#usual rate of response but am happy to share with trusted folks <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[leonardcohenofficial]

my dissertation has finally been made available to read online! for friends interested in checking it out—or for anyone who has interest in reading about alienation and countercultural performance—feel free to message me and i'd be happy to send it your way <3

[the-hate-keeps-me-warm]

kisses and cuddles

wooooooooo time for some more fluffy shit yall i loved making this so much this sorta relted to my weed garden fic but you dont need to read it (be cool tho)

Ruby was sitting in the cafeteria with Oscar and penny she was too tired to pay attention to what the two were talking about penny sitting across from her and Oscar was excitedly talking about something while Oscar liens looking interested she’s unsure how he’s so put together they were both up late hanging out dreading comics and it’s only 7 am she leaned on Oscar and closed her eyes hoping to get a little more sleep before She had to do missions she had a relatively short one today only a search and destroy so maybe she could get home fast and take a nap Oscar nudged her shoulder and she lifted her head “hey don’t fall asleep if you don’t eat you’ll be grumpy” he says she fakes a pout and starts eating the gross cafeteria food she assumed that atlas food would be good sense it’s so many rich folks but no she’s actually had  better tasting mres or maybe she was just getting spoiled eating Oscar and rens cooking “ruby why are you so tired did you have trouble sleeping” penny says drawing circles on the table with her finger “no me and Oscar were up late last night and I only slept like three hours“ penny frowns “while I am happy you and Oscar are spending time together you require at least 6 hours of sleep for maximum field efficiency” ruby just nods “so why don’t you seem tired Oscar you couldn’t of slept anymore than I did��� she says with a yawn he shrugs and says  “I guess I’m used to it I had to wake up early back home so I always didn’t get a bunch of sleep” penny raises a finger “actually according to my scans  Oscars brain is only running at 89% efficiency and his hear rate is faster from his normal 48 beats per minute to to 51 it is likely that he simply better at hiding his tiredness” Oscar slumps “penny do have everyone’s heart rates memorized” he says exasperated “yes I also have all of your medical charts on file and criminal records why” he raises a brow “criminal record?” Penny nods “yes several of your team have criminal records qrow having the longest with 22 counts of public intoxication as well as 3 of public indecency and” ruby raises her hands “trust me you don’t wanna know the rest they had to make a new law for one of the things he did but who else has charges?” she tries to wake herself with conversation and it sorta works she also learns some new and unsettling things about her friends but eventually breakfast ends and she starts to get her gear ready she’s loading rounds into one of crescent roses magazine when someone knocks on the door to her locker room “it’s open” she calls out and incomes  Oscar he’s holding a small Tupperware box and a small metal tumbler “hey I wanted to give this to you before you go” he says with a sheepish grin he sets the box next to her and hands her the tumbler it’s warm and smells good “it’s coffee, don’t worry I added way too much sugar for you and the other thing is a surprise you said you don’t eat a lot on missions so I made it for you it’s a bit of an experiment so tell me if it’s bad” she’s grinning ear to ear and stands up from her weapon bench and hugs him “you are the best and I’m sure it’ll be great” she gives him a kiss on the cheek she’s been slowly trying to work her way up to kissing him on the lips but nose and cheek kisses were enough for her he smiles and his cheeks get all rosey  and he hugs her back and says “be careful ok sorry I know you can take care of yourself but just you know“ she squeezes him a little “yeah don’t worry I know  I’ll be careful and when I get back we are so taking a nap mister I’m not that tired” he giggles and looks up at her with a smile  “you won’t hear me complain and uh before you go could I uh kiss you like um on the lips” he says nervously she leans down pressing her forehead to his and smiles she smells his breath it smells like chocolate and coffee she feels her cheeks heat up to match his and says “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while now are you sure you want to ” he nods his head wordlessly she takes his hand and gently presses her lips to his its short and maybe a little clumsy but it makes her heart soar when she breaks the kiss Oscars breath shakes slightly  and a little panic starts to fill her did she mess it up did he hate it and then he smiles and it all fades away “that was really nice” he says rubbing her knuckle with his thumb then there’s a knock on the door frame she looks up and weiss and Blake are standing there weiss looks annoyed and Blake is grinning “time to go ruby morning Oscar” wiess says already turning to walk away ruby quickly gathers crescent rose and Oscars gifts and says “bye Oscar I’ll be careful byeee” and dashed out the door behind the others Blake nudges her shoulder “your lucky I made weiss wait  ,god you two are adorable” ruby squeaks “will you stop spying on us”  “we weren’t spying you two dolts left the door open” weiss says annoyed 

 The mission was boring as she thought it was gonna be how normal soldiers couldn’t handle this she’ll never know on the airship ride home she opens   the box Oscar gave to her a note on top says “have a great day and stay safe” she smiles at the note and sticks it in her ammo pocket  it looks like a brownie is some kind and yang leans over and says “where did you get that”

“Oscar made it for me” she says taking it out of the container it smells like a peanut butter protein bar “ooo come on share with me pleassss” yang says putting her hands together “ugh your lucky I’m a good sister” she breaks off a small piece and hands it to yang and takes a bite of her own and it’s amazing it Taste like a peanut butter brownie but somehow better it’s somehow not dried out or crumbly yang seems to have a similar opinion “god if you don’t marry Oscar i will his food is too good”yang says with a laugh  she kicks yang in the leg “I know right I can barely eat the cafeteria food anymore” her and yang chat a bit about food until they finally land Oscar is standing on the landing pad waiting for her she bounce on her heels excitedly despite how tired she is when the door finally opens she rushes out to hug him “how did it go” he asks wrapping his arms around her shoulders “oh it was easy but soooo boring I don’t know why they asked us to do it” she says leaning into him he chuckles “well I’m glad it wasn’t dangerous at least did you like it” he asks sheepishly she puts her head on his “yeees brothers it was great what was it” he unwraps his arms and looks at her “there’s no name for it yet but it’s kinda like a protein brownie was it too grainy or anything what about the after taste” he asks “I didn't even realize it was supposed to be healthy” she puts her hands on his shoulders “Oscar I’m gonna need more of that” he smiles “happy to make some more tonight” he says proudly yang walks past and ruffles his hair “make sure to make enough for me too kiddo” and walks off “how about that nap ruby my teams still on mission so we should have some time” he says taking her hand “yes please” 

