those three things combined, will give you a sense of who you want to work with, the culture of the company that they’ve come from or businesses that they represent, the type of person they are. And over time, as you do more of this outreach, your radar will be spot on as to who will continue to start, you’ll continue to have that sales dialogue with, or who you’re gonna politely say, “You know, I don’t think this is a good fit for now.”

John Jantsch: Yeah, and one of the things I can’t stress enough is that not being matched with an ideal client’s the fastest way to cut your profit that I know of, because you’ll spend more time trying to satisfy a not-ideal fit. But, until you’ve done it a few times, it’s a little hard to say no.

Marylou Tyler: And we’ve all been there. We’ve all had the horrific client that we knew in our gut wasn’t gonna work out, but we still thought, “Maybe it’ll be different this time around,” and it’s not.

John Jantsch: Okay, I’m sold. Let’s cut to the chase. How do you build and operate a successful outbound prospecting program?

Marylou Tyler: Well, the first thing I would do is take a real gut check as to who you are, like you were solo, like me, who you are as a person, and whether you can dedicate the time to do prospecting. And it’s something that, the most important concept of prospecting is this concept of block time. It’s putting in every day, or three days a week or two days a week, depending on your ideal number of opportunities you want per month, it’s putting in the time necessary to have those conversations and meaningful conversations, those conversations that move you into the pipeline further like a mile marker on a freeway, or they exit out because you’ve disqualified them.

So, you have to really start thinking about, “Can I do this on a consistent basis?” After that, you really need to focus on who your ideal clients are, where they are, why they would use you, why they should change what they’re doing now, and really dig deep into why you matter and what clients you can truly serve, and what clients will stay with you in the long-term to increase that lifetime value.

Once you’ve done that, then you start crafting, figuring out, “Okay, how many opportunities do I want to per month, per week quarter,” whatever it is. And there are metrics for outreach, thank goodness, that drive those, that we know how many conversations you should have in order to generate the number of opportunities that you’ve delineated as what you need. And then it’s really just, after you’ve assembled, it’s activating, and then optimizing. You’re constantly tweaking, taking one piece of it and fine-tuning it, moving onto the next, fine-tuning that, and then going back to the beginning and starting over again.

John Jantsch:  How do you get people past, and I don’t, you haven’t used these terms, and so I’m not suggesting that you’re advocating this, but a lot of people default to an outbound prospecting program as basically cold calling is, “If I do 1,000 dials, all I need is 10 appointments.” How do you get people past that, what I call very low-value prospecting?

Marylou Tyler: Well, that’s believe it or not, one of my qualifiers when I work with clients. If they’re insisting on looking at vanity metrics, and I consider dials a vanity metric, I consider the number of conversations that you have regardless of movement in the pipeline. So, my clients have to be willing to say, “Okay, let’s define what a meaningful conversation is.” And that’s the metric that we look at in order to get past this concept of cold calling.

In order to have meaningful conversations, that means we need to serve up the conversation somehow, whether we use marketing tools, whether we have basically, allocated time to develop relationships through education, whatever those channels are, we incorporate that into the mix so that our first conversation isn’t cold, it’s warm.

John Jantsch:  Yeah, so you have, in the book, a, everybody has to have these frameworks. You have a seven-point outreach process. And we don’t have to go into all those seven points, but tell people where they can find, obviously, the book’s available everywhere, but where they can find about how they might even go deeper with some of your training and resources.

Marylou Tyler:  Perfect, yes. The book has an accompanying webpage on my website. It’s called http://ift.tt/2xvFIDz. S-W-A-G stands for “Stuff we all get.” And on that page is this seven-step process. I’ve done a number of different webinars. I have video training. You name it, I’ve done it, it’s out there. So, if you really want to start diving in, that’s the place to go.

John Jantsch: That’s Maryloutyler.com?

Marylou Tyler: Correct. /SWAG.

John Jantsch: Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks, Marylou, for joining us. This is something that I think, I mean, you think about that B2B business owner, service professional, that only needs six more clients to really make or break the business. And I think this is the approach that that person should be taking, in my opinion, as opposed to mass outreach on Facebook or something.

Marylou Tyler: I agree. And that’s what I do with my business. I only need two to three a quarter, and I know exactly how much time I need to dedicate and pour into the top in order to do that. And it’s consistent, and I have no stress.

