#we where talking about a book now being re-published without the n word in it and if thats the right thing to do

[grassmirrorandpaperclones]

Me: in the modern day landscape and how the Internet is trained to live in a bubble it's really important to go and seek out other people's point of view like literally live changing important

Me when my friends feel or think differently then I do : my world is shattered and I need to peel off my skin so my anger and frustration doesn't just drown me in my head

[cara-delaney-author]

Author brands 'n shit, I guess

So I somehow managed to lose a post I really wanted to reblog to an unexpected re-log. The post was about a Vox article talking about how the concept of a personal brand and a platform is poisoning artistic industries, particularly writing and music. So we're just doing a new post instead.

The article makes some really good points, especially about how now more than ever, authors (and musicians, but I write books so that's what we're mostly looking at) can't just do the thing that's in their job description. We have to do the marketing as well. And that is such a wild concept to me, who grew up convinced that I would one day land a publishing deal and be a famous author. I had this idea of how the traditional publishing industry worked, and for a long time, that idea was fairly accurate. Now?

If we now also have to do most of the marketing for our book to even stand a chance.

If advances are shrinking to the point where even successful authors are forced back into day jobs.

If print-on-demand means that nobody has to shell out thousands for a print run anymore without knowing that they'll even sell a fraction of the books.

What do we even need the traditional publishing industry for anymore?

Midlist books and authors are disappearing. The focus is on bestsellers, on "the next big thing", to the exclusion of almost everything else. That's not a sustainable plan. Sure, in theory, producing nothing but bestsellers would make you thrive. But you can't. You simply cannot guarantee that 100% of your books are going to be bestsellers. The vast majority are not. Even big pre-existing audiences don't guarantee that. Just look at these incredibly funny numbers provided by the New York Times, about celebrity books that "flopped". And I'm using that word loosely - tens of thousands of copies sold are GREAT, actually. But when you calculated your sales potential based on an audience of millions? It's nothing.

This really pokes a lot of holes into the idea that big platform = big sales, but here we are, being asked to flap our arms about and make silly voices in funny little TikToks to promote our work. When that should be the publisher's job. So, again - what are they even still good for, if you aren't coming to them already famous?

Though the article also comes with some questionable takes, albeit when it cites other writers. Specifically when it cites Defector writer Israel Daramola about music criticism, and how more and more professional outlets are closing or get incorporated into other publications. How this means that the ecosystem of criticism is shifting to "a loose collection of Youtubers and influencers", and how "This has all helped produce a mass of music fans who don’t understand the value of criticism and outright detest being told the things they like might suck." Which is just so baffling to me. Of course they don't like that! Do you?! If you think the point of criticism is to forcibly explain to people why the thing they enjoy is bad, actually, you really suck at criticism. Criticism is meant to give you an idea before you engage with something, of what the quality might be and whether or not you'll like it. It's not meant to make you go "oh, well, if this artist I love is bad, I should probably not listen to them". Stop doing that! Let people enjoy things, it doesn't matter if you, personally, think the thing in question is "objectively not good". People are allowed to enjoy "bad" things, for fuck's sake. This is the exact kind of elitism that drives people away from professional, thoughtful and educated critique.

I find this particular citation odd, because Daramola does make a point much more related to the subject of the article - that the reduction of music criticism to subsections and listicles is a symptom of a similar problem as "author brands" in the music sphere. If you don't already have a big platform, a successful brand, you won't find support. Budding artists struggle the same as budding authors, where the industry whose entire business model is built upon taking risks on new talent and building that talent up is now refusing to do that, and shifting all of that work onto the artists. This has very little to do with the audience, and everything to do with the business people calling the shots behind the scenes.

There is a whole lot wrong with my industry these days. Art gets more and more commodified. The content doesn't matter anymore as long as you, the author, can sell a lot of it. Once you have proven yourself, the publishing gods might decide that you're a guaranteed success, and deign to give you the kind of support they should have given you from the beginning. Only now, there is no risk for them anymore. That risk was all taken by you, the person with the most to lose.

One last time - if that's how traditional publishing works now, what is it even still good for?

And I haven't even gotten into how this entire system is also rigged heavily in favour of the (white, attractive) Anglosphere, while the platforms themselves have global reach. So the Anglosphere is actively sucking the air out of the room with its ever-growing cultural hegemony even on the level of individual artists. The article touches on this, too, though it brushes past that pretty quickly, and one of the linked articles in the section basically just says "if you're from a different culture, consider simply ignoring that and doing it the American way". Fabulous.

I don't have any quick, easy fixes for this problem. I don't think anybody has. But if you're a reader, if you're a music lover, maybe next time you're looking for something new, consider looking past the big hits. Ignore the huge platforms, and maybe go and find some indie artists to try. There's a lot of gold to be mined here, even if it's getting harder and harder to find. It takes a little more effort, but it would mean the world to the indie artists on the other side.

[pebblysand]

[JANUARY ‘22] - THE LIFE/WRITING UPDATE NO ONE ASKED FOR (AND SOME QUICK LINKS)

happy new year everyone! without getting into too much detail, i hope you had much, much better celebrations than mine, and that for all of us, this year is warmer and kinder than 2021 was. i feel a bit bad for breaking my rule of always posting these monthly updates on the first of the month, but i was in such a shit mood yesterday that i don’t think i would have been very conducive to hopeful new years’ thoughts haha. today’s better :).

Anyway, before diving into more life/writing updates, here are some quick links to different blog pages you might not see on mobile :

to financially support my writing endeavours (thank you!)

to read my fics

to read my original work

fic recs [updated]

to read my tumblr rants about stuff

[NOTE: i am currently not accepting prompts]

Castles (chap 11) ETA: probably march.

links extended a/n-s: chapter v ; chapter vi & vii ; chapter viii ; chapter ix ; chapter x

[more life/writing updates under the cut]

what i’m reading:

books:

i have a sin to admit: i read seven books in 2021. that’s it. here’s the list.

i used to average around 20 prior to the pandemic, managed 13 in 2020 (but 4 of those were just me re-reading hp from gof to dh) but this year’s just been… hard. i wasn’t going to say anything but then if you’re anything like me, you’re all over booktok and bookstagram with all of these people who are like ‘oh, i only read 48 books this year, i’m so bad,’ with their reading trackers, and notebooks, and all that shite, and… reading is supposed to be a hobby but it sometimes just feels like another chore to tick off the list.

so, if you’re also on that boat of: you’d like to read more and you love to read but you’re just not in that headspace, just know that you’re not alone. i used to do most of my reading while travelling pre-pandemic and i just haven’t found a new routine that works for me. now, i spend so many evenings and weekends tied to my desk writing that the last thing i want to do as a hobby is to pick up more words. it’s also just hard not to compare myself to the things i read. so, anyway, while i would love to say i intend to read more in 2022, we will see. i’m trying to not beat myself up about it - there are already too many things to beat myself up about haha.

this being said, i did make some progress and am about halfway through enfant de salaud, which i already talked about here. it delivers on everything i hoped for and more and definitely confirms sorj chalandon as one of my all time favourite authors. i’m taking a week off to go skiing next week so i’m hoping that in the evenings, i’ll maybe feel like picking up a book to chill. who knows?

fics:

i’m still reading: knowing where to look by ala_baguette and still loving it. apart from that i’ve mostly been re-reading this past month, in order to make this rec list i published a few days ago. the response has been fab and i’m so glad all of you are enjoying my top ten for 2021. let’s hope that 2022 brings even more hidden gems. but tbh, even with fics, i haven’t been reading as much as i’d like to this year. and, you know what? let’s cut ourselves some slack lol. whatever.

.

what i’m watching:

having not had the brainspace to read much lately, i have however watched quite a bit of tv to unwind. i would definitely recommend the following three shows:

aisling bea’s this way up. i adooooored this series. it’s hilarious comedy, gave me a lot of fleabag vibes, but without the awful cringey-ness of fleabag which, tbh, isn’t quite my jam. it hits such a fantastic note between happy and sad, comedy and drama, and laughing at the good and bad things that happen in life. the show is, to put it simply, a comedy about depression, but aisling bea is so funny as well as heartwarming in it (the actors are all absolutely stellar, actually), that it is just so right - i absolutely loved it. although the show is set in london, i do think it has a very irish tone in that way that irish people have of finding the bright side of any situation, i just felt all warm and fuzzy watching it.

.

talking about warm and fuzzy, a show that was very much not so was flesh and bone. it’s been a couple weeks now since i finished this series, and i still don’t really know what i think of it. i started watching it because i do enjoy a good ballet mystery thriller which… is that what it was? it’s got me thinking a lot about that americanah quote: ‘why did people ask: “what is it about?” as if a novel had to be about only one thing.’ is this show about sexual assault and incest? is it about ballet? is it about the mafia? i don’t fucking know. it’s about a little bit of everything but it definitely got me hooked - i watched the whole eight episodes in a single day. it was a bit disturbing though. man, i don’t know, watch at your own risk, i reckon.

.

dexter, new blood is out!!!!! full disclosure, i was a massive fan of the original dexter as a teenager but i stopped watching around the time when debra/dexter became a thing. i just never really bought into it and although i know they weren’t real brother and sister is just felt incestuous and wrong. so, i hadn’t seen the end and i was so hesitant to watch this reboot ‘cause i’m getting a bit annoyed at the current tendency to bring back old shows - it feels rather lazy on the part of the writers to not write new things, you know? The Boy kept telling me to watch it and i finally caved when i got home to france and it turned out my mum had also started watching it. and man… i love it. it’s so good! it’s giving me a lot of early dexter vibes where the main concern was: omggg, is he going to get arrested or not??? i swear, if that’s how this season ends, i’m going to be so mad. i absolutely love the relationship with harrison, the ambiguity of: did harrison inherit dex’s dark passenger, or is he just an angry teenager? i love how they’re also not making dexter into an ideal father but rather a shit one, and how his actions have had huge consequences on his son’s life. the break they took in the show was clearly a fantastic idea and this season is of the very highest quality. if you watched the og dexter, please don’t hesitate to watch cause this won’t disappoint. also don’t feel like you had to watch the entire og show to see this. as i said, i never watched past series 6 of the original show and i’m totally fine following new blood.

and, no, i haven’t watched the hp reunion yet. i’ve seen some clips on tiktok, i’m hoping that i’ll find the time to watch it soon!

.

what i’m hearing:

i’ve been very much enjoying my spotify 2021 wrapped this month. it’s bizarre how much my top music this year is related to fic haha. i can look at all of the items on that list and point to a particular piece i was writing at the time haha. this also very much dates me as a millennial but hey, that is what i am, after all.

.

what i’m writing:

i hope you all enjoyed the tenth chapter of castles. as i said in the extended a/n, it was a chapter i very much enjoyed writing. i’ll admit that with christmas and new year’s, although i initially intended to write more, i’ve just taken the last couple of weeks off writing to chill and do a lot of life admin type things i procrastinated on for the last couple of months.

in the short term (i.e. january): i would like to finish one of the two one shots i’ve been trying to finish for months, as part of the ROAR series. one is based on seamus, and one on hermione - kind of character study pieces like the two one shots already part of the series. this being said, i’ve been feeling very exhausted and brain dead lately so i’m also just kind of taking it slow, at least for january, not beating myself up if it doesn’t happen. on top of other life stuff (see below), i wrote probably 50,000 words altogether in november and december - when i landed home this christmas i just felt like i could have slept for a whole week. i’m slowly recovering but honestly, i’m staying in france until the end of january and i might not write again until i get back to ireland. a bit like this summer, i think i’m just going to chill for the next couple of weeks and write only if i really feel like it.

in the long term (i.e. for 2022): man, i don’t know. obviously, i’ll keep writing fanfic and i would love to finish castles by the end of 2022. i think it’s possible, but we shall see. there’s still probably six or eight chapters to go, but i would also love to do more original writing this year, which might take time away from fanfic. just know that i do intend to keep working on castles and bring it to an end either by end of 2022 or early 2023. we shall see.

i’ve also signed up to creative writing classes with my local uni (starting early feb - i think i mentioned this before) which i’m hoping will help me reconnect myself with my non-fanfic creativity streak. not that i don’t like writing fanfic, but i do like both and haven’t done much original writing for the past while. i know a lot of you have asked me at some point or other if i would ever consider writing original content, and the answer is yes - it’s just that time hasn’t always been on my side. also, as a general rule, original content gets less traction than fanfic, which is hard in staying motivated, haha.

if i do succeed in producing more original content this year, i’m still sort of struggling to figure out how to share it with you all. on the one hand, i’m not very interested in old school professional publication (at least not at the moment) and would much rather just put my writing online for free for you guys to enjoy if you want to. i also love the idea of having your feedback, comments, chats, etc. on the other hand, i don’t want to post it publicly on tumblr/ao3 because if i ever change my mind about professional publication, that means that i wouldn’t be able to ever use anything i’d previously posted, which is a bit of a bummer. to me, the perfect middle ground would be a subscription, something like patreon, but i have ethical problems about putting content behind a paywall. i’m okay with you guys giving me cash if you want to (see below) but i don’t like the idea that someone who couldn’t afford the subscription couldn’t see my content, you know? it sounds a bit dick-ish. also, i’m not sure what monthly benefits i could offer? anyway, at this point, i’m still thinking about it, and will for sure keep you posted as things happen throughout the year.

lastly, as you might have seen above, i created a tippee. at this stage, the point of it is an attempt at justifying the insane amount of hours i spend on writing. to give you an idea, i would say that a single chapter of castles is probably around 150/200 hours alone. even if it was legal, i would never ever condition access to fanfic to payment, but it just takes a lot of time and a lot of coffees that i buy out of my own pocket, so let’s say that it would literally be you offering me coffee while i work, haha. additionally, it’s sort of related to the patreon idea as well, to see if anyone would even be interested in giving. to be honest, i will write and keep writing (and keep sharing with you) regardless of money cause that’s just a hobby i absolutely love, but if one of you was to give me five bucks as a token of appreciation every once in a while, it would be… very nice, haha.

.

what i’m doing:

i won’t lie, personally, this has been a very stressful, intense end of year. as explained above, i wrote a lot. i’m also looking for a new job, super busy at my current one, doing interview after interview, one of my best friends is stuck in an abusive relationship i’m trying to get her out of, i got covid, my own relationship stuff and anxiety about turning thirty soon-ish, and i’m tired. i’m hopeful for the new year and excited about the future change i might see happen, but i won’t lie - i’m not sorry to see 2021 go, like i’m sure most of you. on the plus side, castles is insanely close to hitting a very big “hits” milestone, which has be baffled and ecstatic at the same time. so let’s just say: here’s to 2022! i hope it brings you what you’re hoping for :).

lots of love,

pebblysand.

[tamorapierce]

Tammy's Spring 2020 Reading Recommendations For the Bored

Sooner or later the bookhounds among us are going to start joining my relentless song, from age five on up, of “I don’t have anything to read!!!!”

 I am here to help.  In this space, as I get to it (knowing, as my readers do, that I have no sense of deadline), I will be posting a constant set of collections of book titles by authors my team and I have read and will recommend in a wild variety of genres and for a wild variety of ages.  (And I’ll give a short hint as to the subject of the first book/series—if I did them all I’d never finish this.)  This last is for the many of you who are reading teen and adult books in grade and middle school, and those adult readers who are reading teen and kidlit. These people are for those who love books and don’t care who is supposed to be reading them.  

 Also, you may have to look far and wee, since we will be drawing upon not only recently published books but older ones that we have either read recently or that we read long ago and have re-read or have never forgotten.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you when the writing is archaic.  If you’re a true nutsy reader like the rest of us, you won’t care.

 -Tammy Pierce

                                                        *     *     *

Assume the book came out within the last 2 years unless I put LO next to the title, which means you have to check libraries and bookstores online and paper for copies.

 *     *     *

 Diana Wynne Jones  LO

A generation or two of fantasy writers, particularly those who love humor, bow to this woman as our goddess.  Not only was she out of her mind in a very British and manic way, but with her TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND she taught a number of us to ditch some ill-considered tropes of our genre.  If you write historic fantasy in particular, move heaven and earth to track this book down.  There’s a bonus: some of the entries will make you laugh till you cry.