They walk back to team alpns dorm room after ruby changes into something more casual Oscar was already wearing his normal clothing he sits on his bed and smiles “I’m gonna get to have two naps today” she sits down next to him and throws her arm around him "you and your team  sure like your naps huh" he smiles as they lie back on his bed "honestly who doesn't like naps I never use to be a huge cuddler but it’s nice to have someone close to you, you know” they lie back Oscar resting his head on rubies shoulder “well I do  wish my team took naps together sometimes yang is a big cuddler too but Weiss  doesn’t like being warm and Blake can’t sit still even so less than you” he snorts as he takes her hand running his thumbs along her knuckles  “well I’m sure the others wouldn’t mind you joining our naps if have to ask but i'll warn you ren sits up in his sleep  Jaune snores and i talk in my sleep” she raises an eyebrow “you didn't last time” she says “that's cause we were smoking  but if i take a nap or if im really tired you can actually talk and I'll talk back” she grins “well what do you talk about”  he rests his head on her chest “usually about my aunt or all yall but Nora has told me i say lots of stuff about you if i'm asked” he says his cheeks getting just a tiny bit rosy she grins and plants a kiss on his nose “well i hope i get the chance to ask but i'll probably fall asleep first im super tired” she rolls over and wraps herself around him oscar adjusting to lay on her arm pulling a blanket over them "well if you can get me to talk I'll answer any question just nothing to embarrassing please" he says  “i would like to know what you have to say tho so maybe i'll try to hold out just a bit longer” she says closing her eyes as oscar lets out his relaxed sigh about half of Oscars communication was nonverbal she liked to mentally catalog the things he does when he relaxes he lets out a long almost high pitched sigh it makes her happy to hear that and it helps her relax her thoughts starts to get fuzzy as sleep takes her she wakes up a few hours later laying on her back oscar laying on top of her them both having wrapped around each other she hears quiet murmurs  coming from him to quiet to understand "Oscar are you still asleep" she whispers no response "Oscar are you comfy" he nods his head "of course I'm comfy I'm cuddling with ruby" she snickers he was definitely still asleep "who's the coolest person you know" she she's "ruby for sure she's so good at fighting and everyone trusts her I wish I was more like her" she runs her hand through his hair "how do you feel about ruby " she asked "I'm in love with her she makes me feel strong and weak at the same time when she's with me I feel like I'm safe and that we could do anything together i want to be with her forever" she's crying now "oh shit I didn't expect him to be that honest" she thinks as tears run down her face "I love you too Oscar"     she kisses the top of his head “you know i never used to want like romantic stuff and all the fluffy garbage i just wanted to be a huntress and fight grim stuff like that but you  make me want that stuff i wanna take you on dates and like hold your hand and stuff there are a bunch of things i wanna do like” she pauses resting her head on his “i forgot you were asleep for a second i'm starting to embarrass myself i do love you tho i dont know when your supposed to say that we've only been i guess dating for what 2 and a half weeks my dad always joked that huntsmen relationships move really fast nothing like holy shit we might die to move a relationship forward right but you make me feel like i don't know amazing and I love being with you you make all my worries disappear even if it's only for a little bit and i'm rambling and your not talking back” oscar lifts his head “its cause im awake and i love it when you ramble” she feels her face light on fire “w-what when did you wake up” he hums happily “around we might die  i think it was nice that stuff you said you can ramble longer if you want what that new gun you saw in that magazine” she smiles “it's a roller delayed blowback sniper rifle its a smaller caliber than crescent rose but it has a longer effective range because of the way the bore is shaped i prefer bolt actions to semi automatics for a long range rifle semi autos have there merits and stuff it's a lot lighter than crescent rose as well on account of it not also being a giant scythe you know i was thinking about carrying a pistol too crescent rose is great but shes heavy and she's also really hard to conceal  even when shes folded speaking of i need to clean her gears a bunch of dust got in them today you said you wanted to learn weapon maintenance i could teach you today if you want” “sure i can learn there's a lot of things oz knows but it's like a big library without a librarian its all jumbled up” she scratches the back of his neck “well i do not understand the dewey decimal system but i'm happy to help” they both giggle at her joke ruby keeps rambling until the rest of team alpn return 

Oscar is walking ruby back to her dorm they come to her door and they turn to face each other and oscar rubs his hands together “so ruby uh I got permission with ironwood to leave school grounds as long as someone's with me so I was wondering if you’d like to maybe go out like on a date” she smiles and puts her arms around his shoulders “sounds amazing sweetie I’m free this weekend where do you want to go” he blushes and says “well I actually have something in mind but I wanna keep it a surprise if that’s ok” she kisses him on the cheek “of course casual clothes or should i dress nice” he shakes his head “i mean it's really up to you but were not going somewhere fancy just a place I think you'll like" she smiles and kisses his nose and he leans up a little so there lips are level "can i kiss you again" he asks just above a whisper her pressing her lips gently against his is her answer they  hold the kiss for a few moments Oscars hands drifting to ruby's waist when they separate  she says "i think we're getting pretty good at that" Oscar smiles avoiding her eyes "yeah um It's certainly enjoyable" they break the hug "I'll see you in the morning I'll make that stuff you like ok" he says "yes awesome you're the best Oscar good night" she says as she slips into her from her teammates giving her knowing smirks 

[arrowheadproductions]

The Harpies & Aristaeus

After the stable scene, Coach Hedge subjects the seven to an unexpected lesson that is somehow more awkward than it sounds.

No Archive Warnings Apply- Rated T

Relationship(s): Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Jason Grace & Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase & Piper McLean, Percy Jackson & Hazel Levesque, Leo Valdez & Frank Zhang, Coach Hedge & Everyone

Characters: Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Piper McLean, Jason Grace, Frank Zhang, Hazel Levesque, Leo Valdez, Coach Hedge, Athena (Percy Jackson)

                                                                                                           Read on Ao3

If you were ever curious how to piss off an over-enthusiastic, bat-wielding satyr, I could provide you with a proper step-by-step. It really isn’t that hard for someone of my expertise, because evidently, I am incredibly gifted in the art of frustrating people. Annabeth will vouch for this since she’s made a point of letting me know for the past 6 years. Any of my foes of past and present could probably give a similar reference, but with more bias to their reasoning.