John Jantsch: Yeah, awesome. Thanks, Marylou. Hopefully, next time I’m passing through, I guess you’re currently in Des Moines. Next time I’m passing through Des Moines, I’ll honk at you.

Marylou Tyler:  Thank you.

John Jantsch: Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of The Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Wonder if you could do me a favor? Could you leave an honest review on iTunes? Your ratings and reviews really help, and I promise I read each and every one. Thanks.

Want to know the secret to reaching inbox zero and taking back your email sanity? The answer is SaneBox and I can’t recommend it enough. SaneBox sorts through your email and moves all of the trivial stuff into a different folder so the only messages in your inbox are the ones you actually want to see. Aside from removing all of the junk so you can focus on messages that matter, there’s a great feature called the BlackHole. Move an email into that folder and you’ll never hear from the sender again. They also have Reminders that automatically remind me when I need a follow-up email, aka nothing falls through the cracks. Did I mention snooze emails? They are a great way to defer/de-emphasize less urgent emails so that I can read them later.

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[famlawatty6000]

Transcript of How to Get the Right Mindset for Prospecting and Sales

Transcript of How to Get the Right Mindset for Prospecting and Sales

Transcript of How to Get the Right Mindset for Prospecting and Sales written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Back to Podcast

Transcript

John Jantsch: Everyone is a salesperson. I don’t care what business you’re in, what your role is, what your title is, particularly if you own a business, you have to get good at selling. And in order to get good at selling you have to get good at prospecting. But selling and prospecting are two very different things, and we have to have a different mindset for each of those roles. And that’s why I brought Marylou Tyler, founder of Strategic Pipeline and author of “Predictable Prospecting” onto this episode of The Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is a book you should read. This is a show you should check out.

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is brought to you by SaneBox. Get some sanity back in your inbox. Take control of your inbox. Get all that stuff out of there that is dragging you down. I’m gonna give you a special offer later in the show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Marylou Tyler. She’s the founder of Strategic Pipeline, a Fortune 1000 sales process improvement consulting group, but it also has a lot to say about small business. And we’re gonna talk about her latest book, “Predictable Prospecting, How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipelines.” Some of you may know Marylou because she’s also the co-author of a very, very popular book that I’ve talked about before called “Predictable Revenue.” So, Marylou, thanks for joining us.

Marylou Tyler: Thank you for having me.

John Jantsch: So, in every sales conversation today, and you and I have talked before about the idea that many salespeople, even if they’re in one of these Fortune 1000 companies, but certainly the owner of a small business, is a salesperson, as well. What role does, I mean I know the answer to this. I know what role strategy plays in the sales conversation, but for a salesperson, how do they have to understand marketing strategy or the overall businesses strategy, the ideal client, the message and all those things? How do they have to plug into that to take advantage of it?

Marylou Tyler: Well, it all starts really, with understanding the SWOT, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of whatever it is that you’re offering. And we take it even further in the new book and try to get you to slice and dice that thing six different ways so that what starts emerging is truly where you serve, who you serve, why you matter, and why they should buy from you. And that’s really, that whole planning phase is, a lot of people don’t give it the credit it deserves for the success of a business developer or closer or servicer, whatever role you’re playing. The planning pieces are paramount in order to be able to create a predictable stream of revenue for your company.

John Jantsch: I’ll tell you what I see very often in organizations that I’ve worked with, and they might have five or six salespeople, and two of them kill it. And three of them are constantly struggling to keep up, because there isn’t any kind of, attachment to strategy or even sales process. Do you come across that and try to fix that in some cases?

Marylou Tyler: Well, I think the short answer is yes. And it’s ubiquitous, whether you’re in a large company or a small company. The idea of adherence to a process or heaven forbid, actually continually improving a process is just not something that sales folks or sales organizations focus a lot on. Not all, but it’s a very small percentage of people who understand the data is something that we look for and look towards creating a predictable stream of revenue, because it’s giving us the data points, the talking points, the conversation points, where we did well, where we didn’t do so well, and it’s all there embedded in our conversations as we wrap up these phone calls and meetings with our prospects.

So, adherence to process, tweaking continually, failing forward, don’t be afraid of making mistakes, because that’s how we learn. Our brains just love making mistakes so that we get better and better. And that’s what process gives us the opportunity to do.