           She is best known for her books for middle grade and teens, but they are enjoyable for all readers.  I cannot list them all here because my fingers will break (curse you, arthritis!), but these titles will give you a jumping-off point.  And remember, authors change with each book, so you won’t encounter the same author with each title as the author you read in the previous one!

           The Chrestomanci books, all in the same universe, in order of story,

                       not publication

Charmed Life  (1977) An innocent lad follows his plotting egotistical sister to live with England’s chief wizard

The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988)

Conrad’s Fate (2005)

Witch Week (1982)

The Magicians of Caprona (1980)

Short stories

 The Dalemark Quartet begins with

The Spellcoats (1979)

3 sequels

 The Derkholm books are

Dark Lord of  (1998)

Year of the Griffin (2000)

  The Tough Guide to Fantasyland is standalone, but is a kind of offshoot of the Derkholm books.  You don’t have to have read the Derkholm books to get Tough Guide!

 There are other books and stories by Jones—I’ll let you find them on your own.

  Philip Pullman

To this day I am unable to call him anything but Mr. Pullman—that’s how much in awe of the man I am.  We’ve had dinner together, talked on the phone, talked at an event or two, done a conversation on audio with Christopher Paolini—it’s still Mr. Pullman to me.  (I was an assistant in a literary agency when I discovered his work, and I never recovered.) He is, in a word, brilliant, and his interests range through all kinds of areas, particularly history and religion.  I could have talked with him forever that night we had dinner, but the poor man had jet lag and I let him go to collapse.  It was one of the best exchanges of ideals, values, and books I’ve ever had.  

Read his work carefully, because what he discusses is never just the story on top.  No matter what he writes, he is making strong points about social justice, human nature, religion, and history without preaching.  He is one of the few male writers out there who can write female characters as people, not Something Different.  And you never know, with his work, where he will go next.

 The Ruby in the Smoke,

book 1,  the Sally Lockheart mysteries

Victorian mysteries with a female hero and male assistants,

           The Book of Dust and sequel,

first 2 books of The Secret Commonwealth

           His Dark Materials trilogy

                       The Golden Compass

                       2 other titles                

           THE COLLECTORS

           LYRA’S OXFORD

           THE WHITE MERCEDES

           FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM

           I WAS A RAT!

           TWO CRAFTY CRIMINALS

           COUNT KARLSTEIN

           (I will stop here and let you find the rest. Most are available as Nook books.)

  Sharon Shinn

I discovered Sharon Shinn with JOVAH’S ANGEL, but a shortage of funds left me unable to pursue my interest (I am an economic disaster with libraries, so I buy rather than borrow) until, with a job and money to spend, I spotted THE SAFE-KEEPER’S SECRET.  It is the story of a medieval-ish world and a small village where a baby was left with a childless couple.  She is raised as their daughter and discovers, as she grows, that her mother is an important, a Safekeeper, the person to whom a secret can be told, relieving the person who told it of the weight of guilt from it, to be carried by the Safekeeper until the owner either decides to tell or dies.  (And if they die without giving permission, the Safekeeper never reveal the secret.)  The baby who is adopted by this town’s safekeeper becomes the safekeeper in her turn.

           The next book is THE TRUTHTELLER’S TALE, about a girl who acquires the gift (??) of telling the truth, whether the person she tells it to wants to hear it or not. The third book is The Dream-maker’s Magic.  The three main characters now learn why they have been brought together over the course of the two earlier books, in what I thought was a satisfying, if unusual, conclusion.

           And there’s more!  I just did the two I love best!

             THE SAFEKEEPER’S SECRET (book 1, two sequels)

           ARCHANGEL (4 books)

           TWELVE HOUSES (5 books)

           ELEMENTAL BLESSINGS (4 books)        

SHIFTING CIRCLE (2 books)

           UNCOMMON ECHOES

           GENERAL WINSTON’S DAUGHTER

           GATEWAY

 Daniel Jose Older

 I was a Daniel Jose Older fan before I was sent DACTYL HILL SQUAD for a blurb (preodactyls in flight!  Of all sizes!  Confederate spies!  Thuggish bigot northerners!  The backlash of Gettysburg and the forced recruitment of blacks for the war effort! And strong, smart, fierce kids of various ages, sizes, colors, national heritage, and skills doing their best to help the war against the slaves, keep escaped slaves safe, duck the cruel managers of the homes and jails where they are being kept, find a half-decent meal, free other kids in trouble, learn who’s killing their friends, and help the dactyls!  That’s part of it, anyway!

Yeah, I loved it.  And there’s at least one new book, and once I’ve mowed though that, there are his older teen books, and his grownup mysteries, with their half-dead taxi driver who doubles as a part-time troubleshooter for the undead powers in his Bone Street Rhumba series.  {happy sigh}

  Edgar Allen Poe

Yes, some of these are reminders of why we ended up to be the readers we are and to nudge us to corrupt—I mean, “introduce”—­new readers to the glories that are our legacies.

­

THE COMPLETE TALES AND POEMS OF EDGAR ALLEN POE

           Here are the greats:

poems like “The Raven,” and “Annabelle Lee”

stories like “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Telltale Heart,” and  ::shudder:: “The Pit and the Pendulum” (yes, a deep pit and a swinging pendulum topped with a razor-edged blade will be featured in this story).  

My dad would read these to us on dark and stormy nights when we lived near the Pacific ocean, when the fog came rolling in, softening every sound, when there were no cars driving by and no other sounds in our house but his deep voice and the crackle of the fire in the fireplace.  We would listen, soundless, as he wove the stories and poems around us and the foghorn sounded offshore.

           That’s the power of Poe.

  N. K. Jemisin

I think I began with Jemisin’s THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, soon followed by its sequel THE BROKEN KINGDOMS.  The series ended with a third book, THE KINGDOM OF THE GODS.  She presented a rich and varied world from the aspects of people of different classes, showing the growth of societies and their formation.  I have a secret passion for society-building and social interaction, and whether or not a book is difficult to read (as Jemisin’s books are in spots because she refuses to insult a reader by talking down to them) is immaterial.  I want the world and I want the characters, and with her far-reaching mind and her respect for her characters she delivers each and every time.  I have read almost everything she’s written since that first trilogy: if I’ve missed something, it’s because I was in the middle of a deadline and on the road and somehow didn’t see it.  I’ll catch up!  This is just a sample:

           For readers of all sexes and adult reading skills

 The City They Became (pub’d April 2020)

 The Inheritance Trilogy:

           The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, 2010

           2 book sequels

Novella: The Awakened Kingdom, 2014

                       Triptych: Shades in Shadow, 2015 (3 short stories) 

             The Dreamblood Duology:

           For readers of all sexes and adult reading skills

           The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, 2010

                       Two sequels

 The Broken Earth series:

         The Fifth Season (August 2015)

                       Two book sequels

And there are plenty of short stories out there.  I may even have missed a book or twelve!

For those who prefer to hear my ramble in person, a video!

[modernpace]

Loki x Reader Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

Thor led you to a lavish banquet hall. A long wooden table sat at the center of the room and was filled with men and women. They were talking and laughing, telling stories of their adventures. The two of you stopped as he scanned the room. His eyes landed on a beautiful woman standing off to the side. He guides you over to her and bows his head.

"Mother."

She smiled brightly and held her hand out to him. Her golden locks were pinned up, like a halo made of hair. Her gown was a dandelion yellow, with a sheer mesh-like neckline decorated with a mosaic of gems.

You quickly snap out of it and curtsy with your fist over your heart and your head bowed.

"This must be your friend," she said patting his arm.

"Y/n L/n, your majesty," you responded. Thank god Thor briefed you about introductions on your way here...who know what would happen if you were rude to the Queen.

She gently lay a hand on your arm, "Come, let me have a look at you, dear." You stand and look up, but avoid looking at her directly. I must look like an idiot. "The dress looks lovely on you. Compliments you well." She smiled kindly at you. You saw so much of Thor in her face: kind eyes, big smile.

You beamed at her, "I can't thank you enough, your majesty, for allowing me to come to Asgard. It's a beauty like no others."

Nodding she responded, "And as far as my husband is concerned, I'm the one who offered you this opportunity after my son confided in me." She winked at you, and without question, you nodded in agreement. She turned to Thor and laid a hand on his bicep and gave him a sympathetic smile.

They shared a knowing look before she excused herself, "I hope you enjoy the banquet, my dear. Tomorrow we'll discuss your training." Without another word, she left the banquet hall.

"Shall we?"

"Wait." He looked back at you. "What did she mean?"

He nodded, "She's probably going to bring Loki some books. I don't know why she entertains him. He--"

"No," you interrupted, "you know what I mean."

"My father..." you nodded for him to continue. "He doesn't believe Midgardians should be on Asgard."

Your mouth dropped slightly and you muttered, "Well that would've been great to know beforehand"

He gave you an apologetic look and began walking toward a different door. You followed closely behind him. He led you to a throne room. High pillars line the hall on both sides. On the opposite end you entered from, there were no walls, just a beautiful view of Asgard and its city. Standing under an archway, Odin stood and studied his kingdom.

"Father." Odin didn't flinch, or turn or even acknowledge your presence. He just stared out at Asgard. "I present Lady Y/n." You bow with your fist against your heart.

"Have you settled in nicely?" He inquired.

"Um," you instantly got your shit together, forgetting your nerves. "Yes, All-Father. Thank you for you opening your home to me, and allowing me the opportunity to hone my abilities, sir."

Your eyes remained at his feet and he chuckled. "Very well." He turned to his son and with a stern voice advised him, "During her stay on Asgard, she will be your responsibility. You are to ensure her safety, as well as maintain she stay out of trouble."

"Yes, of course, father," Thor responded with certainty.

"My dear," you daringly look up at him and he motions you to stand, "My wife tells me you possess the ability of illusions."

You cursed to yourself. Is it rude to correct the King? "That's definitely one way to put it. I hope to discover the full extent of my abilities so I can help people back home."

He gives a cautious smile, "I hope you remember that with great power, comes great responsibility. Any power can be used for good--or even bad for that matter. Carry that with you during your training." You hummed in understanding and he gestured for you two to head back to the banquet hall. "You may go, enjoy the banquet."

You both thanked him and made your way back to everyone.

"Definitely more intimidating than you said," you joked.

****

Thor had introduced you to his close friends: the Warriors Three, and Lady Sif. Volstagg was loud and hearty, Hogun was serious and silent, and Fandral was extremely polite and a little... flirtatious? Sif was bubbly but serious...definitely more bubbly when drinking.

They had welcomed you, asked you if you had any stories--which you didn't because you never actually went on a legitimate assignment. They still seemed warm and open to you. You were grateful for that.

Volstagg was telling a story about when he had come to Earth a few years back--when Thor had been cast out of Asgard. From Thor's hearty laugh and Sif's questionable smile, you could tell he was a very creative story-teller.

You weren't able to keep up with their high tolerance. And you thought Thor was an experienced drinker. Having all five of them guzzle down their ale, while you're not even done with your second mug. It didn't help that Asgardian alcohol was much more...intense.

Thor somehow lost track of your whereabouts while he and Volstagg were having a drinking contest. You found yourself stumbling into the dungeons, with a newfound sense of confidence. You wanted to confront Loki and his idiot face about his idiot remarks from earlier. You stumbled from cell to cell, forgetting where Loki was.

"You're not Loki," you moved to the next cell, "Ne-neither 're y-you." You looked around confused, the room spun a bit."Wherethehell isthat little--Oh!" You grinned like an idiot as you approached his cell.

He had an amused look on his face and mumbled, "This should be good."

You pointed your finger and narrowed your eyes, "You."

"Yes?"

"You...you..." you forgot what you were going to say. You tried to study his face but he kept swaying. Why was he swaying?

"Not very lady-like for you to be wandering the halls drunk as an idiot on your first night in Asgard."

"W-willyoushutup," You growled as you leaned against the stone beam next to his cell. "You oweme an an ap-apopology." You tried to look fierce and angry...but this was an embarrassing sight. Your hair was frizzy, your dress was disheveled, your eyes were drooping.

He stifled a laugh, never had he thought a mortal would look so funny...stupid, yes, pathetic, yes, but funny? This was a first.

You continued your drunken rant.

"I camehere t-t-to help Muscles. Cuzthat's what friends arefor," you whined and stomped your foot. Your knees felt week and your body was tired but you ignored them. "Imgonna be 'ere for-for, well Idunno how long but" you burped, "I made a promise. And I nev-never break 'em."

You looked directly into his emerald eyes. "Never," you emphasized.

He raised an eyebrow, "Is that so?"

"Shuddup." You looked him over and huffed, "You're such a-an emo."

"What the bloody hell does that mean?" You waved your hand in dismissal.

"A-and a dra-drama queen." You giggle to yourself, imagining Loki like a 1950's actress, prim and dramatic...and so demanding. (I promise this isn't a dig at any actresses, just tryna emphasize Loki is a drama queen).

"You're quite pathetic," he said in a matter-of-fact one. You glared at him. Being done with your conversation you began to regain your balance. You wanted to leave him with one last gift before the night ended.

A malicious grin formed on your face.

Loki raised an eyebrow cautiously. You clumsily rubbed your hands together as your thought of your sweet revenge. He was completely dumbfounded by your strange actions, not knowing what was in store for him. You opened your eyes and giggled devilishly.

"I hope you and your new roommate get acquainted." A low growl from behind startled him. He slowly turned around and he paled when he saw a wolf twice his size standing opposite him. "I would hate to see you turned to dog-chow." Contentedly you turned around and happily stumbled a bit.

"Wait!"

You stopped.

"Wait, you can't kill me. You won't kill me."

You glanced back, "Oh?"

The wolf inched closer, snarling at him.

"Wait wait wait wait."

He pleaded with you. How...out of character for the big bad wolf I heard about, you thought. You chuckled as the wolf growled and pounced. He flinched and turned his body away from it, waiting to be torn to shreds. But it never came.

You burst out laughing and lost your balance. You landed on the stone floor, gasping for air.

Loki looked at you with pure outrage. The wolf stood outside the cell now, circling you protectively.

"You deceived me."

You finally caught your breath. "Oh god, that was good." You finally felt a little more stable and stood up, "Didn't think the God of Mischief would fall for something like that.”

"You'll regret that you mewling quim," he growled like your wolf. You could practically see his aura around him: rageful, vengeful, out-of-his-mind angry. But you shrugged it off. Sweet sweet psychological torture.

"Doubtful. Totally worth it," you quipped shaking your head with a proud smile.

You waved your hand and the wolf dispersed into the air. "Gooooodniiiiight," you sang as you left Loki's cell.

___________

A/N: Hi Everyone! I just finished this chapter at 4 AM!!!!!!!!I clearly don't get enough sleep lmao.I'm gonna work on chapter 5 tomorrow; my plan is to publish it tm but expect it for Monday evening.I hope you enjoy this chapter! Goodnight! (or Goodmorning lol). PLEASE LEAVE FEEDBACK

-Izzy

[capcarolsdanver]

Faking It (Part 3)

Summary: This was a request for a Carol Danvers fake dating fic that will be a multi-chapter series, likely 4 parts! Who doesn’t love a fake dating fic?

Stories come out about Carol and her.. sexual escapades. This could potentially be PR trouble for the Avengers so Tony and Steve convince Carol that maybe the best way out of this mess is to convince the public she is in a committed relationship.. with the reader, her best friend who has feelings for Carol, but believes her feelings aren’t reciprocated. What could possibly go wrong??

Pairing: Carol Danvers x Reader

A/N: Forever apologising over how long I take to update. I will try to get part 4 out ASAP but by now I know not to make any promises of when, haha! This took longer than I thought because I ended up re-writing a lot of the chapter and making it way longer than I ever intended. This part stands at just over 5.5k words. Hopefully it’s worth the wait! As always, feedback is always appreciated! I also added the series taglist at the bottom, so if anyone would like to be added just let me know! Please do not repost my writing anywhere without my permission. PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 4

“Not the best start,” Tony says as he and Steve join you and Carol in the briefing room. You stare at him, your mouth agape.