Anyway, back to satyrs that are taking their chaperoning job way too seriously:

        Step 1: Sneak out after curfew at the beck and call of your beautiful/amazing girlfriend.

        Step 2: Fall asleep.

        Step 3: Get caught sleeping beside your beautiful/amazing girlfriend.

So now, thanks to the biggest misunderstanding in modern history (I’m sure Annabeth would normally have a tragic Greek tale about a grander example of miscommunication, but I doubt she’d dispute me now), we’re grounded. I haven’t been grounded in forever. To be fair, I’d been missing for a while and just before that I was kind of thrust into almost dying in the second Titan War, but I’m a good kid regardless.

I don’t regret spending the time with Annabeth, because it’d been forever since we’ve had a moment alone. My heart pattered when I thought about how she didn’t scare when I mentioned the idea of New Rome. It upgraded to full-scale pounding when I pictured the way she’d kissed me shortly after and how it still made me feel like I was floating.

Frank found and alerted the media, because apparently everyone was pretty worked up over the idea of losing us. I mean, I do have a record of going missing and losing my memory now so I can’t say I blame them for the concern. Their tunes completely changed when they saw us sprawled across the clear door cuddling. Frank seemed pretty embarrassed, which probably would have been closer to my response too if I walked in on Hazel and him like that. Piper smiled like a Cheshire cat for reasons beyond me. Whatever it was, it made Annabeth super uncomfortable whenever she looked at her pointedly. Jason seemed pretty indifferent, if not relieved he wasn’t in my shoes. Leo was relentless as if a day ago I hadn’t almost attacked him when I thought he set the canons off on Camp Jupiter.

Coach Hedge was as scary as I’d feared, but I wouldn’t say that to Annabeth. I don’t think I needed to, because she rolled her eyes when she looked over at me while we were chastised. There wasn’t much heat in it though, which told me that maybe she didn’t regret getting caught either. You could tell she’d been through a lot, too much, in these past 6 months. She barely even hesitated as he laid into us with threats of contacting our parents. While I half-expected Athena to storm our ship, scoop me up, hang me, and turn me into a flag, I was more afraid of the idea of Coach Hedge calling my mom. My mom has made it really clear that she does not want any grandbabies yet.

I thought we were safe from humiliating punishment until that night, Coach called for a group meeting. Leo said we’d never actually done that before on Argo II, so I knew something was up. It had just been an incredibly long day of near-death experiences so the fact that Annabeth and I dozed off was so far from my brain. As she laced her hands through mine while we walked from the lower cabin to the upper deck, it seemed to be far from her mind too.

It should have tipped me off that everyone was sitting towards Coach like he was performing a one-man show. Gods, I would imagine his singing voice would be on par with Chuck Norris and Dog the Bounty Hunter, just like the rest of his personality.

He set down a whiteboard on an easel and I could tell Annabeth was immediately cued in. My girlfriend is such a Brainiac and while ADHD like the rest of the demigods, her attentions were always easily grasped through organized visual aid, especially when it was educational. She looked cute when she was learning. She looked cute all of the time, because duh, it’s Annabeth, but her eyes get super focused and she leans forward a bit, occasionally nibbling on her lip.

I, on the other hand, am not taken with graphs or statistics the way I am with her. Whenever she feels the need to recite whatever he said, I’ll listen much more carefully from her. She must have felt my gaze, because I’m being far from discrete. Being away from her for all of that time, even if it was really only a few weeks for me, made me want to capture every detail of her and force myself to save it in safe keeping.

I thought she was going to smack me for zoning out so badly, but her face goes a little dumbfounded at whatever Coach is preaching and then her gray eyes flash to me in… Horror? Oh Gods, what did I miss?

She gently reaches out and turns my head to face the very red and very sweaty Coach Hedge, who looks the opposite of happy at me (or someone directly behind me). It takes me up until that moment to see everyone else is looking at me too, except they seem mad too, which is weird.

“Jackson!” He hollered and that brings me back to reality at a crashing rate.

It’s probably useless to say I was listening and play along.

“I was listening.” Stupid.    

His nostrils flared. “Tell me what I just said.”

I had one of those typical Percy Jackson moments. You know, the ones that make everyone around me gasp at my superior intellect and amazing capability of remaining hyper aware at all costs.

“Uh… Duh…?”

“Smooth.” Annabeth muttered.

“That’s what I thought.” He barked. “If you don’t get your head out of your bungle hole right now, I’m going to tie you to your mattress, so you can’t have another infraction like last night’s ever again.”

“Why don’t you leave that to Annabeth?” Leo snickered cheekily.

I felt my face turning hot while Annabeth gave Leo one of her trademark glares that sent him sliding into his seat to avoid her gaze. Coach didn’t seem impressed by the comment either, because he hovered over Leo and resembled an exploding bottle of ketchup.

“I would hold my tongue if I were you, Valdez. This talk is for all of you little horn-balls. I should expect this from the child of Aphrodite-”

“-Hey!” Piper said indignantly.

He powered on. “But since Annabeth Chase has been dirtied up, it can likely happen to any of you. So, that’s why we need to take a moment from all of this world-ending business and move onto a different kind of life-or-death.”

The glare he sent me when he said “dirtied up” made me want to sleep with my eyes open tonight. Or you know, forever.

“I have not been dirtied up!” Annabeth snapped. I admired her bravery, but we’d already gone in circles about how nothing even happened, and no one believed us. At this point, Coach Hedge was going to trust a son of Hermes not-guilty plea of pick-pocketing over us.      

“Oh really, I know your mother wouldn’t be pleased about your recent deeds.”    

“We didn’t-”

“-Save it!”

I could feel myself sweating and could practically hear my own heartbeat in my ears. The implication behind all of this was uncomfortable at best, even if we had been innocent. It was no secret that Annabeth was born from Athena, who was one of the Maiden Goddesses. In other words, she never biologically produced kids. While Aphrodite was definitely sex-positive when it came to her children, Athena was… Not. She saw more important values than love like battle strategies or instilling constant fear into her daughter’s boyfriend.