John Jantsch: So, would you say that this is a reasonable approach, one of the things I see most people attempt to do if they’re gonna create a process is, they’ve got that one or two people that are killing it, and they say, “Go figure out what they’re doing.” I mean, is that a reasonable process?

Marylou Tyler: I like to look at the data. But I am an engineer, so I’m more of a data person than I am a clinical people person. So, I like to look at the data first and have it tell me the story. And of course, I’ll look at the outliers as well as the midstream, the bubble, the people who are the 80% of the people and model them. But I’m not just looking at the outliers or the 20%, because it doesn’t always tell us the full story.

John Jantsch:  Yeah, they might have been connected to a large network or something in their past. I mean, there are a lot of things that can lead to that, right?

Marylou Tyler: There’s a whole plethora of things, yes.

John Jantsch: So, one of the ideas that you introduce, or at least expand upon, in “Predictable Processing” is this idea of organizations having dedicated prospectors, that they’re not the people that close, they’re the people that find and set appointments, perhaps. But, isn’t prospecting a big part of what a salesperson’s supposed to do?

Marylou Tyler: You know, I can talk out both sides my mouth on this one. And I do get a lot of pushback on the multi-role versus singular role. Predictable revenue is all about separation of roles. We felt that having a business developer do business development, because of the mindset of a business developer where it’s continuous habit, it’s hard worker mentality, you’re not finessing in really a lot of things, you’re just getting up, doing the work, working hard, improving, that type of person may be a little bit different than someone whose building relationship that’s longer-term with the prospect, so, you’re gonna go through the nuances of behavior with the prospect and their ups and downs, their trials, their tribulations.

So, I liken it to, the prospectors are really great at dating, and the closers are really good at getting engaged and married and continuing that conversation and that relationship all the way through. That really, it hasn’t been debunked yet, but I do have 48% of my community do all roles. So, they’re trying to figure out a way to add prospecting and bolt it onto their normal selling practice. But that piece of it has to be habitual and has to be done consistently.

John Jantsch: And you can make a case for it being something that’s very practical too, right? I mean, prospecting can take a lot of time if you have somebody who’s dedicated to prospecting, they’ve got the list, they’ve got the outreach, they’ve got the ability to burn through a whole lot of stuff to create some appointments, and that that appointment time could be perhaps, better used by somebody that’s not spending half their day prospecting?

Marylou Tyler: Well, yeah that’s also a way to look at it. And I am, just like everyone else probably, on this call, I’m doing all roles. But I still dedicate certain blocks of time a week for prospecting. The skills that I use for that block of time is very different from the work that I’m doing as we march into the pipeline a little bit further. So if you look at it that way, that you’re wearing these different hats, but you’re wearing them in blocks of time and for prospecting, you’re doing it consistently, it’s almost like you’ve got a really strong grit when you’re doing prospecting, because you’re tenacious, you’re persuasive, you’re passionate, your persistent, and that may not work very well as you march down the pipeline with prospects, and you want to get more into the relationship side of things.

John Jantsch: Well, and you make a great point, because many of my listeners are small business owners, and they might be thinking, “Well, I don’t, you know, I’ve got two salespeople. I can’t afford a prospecting team, necessarily.”

Marylou Tyler:  Right.

John Jantsch: But I think that is really a key. You definitely have a prospecting function in your business. Where does it fit? It’s like the small business that has three people in the business, and I have them build an org chart because all of those functions exist, it’s just a matter of how you compartmentalize the time to do it. So I think that’s a great point. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a person, it’s almost a mindset.

Marylou Tyler:  Yes, it’s a mindset, it’s a block of time, and it’s consistent. That word consistent has got to flow throughout when you’re thinking of prospecting, because everyone has experienced the peaks and valleys. We talk about that. And what prospecting does consistently is level that out so you’re not freaking out towards the end of the quarter or the end of the month that you don’t have enough in the pipeline.

John Jantsch:  Yeah. So, for the last five, maybe 10 years, us marketing types have been talking about producing content and telling stories and people will show up with their wallets. And I know that there’s certainly a lot of sales folks, yourself included, that would say, “No, you gotta get on the phone, you gotta email, and that that’s the only predictable way to create qualified appointments.” So, how do you manage this inbound versus outbound struggle?