“What?!” You and Carol were positive you were heading in the right direction after returning to the compound yesterday, so to say you were surprised by Tony’s words was an understatement. Steve puts his hand up to interrupt.

“Tony, didn’t I just say no more than a minute ago not to lead with that?”

“That’s correct,” Tony nods. “But come on, Cap. Did you really think I’d listen? It makes for a pretty dramatic entrance, don’t you think?” He asks you and Carol, although you both are still sitting in a state of confusion.

“Cap?” Carol says and Steve shakes his head at Tony.

“There’s a lot of positive attention you two have received since you were seen together yesterday. Most of the fans seem to be quite taken with the idea of the two of you together. Although, while Tony is just being Tony,” he says, earning an eye roll from the man beside him. “He does kind of have a point.”

You and Carol glance at each other, the worry obvious in Carol’s expression.

“There are some people online questioning the legitimacy of your relationship,” Steve continues. “Some are pointing out that it might seem odd for Carol to have her first public relationship so soon after that article was published.”

“So now what? We’ve already been caught out?” You ask.

“Not necessarily,” Steve says quickly, his reassuring tone as present as always. “We’re only one day in. People don’t know enough about your relationship yet to make a judgement. Besides, there will always be someone to question the legitimacy of anything. For all they know, you two could very well have been together for months already. Which is kind of what we want them to believe.”

“And how do we do that?”

“For now, nothing too over the top. Keep making some small public appearances, like you did yesterday. We do need to amp this up a little but just not too quickly. We need to be smart about this.” You and Carol nod. “Tony and I will figure out the next few steps and call you back in to walk you through it, okay?”

“You’ve got it,” you say, waving to Steve and Tony before you and Carol take your leave.

You head towards the main living area of the building, on your way towards the main door. You and Carol had already planned beforehand to make another appearance somewhere else today which luckily aligned with Steve and Tony’s plans.

“This may be the most intense mission I’ve ever been apart of,” you joke, earning a chuckle from Carol.

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

You walk into the living room where you find Natasha, Bruce, Clint, Bucky and Sam all sitting together. They all look in your and Carol’s direction.

“You two got something to share with the group?” Nat loudly asks, waving her phone in the air. The rest of the group watching you expectantly.

You look at Carol and she nods back at you.

“We do, actually,” you announce.

“I so knew it! You owe me $50, Buck!” Sam exclaims. Bucky turns towards Sam, a fiery expression on his face, clearly ready to argue back.

“Before you children start fighting, how about you let the adults speak?” Carol warns and Bucky sheepishly shrinks back into his seat, muttering an apology as he does so.

Nat chuckles. “Well?”

“This.” You gesture between yourself and Carol. “It isn’t real.”

“It isn’t real?” Nat asks disbelievingly and you nod in confirmation. “You know we’ve seen the photos online, right?”

“Yeah, I figured,” you sigh. “But we aren’t together.”

“You do realise that you’ve told all of us, multiple times, that you aren’t together before. But you still expect us to believe that now?” Clint asks.

“Yeah, we do. Because it’s the truth. It’s all fake,” Carol says impatiently.

“Ask Steve and Tony if you don’t believe us. It was their idea,” you add.

They all sit in silence for a few moments, sharing looks between each other. You notice Nat’s eyes on you, studying you, and you fidget under her intense gaze. She’s always been able to read you so well.

“Why?” Bruce asks, genuine curiosity in his tone.

“These articles about me were starting to come out and-“

“And Captain America didn’t like the bad press?” Nat guesses with a chuckle and a shake of her head, knowing exactly what Steve was like.

“Something like that,” Carol replies. “If everyone could just keep this secret within the building that would be great.”

“Oh, and don’t tell Peter either.”

“Yeah, we love the kid but he documents literally everything. We don’t want him accidentally revealing our secret to the whole world,” Carol explains.

“That’s probably for the best,” you hear one of them say before they all share a laugh.

After you and Carol thank them all, you continue on your way towards the main door, walking through one of the many halls of the compound.

“What’s the plan for today, then?”

“Hmm,” you hum in thought before you both hear footsteps approaching behind you.

“Y/N.” You and Carol turn at Nat’s voice. “Mind if I talk to you for a second?”

“Of course not,” you say. Carol looks from Nat back to you and awkwardly gestures behind her.

“Guess I’ll wait by the door?”

You nod and Carol quickly glances between you and Nat again before she turns and heads on her way.

“What’s up?”

“Don’t ‘what’s up’ me,” Nat scolds, giving you a friendly nudge. “So what’s really going on with you and Captain Sparkles, hmm?” Her eyebrows dance suggestively.

“Nothing,” you say, perhaps a little too quickly. Nat gives you an unimpressed look and you hold up your hands in defence. “I swear. We’re only doing what Steve and Tony tell us to.”

“Okay,” Nat says after a beat. “And how do you feel about that?”

“What do you mean?” You ask, playing dumb and dropping your head to avoid Nat’s eyes at all cost.

“I mean,” she grabs your shoulders, steadying you and ducking her head to meet your gaze. “I know you. I know how into Carol you are. And if you ask me, she’s just as into you as well.”

“She’s not into me,” you scoff. “She’s into all the girls at Tony’s parties that she hooks up with. Have you ever seen her look at me like that?”

“Y/N. We both know that she doesn’t see those girls as any more than a one night stand. Of course she’s not going to look at you like that.”

You stare blankly at Nat for a second, her words catching you off guard. She smiles at you, as always reading you like an open book.

“Are you two trying to figure out where to go for your fake outing?” She asks, moving the subject along to give you space to consider her words that now play on your mind.

“Yeah,” you mumble out distractedly.

“Why don’t you go to that ice cream place you love? Make Danvers buy you a couple scoops.” She shrugs. “She’s the reason you’re in this mess, right?”

She gives you a knowing kind of expression which you can’t quite read before she’s heading back in the direction she came from. You stay there for a solid few seconds, going over the conversation in your head, before finally moving to catch up to Carol.

————————

You end up taking Nat’s advice, heading to the ice cream shop which, admittedly, you love way more than you probably should. Carol is the one to offer to pay for your ice cream, handing her card over before you even get the chance to resist.

You sit down at another outside table, Carol sitting opposite you, each with your own ice cream cup in hand.

“So what did Nat want to talk to you about earlier?” Carol asks.

“Oh, nothing really,” you dismiss. Carol watches you carefully as you eat your ice cream.

“Are you sure? You’ve been pretty quiet since we left.”

“Have I? Sorry, I didn’t notice.” In truth, you hadn’t actually noticed. Nat’s words had been playing on repeat since your conversation and you were too stuck in your own head to think about anything else.

Carol nods at you. She gives you a look as if she doesn’t believe you, though she doesn’t question you any further.

You both continue absentmindedly eating your ice cream in silence before your thoughts eventually get the better of you.

“Can I ask you a question?” You blurt out and Carol looks at you curiously.

“Of course.” She puts her ice cream cup down on the table to give you her full attention.

“The, um,” you look down at the table, entirely embarrassed you’re even about to ask this.

“The girls that you meet at the parties. Do you ever see them more than once?”

Carol seems taken aback by your question, opening and closing her mouth before even forming a solid word.

“No, I don’t think I ever have.”

“Have you ever wanted to?”

“No,” she says without a hint of hesitation.

“Why not?” You ask, your curiosity completely taking over. “You don’t enjoy their company?”

Carol breathes out a short laugh. “Oh, trust me. I enjoy their company just fine in the moment,” she mumbles, lifting her plastic spoon to her mouth to eat some of her ice cream. When she looks back up, she finds your eyes already on her.

She places her spoon back down, clearing her throat. “None of them mean anything to me, you know? I’m sure you know just as well as I do that it’s hard for people like us to find someone that we can really share a connection with. And I’m certainly not looking for that when I talk to those women at Tony’s parties.”

She seems more and more flustered the longer she talks, so you decide to cut her some slack.

“I get it, Carol. I was just curious,” you say and she meets your eyes again before you notice her eyes moving to slowly study the details of your face, the second time in a matter of days that you’ve noticed her doing this.

Nat’s words suddenly play over in your head again and for just a second you allow yourself to buy into her theory.

Though you hadn’t necessarily watched every one of Carol’s interactions with everyone she met at Tony’s events, you’d seen enough to know that she generally gave nothing more than a quick survey of whoever she was interested in from across the room before excusing herself to go talk to them. Their conversations never seemed to last long before she would be taking their hand and leading them out with her.

You don’t need to know much to know that this was different, though.

You feel warm at the sudden possibility, as slight as it may be, of Carol liking you back.

You aren’t sure if you imagine it or not when Carol’s eyes seem to linger on your lips for a moment too long, fixated when you nervously wet them with your tongue. She only lifts her eyes at the sudden sound of your phone beeping in your pocket.

Carol shakes her head slightly, presumably to clear it, and stares at the table to gather her thoughts while you grab your phone out of your pocket to see a new text notification on your screen.

“Who is it?” She says when she notices you texting back.

“It’s just Nat.”

“Oh, right,” Carol says, squinting her eyes in thought for a second. “Is she messaging you about whatever you two talked about earlier?” She tries to ask it casually but you sense something else in her tone and look up.

“No, she’s just wondering when we’ll be back. Sounds like Peter’s organising some games night or something and wants to make sure we’ll be there.”

Your phone beeps again and you read Nat’s newest text teasing you about staying out late with Carol and you can’t stop the light smile that plays at your lips.

“What did she say?” Carol asks with a slight unease still lacing her tone.

“Why? You jealous, Danvers?” You tease, successfully moving the subject away from Nat’s text. You smirk at her as you put your phone back into your pocket.

Carol rolls her eyes at you but she’s quick to drop the eye contact and something in the back of your mind tells you that you’re right on the money.

“No, I’m not jealous, jerk.”

“You sure? Being my fake girlfriend and all, I appreciate your commitment to the role, but jealousy is not necessary.”

Carol tries to hold back a smile but there’s still a glint of amusement in her eyes when she looks up at you, her cheeks a light shade of pink which you are an immediate fan of.

“You’re an ass.”

You laugh, pleased that you seem to have eased whatever tension Carol had been feeling. At least for the moment.

You fall into a comfortable silence while you both finish eating your ice cream and you get lost in a daydream again until Carol’s voice pulls you out of it.

“Y/N, looks like we’ve got company.” She tilts her head slightly in the direction of a lone paparazzo.

Luckily for you and majority of the team, you didn’t really rely on secret identities so much, Tony kind of setting the tone for everyone else when he originally revealed that he was Iron Man. A select few still kept their identities hidden as much as possible, though. Tony was persistent that Peter try to remain anonymous, at least until he was no longer a minor, but almost everyone else either had their identity revealed for them or took Tony’s lead and found it too difficult to keep denying allegations that they were, in fact, their alter egos.

The feeling you get at seeing a stranger taking photos of you like this is something you know you’ll likely never get used to. They often show up in places that you and the others frequent, but it still seems to take you by surprise every time you see them pointing their cameras at you.

In this case, though, as uncomfortable as you felt having a stranger there specifically to take photos of you, you knew this was a good thing for you and Carol.

“Alright, what should we do?” You ask.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you heard Steve and Tony. We need to start amping things up. Not much, but a little.”

Carol looks at you warily.

“What did you have in mind?”

You bite your lip in thought, Carol’s eyes once again dropping to them. This, of course, has an idea springing to your head. You just aren’t sure how good an idea it is.

“How about a kiss?” You rush out, Carol’s eyes snapping back up to your own.

“Excuse me?” Was all she could get out.

“Why don’t we kiss?” You repeat. “It’s not too much but it’s also enough that I’m sure it will get people talking.”

Carol slowly nods. “You’re right. It’s the perfect progression.”

“Should we do it now?” You ask as your nerves hit an all time high.

“As we leave,” Carol says and you nod in agreement. After a few moments, Carol takes a deep breath and releases it before taking both empty ice cream cups from the table to dispose of them, walking away from the table.

You take the moment alone to try to settle your nerves. Sure, you’ve thought about kissing Carol before, more than once. But never like this. It feels almost cruel of you to be putting yourself in this position. What the hell were you thinking? But you knew there was no way out now, and you just had to suck it up and get on with it.

You feel Carol’s hand on your shoulder to get your attention when she arrives back at the table and she smiles at you when you stand.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” you say, a slight uneasiness to your voice.

“I bet you kinda regret not taking me up on my offer to practise fake kissing now, huh?” She asks, forcing back a smile, and you shoot her a playful glare.

“Watch it, Danvers.”

She lets out a light laugh and lifts one of her hands to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, your heart just about leaping out of your chest. She leaves her hand resting on your cheek and looks down to your lips before locking her eyes with yours, searching for any hesitation. When she doesn’t find any, she gently pulls your face towards hers, meeting your lips tentatively with her own.

The kiss is slow at first, the two of you completely unsure how to handle this new territory, but the more you move your lips against Carol’s, the more your confidence seems to grow.

You break apart only for the shortest moment as you readjust, your hands resting on Carol’s waist as you press closer to her. Carol’s hand shifts from your cheek to the nape of your neck and you melt further into the kiss when you feel her grip your hair lightly.

You’re about to take the kiss to the next level when you vaguely remember why this kiss is even happening. You force yourself to finally pull away from Carol, perhaps a second or two too late, and rest your forehead against hers.

You both let out heavy breaths while you try to steady your heartbeat, and if Carol’s state is anything to go by, she’s trying to do the same.

“Wow,” you whisper.

“Yeah, guess we didn’t need to practise after all,” Carol says, smirking when you let out a laugh and push her back.

She smiles at you cheekily before grabbing your hand, stepping backwards to pull you along before stepping back into place next to you.

————————

Walking back through the doors of the Avengers compound, you can already hear everyone’s voices and laughter coming from the large games room that Tony had designed upon Peter’s request. He had insisted that it was a necessity, and how was Tony to deny the kid?

Mostly everyone besides a few are sat on the couches towards the back of the room and you spot Nat amongst the group. She meets your eye before her gaze drops down between you and Carol and she smirks.

You look down between you to realise that your hands are still clasped together, fingers tightly interlocked. Carol seems completely oblivious, a soft smile on her face as she looks around the room at all your friends.

You turn your head back to Nat, who winks at you and you can’t help the ridiculous smile that finds its way on your face as you shake your head. She gestures to Peter, who is sat in front of her talking animatedly as usual, a huge grin on his face. You didn’t think it was possible but when he spots you and Carol his grin grows even wider.

“Here they are now!” He exclaims, leaping over the back of the couch he was sitting on and bounding over to you. With no time to react, he already has you and Carol wrapped up in a tight hug.

“I’m so happy for you two!” He says, his voice muffled somewhere in the middle of the hug.

“Uh, what for, Pete?” Carol asks.

He suddenly pulls back from the hug and gives Carol an incredulous look.

“‘What for, Pete!?’ Don’t ‘what for, Pete’ me,” he says and Carol looks at you, clearly stifling a laugh. “I always knew you two would end up together! I told everyone it would happen. Right, guys?” He shouts, looking over his shoulder.

They all either nod or offer some version of “yeah” and Peter swings his head back to look at you, the grin still firmly on his face.

“Thanks, Pete,” you say, trying for your most convincing smile to match his excitement.

“Yeah, thanks, buddy,” Carol adds and Peter nods, pulling you each into another quick hug before excitedly moving on, leaving you and Carol baffled.

“This is the coolest!” You hear him shout back at you, already halfway across the room.

“Oh boy,” you say and Carol chuckles.

“Let’s just hope we made the right decision by not telling him the truth.”

“Yeah, and let’s hope we don’t completely break his heart when he finds out it isn’t real.”

Games night at the compound always end up being a fun time. It usually starts early and finishes late, and it certainly helps that Tony always makes sure there’s plenty of alcohol readily available for the adults.