“Anyway, it’s time that I have a little talk with you kids. Nobody else seems to have so it’s up to me.”

Everyone around me got super pale and started stammering in disagreement. Me? I was just confused and trying to hide it. I mean, I can’t say I enjoy long conversations with Coach Hedge, but this had to be better than having to sleep outside in the rain or sharing a room with him, right?  

“Why should we have to sit through this?” Frank stumbled over his words and wouldn’t look at Hazel.

“Because I am becoming very aware that you folks seem to think this is a romantic couple’s cruise and I will be having none of it.”

“I am not part of a couple.” Leo pointed out.

“Yeah, but don’t think I haven’t noticed the goo-goo eyes you’ve been making at Miss Levesque here.”

Gods, it looked like Frank was wishing his eyes were snipers by the way he was glaring at Leo. Leo seemed very aware of this and once again sunk down in his seat in an ill attempt to become less of a target. His rescue came in the form of Hazel placing a hand on Frank’s bicep. He looked down at her and calmed down almost immediately. I’m usually the last guy to notice this kind of thing, but maybe being in love has sort of made me more attune to other people in love.

“This ship will not become the playboy mansion!” Coach emphasized this point by referring to a poster with the word “sex” scratched over with red slashes. “So, in order to stop this, I’m going to give you the talk my old man gave me: The Harpies and Aristaeus.”

“So, looking at ugly harpies made you swear off sex?”

Everyone groaned. I bet some of them were wishing they’d never picked me up in the first place, because I was still lost. Coach Hedge looked like he was about 3 seconds from chucking his clipboard at me.

Annabeth smacked my shoulder and was glaring at me with that “can you be more stupid” look in her stormy eyes. A deep blush clung to her cheeks and the back of her neck and if she didn’t already look mad enough to throw me overboard, I might have commented on how cute it was.

Still, she clarified. “Aristaeus is a minor God that is a protector of many arts, Percy. A big one is bee-keeping."

"How is bee-keeping an art?"

Thunder rolled in the distance.

"Sorry." I murmured and tried to put the pieces together.

The bee keeper? That still sounded lame. And what did that have to do with harpies?

        The harpies and the bee keeper.

        The ugly bird people and the bees.

        The birds and the- oh crap.

Needless to say, I felt dread. Like, titan-fighting dread. I couldn’t bring myself to look anywhere near Annabeth’s direction as it dawned on me. My sense of panic must have translated to the outside, because Coach seemed much smugger than he had been earlier. My tongue seemed to swell in my mouth and my face definitely invented its own shade of magenta for the occasion.  Everyone else looked pretty stiff too, but it was hard to believe anyone could be more awkward than me about this kind of thing.

“I had that talk with my mom… A while ago.” I tried, and it was true. It was painful then, but something told me hearing it from a big and loud half-goat with my girlfriend right beside me was going to be infinitely worse.

“Well, if you’re such an expert, you’re going to point out and name every part of the female reproduction system.”

Right then, I wished that maybe, just maybe, Gaia would rise early so I wouldn’t have to live through this. Wow, super selfish and absorbed, I know, but you have to understand that this is basically akin to slow and brutal torture. And I have been tortured before.

Gaia is spiteful and probably saw this as a lovely little way to prolong suffering.

The diagrams were awful and graphic. Coach wasn’t exactly a stand-up comedian, so he wasn’t joking about me having to point out and name every part of the female anatomy. I was wrong about almost all of it, but I couldn’t give the legitimate terms for the parts of the male anatomy either, I swear.

“Is this thing upside down?” I asked at one point.

“Poor Annabeth.” Murmured Piper to Jason, who looked just as dumbstruck and confused as me. Annabeth had her head in her hands out of pure mortification and I was wondering if the entire purpose of this exercise was to embarrass me so much that my girlfriend would never want to so much as touch me ever again, let alone do anything resembling sex.

“Poor Annabeth, indeed.” Coach Hedge agreed after shouting at me for getting the term “clitoris” wrong for the third (or was it fourth?) time.

“Why does Annabeth even need to know this? Doesn’t she just have brain babies like Athena? I mean… Can she have kids the normal way?” Leo asked.

She scowled. “I can’t have brain children and even if I could, it would require an impossibly strong connection of intelligence.”      

Everyone simultaneously turned back to me and Jason clicked his tongue. “Yeah, I guess that’s out of the question.”

“Hey!” I protested.

Consent was talked about, which shouldn’t have surprised me considering how many gross people live in the world. I guess I was just surprised that any sane person would be able to sleep at night knowing they’d just totally broken someone’s trust in mankind in such a violating way.

“NO MEANS NO!” He yelled over and over again. “MAYBE MEANS NO! MAYBE NOT MEANS NO! YES IS YES AND THAT IS ALL THERE IS TO IT.”

But it wasn’t, because he started grilling us on situations where consent was properly given. I passed this was flying colors, because honestly, I’m the kind of person that usually needs intense verification to do much of anything. You saw how long it took for me to admit I liked Annabeth. I know I am not always good with subtleties.

I glanced over at her, who also didn’t seem the least bit worried about this part. I gently took her hand and hoped that it reminded her that I would never hurt her.

Coach went on to explain protection, which seemed like it would be the most mild portion of this TED talk, but when he handed all of us bananas and condoms, I knew it was going to be bad.

“This seems excessive.” Hazel laughed nervously, which made sense since she’s not exactly from a time where even talking about this stuff is the norm. I can’t say I was too comfortable either. Plus, I was pretty perturbed about the fact that while everyone else had a full-sized banana, Annabeth had been given half of a carrot.

“I ran out of bananas.” Coach tried to justify but wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Sure.” I grumbled.

“If you don’t know how to put on a condom, you will die.”

Piper smirked. “Nice Mean Girls reference.”

We spent the next half hour explaining Mean Girls to him while simultaneously trying to take this fun little meeting off the rails. It worked a little bit and Coach even seemed to enjoy some of the smart remarks made in the movie, but he’d apparently drank a lot of persistence juice before calling us together so he was not being shaken from his original purpose.      