Marylou Tyler:  What I like to do is think of accounts or clients as dream clients, and that would be kind of, the whales, the folks that are gonna bring in a lot of revenue, that are probably high likelihood of closing and high revenue potential for my business. And I put them in a special bucket called outreach, because I want to target them, I want to reach out to them. And I want to be able to start conversations with them on a regular basis.

The next tier out, if we look at a bulls-eye, that would be the middle of my bull’s-eye, those high-revenue accounts. There’s not very many of them, but it’s definitely on my radar and I want to go after them because I know they will love me and I love them. The next ring out are people that are maybe, close to being a target, but I can’t necessarily, justify spending the time bringing them into the, into my fold. So I may leverage technology to wake up that chill and get them out of their dormant stage so that they can bubble up to the top.

And then everybody else would be pretty much the inbound channels, any social work that I do, any relationship referral work that I do where, they’re great to have but they’re not predictable for me. They’re great, great income, but I can’t rely on them for a consistent revenue stream.

John Jantsch: So, I’ve for a lot of years been talking about, especially as people were kind of, jumping on this inbound, inbound, inbound is, I think if you do a good job with inbound, your outbound will be far more effective.

Marylou Tyler: And I think if you do a great job with outbound, your inbound will grow. And I’ve proven that over and over again, that the outreach efforts that we’ve done led to people going to our website, curiosity of, “Who are these people, and why are they contacting me? This is pretty great content. Let me find out more about them.” So, we do see a spike in the inbound, as well, because we are reaching out to these people on a consistent basis with what we call value added, which is a term that drives me crazy but it’s really looking at ways that we can teach our prospects why they should change what they’re doing, why now, and why us.

John Jantsch: Let me ask you a question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? 100, 1,000, 10,000? But you can’t just delete them all. There has to be a way to take your inbox back over, if it’s running your life. There was a point in my business where I felt like all I did was delete emails. And then I found a tool called SaneBox. It really allows you to take back control of your inbox, of your email. It starts off by taking everything you’ve got in there today and figuring out what’s important and what’s not important and creating folders and places for it to go that in some cases, you’ll never see again, but in other cases you can quickly check.

There’s also tools in there to remind you when you need to follow up on an email. It’s actually, incredibly accurate. And I have worked with the folks at SaneBox to get you a discount, my listeners. So, if you visit SaneBox, that’s S-A-N-E B-O-X.com/DuctTape, you’re gonna find that you can get a $25 discount just because you are a listener of this show. Again, that’s S-A-N-E B-O-X, SaneBox.com/DuctTape.

So, one of the things that I find that really good salespeople do is, they’re actually use a, because they’re so focused on an ideal client, they’re very good at disqualifying. And I think that that is a skill that is very hard and very scary for a lot of business owners. How do you suggest that people get good at that?

Marylou Tyler: Well, you know, the way I like to look at it is, my targeted, those targeted accounts in the middle of the bull’s-eye, I’m gonna work really hard at qualifying them. As we start moving out and they’re in the less desirable layers of my bull’s-eye, then I’m gonna try to get them off my active pipeline as quickly as possible. So, I disqualify, and I look to disqualify, because I really want the pipeline to be a pipeline, not a lake. Things aren’t gonna just fester in there and sit around. I want to get them out, or I want to move them forward. So disqualification is really the only way to do that, to keep that pipeline robust, moving with a high velocity. But I will take certain accounts that I covet and I won’t let go until they physically carry me out of their office kind of let go.

John Jantsch: So, one of the challenges I think, with a lot of small businesses is the chief salesperson also has to live with that client that’s been sold. They actually have to do the work. So, I think a lot of times, you might disqualify somebody on firmographics or on maybe, the challenge that they have, but a lot of times a small business owner needs to be alert to what the relationship’s gonna be like, what kind of person it is. How’s it gonna be like to work with this person. And that sometimes doesn’t happen or is hard to make happen until you’re kind of, in it.

Marylou Tyler: Well, but if you’d really work at that SWOT 6, that’s that first step in the process, what will emerge between that, your ideal account profile, and then your ideal prospect persona, those three things combined, will give you a sense of who you want to work with, the culture of the company that they’ve come from or businesses that they represent, the type of person they are. And over time, as you do more of this outreach, your radar will be spot on as to who will continue to start, you’ll continue to have that sales dialogue with, or who you’re gonna politely say, “You know, I don’t think this is a good fit for now.”