After the day you’ve already had, you don’t hesitate in the slightest when Bucky offers you your first drink. Carol takes one too, though regular alcohol has practically no effect on her these days. She usually likes to drink for the social side of it, unless Thor is around. In which case, the two of them tend to try to outdrink each other with Thor’s Asgardian alcohol.

It only takes a couple of drinks for you to feel pretty buzzed and you decide to sit out playing the games in favour of watching everyone else play while you sip your next few drinks. This very quickly just turns into you watching Carol as she laughs freely, everyone in the middle of a particularly inappropriate round of Cards Against Humanity.

As hard as you try, you can’t keep your eyes off her, even after the few times she catches you staring at her. She wears that light blush that you’ve become so fond of on her cheeks, as if she’s suddenly shy to receive attention from you.

You’re next to Nat, who of course does nothing but make fun of you for staring at Carol the whole night.

“Could you undress her with your eyes any more?” she teases, laughing when you huff out an annoyed breath. “Thinking about that kiss you two shared?”

You look at her in question and she shrugs at you. “What? It’s already all over the internet.”

“Of course it is,” you blush.

“You both seemed pretty into it.” She bumps your shoulder with hers and raises her eyebrows at you.

“Yeah, well. It was just a fake kiss, so,” you fade off with a shrug. You take another sip of your drink and cast your eyes to the ground with a pout.

“Aw, come on. Don’t be sad. You know what will make you feel better? Cuddling with your boo,” Nat jokes and you glare at her. It only takes another second before your eyes find Carol again and you’re surprised to find her eyes already on you, looking curiously between you and Nat.

“You know what? Maybe it will,” you throw back at Nat as if it was some kind of insult and you glare at her once more before standing and making your way over to Carol, ignoring Nat’s laughter from behind you as you go.

“Hey there,” Carol smiles up at you and in your current state you waste no time dropping down on the couch next to her, pressing into her side.

“Hey,” you say back, your lips still forming the pout that Nat had put there.

“Everything okay?” Carol turns from the game for a moment, her attention solely on you.

“Mhmm,” you nod, though your unchanging expression says otherwise. Carol watches you for a beat before placing her arm around you.

“You sure?” She asks kindly. You take full advantage of your new position and press yourself further into Carol’s side.

“Yeah. I’m just pretty tired,” you mumble, offering her a half-convincing smile.

“Okay. Did you want me to walk you to your room so you can get some sleep?” Carol offers, already moving to get up.

“No,” you say, pulling her back. “I’m good here for a while.”

“Okay.” She’s slightly confused but happy nonetheless, and she continues to play the game from this position. You watch in contentment for a few more minutes before your alcohol induced tiredness gets the better of you and you scoot even closer to Carol, leaning your weight on her and pressing your head into her chest.

Carol wraps her arm around you a little tighter, smiling to herself, and without even thinking she leans down to press a soft kiss to the top of your head.

Of course, she’s too preoccupied to see Peter next to you, grabbing his phone out to take a quick selfie.

————————

You wake up remarkably warm.

You seriously feel like you’ve never felt so comfortable in your entire life. You snuggle closer to the source of warmth, sighing contently before recognising the gentle rise and fall of someone breathing beneath you.

You immediately panic, pushing yourself back and into an upright position on the bed to find Carol lying next to you, startled by your sudden movements.

“You’re awake! I thought I’d never get you off me,” she jokes, a teasing smile on her lips. “Thanks for scaring me half to death in the process.”

“Yeah, uh. What are you doing here, Car?” You rub your eyes, trying to make sense of things. A quick look around confirms that you are definitely in your allocated room.

“You seriously don’t remember?” Carol’s light expression switches to a fond kind of glare which she can’t seem to hold for even a second before she’s smiling at you again.

You shrug, wracking your brain for answers but coming up short. Man, you really were a lightweight these days.

“You don’t remember me forcing you to get up from the couch so I could walk you to your room last night, only to have you drag me in here and refuse to let me leave?”

“Oh. No. Sorry about that,” you reply sheepishly, a blush adorning your cheeks. Carol laughs at you.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind.” She sits up and like last night, you can’t seem to keep your eyes off her. “I did get a text from Tony that they want us in the briefing room soon, though. So it’s the perfect time for us to both get up, anyway.”

You nod and watch Carol rise from the bed, stretching her arms above her head and causing the hem of her shirt to rise. It’s a struggle for you not to look at the newly exposed skin, her muscles tightening as she stretches, and it takes everything in you to turn your head away.

You look at your bedside table where there is a glass of water and an aspirin which you eagerly take, easily draining the glass of its contents.

You put the glass down beside your phone, smiling when you notice that Carol had obviously plugged the charger in for you the previous night. Your brow furrows and your smile quickly fades, however, when the screen lights up and you see the long list of notifications you have.

You scroll through them to figure out the reason when you see a notification from Instagram that you received late last night, “@spiderman_official tagged you in a post”.

You hesitate before clicking on the notification. You don’t recall taking any photos with Peter last night, so you’re not sure if you’re just curious or a little scared to see what he tagged you in.

The photo loads and you study it, unable to stop the smile that tugs at your lips. It’s a selfie. Peter’s familiar grin is visible but he’s added large heart stickers over his eyes in an effort to keep his identity hidden.

Your eyes immediately land on you and Carol, who are sat beside Peter in the image. Your head is buried into Carol’s chest and Carol has her lips pressed to the top of your head, an unmistakable smile on her face.

Peter’s caption reads “LOVE is LOVE and I LOVE LOVE!!” with several different coloured heart emojis.

Your heart swells at the photo and you roll your eyes affectionately at Peter’s caption. Though, who said anything about love!?

“I’m gonna go to my room and shower. I’ll meet you in the briefing room in, like, half an hour?” Carol asks on her way to the door and you nod in confirmation.

“Okay.” You smile brightly at her and she smiles back, albeit somewhat confused, and you watch her leave.

You stand up from your bed, pleasantly surprised at how well you were fairing considering what you were like last night, and make your way into the bathroom to get ready.

————————

You arrive at the briefing room with a minute or two to spare and find Carol already seated at the table, a mug of hot coffee at her lips. She gestures to another mug in front of the seat next to her and you smile gratefully.

“Oh my god, you’re too good to me,” you say, sitting down and taking a sip of the fresh coffee. Carol watches you for a moment.

“I only treat you how you deserve to be treated,” she says quietly, which is not at all what you were expecting her to say. You aren’t sure how to respond, but thankfully at that moment Steve and Tony walk through the door, bidding you good morning.

“You two did well yesterday!” Tony starts. “I thought the public kiss was good on its own, but then you top it off with Peter’s Instagram post? Bravo,” Tony claps in approval.

“Peter’s post? What post?” Carol speaks up, looking at you with a puzzled face. Tony pauses, immediately stopping his clapping.

“Wait. That wasn’t a set up you organised? Oh, that makes it so much better.” Tony laughs, unable to hide even the slightest bit of amusement.

“It’s not important. It still works in your favour,” Steve reassures, trying to move the conversation on when he notices the deep blush starting to appear on your face. Despite his words, Carol still pulls her phone out, presumably to open Instagram.

Tony’s laughter doesn’t falter in the slightest.

“Anyway,” Steve says at the same time that you notice Carol’s face turn a deep red, turning her phone off and putting it away. Tony laughs even harder, earning himself a harsh glare from Carol.

“Tony?” Steve says with a sense of authority to his voice.

“Yeah?” Tony manages through his laughter. Steve gives him a pointed look and he straightens up a bit. “Oh, right.” It takes a good few moments for him to collect himself and when he does he tries to take the conversation as seriously as Steve again.

“We’ve decided that since we seem to be on the right track now, we can take things to the next level. Conveniently for us, Thor will be returning to Earth in the next couple of days. Since it’s been a while since we’ve seen him, I thought, 'why not throw him a welcome back party?’”

“Usually, reporters are all over this kind of event.” Steve takes over. “We will all be there, and with Y/N and Carol being the hot new topic, everyone will want to get a glimpse of you two at your first official public appearance as a couple.”

“Do the other appearances not count? You ask.

“They do. But they don’t really show anyone how serious you are as a couple. Let’s face it. Tony’s parties have been where Carol has gotten herself into trouble in the past.”

“Hey!” Carol interrupts, but Steve continues.

“If you both show up together, as each other’s dates, it will make everything official. Peter’s post has already been a huge help, too. I think this will sell it for everyone who may still be on the fence about you two as a couple.”

“That is if Danvers can keep it in her pants.” Tony smirks and Carol just about jumps over the table trying to take a swipe at him.

Steve catches your eye in between the two of them and he smiles, rolling his eyes at their antics. You shake your head with your own smile in response.

“So when is this party happening, then?” You ask, pulling Carol back by the arm and giving her a cautionary look which she pouts at.

“Thor will be back by Friday at the latest, so we’ve decided that Saturday is the best option for everyone.” You nod.

“Oh, and I’ve already asked Happy to organise your outfits, so no need to worry about any of that,” Tony adds.

“Happy is organising our outfits!?” You sound unconvinced at best.

“You’d be surprised, he’s actually pretty good.” You laugh. You honestly learn something new here everyday.

“Are we all set here then, ladies?” Steve asks.

“We’re all good. Thanks, guys.”

The meeting ends how they all usually do. Steve and Tony leaving you and Carol on your own to wonder how the hell you got into this position.

***** Series Taglist: @lovelylittlelionx​ @desaulniersbriannes​ @outofcontextavengers​ @mysticpansy (tag didn’t work)

[capriccio-con-espressione]

Lap Fuddles

(© forwardwalk ♈️ )

Genre: Smut

Warning: Sub!Renjun, Dom!Reader, Femdom, Thigh riding, Hair pulling, Spanking, Pegging, Degradation, Profanity, CFNM, Some pretty hardcore graphic dirty talk, Orgasm denial

Word Count: 2k

A/N:

This can be seen as the continuation of this ask @submissivekpop​ (tbh I am the one who sent that in), which is my idea of “steamy passionate sex” mentioned in it, so I strongly recommend reading it beforehand to get a full grasp of the background of this scenario. 

This is also my first published work after I re-start my blog, and I hope doms thirsting after subby Renjun are satisfied!

  "I thought you didn't like being on my lap...but here you are, riding me like a needy horny kit in calling..." You sneer as your hand comes down to slap and pinch Renjun’s cheek, which is still rosy from the spanking earlier, as the fingers of your other hand are still pumping his spot deliciously, causing his delicate body to slightly quiver and speed up his movements, dazed but focused on building up the sensation in his lower abdomen.

  Smirking at his fervent humping as well as his obviously heightened desires, your hand wanders around on his smooth skin. “Where is that defiant sulky little boy who insisted that sitting on my lap is ‘unmanly’ and ‘embarrassing’ hmm? Now look at you, enjoying yourself this shamelessly much just like a fucking slut. Do you think it’s still necessary to maintain your ludicrous ‘manly’ image, since you apparently prefer to be my whore?” 

  Renjun still continues to grind on you, so immersed in the friction provided by your jean-clad thigh that he fails to take notice of your rhetorical question, which soon earns him a firm tug on his hair as he whimpers at the sudden pain.

  “Do you still insist on being ‘manly’ while you are already whoring up?” You grab a handful of his hair, pulling your fingers out of his agape hole as you repeat the simplified question.

  “No... Miss, I don't anymore...please…" Renjun whines at the sense of loss on his prostate.

  “Please what? My little slut.” You deliberately tighten your thigh muscle to make him moan at the sudden change of sensation.

  “Please...Miss, I want…” Renjun sways his hips titillatingly, making his needs fairly noticeable.

  "Can’t even use your words properly, how pathetic." You tauntingly brush your fingers around his entrance in a circular motion. "Tell me exactly where you want me and what you want me to do with you. Make it clear."

  Renjun lowers his head, avoiding your piercing gaze as he blushes and stammers. "Please Miss...I want...mmff...I want you to f-fuck deep into my ass...hahh...w-with your fingers...please"

  "That's my good honest boy." You coo as you immediately push three fingers into him, making him yelp and grasp hard onto your shoulders at the shockwave of pleasure. "Does my slutty little kitten want something bigger and thicker?"

  "Y-yesss Miss...please…" Renjun shudders and stutters as he buries his face into the crook of your neck.

  You then plant a light kiss on his cheek before gesturing him to stand up for you to fasten the strap-on dildo around your crotch.

  "Be good and ride my cock. Show me exactly what a desperate fuckaholic you are." You seductively gaze at him as you are lubing the silicone toy.

  "Me...doing it...myself...again?” The tint on his cheeks begins to glow even redder. “Riding your thigh was already embarrassing enough, yet now you still want more? You are pushing it too far you evil devil…”

  You cock your eyebrow in amusement, despite his accusing tone, his complexion, slightly shifty gaze, as well as his lightly twitching cock all give away signs of his arousal.

  “So now I am the evil one here huh?” You disapprovingly scoff, getting up from the couch and push him downwards, forcing him to bend over the cushioned back. "Why bad-mouth the big mighty devil you love so fucking much," You grip hard onto his little waist before landing a hard slap on his still pinkish rear, "when your body reactions already obviously betrayed your words? Hmm my lying little kitten?" You then give him a few consecutive harsh spanks, causing him to let out pathetic whiny moans and squirm under the stinging sensation.

  "You think you are all difficult and formidable…" You slap him for the one last time, then reach down to caress his throbbing arousal generously, before going back up to resume his punishment. "...But in fact, you are nothing but a predictable little licentious kit that is putty in my hands…" You snicker as you press your still clothed chest against his back to breathe hotly near his ear, while your thumb lightly teases his slick entrance as the tips of the rest of your fingers brush stealthily against his sensitive flesh down south.

  "Does my untruthful little brat know why he can't win against his Mistress now?" You wickedly smack his cheeks as you begin to pump his shaft, internally smirking that Renjun is too carried away to utter any word. "It's because I know you too well, and I can read you in a split second just like an open book. I will take advantage of your every possible kink and torture every inch of you until your every single nerve bundle is burning with desires embroidered by my scent, touch, and everything me. Get that? My filthy slut?" Your clear enunciation of the last few words is followed by sadistic laughter ringing in Renjun's ear, the degradation sinking into his trembling body even more, as he can do nothing but hold on tightly to the couch for support.

  "You want to cum huh, my needy little fucktoy?" You sneer as you release your hand originally wrapped around his cock, focusing fully and solely rubbing between his cheeks, as he desperately nods. 

  "You want me to destroy that pretty little fuckhole with my massive dick until you can't get any load out of you anymore?"

  "Y-yesss Mistress...f-fuckk stop teasing me pleaasee…"

  After his plea, you creep behind him, spread his awaiting hole wide, before sliding into him in a slow cautious one-go. As he moans out at the feeling of being stuffed and stretched, you spank him twice, once for each cheek, to turn his sounds of satisfaction into gasps of surprise.

  "I'm still not done with disciplining you yet, slut." You growl as you intersperse your deep thrusts with loud smacks. "You should be punished not only because of your disobedience, but also your dishonesty for not coming clean with me about the true filthy side of you earlier."

  With your one hand still marking his cheek, your other hand creeps up to pinch his already hardened nipple. While Renjun's quivering and panting hard from the triple pleasure, you make his mind messier by pressing close up to him and nibbling his neck. "Now you can think of nothing but my cock buried deep inside you driving you senseless, just like a dim-witted whore you are." 

  Already lost count of how many times his pre-cum has oozed out of his slit, Renjun still wets himself even worse when he feels your tongue moisturizing his sweet spots, along with your gravelly moans vibrating against him. The only two things that matter to him now are first, your ruthless cock ramming into him, second, the last bits of his brain functions ordering him to moan as wantonly as he can because you've trained him to be shamelessly vocal for your enjoyment. You can easily tell the timing when he's getting nearer to his breaking point by the volume and coherence of his moans, but you decide to be cruel and delay his orgasm further.

  "Looks like someone has already got his fair share of dirty pleasure without doing much." Your sly remarks, as well as the withdrawal of your member, rip straight through his climax as he can't help but look into your eyes incredulously. "Why give me that look? You have to make up for the order you failed to follow! Now get your ass down to my lap again and worship my cock properly with that insatiable tight boypussy of yours."