It turned into a contest at who could put it on the quickest and the most secure. Annabeth was the first to accomplish this feat, but again, she had the smallest and most slender object to work with. I didn’t do as badly as Leo or Frank, who kept dropping the banana.

“It’s not really staying on.” Annabeth murmured and wouldn’t look at me.

Leo snickered. “Poor Annabeth again.”

This time, she thumped him upside the head and I would be remiss to say I didn’t support the reaction.

“Valdez, I’d hold your judgment since you can’t even seem to finish.”

I laughed this time.

Coach realized we were all having a little too much fun with this exercise and went on to explain the intricacy of orgasms, both male and female. I felt my stomach lurching again, especially as he was clearly trying to dispel any positive thoughts from the girls’ minds by harping over the fact that guys our age do not last long in bed. I was trying to find other stuff to focus on, like the impending mortal threats that were coming our way, but he kept reeling me back in by using me as an example.

“Take Jackson, here--”      

“Please don’t.”

This didn’t stop him. “Someone of his anxiousness and stupidity would have no idea how to pleasure a woman. He’s better suited at maneuvering the Labyrinth than the vagina. He proved that earlier.”

“Thanks for that.”

“I can promise you, that the 15 seconds will not be worth it. And that applies to all of you boys.”

Needless to say, it got a lot worse before it got better. Frank was asked what the best way to prevent teenage pregnancy was, was given the hint that it started with an “A”, and then panicked and said “anal” instead of abstinence. Hazel took a solid 4 steps away from him then and I thought the big guy was going to throw up. Jason, Hazel, and I were then given a nice chat about how if we had children, they would be so powerful that there would be a quorum about whether or not they should even live. Leo asked if it was possible that he would accidentally light a girl on fire mid intercourse. The answer was yes. Annabeth was the only one born of a virgin Goddess present, so of course the majority of her segment focused on “purity” and “clear-thinking” and also the mention of her mother’s intense disapproval.

She’d told me about how her mom already claimed she failed her and I could see her flinch at the idea of failing her further, but then unexpectedly, her gaze turned to a hard steel.

“Hold on a second,” She said angrily, and I knew that look. I’ve been on the other side of that look many a time. She gave me that look a lot in our time of knowing each other, especially when I was being dumb about whether or not she liked me/whether or not I should admit I liked her.      

“What is it, Chase?” He asked gruffly.      

“This is ridiculous.” She snapped. “How is virginity, which isn’t even a physical or tangible thing, something that could possibly increase or decrease my value as a human being?”

“Well…” He started, but she didn’t let him continue.

“If Percy and I have sex, does that make him a terrible person and me dirty? Because that’s how you made it sound earlier.”

Hearing it point blank like that almost made me swallow my tongue and frankly, made my heart race a bit more than I’d ever admit.

“Not on my-” He was going to say “watch”, but she pushed onward with confidence akin to when she’s marching into battle.

“We talked about consent earlier, so clearly you understand the concept of it being my body and my choice at what I want to do with it. So tell me, how is sex more deplorable than going on life-threatening quests that could potentially rip me limb from limb? How is that encouraged, but something that is so biologically basic and innate is considered irredeemable? Do I suddenly become less if I decide I want to feel human every once in a while?”

“You don’t want to get-”

“-Pregnant, I know, and you’re right. I don’t right now, but I’m not exactly an idiot. There are ways of preventing that as we talked about earlier. That is all this should be about, though. Preventing pregnancy, preventing STI’s/STDs, consent, understanding the body, etc. Not guilt about a very natural and human experience. Given the lives we’ve lived, I’d say we deserve it.”

My mouth hung open like the hinges of my jaw had broken and I was left with an open cavern for a mouth for the rest of my life. I tried to shy away from Coach’s shocked stare as if to say, “don’t look at me, I didn’t tell her to say that”, but I couldn’t. I agreed with Annabeth, of course, because she should be the one to get to decide what she does. She’s proven herself capable of that more than a billion times.

I met her gaze while she sat back down and she closed my mouth for me, the smallest remnants of a smile lingering on her lips. Her stare was… hard to read, but I couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. Everyone else seemed to follow my lead, with Jason whistling slightly in approval of her tangent, Piper looking like she wanted to fist-bump her, Hazel smiled cautiously, Frank seemed relieved she shut Hedge up, and Leo looked a little scared and a little aroused.

Hedge cleared his throat as he muttered the words “meeting adjourned” roughly under his breath. Everyone made their move to get away from each other as quickly as possible. We could all probably use a moment to ourselves after that utter humiliation. In the end, Hedge ended up getting the short end of the carrot, so that was semi satisfying.

Annabeth and I walked to our respective quarters in silence and my mind raced on whether or not there was a good thing to say right now. What was appropriate for this moment?

        "Thanks for stopping him before he got to sex toys."

        "I literally cannot stop sweating right now."

        "FYI: mine isn't the size or color of a small carrot."

Thankfully, she spoke. However, when she did, I couldn’t have seen it coming if it was right in front of my face.

“Do you ever think of me like that?” It was so rushed and abrupt that I’m not totally sure she even meant to say it.

I swallowed hard, but I knew if I didn’t answer quickly enough she was either going to get offended or annoyed and I didn’t want either right now after she’d basically saved us all from having to sign anti-pregnancy pacts.

“Sometimes.” I tried to make it sound casual, like I wasn’t a horny, sex-obsessed teenage boy that spent all of him time ogling his girlfriend. I definitely ogled at her, but not like she was an object or anything. She’s just insanely beautiful. Truthfully, I always felt lucky she’d have me in any capacity and didn’t really register that she might want me in that way. Also, I’m usually busy thinking about simple things like food or whether or not I’m going to die painfully in battle. But the thought occurred to me on occasion. Like when we go swimming and she’s climbing out of the water in a bikini or when she sits on my lap and wriggles around a little too much.

The time we made out in the strawberry fields and she placed my hand under her shirt made all the blood leave my brain just thinking about it.

“You?” I asked.