John Jantsch: Yeah, and one of the things I can’t stress enough is that not being matched with an ideal client’s the fastest way to cut your profit that I know of, because you’ll spend more time trying to satisfy a not-ideal fit. But, until you’ve done it a few times, it’s a little hard to say no.

Marylou Tyler: And we’ve all been there. We’ve all had the horrific client that we knew in our gut wasn’t gonna work out, but we still thought, “Maybe it’ll be different this time around,” and it’s not.

John Jantsch: Okay, I’m sold. Let’s cut to the chase. How do you build and operate a successful outbound prospecting program?

Marylou Tyler: Well, the first thing I would do is take a real gut check as to who you are, like you were solo, like me, who you are as a person, and whether you can dedicate the time to do prospecting. And it’s something that, the most important concept of prospecting is this concept of block time. It’s putting in every day, or three days a week or two days a week, depending on your ideal number of opportunities you want per month, it’s putting in the time necessary to have those conversations and meaningful conversations, those conversations that move you into the pipeline further like a mile marker on a freeway, or they exit out because you’ve disqualified them.

So, you have to really start thinking about, “Can I do this on a consistent basis?” After that, you really need to focus on who your ideal clients are, where they are, why they would use you, why they should change what they’re doing now, and really dig deep into why you matter and what clients you can truly serve, and what clients will stay with you in the long-term to increase that lifetime value.

Once you’ve done that, then you start crafting, figuring out, “Okay, how many opportunities do I want to per month, per week quarter,” whatever it is. And there are metrics for outreach, thank goodness, that drive those, that we know how many conversations you should have in order to generate the number of opportunities that you’ve delineated as what you need. And then it’s really just, after you’ve assembled, it’s activating, and then optimizing. You’re constantly tweaking, taking one piece of it and fine-tuning it, moving onto the next, fine-tuning that, and then going back to the beginning and starting over again.

John Jantsch:  How do you get people past, and I don’t, you haven’t used these terms, and so I’m not suggesting that you’re advocating this, but a lot of people default to an outbound prospecting program as basically cold calling is, “If I do 1,000 dials, all I need is 10 appointments.” How do you get people past that, what I call very low-value prospecting?

Marylou Tyler: Well, that’s believe it or not, one of my qualifiers when I work with clients. If they’re insisting on looking at vanity metrics, and I consider dials a vanity metric, I consider the number of conversations that you have regardless of movement in the pipeline. So, my clients have to be willing to say, “Okay, let’s define what a meaningful conversation is.” And that’s the metric that we look at in order to get past this concept of cold calling.

In order to have meaningful conversations, that means we need to serve up the conversation somehow, whether we use marketing tools, whether we have basically, allocated time to develop relationships through education, whatever those channels are, we incorporate that into the mix so that our first conversation isn’t cold, it’s warm.

John Jantsch:  Yeah, so you have, in the book, a, everybody has to have these frameworks. You have a seven-point outreach process. And we don’t have to go into all those seven points, but tell people where they can find, obviously, the book’s available everywhere, but where they can find about how they might even go deeper with some of your training and resources.

Marylou Tyler:  Perfect, yes. The book has an accompanying webpage on my website. It’s called http://ift.tt/2xvFIDz. S-W-A-G stands for “Stuff we all get.” And on that page is this seven-step process. I’ve done a number of different webinars. I have video training. You name it, I’ve done it, it’s out there. So, if you really want to start diving in, that’s the place to go.

John Jantsch: That’s Maryloutyler.com?

Marylou Tyler: Correct. /SWAG.

John Jantsch: Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks, Marylou, for joining us. This is something that I think, I mean, you think about that B2B business owner, service professional, that only needs six more clients to really make or break the business. And I think this is the approach that that person should be taking, in my opinion, as opposed to mass outreach on Facebook or something.

Marylou Tyler: I agree. And that’s what I do with my business. I only need two to three a quarter, and I know exactly how much time I need to dedicate and pour into the top in order to do that. And it’s consistent, and I have no stress.

John Jantsch: Yeah, awesome. Thanks, Marylou. Hopefully, next time I’m passing through, I guess you’re currently in Des Moines. Next time I’m passing through Des Moines, I’ll honk at you.

Marylou Tyler:  Thank you.

John Jantsch: Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of The Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Wonder if you could do me a favor? Could you leave an honest review on iTunes? Your ratings and reviews really help, and I promise I read each and every one. Thanks.

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