  You quickly shift both of you into the desired position as Renjun, dreading being denied another orgasm again, obediently sinks down on your cock without much hesitation this time.

  "Oh you should've known better don't you?" You gleefully smirk as you slap his jiggling cheeks playfully like treating a toy. "You should know that I am the Queen that completely owns you, and you should be thankful that I grant you the privilege to let you share my throne on my lap, yet you decided to be an ungrateful little rascal." 

  You then commence fondling his balls that ache to be touched again. "See? If you had let me taken over you much more willingly without those stupid attempts to protest, we could have so much more fun together…" While one of your hands is still jerking him off, the other goes up to firmly tug his hair, pulling his head closer to you as your lips approach his ear. "The Queen enjoying the show her little cockslave is putting on and you getting the best fuck of your life...why were you just too stupid to realize that this spices things up for both of us sooner? My pretty little fuckpet?"

  "I was stupid, Your Highness." Renjun slides deeper into his subspace as he bounces up and down on you even faster. "Please allow your dumb slave to cum...please…"

  "Finally someone's remorseful." You muse in delight. "But still…" You steady your lower body and tighten your grip on Renjun, before starting to thrust back up into him, the sensation almost choking the pretty boy, as he leans his chin on your shoulder for extra support, a convenient position for you to whisper more nasty things to him.

  “Look at you now, riding my cock and following commands this well. You do have the potential to be my pliant plaything, but your snarky bratty mouth refused to surrender. But in fact, you are just a tsundere little kitten that treasures your useless pride a bit too much to admit that you love being humiliated and tortured, aren’t you?” Your hips move in sync with his, both of you focused on getting the dildo deeper inside him, as Renjun lets out a faint whimper indicating your pertinent descriptive words has worked on him. “But now since you have been good, I will fuck every last bit of your purity, sanity, rationality and your so-called masculinity out of you until you are a teary vulnerable mess and begging me to have mercy on you, because all you deserve is to be fucked open as my personal sleazy slut every single night…” 

  Renjun feels his second climax soon building up again as both the physical pleasure and the stimuli from your graphic degrading words resonate in harmony in his mind, sending him over the edge. You on the other hand, feel even more empowered and aroused at the fact that though with the fabric barrier of your clothes blocking direct contact with your sub, you still are blessed with the ability to wrap him around your finger, with more ecstasy dripping out of your heat at the sight of a beautifully flushed Renjun humping you in his honeyed voice.

  You respond to his fervent pleas to cum with some gentle coaxes, which soon milk hot spurts of seeds out of him as he gradually slows down and crashes onto you, burying his face into the crook of your neck. Doing your aftercare routine to get him back to his senses, you gently peck his limp body and wipe the tears away from the corner of his eyes, then wrap him in a comfy Moomin blanket he likes the most that you have already prepared next to you beforehand, and tell him how good he is at pleasuring you and how ethereal he looks right now while you affectionately pet his hair which is damp from sweat.

  Arms still tightly around your waist, Renjun finally looks up to face you, but avoids your direct gaze from time to time to prevent himself from burning with embarrassment. 

  “Now what? Still too shy to admit that you like lap cuddles?” You lightheartedly tease and nudge him.

  “No, I’m not!” Renjun’s voice, though sounding indignant at first, you can still detect the undertone that is filled with love and the cravings of more intimacy with you.

  You both giggle as you allow him to bury his face in your chest to indulge in your sweet fragrance that never fails to remind him whom he belongs to and feels safe with, cherishing the moment in comfortable silence where you just simply enjoy each other’s company.

[slasherscream]

horror writer!!!!!!!!!

A/N: thank you for helping my chaotic ass make a decision. 

     billy loomis x fem!reader x stu macher      ft. reader who is a horror book writer

                                                     ——————– 

You’d always been a writer. Since you were a little kid you’d babble stories to your teddy bears and babysitters. Anyone or thing that sat still long enough to be talked to. Hardly could make proper words yet but already had a mouthful of things to say. 

Your parents always encouraged you. You were gifted. All you ever did was read and write. It was like breathing for you. Go a day without either and you wilted like a flower. 

Maybe that’s why you were so young and already had a handful of published books under your belt. Maybe you also had some good mood inspiration considering you grew up in Woodsboro, CA. 

Your first book wasn’t about a serial killer but the energy of the town during the beginnings of the killings had lit a fire under your ass like nothing else. You felt insensitive at times. You’d hear about classmates you’d known your whole life getting murdered and then get the urge to go and hunch yourself over your computer for hours. Itching to get your hand on some pen and paper even while you’d hug grieving friends and feel truly saddened. 

Part of it was probably a coping mechanism. Part of it was probably just the nature of a creative mind at work. Turning tragedy into something understandable. Palatable. What creative people have always done throughout the ages. 

When you published your first book it blew up. A masterpiece, typically harsh critics raved. A thrilling fresh face in the genre, older and more experienced authors had praised. Some who you had grown up reading and looking up to. You hadn’t even graduated highschool before you were getting book deals and new, publishing offers. 

It didn’t take you long before you were moving out of Woodsboro and into a blossoming career. The inspiration for your books came fast and the more you wrote the better you got. You were taking the writing world by storm. The new age Mary Shelley. 

Until now. Your last book had been a smashing success. It had been praised, as usual. There was even talk of turning it into a movie in the same way your very first novel had been adapted for the big-screen. But while everyone else loved it        you despised it. Considered it your worst work. And the current attempt at writing something else was driving you mad.

For months you stayed in your rut before you decided that a change of scenery would do you good. Time to go back home. 

It helps a little. Not much but a little. At first you stay inside all day, cooped up and taking the eccentric author gig to an extent you probably shouldn’t since you’re only in your twenties. You Mother forces you out the house. Then you start going out on your own accord. 

You feel better. Long walks and fresh air. No pressure or cameras. Your agent tries not to call too often. Business kept to a minimum. You’re re-charging your batteries. 

Then you start writing again. Slowly at first, like how you stretch unused muscles tenderly before you dive back into intense work-out routines. Then all at once. There’s a cafe in town now that wasn’t there during your teen years and you hole yourself up in it all day long. 

You and the staff are on a first name basis. You wave at them when you enter and they automatically bring you your usual drink and snack. You smile and tip ridiculously well. Your chosen table is always available to you. 

Until the day it isn’t. There are four seats at it and it’s all the way in the back with a nice view out the window and of the rest of the cafe (though you hardly people watch). 

One morning you walk in, barely awake but having a mighty urge to type. So you’d dragged yourself from bed and out the house. Sleepy wave at the staff and collapsing at your usual table.

You’d automatically begun to take out your things from the bag you’d set on the ground. But looking down you can see pairs of feet underneath the table. Sheepishly you stick your head up and can see two confused men looking back. One, the taller one, smiling despite the apparent confusion and the other with an eyebrow raised in a way that is slightly intimidating. 

“Uuuuuh sorry there        no one ever sits back here but me.” You laugh, starting to put your things back in your bag, cursing yourself for being such a creature of habit. You think you can hear some of the staff that knows you better chuckling at you. 

“You’re fine.” goes the one while the other says, “We always sit here.“ 

You pack faster. Wondering how you’d managed to unpack so quickly but you’re struggling to put everything away just as fast. Again, cursed creature of habit. One glance up to check on how peeved they must be getting and you pause. There’s something about the two of them…… you stop moving and just stare, completely distracted from your task that quickly, "I feel like I know you.”

“Do you?” The one who is already irritated asks, leaning back in his seat. This is what jogs your memory.  

“Billy Loomis.” You’d seen him strike that pose around school quite a lot. He’d always been a little moody and mysterious. Then you turn to smile a bit at his forever partner (who seems to be a literal partner now, they’re holding hands). “And Stu Macher, of course.”

“Do we know you?” Stu asks with a laugh, easy going and entirely reminiscent of how he’d acted during highschool. 

“Nah. We went to highschool together but I kept to myself. You just always seem to remember the popular kids in school even when you were busy minding your own business.” You’re blessedly done packing and stand up now, intent on just ordering to go for the day, you’ve thoroughly embarrassed yourself enough as is, “Nice seeing you guys again. Even though I uh       interrupted your breakfast date.” One jerky awkward wave and then you’re at the counter getting your order to go and making your escape. You think you can still feel them staring after you which is highly understandable. 

They’re not there the next day when you walk in and you get back to your schedule. It’s a week of the regular when one day you’re in the zone until two people join you at your table. The cafe is actually packed for once so all you’re going to do is nod acknowledgement and then get back to work.

It’s Billy and Stu. You blink in surprise and then do exactly what you’d planned. Nod a greeting and go back to working. You’re at a good part of your story. A part where tension starts to build and the plot begins to thicken.

“What are you always typing?” You look up and there’s Stu leaning halfway across the table. 

“Eh. Nothing much." 

"Nothing much? You’re typing a mile a minute.” Billy drawls, “And you’re always so focused.”

“I think I just heard two separate ‘always’ said. Haven’t we only bumped into each other once here?” Absentminded, you’re still quite focused.

“You don’t notice much when you’re in your zone.” Not quite sure what to make of that you stop typing, “Y/N, right?” Stu’s hand is out for a shake and you oblige him. You glance at Billy but he makes no move to do the same. 

“How do you know my name?” You know damn well there’s no way they’d be able to ‘remember it’ you had never had a lick of interaction your entire lives despite living in the same town and even sharing most of your classes in almost every grade. 

“Yearbook. We got curious.” At that you nod and are going to go back to work.

“So what are you always doing in here?” You know you interrupted their date that one time but that doesn’t mean this has to be an eye for an eye situation. The look you give Billy is akin to the one he’d given you. He actually laughs.

“I write. It’s a hobby of mine." 

"What kind of writing?” Stu asks and you want to groan at playing this game of twenty questions.

“Horror.” At that the two exchange a look and you close your laptop in irritation realizing you’re about to spend the rest of your time in the cafe today catching up with old schoolmates. 

                                                     ——————–

[redscullyrevival]

N(ot)stalgia: DISCO 2.0

Something I’ve not personally seen anyone talk about with Star Trek Discovery, although I’ve no doubt many are, is the role nostalgia plays in the series. 

Sometimes at war, sometimes a crutch, sometimes reflective but mostly deconstructive; nostalgia is near constantly present within DISCO’s production. Present within the media as it is created and relayed to its audience as well as present within large portions of the audience themselves, from within their own expectations and beliefs on what Star Trek “is” (and perhaps most vocally on what the franchise “is not”). Star Trek Discovery is not all that concerned with restorative nostalgia, the series does not excessively lean on invoking comforting throw-back feelings with the intent of recreating the franchise's past tone. And then there’s season 2 episode 8 “If Memory Serves”. 

OH BOY. Oh wow. Okay.

“If Memory Serves” is a double down boot stomp of an episode that I’m sure has been turning heads for its use of interweaving, updating, and altering the classic two parter “The Menagerie” (and thus the un-aired-but-widely-known pilot episode “The Cage”) and I’m positive some misguided individual is out there referring to all this as a “reference” and yes I kind of want to die a little knowing that’s happening but I’ll struggle through. Sigh.

The first season of DISCO dug deep and did some drastic nostalgia tweaking and even (dare I say) went so far as to weaponize nostalgia and all the expectations audiences brought with them about what Star Trek “was” and “means” and “does” as a pop culture storytelling institution.  

It was a long-term re-haul of many, many aspects of the Star Trek TV franchise and it made many, many people very uncomfortable. Not me, I friggin’ dug it, but I am admittedly a contrary asshole. 

Blahblah lots of folks right now are probably thinking about Captain Lorca and for good reason - so lets look at Lorca and how he was used to snap the audience’s nostalgic Trek lens. Spoliers ahead.

Captain Lorca (played by Jason Isaacs) was revealed to be from the Mirror Universe, as in the slap-on-a-beard-and-be-mean-universe. If you know Star Trek you know the Mirror Universe.

But in the beginning, we all sat around ho-humming over Lorca’s motivations and choices. Over what we wanted to believe about him. The viewership was VERY busy interpreting Lorca and working the character into our own individual understandings on what we know and want from a Star Trek television show.

As it happens Captain Lorca is one of the most Trekkie characters ever by default of his universal origins while simultaneously being an approach to the evils of the Mirror Universe (AKA What We Don’t Want Humanity To Be™) as we’ve never seen it before.

Hating other races and being aggressive and enjoying war and breeding a society hostile towards ideas of equality, justice, cooperation, and peace are pretty straight forward no-nos. Turns out though, and this is the real kicker, that the initial unease Lorca brought onto Discovery wasn’t just (entirely) the writers getting through their sea legs but a nice long con: 

The evils of the Mirror Universe have now been expanded to psychological and emotional abuse with sexual predatory behavior and unsustainable environmental practices thrown in for good measure. Which was a much-needed update my friends.

And I say “update” but in a lot of ways it’s an insertion. A clarification. Or, as I first sated, an expansion. We could look at DISCO as re-writing Star Trek lore because that’s, ya know, what it is doing - but we can also more specifically look at DISCO as a project in nostalgic alteration.

Hey, guess what?! Spock’s sister has always been a black woman.

From our outward understanding yes, we know Michael Burnham is a ~new~ character in a ~new~ Star Trek show. None of us are confused on how any of this story telling is working. These are new stories. 

The function of these stories though? I can’t help but think the audience is pretty torn up on that front.

Something inherent in experiencing Star Trek Discovery is how the show’s narrative future hails from our actual historical past. The utopia of the original series is dated and stale and disingenuous without a nostalgic/contextual lens firmly set in place. The function of many Star Trek Discovery stories is that of a much-needed blood transfusion: Bringing new life to old withered limbs.

Does this mean that Star Trek Discovery is seeking to recontextualize Star Trek? Yes and no but mostly no in my opinion. LOL, sorry, but it’s complicated! As most nostalgia driven works are.

Nostalgic Cinema is a real subset of critical film studies and has only grown in recent years but nostalgia isn’t anything new to media or the human experience. The general consensus is that nostalgic media tries to visually replicate time periods in human history (or the markers of media from a particular time period, what Marc Le Sueur dubbed “deliberate archaism”), but primarily acts as a bridge to idolized youthful emotionality and/or simplified “truths”. 

Marc Le Sueur’s “Theory Number Five: Anatomy of Nostalgic Films: Heritage and Method” was published in 1977 and was one of the first major academic and critical looks into the role nostalgia plays in cinema and by extension our connection to and perception of art. In the 1990s Svetlana Boym and Fredric Jameson further pushed ideas of nostalgia in literature and late capitalism respectably (which of course made its way onto visual media).

Le Sueur and Boym saw nostalgia as two classifiable categories, restorative or reflective. Restorative nostalgia attempts to recapture and revitalize an imagined past while reflective nostalgia is marked by a wistful longing for what has been lost to time.

In “The Future of Nostalgia” Svetlana Boym wrote “Nostalgia inevitably reappears as a defense mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life and historical upheavals.” She goes on to suggest that our attraction to nostalgia (either restorative or reflective) is often times less about actually trying to reclaim a vanished past but rather a conscious resistance to an unknown and potentially threatening future.

The bulk of nostalgic media can easily be seen to tie into Boym’s observations; most media isn’t concerned with or about the personal and effective uses of nostalgia as a lived experience/real feeling among individuals but instead more focused on a particularly stylized, sanitized, and simplified view of history. Nostalgia in media is typically a presentation on the present day's romanticized fantasy of the past, void of contradictions and unsolvable uncertainties of the focused time period's lived reality, so as to soften or even avoid the creator’s and audience’s confusing present and unknown future.

In 2005 film critic and historian Pam Cook explored nostalgia in her book “Screening the Past: Memory and Nostalgia in Cinema” which collected seventeen of her short essays from 1976 to 1999 that focus on memory, identity, and nostalgia not only within their subject matter but within Cook’s viewpoint of revisiting her own body of work. Early on Cook laid out a more optimistic outlook on nostalgia in media:

“Rather than being seen as a reactionary, regressive condition imbued with sentimentality, it can be perceived as a way of coming to terms with the past, as enabling it to be exorcised in order that society, and individuals, can move on. In other words, while not necessarily progressive in itself, nostalgia can form part of a transition to progress and modernity. The suspension of disbelief is central to this transition, as nostalgia is predicated on a dialect between longing for something idealized that has been lost, and an acknowledgement that this idealized something can never be retrieved in actuality, and can only be accessed through images.”