“Sometimes.” She affirmed and looked away and it was obvious in the dim lighting of the hallway that she was blushing again. I couldn’t help but wonder when in Hades she saw me like that, because I’m not exactly smooth. That didn’t mean I wasn’t grateful she did.

“So…” I rocked back and forth on my heels. “You… Want to? Someday? Not today. Obviously not today, but at some point in our lives you want to-”

Thanks, the Gods almighty, because she cut me off from that embarrassing tangent with a kiss. I felt myself relax against her immediately, because she wasn’t totally repulsed by me after both my inability to correctly label the female anatomy or my stupid tendency to make things more awkward somehow. Her fingers threaded in my hair and she tugged a little bit out of satisfaction. My hands found their usual residence on her waist. Her tongue slipped into my mouth and she smiled against my mouth when I inadvertently moaned in response. We stayed like that for a while, her tangling her fingers in my hair while pressing me against the door of my cabin, my hands playing with the loops of her jean shorts, everything seeming impossibly right with the world.

She pulled back and looked at me through sparkling eyes that danced with a knowingness that I will probably never fully understand or stop appreciating. She gently tapped her fingers along the back of my neck in a light drumming movement. She leaned up and kissed me again, this time chaste, which was probably for the best since Coach Hedge would likely be doing some kind of inspection soon.

“We’ll get there.” She smiled, and I wondered if she could feel my heart doing jumping jacks in my chest cavity. “Soon.”

Soon.

She opened the door to her cabin and winked at me before leaving me to the influx of thoughts that decided to attack my brain all at once, leaving me standing there like a big dumb idiot. I wouldn't even have been surprised if I ended up standing here all night out of shock and... Anticipation? She was always going to be miles ahead of me, but I was more than okay with that.

[filipeteimuraz]

The Power Of Emotional Marketing

Consumers think with both their rational and emotional brains. Study after study says that when we buy, it’s for emotional reasons. Logic comes into play when we try to justify the money we have (or are about to) spend — especially when we’re giving into our wants.

Here is what one Psychology Today article says about our shopping habits.

fMRI neuro-imagey shows that when evaluating brands, consumers primarily use emotions (personal feelings and experiences) rather than information (brand attributes, features, objective facts).

Advertising research reveals that emotional responses to an ad has greater influence on a consumer’s intent to buy an ad (more so than the ad’s content).

According to the Advertising Research Foundation, ‘likeability’ is the measure that best predicts whether an advertisement will increase a brand’s sales.

Positive emotions toward a brand have far greater influence on consumer loyalty than trust and other judgments.

Emotions are one reason why we gravitate toward brand name products over generics — big brands pump a steady stream of advertising dollars into branding initiatives.

Okay. The findings make sense. In fact, they’re common sense and have been instrumental to marketers for years. But how can businesses harness emotions to connect with their consumers? Harness the following example tacts. We’ll show you how.

Positive Emotions = Long-Term ROI

Emotions are the key drivers behind our everyday decisions. They’re what keep us motivated to get up and go to work at 6 AM. It’s how we convince ourselves to run that extra mile on the treadmill. Similarly, emotions are what convince us to do business with the brands that stand out to us.

The problem is that marketers are on a completely different wavelength. What makes us happy? Clicks, pageviews, time on site, and high conversion rates.

What marketers need to keep in mind is that conversion optimization is a process, not a moment. It’s the whole marketing funnel — not just the five minutes that it takes for your customers to sign a contract or commit to a sale.

Your company needs to prioritize long-term relationships above sales.

Researchers at the University of Michigan wanted to find out how positivity could affect a negotiation scenario. In the study, participants had to coordinate the final arrangements of booking a catering service for an upcoming wedding reception. The business manager of this catering company (a professional actor), explained that the quoted price of $14,000 would need to be increased by close to $3,000 due to market pricing fluctuations.

The study revealed that even a subtle change in pitch could dramatically impact the outcome of the conversation. People who heard a positively toned pitch were twice as likely to accept the deal as people who heard a negatively toned pitch.

Zappos is a brand that thrives on positive energy. The company aims to make its customers extremely happy — and it’s not just to get them in the door. Zappos wants to keep people happy through the entire sales cycle.

Zappos transformed what most companies consider to be a cost (call centers) into a positive customer experience. Zappos reps are not required to follow a rigid script. Instead, they’re encouraged to live in the moment and let their personalities shine through.

Zappos is famous for sending customers flowers, granting surprise upgrades to overnight shipping, and staying on the phone with some customers for hours.

“Sometimes people just need to call and talk”, said Shaea Labus, the employee who was on a call with a customer for almost 10 hours. “We don’t judge, we just want to help”.

Make your customers happy, and you’ll win their business for life. Your competition won’t stand a chance.

Engaging the Senses

Visual communication is the heart of online marketing. That doesn’t mean, however, that your company is limited to two-dimensional communication.

One way to harness the senses is to appeal to your audience’s imagination. Help them imagine an experience with your company’s products. One option? Sound. Talk to your customers by producing a branded explainer video or by hosting a webinar.

You don’t need to create something expensive or overly complicated, either. When Spotify launched in the U.S., the company created a very simple visual and soundtrack:

Coastal, an ecommerce store that sells contact lenses and glasses, has a ‘try-it-on’ feature that helps customers see what they’d look like in new glasses.

Brand Personality

A personality is something that we usually give our friends, family members, coworkers, and acquaintances. These are qualities that form a person’s distinctive character.

Personalities are in the eye of the beholder. We love people because of their personalities. We hate people because of their personalities. We find some personalities wonderful — and others, we find horribly obnoxious.

It’s weird to think that brands can have a personality. And yet, we talk about ‘brand personalities’ all the time.

What Is A Brand Personality?

A brand personality is the set of attributes that give an organization a distinct character. Some brands have incredibly strong and unique personalities. Others have weaker personalities (or no personalities at all). Usually, these personalities revolve around a distinct set of attributes.

Great personalities don’t happen by accident. They’re planned well in advance.

Moosejaw is a great source of inspiration. This sports and outdoors goods retailer is fun-loving, experimental, adventurous, and has an amazing sense of humor. Their marketing team takes the time to try new branding initiatives (like mystery gifts and freebies) and also deploys subtle tactics of making fun of the company’s own legalese. Check out the company’s return policy, for instance. It’s hilarious. It’s a “living will”.