The Star Trek of 1966 didn’t air in a peaceful time free from social and political turmoil. In fact, the original series itself was a kind of attempt at Future Nostalgia: A projected desire for what humanity could be if we survive and make changes to the then-contemporary world the show was directly commenting on. 

Star Trek’s original series today, as media that has survived and gained weight within the American pop cultural landscape, certainly feels warm, inviting, and reflective of an America long gone and shattered - and that’s because, now, it is. 

Time moves forward and warps and bends our media and our experiences to media and the most warped and most bendy of all are those storytelling institutions that outlive and outlast the era and people who first created and first experienced it. 

Recreating Star Trek visually, tonally, and thematically would be straight nostalgic vampirism and is obviously not what DISCO is doing. But that doesn’t mean Star Trek Discovery is not not a nostalgic piece even though it looks, feels, and is thematically different than the 1966 original show.

Real quick, let’s get back to this week’s episode, “If Memory Serves”!

... Honestly though, do I need to connect these dots? We all get it right? We’re all on board with this entire thing from the name of the episode, to its direct use and alterations of the original series, and then the not-so-subtle reveal that the season’s big plot point, the Red Angel, is a time traveler re-writing history. Like. We get it, right?

This is where Discovery has yet again doubled down on its storytelling functionality; this is Spock y’all. This is Pike. This is for real happening. Michael has helped shape the Spock character we will see later on in the “future” (our collective past).

And while we’re here, check out Mr. Spock! The Spock of Discovery is not dripping with nostalgic slime, he’s sharp and clean to an almost shocking degree. The series makes little effort in acting as though we should have a pre-determined fondness for the character outside of his relationship to Michael. Which is absolutely NUTS. But in a good way, in my opinion! 

The search for Spock (lawl) within Discovery has been on a surface level the literal search for the character within the narrative space of this new series. They gotta find that dude.

The search for Spock within Discovery has also been a form of re-defining the character not through audience expectation of What They Know and Remember but What They Don’t Know and Have No Basis For.

And the series accomplished it within the framework of places, characters, and events that are old, new, the same, and different all at once. I believe that’s a lot of intentional wibbly wobbly timey wimey paratextual stuff taking precedence for the sake of promoting a new view on Star Trek’s (and our own) past, primarily for the sake of moving beyond it. 

I don’t think it’s just ‘haha, reference!’ that the first shots we see of Vina (an original series character) in Star Trek Discovery’s “If Memory Serves” is that of her high heeled glass slippers. It’s jarring and weird and even laughable. Vina’s hair and makeup are also deliberate archaisms within the series the character is currently in, airing in the year it is. It reminded me of another nostalgia ridden TV series that would often implement a similar absurdist approach towards viewer nostalgia.

Mad Men had a lot of fun presenting a visually accurate but sterile version of the past not so as to suggest things were better in the 1960s but so that the series could better magnify (and even exasperate) American disillusionment.

One of my favorite examples of nostalgic absurdity in Mad Men is when Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) stands in a crowded office building jokingly pointing a gun at unflinching women.

What's the goal of having Pete do this? Is it to show we were... better then? We were more innocent? Is this deeply inappropriate "joke" suddenly OK because it's 1960, or is it even within context creepy, horrifying, and in incredible bad taste? Do we need the characters to recognize the absurdity of Pete's actions for us to validate them as absurd or are we being invited to make that evaluation ourselves in the here and now outside of the character's reality?

What Pete does is creepy and weird if the characters acknowledge it or not just as much as it is, admittedly, darkly humorous for the audience to witness at all.

But that's because it's not really a set up for comparing and contrasting how much we as a country have lost or gained in the wake of mass shootings but rather that of an audience being able to recognize a total D-bag, even through time.

Pete and his gun aren't a direct focus of the show's nostalgia but they are certainly a product of it and a bit of the point is that Pete gets away with doing what he does because it's a story, yeah, but PRIMARILY due to the audience assumption of "well, it was the 1960s". Its within that suspension of disbelief living at the core of all the many absurdist moments that make up Mad Men where the series bit by bit wedges in its most critical theme: Nostalgia is bullshit.

Through its intentional juxtaposition of accurately ‘recreating’ the past and high co-dependency on its contemporary audience’s views, Mad Men suggests that the best we can do as a society, as a country, is see the similarities between the past and now and decide what is worth keeping, progressing, or discarding entirely. The series delights in uncomfortably positioning the audience to view the weird ass shit it's characters do (littering, chain smoking, drinking and driving, slapping women's butts, letting children play with plastic bags over their heads to name a basic few), not so as to suggest that the past was "better" than today but so as to highlight the ways that we as a society have already deemed the past to be inefficient, ineffective, and cruel.

The series uses the same audience awareness principle to highlight the ways in which nostalgia cannot hide nor brighten our shortcomings and continued failures. There are just as many (if not more) moments in the series that are not presented as contrasting absurdity but comparative harrowing familiarity; those areas of our cultural makeup we have not adequately progressed or left behind.

Sure, in the 1960s everyone could smoke everywhere (very ew, look how far we’ve come) but women still had to internally balance if they could afford looking like a humorless bitch when confronting workplace sexual harassment (haha, whoops!). 

America’s past in Mad Men is terrifying and weird as well as frustratingly still present, as smoke soaked into our current attitudes and culture. What America’s past isn’t in Mad Men is purely seductive nostalgia for the sake of simplifying the present.

Le Sueur, Boym, and Cook all propagate that the cinematic image/use of nostalgia is that of double exposure, two images projected onto an audience’s perception and experience (1. contemporary recreation 2. of the past) - and that sure as hell makes up the building blocks of Discovery even though we’re all cognitively aware every aspect of the series is new and it takes place “in the future”. Discovery uses the franchise’s past as an adaptive functional mirror with which to compare and contrast our contemporary reality rather than merely repeating experiences and ideas reflective of a time long gone.

Vina’s shoes, her entire aesthetic down to her backstory aren’t just counter to the tone and aesthetic of Discovery but to the sensibilities of the contemporary audience; we are all very aware that Vina hasn’t literally been plucked out of 1966 and plopped into this new series. Again, none of us are confused on how any of this story telling is working. We’re aware these are new stories. But what is the function of Vina in this new story? What is the purpose of all the unease her presence brings into “If Memory Serves”?

Vina, way back in 1966, was written to choose a life of illusion among aliens siphoning her memories and emotions rather than accept and become a part of the present. The Keeper tells Pike, “She has an illusion and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant” as they once again cover up Vina’s hunched back and scarred face with youthful and desirable 1960s beauty standards. As we all know Pike himself will go on later to choose this exact fate. He will succumb to the same choice.

“When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating," Vina tells us of the Talosians in “The Cage”, episode zero of Star Trek. “You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought records.”

I’m having a serious and very real Look-Into-The-Camera-Moment here my friends. We’re all on board, yeah? Are the dots sufficiently and fully aligned? God I hope so. “If Memory Serves” is pulling a helluva fine “To Serve Man” word play pals:

If our memories perform our duties and live our lives for us, we become trapped. Discovery’s purpose for pulling in original series characters, and these characters in particular and all the narrative context sliding along in with them, is to suggest that we (and the franchise itself) need to move past our attachments to the original series and its rusty ideas and simplistic hopes for the future.  

Vina and Pike are already lost causes, we know this. We gain power in knowing this. The re-framing of these characters as being more tragic than romantic, with Discovery reflecting their longing as kinda creepy and disconnected with Vina more siren than innocent the series can push past the past and grab on to a new understanding of this classic episode’s elements and what it can mean for us watching Star Trek made in 2019.

A purely DISCO inversion of all this is poor Dr. Culber who has a complete lack of emotional connection to the past, who can remember moments and events but can’t make them give off any feelings of relevancy or incorporate them into who he is as a person. Culber is just as trapped as Vina and what Pike will (possibly?) become. The inch by inch nature of his recovery will depend on, as a pissed off Burnham tells the Talosians, if he can learn to “survive another way.” 

Yeah. That might be some thematic intent we’ve picked up on skip. We’re legit through the looking glass now huh? Up is down and down is up and nostalgia ain’t what it used to be! Hype.      

As such, in its own way, Discovery is fairly critical of Star Trek and by extension a bulk of its audience and their personal reasons and motivations for tuning in. It makes a lot of sense that Lorca and “If Memory Serves” among many other production choices and aspects chafe some viewers. 

I’m of the opinion that the shiny pristine nostalgic pedestal sculpture that is STAR TREK should be filed and chipped and shaved and grated here and there just as much as more contemporary substance should be added and stuffed back into it. 

What’s the goddamn point of any of this if not to further progress the bar of reflecting and projecting the human experience onto a future better than that one envisioned in 1966? In 1987? In 1993? And, at the end of the day, isn’t THAT more authentically “Star Trek” than simply an episodic narrative structure, glitter effect transporters, and a captain’s log? 

[dailybestiary]

Patch Has Issues: Dungeon #1

Issue: Dungeon #1

Date: September/October 1986. (I was just entering 3rd grade—a dismal year for me—and hadn’t yet discovered D&D at this point. I had just watched Optimus Prime pass away on the operating table during The Transformers: The Movie, though.)

The Cover:

(Use of cover for review purposes only and should not be taken as a challenge to status. Credit and copyright remain with their respective holders.)

One of the notable things about Dungeon was that the covers were actually commissioned for the magazine, instead of just vaguely connected to the issue’s theme like Dragon’s were. The late Keith Parkinson’s “Into the Flame” shows off the star of the issue, the red dragon Flame. Its very humanoid posture recalls Parkinson’s time doing draconians for the Dragonlance line. I’m guessing he was very proud of being picked to launch the magazine—this image is the first that comes up on his website to this day. (If you’re curious, Parkinson’s work in general is great if you like knights in bad weather and big humanoids, but he definitely leans hard into the all-women-in-fantasy-are-bikini-wearing-sorceresses trope, a habit that—like many ex-TSR artists—only got more pronounced as his career progressed. It’s no wonder he moved into video games.)

The Adventures:

“The Dark Tower of Cabilar” by Michael Ashton & Lee Sperry, AD&D, Levels 4–7

Our very first Dungeon Adventure is...*drum roll*...a converted tournament module that is pretty rudimentary: Defeat the vampire in his stalagmite tower-and-dungeon combo (I’m already thinking a stalactite would have had more cinematic appeal), and retrieve the crown that can prove your employer’s godson’s noble lineage.

Right off the bat, this adventure features encounters with fire drakes and lava children! Yep, you read that right—lava children. (Pathfinder fans will remember them from Misfit Monsters Redeemed.) Clearly Dungeon is not afraid of Fiend Folio weirdness.

Beyond that, the module screams “I was written for a tournament” with the number of traps and cursed items and red herrings involved, and not in a good way. Once we get to to the dungeon levels, as a reader I’m just listlessly going room by room till we get to the Big Bad. Overall, a disappointing start.

“Assault on Eddistone Point” by Patricia Nead Elrod, AD&D, Levels 1–3

Our first adventure by a woman author is only our second adventure out of the gate! This bodes well for the rest of the series—wait. Hold on. Is that Patricia Nead as in P. N. Elrod? I’ve never read her work, but she’s helmed some anthologies that Jim Butcher’s short stories have appeared in. I’m guessing this is an early cut from her? And frankly the hand of an experienced author is all over these pages—a vast step up from the previous article (whose authors, to be fair, seem like they were still in college, according to their bios).

So first off, this is a tidy little adventure: Check out why the team sent to repair a signal tower hasn’t reported back. (Even Bryce likes it! We’ll talk about Bryce below.) The NPCs aren’t locked to one location (except the hostages), so once PCs get to the tower, it’s up to the GM to position them and assign reactions. But the cast is small enough this doesn’t seem daunting, even for new GMs, and you could run this thing in a single night.

But where it really shines, as I said, is the deft authorship. Elrod very quickly delivers a tight sketch of the location: two city-states vying for market advantage, dwarves under the mountain range in between minting the gold that moves said markets, some signal towers that exist as a compromise to keep the peace, and what the heck, also some elves in the valley between.

Now, this is basic stuff. And not even pumpkin-spice-latte basic...this is “I’ve only read The Hobbit” basic. Dwarves minting gold and elves in the woods and most of the villains are half-orcs? Even for 1986, this ought to be chucked in the bin as trite.

And yet...it’s not, because of Elrod’s deft pen. I suddenly want to find out more about these cities in the course of play—maybe one could be a good home base for the party? The interplay of politics and markets and signal fires and dwarf relations is just specific enough to feel real, while being sketchy enough it could be dropped into most game worlds. The clever chief antagonist is distinctive enough I don’t mind her stereotypical brute sidekicks, and trying to uncover her employer could lead to the next session’s adventure. It’s basic sure, but it’s Basic Rules-red-box basic. In other words, it feels classic. I wouldn’t put this in front of my grad school gaming group, necessarily, but if I got asked to run an afterschool session for some middle-schoolers wanting to learn the game? Hell yes!

At this point, I’ve probably oversold this adventure, so forgive me if you are underwhelmed by it. But I’m willing to risk a little overhyping to celebrate what can be constructed with such simple meat-and-potatoes ingredients.

And that’s not even counting the not-meat-and-potatoes elements, like the white raven who is already one of my favorite familiars ever, and the ticking clocking scenario the weather sets up (you need to beat the mercenaries before they can mess with the signals), and the names of the other watchtower peaks, each one slyly suggesting another adventure, and…yeah, I dig this.

“Grakhirt’s Lair” by John Nephew, AD&D, Levels 1–3

John Nephew wrote one of my favorite D&D supplements of all time, Tall Tales of the Wee Folk, which I won’t shut up about—I’ve even told him so on Twitter—so I don’t feel bad in saying that this entry is a total dud for me. Pretty much the only interesting thing about this adventure is that the humanoid antagonists are the Fiend Folio’s norkers, and they get the classic 1e AD&D humanoid treatment: that is, absolutely nothing sets them apart from any other humanoid out there aside from their stat blocks. You can skip this one without guilt.

(Admittedly, Nephew was also shockingly young when he did both this and TTotWF. Looking back, I really wish I’d made some different decisions re: my writing growing up—I was disengaging with the hobby just at the age when other people were hammering down the door to get published. Sigh. But hey, none of them held a Run-DMC concert or hung out with Rahzel at age 21, right? We all have our journeys.)

“The Elven Home,” by Anne Gray McReady, D&D, Levels 1–3

Our first D&D adventure! D&D, specifically BECMI D&D, was the neglected stepchild of the late ’80s and early ’90s, despite the earnest efforts of line champion Bruce Heard, Dungeon editors Roger Moore and Barbara Young, and a lot of talented freelancers. But I was a fierce D&D partisan, because it was what I was first introduced to and what I could afford, and because I loved the variety of classes and cultures the Known World allowed. For a line that often felt overlooked in terms of marketing and support, the love and talent put into the books that did exist were evident on almost every page.

So I wish I could find more to recommend “The Elven Home,” but it’s not even really an adventure or even a side trek—instead it’s a thoroughly fleshed-out NPC encounter that should lead to combat only if the PCs are particularly boorish. Like Bryce (again, see below) I could have used more whimsy and more weirdness to make these elves stand out just a bit more, though their twee personalities (more faerie than Tolkien) at least set them apart from most elves PCs run across these days. So your mileage may vary—some of you may be utterly charmed by this (I lean at least somewhat charmed), others of you very much not.

“Into the Fire,” by Grant & David Boucher, AD&D, Levels 6–10

I was expecting a lot out of this adventure—the cover dragon, Flame, was the closest thing Dungeon had to a mascot till the Adventure Path years under Paizo, and he wound up appearing in at least one or two more sequel adventures, if I recall correctly.

While I wasn’t blown away, I can see where the fondness comes from. The adventure isn’t particularly special at first. A necklace shows up that may hint at the fate of a lost prince, but following that lead means following the trail of a recently deceased knight, and—spoilers!—that trail leads back to a dragon. But then the combat with Flame is presented, and the brothers Boucher serve up a number of round-by-round tactics and dirty tricks for Flame to employ that wouldn’t feel out of place in 3.5...and I’m guessing were thrilling in 1986.

Remember, this is before dragons had varying power levels according to age—and were often asleep in their lairs to boot—so if DMs weren’t careful high-level characters would carve through them like butter. (Seriously, it was such an issue that every June Dragon Magazine would churn out articles about how to keep your dragons alive longer. They did this for decades.) It’s easy to ding the Bouchers—Bryce (see below) certainly does—for coming up with too many reasons why Flame is immune to PC powers and abilities throughout the adventure. But to me it just feels like an experienced red wyrm doing what an experienced red wyrm who wants to live would do. Flame is smart, more interested in survival than winning, and while he plans to ruin the PCs’ lives as thoroughly as possible, he’ll run if he has to. PCs who survive will be stoked to tell the tale, and that feeling will only be magnified by a massive treasure haul with a number of flavorful items and future adventure seeds of its own.

Other things to note: There’s a slanty tower that’s okay (I’m a sucker for slanty towers), but where it’s placed in the adventure, it will likely be an anticlimax. There are also some big wandering monster encounters—a score of ogres with an ogre magi, two dozen ghouls and ghasts, etc.—that I’d be interested to see how they rebalanced for Pathfinder/5e D&D. I think shows like Game of Thrones have put the fear back into random encounters with large groups of humanoids, so it would be fun to play that out even if the math says the PCs shouldn’t break a sweat.

Is this my favorite adventure? Not by a long shot. But I can see why readers were fond of it and why Flame’s legend persisted.

“Guardians of the Tomb,” by Carl Smith, AD&D, Levels 3–5

That...is some very boring architecture for a shrine. Also, why would a master thief even have a shrine? Especially in a swamp? And while I’m vague on the relative power levels of 3rd–5th-level characters in 1e AD&D, I feel like 2(x PCs+ y retainers) shadows+1d12 even more shadows = a whole damn lot of shadows to trap the PCs with behind an 18th-level wall of stone! Apparently Smith even worked for TSR at some point—did no one pull him aside and say, “Dude! Game balance!”?

I have questions.

Not only does this seem a bit extreme, at least for an unlucky 3rd-level party, it feels personal. This feels like Carl Smith had some players he wanted to teach a lesson. The bio says Carl Smith’s first love is Westerns; I’m guessing he likes the ones about the Alamo or Butch Cassidy or Unforgiven where pretty much everyone dies at the end.

Who hurt you, Carl Smith? Who hurt you?

Best Read: “Assault on Eddistone Point.”

Best Adventure I Could Actually Run with Minimal Prep: All but “Into the Fire” could probably be run after only a second read-through. But I actually want to run “Assault on Eddistone Point.”

Best Concept: As dungeon locations go, a leaning tower that’s leaning because a dragon decided the best way to kill the wizard inside was just to land on the dang thing and knock it over is a pretty good concept.

Best Monster: You always remember your first dragon. So of course, we have to give this accolade to the always-two-steps-ahead Flame.

Best NPC: I’m a fan of the crafty Vorona in “Assault on Eddistone Point,” but the tie goes to the titular elves of “The Elven Home,” who literally want to chat so badly that the party might get attacked by stirges for lingering too long. Don’t overlook the wolfwere in “Into the Flame” though— he sounds like a real a$$#ole.

Best Map: “Into the Flame”’s Lake Haven kinda-isometric hex map, though I also do like seeing the dragon’s volcano lair map with a boat right in the middle.

Best Thing Worth Stealing: A dragon’s volcano lair with a boat right in the middle.

Worst Aged: The magazine’s first adventure hadn’t even started yet and the text was reminding us to look up climbing rules and calculate the PCs’ weights. Yikes. I don’t miss 1e AD&D. Also, the term “magic-user.” Oy. So glad that’s gone. Oh, and alignment tongues! Ye gods, remember alignment tongues? No, you don’t, because they made no sense and no one over the age of 11 ever used one in their game.

What Bryce Thinks: “Wow. I had no idea that 1e adventures sucked ass so much.”

One of the only people who has done in-depth online reviews of old Dungeon issues is a dude named Bryce Lynch over at tenfootpole.org—which is hilarious, because Bryce hates old Dungeon adventures. An OSR (old-school renaissance) fan through and through, Bryce is super particular about what he considers an acceptable adventure. To his credit, he wants adventures able to be easily run at the table, but he also loathes boxed read-aloud text, long backstory, and pretty much anything he regards as fluff. Which means Dungeon, even at this primordial stage of the game, drives him around the twist (as our Brit readers might say)—and it’s only going to get worse. Even so, I’m going to check in on his reviews as we go along, because his laser focus on the GM’s experience at the table is a good yin to my all-about-the-fluff/inspiration yang.

But for what it’s worth...we pretty much line up on our faves for this issue. Go us! Ditto Adam Perdona, whose tastes also seem to line up with mine and who also liked “The Elven Home.”

So, Is It Worth It?: Okay so let’s say you play Pathfinder, 5e D&D, or some other contemporary system. Should you run out and try to find a physical copy of Dungeon #1?

Well...aside from the collector’s value (it is a #1 after all)...probably not. There’s nothing here that screams “Pull me off the shelf”—what pleasures are inside will also be in the PDF.

What this issue does offer is a back-to-basics approach to adventure construction and worldbuilding that I think we sometimes need. Sometimes all you need is some dwarves, some elves, and a dragon. Sometimes we need to forget secret societies and trade disputes and just help a king who’s lost his prince. Think of Dungeon #1—specifically “Assault on Eddistone Point” and “Into the Flame”—like one of those articles you sometimes see in GQ or Esquire: “How to Grill a Steak. No, put down the pesto, put down the chutney, put down the coffee dry rub and remoulade. You’re going to grab some salt and pepper and maaaybe some butter and We Are Going to Grill a Goddamn STEAK.”

If you want fusion sushi, look elsewhere. Are you in the mood for steak? Look for these two adventures.

Random Thoughts:

Editor Roger Moore’s voice in the intro is so stiff—he would be way more assured and relaxed in the ’90s.

It’s a huge nostalgia trip seeing maps in “1 square = 10’” after years of 5’ squares in 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder.

Speaking of maps, they’re still pretty rudimentary here—it is 1986, after all. But I’m pleased that we are immediately getting side or isometric views of some of these locations (especially the towers) to give us a better sense of what these structures look like. I’m a big fan of that.

One of the weird things about published D&D, AD&D, and Pathfinder settings is that, for an ostensibly Middle Ages-inspired hobby, most show surprisingly little interest in the standard medieval trappings. Kings and princes are rare, city-states are the norm rather than feudal kingdoms, and even knights and castles have largely given way to mercenaries and manor houses. I think there are tons of reasons for this—questing knight tropes feeling stale or immature, the gradual shift of the hobby’s default assumptions to early Renaissance and the Mediterranean rather than medieval England, more opportunities for political conflict but with more manageable stakes... (And let’s face it: high-level PCs just love regicide. Oligarchs don’t have targets on their backs the way kings do.) Anyway, I bring all this up because early Dungeon is clearly not afraid of kings, queens, princes, or knights. If your tastes are more King Arthur & Prince Hal than Diplomats & Doges, you might want to check these early issues out.

Comfy rooms that make you sleepy are an overdone trope in this era.

Leaning/slanty towers also get a lot of love in Dungeon—perhaps too much—but I will never not love them.

If a description, even if just meant for the GM, is going to use a simile that takes me out of the game world such as “like Spanish bayonet,” I’d prefer it walled off in parentheses.

A lot of the art inside this issue (especially James Holloway’s) would be reused again and again in the pages of Dragon, including for subscription cards, the No-SASE Ogre, and even “The Voyage of the Princess Ark.”

Notable Ads: An ad for Lankhmar, City of Adventure, for you classic sword & sorcery fans, and the Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide for AD&D.

(Any fans of the DSG out there? I’ve always heard it, like, laid the groundwork for what we think of as the Underdark. But every time I’ve seen a used copy on the shelf I’ve opened to pages and pages of rules about mining and smelting and I’ve closed it in horror.)

This Month in Dragon: Dragon #113 offers a cardboard dragon (assuming you have a physical copy or can get creative with the PDF), a tour of Hades, fiction by Harry Turtledove, and some nasty Gamma World robots. Dragon #114 serves up the witch NPC, the elven cavalier class, and Marvel’s Inhumans.

[busy-with-saving-the-world]

Strange Love

Part 2/?

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4

Pairing: Damian Wayne!Older x Reader

Words: 1712

(Y/N) - Your Name

(Y/L/N) - Your Last Name

Summary: An aspiring young novelist captures the attention of a certain billionare.

Two weeks have passed after Wayne Gala. During this period you caught yourself on a thought of meeting Damian Wayne again multiply times. You wanted to properly apologize for being abrupt to him. You found this rude and were blaming yourself for not thinking before saying. But you had no time for actions. Working on editing your book wasn't something easy and fast in doing.

It'd be honest to say that Damian have thought about you too. When he saw you at first he thought about you like a one night stand but in a process of your conversation he had changed his mind. How you spoke about him buying forgiveness reminded Damian about his past. The weight on his shoulders has renewed. And it was hard not to notice. Especially, when it was his birthday week and his friends were around.

“So, are we going to have a party in manor or somewhere else?”

“Is that really the most bothering thing to you right now, Jon?”

“No, but considering the media mails which are constantly asking about that, you must be bothered with it. Or are you planning a getaway on your birthday?” a playful smile appeared on Jon`s face. “If the answer is yes, I`m in.”

“What? Got tired of being on front page?” now it was Damian`s turn to smile.

“You know I'm always ready to pose but I did actually get tired of being the… how they say? “The less expected friend of Damian Wayne”. I hate it.”

“I love it. And no, I'm not planning any getaway.”

“What a pity. I've already thought about all possible ways how I could exploit you on my father`s farm.”

“Seriously? With your powers your farm could take the first place in some stupid farm competition.”

“There is no farm competition held.”

Damian skeptically looked at Jon saying with his eyes: “Really?”

“Okay, maybe there is, but we don`t take part in it.”

For some minutes there fell silence between young men. Damian and Jon have been friends for more than ten years. Jon was the first friend for Damian and he was more than just grateful to him for that. Even when he became a part of Teen Titans Jon still was a true friend to him. Damian, in his turn, was a person with who Jon could share his life and he didn't need to hide his superhero side from Damian.

“I'm renting a penthouse with a rooftop in Gotham Hotel” Damian was the first to break the silence.

“Cool. I gotta prepare a smoking suit or what?” replied Jon without any enthusiasm.

“Don't bother. It doesn't matter, you'll still be my friend even if you wear a sack. Wear what you want.”

“Well, then be ready for newspapers` headlines which say that your friend is a homeless.” at this time Jon joked.

“Like I wasn't ready before.” Damian mumbled.

“What? You brought this on yourself, Wayne.” with these words Jon jumped on his friend pretending to fight him.

At this very time when the man you thought you had deeply offended had fun with his best friend you were having a little break after arguing about the book cover with the chief designer of Simon`s publishing house. These two weeks you felt unbelievably exhausted. You had no sleep, no rest.

“I talked to Daniel and convinced her to take your idea for the book cover.” Simon entered the room where you were half sitting-half lying.

“Oh, you serious? It`s my book, so I decide what goes on a cover. And if Daniel is a designer she should has a better understanding at her job.”

“Touche, (Y/N). She's a genius designer, you're just being nervous.” Simon responded to you with his calming smile. “Maybe a little party will cheer you up, how do you think?”

“What party?” you asked with no intentions to go anywhere.

“You don't know? It`s Damian`s birthday. Not to brag but I'm a usual guest on his parties even with my age. I think he just feels the immortal youth of my soul.” Simon proudly informed you.

“I honestly didn't know about his birthday coming. And I'm not surprised I'm not getting the invitation.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Um, I kinda offended him last time we talked. But I wouldn`t have time to go there anyway”

“(Y/N), firstly, I think Damian have forgiven your little mistake, secondly, you are going to that party, and thirdly, if you go there, you'll have a chance to apologize.”

“How can you be so optimistic, Simon?”

“I just have a forever young soul. That's it. And now when we're done with personal stumbles I guess we can get back to work.”

You just followed his lead back to the Daniel`s office to clarify the details of the book cover of which you were already sick.

When you finally got home and checked your email first time in three days you was surprised. No. You were shocked. There was an invitation from Damian Wayne to his birthday party at Gotham Hotel. Simon was right but you truly wanted him to be wrong at that moment. You knew you weren't going there. You didn't know what to give Damian as a present and you didn`t want to show up at his party when you were feeling so guilty.

The day of Damian's birthday have come fast. You have decided to go there only to apologize to Damian and to give him a present. You thought that not coming to his party would even worsen the situation. But you wasn't about staying there and having a good time. No. No fun for (Y/N) (Y/L/N). You weren't punishing yourself, you just were too tired for this.

So you put on a pair of ripped on thighs skinny black jeans, a laced silk top with green and black floral print and a pair of high heeled court shoes with the similar print. Having left your apartment you grabbed your black leather jacket and a wrapped in black paper with a red bow wrist watch for Damian.

You already could hear a loud music by approaching Gotham Hotel. Inside the hotel there was a lift specially allotted lift for Damian's guests with a man who checked your invitation, so you knew where to go. When you finally stepped into the room you saw a lot of people partying there and what was really surprising there was no paparazzi. The more you were looking around the more concerned you become, you couldn`t find Wayne anywhere but you caught a sight of his friend as you concluded by photos from newspapers` you had read. You decided to ask him about Damian.

“Excuse me, I`m (Y/N). I can't see Damian anywhere. Can you help me?”

“Sure, I`m Jon, by the way. (Y/N)? I guess I've heard of you. Damian is on a rooftop if you need him.” the man told you with a friendly smile.

“Thank you. But where can I go on the rooftop?” you asked him with an awkward smile.

“Oh, there are stairs in the next room, you'll see it.”

“Thank you again.”

You quickly found the stairs and went up to the rooftop. You instantly caught Damian`s silhouette. He was leaning on a handrails which were put there for safety. His pose perfectly showed you his broad shoulders and how his black shirt stretched on his back showing off his muscles.

He turned his head in direction to the noise you did. Damian greeted you with a tired smile. For a second you got a need to make him happy.

“Happy Birthday” you said, suddenly not knowing what to do next.

“I guess you you brought me a present, (Y/N)” you could swear you caught little hints of tenderness in his voice.

“Yeah, so take it before I`ve changed my mind” you honestly didn't know why at that moment why you acted like that.

A funny confusion appeared on his face.

“I want to apologize” unpredictably for you it just slipped out your mouth.

“For what?”

“I said what I didn`t mean when we first met.”

“You've apologized for that then. And it wasn't that much of insult to me. So you can forget about that.”

“Oh, good. Maybe you'll take your gift already? I`m feeling uncomfortable still having it” you said it in a joking tone handing the gift to Damian.

“Sure and thank you for this.” he took it while slightly laughing. “You always dress like this for parties?”

“You always spend your birthdays by running away from people?” you replied feeling a bit offended but suddenly you caught an expression of sadness on Damian's face, so you quickly decided to change the theme. “I wasn't planning on staying actually. And you know how I dress for the parties.”

“I didn't mean anything bad. I like how you`re looking.”

“You need to be more cheerful it`s your birthday after all. I remember how my grandmother was preparing my birthdays when I was a little girl” you remembered your childhood while looking at the night sky leaning on rails next to Damian. “It felt like a real fairy tail even without any of it's attributes. I loved my grandmother, she was an incredible woman and every day with her was a happy day to me.” Some tears escaped your eyes and Damian noticed that. He was looking attentively at you and you felt confused. “Sorry, I'm emotional person. Cry at movies, cry at advertisements.”