Where Do Brand Personalities Come From

A brand personality can be whatever its leadership wants it to be — fun loving, serious, professional, or any combination of characteristics.

What’s most important is that the company defines it up front. This process should capture the entire time — not just a select few managers within the organization.

The reason why is that it’s your team members — at the ground level — who will ultimately put this carefully designed personality into action. These individuals will plan new product features, business development tactics, and customer service offerings around this extremely important identity.

As an example, take a look at KISSmetrics. The company strives to be analytical, educational, helpful, to-the-point, metrics-driven, aggressive, and (kind of nerdy). These core brand personality traits are readily apparent throughout the site — on the homepage and especially on the blog where the company is sharing tips, how-tos, and detailed best practices in web analytics.

Who Is Responsible For Your Company’s Brand Identity?

he short answer? Everyone.

The personality that you assign to your brand should touch every aspect of your business from marketing copy to social media, customer emails, and product descriptions. Every single person on your team — executive leaders, mid-managers, and entry level team members should be able to clearly define and embody who your brand is.

In many ways, your team members are your company’s brand identity. In building out your team (hiring) and forming strategic partnerships, you need to hire people who live and breathe your brand’s core values. When your team is committed to a shared and focused set of values, your company will have an easier time.

Culture, marketing, and design are elements that go hand-in-hand. For these disparate business goals to converge, a clear strategy needs to be defined from the top-down.

How Do You Define Your Company’s Brand Identity?

A brand identity isn’t something that will materialize into thin air. The process takes careful planning and consideration. You’ll need to hire a team, and if you have the funds, you may need to hire a consultant. This core business asset will unify your product, marketing, design, and customer communication. In other words, it’s really important. You’re not wasting time by overthinking it.

Here are step-by-step guidelines to help you get started:

Come up with a big list of keywords that represent your brand image (right now). Invite your entire team to participate in this process. You can use a whiteboard, Google doc, or spreadsheet to sketch out the details ­— whatever you think is most effective — to share ideas.

Come up with a big list of keywords that describe how you’d like your brand to be perceived. Repeat the process of involving your entire team. Compare your two lists and examine the gaps between who you are now and who you want to be.

Trim down the big list of keywords to 2-3 key phrases. This process will be excruciating, but there is no way that you can rely on dozens of words to describe your brand. At the end of the day, human beings will be processing this information. If you overwhelm folks with more information than they can handle, you’ll end up wasting time.

Create a message architecture. A what? This is a hierarchy of communication goals that clarify your brand’s most high-impact attributes. These attributes and terms reflect a broader discussion to establish concrete, shared terminology (not just abstract concepts). There is no cookie-cutter approach to crafting your brand’s message architecture. Pick an approach that best aligns with your company’s goals. Just make sure that you’re communicating (and organizing) your brand’s identity clearly.

Create a style guide. This document will translate all of your ideas into a concrete set of instructions for your marketing team. This (short and sweet) document will unify your company’s brand messaging. It takes a few sentences to keep your company on the same page.

Here is an example of a simple brand styleguide:

The concept is just that simple. The less information your team has to filter through, the more they can focus on creating a cohesive marketing strategy.

Avoiding Cheesiness

Emotions can easily transition from effective to downright cheesy. It’s a fine line. One moment, your brand is doing a great job building a rapport. The next moment? Audiences are making fun of your company’s over-the-top marketing message.

How do you avoid this?

Embrace honesty within your organization. Make it easy for your team to deliver blunt and honest perspectives.

Collect feedback from a variety of audiences. Don’t just listen to your organization’s baby boomers. Ask your Gen Xers and Gen Yers to share ideas too.

Face test your marketing message with a group of customers that you trust. Ask this ‘focus group’ to deliver blunt and honest feedback.

Remember the needs of your audiences. Baby boomers, for instance are more receptive to cheesy marketing messages than other groups. Gen Yers? They’ll tear your marketing apart.

Cheesiness is in the eye of the beholder. The best way to connect with your audience is to put your marketing team in their shoes.

Creating Viral Campaigns

Some brands make viral marketing look so darn easy. Dollar Shave Club, for instance, used a hilarious marketing video to build a customer base. Overnight. Literally.

The thing is, viral marketing campaigns are more formulaic than they look. While performance isn’t guaranteed, brands can optimize their chances of success by striking an emotional chord with their customers.

In a Harvard Business Review article, Kelsey Libert and Kristin Tynski explain how marketers can increase the chances of a creating a viral campaign:

Make people care (and share). Engage them with a powerful message — without trying to sell your brand. Heavy use of branding can push viewers away. They’ll jump to disregard the content as spammy and quickly lose interest. Don’t manipulate your audience’s emotions. Respect them, and make an effort to understand their core needs.

Understand the emotions that drive the success of viral content. Patterns are a core part of human nature. That’s why Libert and Tynski conducted a study of 30 of the top 100 images of the year from imgur.com (as voted on the top social sharing site Reddit). Negative emotions were less commonly found in viral content than positive emotions. However, viral success was still positive when these negative emotions came with an element of anticipation and surprise. Certain emotions were common in viral content (and others were uncommon). Common emotions included: curiosity, amazement, interest, astonishment, uncertainty, and admiration.

Build your brand into an emotional message without being salesy. The key is to think about how your company, products, and services relate to your target audience. Make sure to select a topic that underscores the position of your brand.

Pay attention to the public good.

The world is bigger than your brand. Focus on adding value to the world, and your customers will notice.

The Unspoken Power Of Delight

Delight is a force that is infinitely more powerful than any marketing message. It’s the experience of watching a toddler use a smartphone for the first time. It’s what happens when you walk into your favorite boutique (after a tough day) and are surrounded by racks of beautiful items and great music. It’s when Zappos surprises you with overnight shipping.

Some leaders stereotype delight as something fluffy. The thing is, it’s not. It ties directly into your company’s bottom line. It’s probably true that you can’t measure the correlation between exposure to purple lighting in the Virgin Airlines check-in area and profitability. But honestly, who cares? We know that delight influences sales. It’s a waste of time to chase numbers and micromanage the details. Focus on growing your business by creating delightful brand experiences.

Delight doesn’t happen on accident. It’s carefully crafted into the core functional areas of your business:

Product

Marketing

Account management/client services

Aesthetics

Delight can strike a chord with the following emotions:

Humor

Inspiration

Admiration

Awe

Surprise

The problem with delight is that it is — by definition — a nebulous concept. Your finance and revenue teams will second guess your pitches around the topic. Your sales and marketing teams might be on board, but your number crunchers? Not so much. When asked about your plans, you need to distill your goals into a set of tangible steps. Here are the steps needed to create a delightful brand experience:

Evaluate your customers’ pain points. Examine their online and offline behavior, research what they need, and piece together the touch points that illustrate their unique conversion paths. Talk to them directly, and build brand personas around the answers that you receive.

Define your brand. Take the research that you did in step 1, and translate the information into a concrete set of action items. Distill what you’ve learned into one or two sentences about your company.

Start brainstorming action-items that deliver your intended brand experience.

Branding is something that your company should measure on the macro-level. Pay attention to general trends in your customer data:

Repeat Customers: How many customers are coming back to do repeat business with your company?

Word of Mouth Recommendations: Shares through social media can help you quantify this important concept. It’s not a perfect 1:1 relationship; however, shares are a strong proxy for how many people are engaging with — and ultimately recommending your brand.

Average Order Values: Take a look at how much customers are spending with each individual transaction. A positive sign is when you see growth over time.

Lifetime Customer Values: Are your marketing initiatives increasing the worth that your company is generating over the long-term?

Market Share: How does your brand compare to its top competitors? Are customers sticking with your company or making the jump to other organizations?

Delight is something that you can craft in tandem with your brand’s personality. Delight is the customer-centric piece, and personality is the brandcentric piece.

Staying Ethical

There is a fine line between courting and manipulating customers. Remember that emotions can make us vulnerable. No matter how strong we think we are, we’re still very complex. In appealing to emotions, brands are constantly walking the line. It is extremely important to treat your customers with the utmost respect.

Fear is one example of a powerful yet heavily abused emotion.

In some instances, fear is appropriate. Especially when it comes to vital health concerns, companies/brands/nonprofits have an obligation to inspire emotion. This ad from the CDC, for instance, is designed to stop people from smoking:

The main element that influences whether a person is likely to take action to avoid a threat is efficacy — a person’s perception as to whether or not they can do anything about the threat.

Marketers and business owners can literally scare their customers into making a purchase. But is it ethical? Probably not — if you’re using fear tactics, then definitely no. If you’re communicating something truthful (and possibly saving your customers from a big problem), then fear is ok.

The key is to give your brand a value test. Is your marketing message adding or extracting value from the world? If you’re extracting value (like a leech), you should probably change your approach.

Logitech is an example brand that strikes this balance well. Here is an ad for a home video security system — it’s based around the questions that parents are already asking. In speaking to its audience’s fears, the marketing message is comforting because it shows worrisome parents that they are not alone in their fears.

Logitech also ran a “busted” video campaign to expose prospective customers to credible, real threats. Unethical? Not so much. But the campaign may make you consider buying a Logitech camera.

Here’s an example of an ad that takes fear too far. The ad reads “If you aren’t totally clean, you are filthy”.

The ad is questionable because it’s unreasonable. Yes, our hands are covered in germs. But are we covered in disgusting cockroaches, and are we allowing those nonexistent cockroaches to crawl all over our children? Probably not.

The thing is, many people have phobias for cockroaches and other insects. They are likely terrified and jolted after looking at this very unrealistic ad.

A point that we emphasized earlier is that emotions expose our greatest vulnerabilities. Marketers should treat carefully and thoughtfully. You never know who you’ll possibly make very, very angry.

Build Emotions Into Your Brand Community

Social media is a great way to encourage customers to talk about how they’re thinking and feeling — especially about your company. It’s important to keep this dialogue open — you’ll promote word of mouth marketing around your brand. A potential issue arises, however, when customers are angry about a negative experience.

Many companies will jump to deleting negative comments or moving all customer communication into a private forum.

Don’t do that.

Instead, if a problem arises, use the opportunity to show that there is a real person behind your brand. Apologize, make the situation better, and try to offer an amicable solution. Don’t let a complaint or negative review scare you away from the experience of talking with your customers in a public forum. Instead, be authentic and show that you care. Reciprocate emotions with emotions, and stay calm — even if the conversation gets heated.

FedEx did a great job striking this balance with this summer, a video of a careless package delivery driver went viral on YouTube. The company released an official video statement to basically say, “I’m sorry. We’re on it”.

Own your mistakes. If all else fails, make it a point to show that you care.

Key Takeaways

Consumers buy because of what they’re feeling — not necessarily what they’re thinking.

Emotions are valuable for marketing. Marketers and business owners need to make sure that they’re connecting with audiences on a human-to-human level.

Emotions are difficult to quantify. Diehard finance people will be skeptical of your marketing initiatives. If you listen to them, however, your company will miss out on valuable relationship-building experiences.

A company should take the time to establish its brand personality upfront, from the top down. Style guides and message architecture templates can help your organization create a centralized workflow for all of your company’s marketing channels.

Remember that your company’s culture will also define your brand. Your teammates are the people who will execute your company’s brand strategy at the ground level — in every aspect of your business from customer communication, sales, and social media. Make sure that you’re hiring the right people who embody your company’s core traits and values.

You can measure delight, brand loyalty, and customer happiness by looking at macro-level ROI metrics including long-term customer value, average order value, company market share, and social media mentions.

Emotions make us vulnerable. Don’t be a jerk. Be considerate of the fact that there are highly public consequences to your actions as a brand.

Social media is a platform for your customers to share what they are thinking and feeling. Don’t inhibit this very healthy dialogue. It’s perfectly normal for customers to feel frustrated and angry sometimes. Don’t feel pressure to squash what they’re saying. Focus on solving the problem, discussing the problem openly, and connecting with your audiences in a very human way.

http://www.quicksprout.com/emotional-marketing/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-power-of-emotional-marketing.html