“It's okay. I was close with my grandfather too. But we got our disagreements at one moment.”

You didn't know what to say, you just suggested him a sheepish smiled when he looked at you with all his seriousness. His explicitly outlined cheekbones looked to you even more clearly than previous time. In lunar light he looked unbelievably handsome but that wasn't in your mind then. You looked at his tragic expression and all you was beauty coming from the inside. There was something hidden deep down, something he was disguising. And you wanted to acknowledge that.

[allenmendezsr]

How To Start Your Own Craft Business.

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How To Start Your Own Craft Business.

 Buy Now

    Finally, straight talk on how to start your own craft business doing something you love!

This helpful guide will show you how to start, run, and market a successful craft business that will allow you to earn a healthy part-time or full-time income…

Dear Craft Enthusiast,

If you’ve ever thought about starting and running your own successful craft business — while avoiding some of the most common mistakes made by business newbies and using some of the most powerful marketing techniques available — then this might be the most important letter you’ll ever read.

Here’s why:

How to Start Your Own Craft Business is the definitive guide to showing you the ropes to starting, running, and marketing your own successful craft business. This book is packed with as much information as is humanly possible about making money with your crafts – showing you the fastest and easiest way to get your profitable craft business off the ground.

Look, I know you are passionate about your crafting , and want a way to take your hobby to the next level. Your friends and family tell you that your hand-crafted items are works of art and that you should sell them. They may have even offered to buy some of your craft items from you.

That’s why you want to take the leap of faith and start your own craft business selling your own crafts to your local community (or even over the Internet!). For you, it’s time to stop working for someone else, and start building a future that will replace your current income and allow you the freedom only true entrepreneurs enjoy.

Are you just getting started?

Maybe you’ve just started to explore the possibility of starting your own craft business to see if you’re ready for the commitment. Or perhaps you know you’re ready, but want to be completely prepared when you start to put your craft business together and start spreading the word out about your new business.

Well, you’ve come to the right place because…

This is the most comprehensive guide to starting your own craft business available on the market today!

Now, I know you’re probably skeptical. That’s normal and healthy. Let me give you three good reasons we can back up what we claim:

Three Reasons To Believe What I Say

Reason One: I am the author of the highly-successful quilting business books, “How to Start Your Own Machine Quilting Business,” “How to Start Your Own Quilt Shop,” and “How to Start Your Own Quilting Business.” With over 2,431 copies sold since 2003, these are the leading resources for quilters looking to start their own machine quilting business or quilt shop. I know how to get people started in a craft business.

Reason Two: I have over 17 years of experience in marketing and business management. To me, there is nothing as important as being able to bring customers into your new business in the most effective, least expensive, manner. This business guide offers my expertise in the top marketing methods for a new craft business, including Internet marketing and selling your crafts on eBay.

Reason Three: I’ve spent over a $1,000 and 100s of man hours (worth $1,000s more!) pulling together the most exhaustive, thorough guide to starting, running, and marketing a craft business available anywhere. I’ve tried to leave no stone unturned when it comes to finding out the most effective information to lead your craft business to success. You can take advantage of this investment at a fraction of the cost.

Here’s What’s In this Craft Business Start-Up Kit

1) Comprehensive craft business guide

General business books don’t go into enough detail about the specifics of starting, running, and marketing a successful craft business. This book delivers the step-by-step instructions you need to get your craft business up and running in the least amount of time.

2) Written with the novice in mind

Never run a business before? You don’t have to worry about getting bogged down with over-complicated terms or unnecessary information. This book provides an easy-to-read primer to help guide you through some difficult concepts of starting a craft business and running it effectively.

3) Excellent marketing section

Without customers, your craft business will never take off and quickly die. That’s why there’s an entire section dedicated to marketing your craft business. You’ll see which advertising and promotional techniques will the most useful and effective methods of getting the word out about your new craft business, and for attracting new – and repeat – customers.

4) Helps you decide if a craft business is right for you

Starting any new business can be a bit intimidating, or even downright scary. How to Start Your Own Craft Business takes you by the hand and lets you know everything that you’ll need to do to start and run a successful craft business. With all the right information, you can make a decision on whether or not a craft business is right for you.

5) Learn the ins and outs of craft fairs

Craft fairs are one of the best markets for selling your crafts. Find out how to properly exhibit your crafts for maximum exposure – and maximum sales. Also, learn sneaky craft fair market research tricks to help you find out what items are selling for in your area – an aid when pricing your crafts.

6) Industry statistics and demographics

Discover some interesting facts about the craft market, and how you can get involved in this $21 billion plus market. When you know who your customers are, it makes it easier to gear your new craft business towards those most likely to purchase your wares.

7) Day-to-day business advice

Running a business is not a walk in the park. In fact, it can be one of the most difficult things you’ll ever do. But, with the right planning and attitude, you can take a lot of the “sting” out of the more mundane tasks, like record keeping, accounting, hiring, and more.

And much, much more…

How to Start Your Own Craft Business is written with the business novice in mind. You know crafts and love your hobby. But, you may not know how to start and run a successful business. This craft business start-up guide is designed to give you that knowledge and to help you decide if you want to make that leap from crafting hobby to full- or part-time craft business.

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to what my customers say about “How to Start Your Own Craft Business”

“I found the information contained in “How to Start Your Own Craft Business” the most complete resource available to make your business successful.  It guided me thru all the processes and made it very easy.“ AuraCollins

“VERY USEFUL INFORMATION“ Carmel Ross

“Well thought out and well re-sourced and easy to use and understand.” Sue Mitchell

“I have really enjoyed reading “How to Start YourOwn Craft Business.” It is well set up and easy to follow. I have got alot of ideas and it has helped me alot with my own craft business. Thank you Chuck for showing me how to get started with my business.” Cathy (Australia)

“I have had several home-based businesses during the past ten or so years and feel confident that I had a good understanding of my new craft business. It wasn’t until I read Chuck Smith’s “How to Start Your Own Craft Business” that I realized how little I knew about the craft business. Chuck Smith is able to take complex issues and explain them in an easy and readable way. If you are starting, or thinking of starting, a craft business I recommend this book. It would be a valuable resource at twice the price.“ Cory McIntyre www.dmccreations.com

“Dear Chuck,

Thank you for all of your hard work in putting together this great book “How to Start Your Own Craft Business“.  It is easy to read and understand.  It makes total sense.  You have given me much to think about and have confirmed some of my ideas.  This makes me realize that i am heading in the right direction.

Regards, Denise”

Denise Keely www.paverpolaustralia.com

“This is a great product.  I had plenty of great creative ideas but had no idea where to start in order to make them profitable.  I feel now that I am on the road to a fulfilling career. ” Carla Sherman

“Great book!  Good advice for the beginner.

Although my business has been going several years,it gave me lots of ideas and thoughts.” Anita N www.capricornleather.com

“Chuck,

Thank you so much for the amazing book ! It is loaded with great information and is very easy to read and understand. I strongly reccommend it to anyone who is thinking on starting a craft business. It has everything you need to know in order to get started and be succesful. This is an excellent “How to” package ! Thanks to your book I am now in the process of starting my own online craft business.” J Buell www.Juliescountrycraftshop.com

“I have had a small craft business for over 10 years, without having a business plan. Since reading the craft business plan and time management the pencils have been sharpened! My days are far more orderly and I actually take my business more seriously. I noticed improvements inside a few weeks. Thank you Chuck, the small outlay to purchase your package, has added profits and satisfaction.” Shelley Stevenson

“Thanks to How to Start your Own Craft Bussiness, I am now on the right path on selling my crafts.  Before receiving this I did not know my hand made jewlery cases which I made for friends and family could make me $money. Thanks!” Simone Tate www.starappledesigns.com

Warning: DO NOT BUY any Craft Business Guide unless it meets the following 3 criteria

There is a lot of confusion around starting and running a successful craft business. I want to give you 3 things that absolutely, positively must be in any craft business training you purchase:

Comprehensive Guide: If you are going to start a craft business, you need to know how to come up with ideas for which craft to focus on, how to maximize profits for your business, where and how to sell your products, and especially how to market your new business. The How to Start Your Own Craft Business gives you this basic business information geared towards your success.

Information on Running Your Craft Business: One of the things that can kill a business faster than a natural disaster is not knowing the ins and outs of running a successful business. The How to Start Your Own Craft Business provides insight on the ins and outs of running a successful craft business.

Marketing, Marketing, Marketing: Without a doubt, good marketing can help you create and maintain a successful craft business. This package offers the top methods to get the word out about your new craft business and drive swarms of customers to your crafts.

You get at least 10 times your money’s worth!

How to Start Your Own Craft Business is the result of years of real-world experience and lots of time spent in the School of Hard Knocks. When you purchase, you get a comprehensive guide to starting, opening, running, and marketing your craft business. Other craft business books on the market don’t offer the depth of experience that has gone into the How to Start Your Own Craft Business.

In summary, here’s what you get:

You receive the complete How to Start Your Own Craft Business guide that will take you step-by-step through the process of starting your own successful craft business. You get proven, tested marketing research strategies and marketing advice geared towards crafting businesses. And you get a list of some of the most valuable resources for your new craft business.

If you respond right away, you pay only $67 $47 for the electronic version, available for immediate download . My customers and the professionals who have previewed this craft business package tell me I could sell this information for at least $50 more, so who knows how long this price will last.

Act immediately and receive the following bonuses

Since I know it’s 100% to your benefit to act right away, I want to sweeten the pot and give you every possible reason to say “YES” today! If you respond immediately, you’ll also receive the following FREE bonuses — valued at$136 — available for immediate download after your purchase:

Bonus 1: Craft Business Resource Directory This is a comprehensive listing of resources you can use to supply your craft business. There are listings for craft suppliers, useful information resources, craft publishers, and much more. (Value: $27)

Bonus 2: Craft Business Pricing Calculator I’ve included a simple Microsoft Excel (the most popular spreadsheet program) spreadsheet that allows you to quickly and easily calculate the optimal price for your crafts. (Value: $19)

Bonus 3: “Secret Agent” Market Research Audio Not sure what type of crafts you are going to sell? This short downloadable audio program gives you the a system to discover the best crafts to sell in your area. (Value: $19)

Bonus 4: eBay Selling Special Report I have created a short primer on how to start selling on eBay, which was a great way to learn how to get up and running on The World’s Online Marketplace®. In addition, I’ve collected over 50 articles on eBay selling which are included. (Value: $37)

Bonus 5: Publicity Manual This ebook offers tons of advice on how to use free publicity to boost your craft business. With information on getting in front of the media and creating an avalanche of business, this guide can be your best marketing friend. (Value: $17)

Bonus 6: Time Management Guide No matter what business you are in, time always seems to be in short supply. This valuable ebook shows you how to take control of your time and get rid of all the time killers that rob you of productivity. (Value: $17)

TOTAL VALUE = $136

By the way, these bonuses (worth $136) are yours to keep even in the unlikely event you decide to take advantage of our ironclad moneyback guarantee:

You can’t lose with our 100%, ironclad, moneyback guarantee

Your satisfaction is assured through our no risk, you-can’t-lose, 100%, no-questions-asked, iron-clad moneyback guarantee. If for any reason, you aren’t thrilled and satisfied with How to Start Your Own Craft Business, just contact us within 56 days (a full 8 weeks!) and we’ll refund 100% of your purchase price. No hard feelings

What I’m saying is don’t decide now if this product is for you. Just get it and try it out. If it doesn’t do everything I say and more, if you don’t save money, time and frustration, if it isn’t life-changing, if it doesn’t work for you, you have nothing to worry about because you can get every dime of your money back under our no-loopholes guarantee. So you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Here’s how to order right now!

How to Start Your Own Craft Business is available for immediate download. When you click on one of the order buttons, you will be taken to a Secure Ordering Page. You can use your credit card or PayPal to order online, which is the quickest way to get this powerful information into your hands.

ORDER RIGHT NOW – ONLY $67 $47!

How to Start Your Own Craft Business is available for immediate order and download from a Secure Ordering Page (256-bit encryption so you know your credit card information is secure). You can order using most major credit cards or via PayPal. To order the your copy of How to Start Your Own Craft Business, please click here or on the button below.

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To your success,

Jennifer Kiso

P.S.My customers and friends tell me I’m crazy to offer so much for so little. I have piled on the bonuses (worth $136), and over-delivered on the content of this book. I am testing How to Start Your Own Craft Business at this price with this bonus package for a limited time. Order now to make sure you get your copy!

PLEASE NOTE: Your credit card statement will show a charge from ClickBank or CLK*BANK.COM.

We take your privacy very seriously. You can read our entire privacy policy here.

© 2011 Gryphon Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved. By entering, you agree to our Terms and Conditions. By entering your email address you are also requesting and agreeing to subscribe to our free Craft Business email newsletter. You must be 18 or older to enter. Check out our Free Craft Business Blog.

Gryphon Publishing Inc. 1017 El Camino Real, Suite 373 Redwood City, CA 94063 jennifer at craftbusinessblog.com

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New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/difference-between-yoga-cultural-appropriation-and-cultural-appreciation/

Difference Between Yoga Cultural Appropriation and Cultural Appreciation

Unsure of the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation? Read on to find out. 

When I began contributing to yoga research five years ago, I was invited to a meeting to discuss how to bring yoga and mindfulness practices to university campuses as wellness initiatives. Thirteen out of 15 American administrators and researchers at the conference table happened to be white, the only exceptions being me and another Indian-American woman. The person in charge had thoughtfully invited both of us; though newer to research, we were experienced in yoga teachings because of our South Asian culture and decade-long practices. Entering the room was both moving and intimidating. On one hand, I was honored to share my cultural and personal understandings of yoga. On the other hand, I was one of only two nonwhite people in a group gathering to talk about a practice that originated in India.

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Conscious of my identity, I used yogic principles to set aside my conditioned fears and preconceptions and opened my mind to discussing yoga—the practice of self-realization that has transformed my life.

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See also The First Book of Yoga: The Enduring Influence of the Bhagavad Gita

I soon found myself in respectful conversation with everyone at the table: Yoga and mindfulness-based practices can provide what we call “healing” in Eastern tradition, and what we call psychological and physiological “benefits” in Western research. Although we used different words, we were saying similar things.

Until the middle of the meeting.

One of the administrators said, “We’ll need to create a set of guidelines to ensure absolutely no Eastern symbols, bells, or words are used in yoga classes. We can’t make anyone uncomfortable or offend them by suggesting spirituality.”

I don’t believe that Indian words or symbols are required for people to benefit from yoga, but this leader, who was in favor of creating an inclusive yoga experience “for all,” wanted to remove any sign of the land where the practice originated. She overlooked the fact that two yoga teachers with Indian heritage sitting right across from her were the ones left to nurse our exclusion and offense.

See also The Debate: Teach With English or Sanskrit Pose Names?

Invisible oppression is something many Indians have been forced to endure in quiet pain for centuries. Like when you learn about a popular yoga movement and book jarringly titled No Om Zone: A No-Chanting, No-Granola, No-Sanskrit Practical Guide to Yoga. The title itself normalizes ethnocentric views of yoga, India, and people who chant. The irony of a movement like this is that it renders fear of foreign words while allowing itself to brand and use the Indian practice of yoga, a Sanskrit word signifying “unity” or “yoke.”

Those without access to an in-depth history education might lighten this to a question of political correctness or cries by minorities for cultural recognition. But it goes so much deeper.

Yoga is an ancient spiritual practice of self-realization that originated in India, but, in addition to Indian devotional practices such as sacred dance, it was perceived as threatening, ridiculed, and banned among its own people in its own land under British colonization, beginning in the 1700s and lasting until the mid-1900s. Today, yoga is often marketed by affluent Westerners to affluent Westerners—and Indians, ironically, are marginally represented, if at all. While this multibillion-dollar industry is offering much-needed well-being to Western practitioners, it’s re-inflicting the same violation on India and Indians: invisibility and misrepresentation.

See also A Beginner’s Guide to the History of Yoga

Cultural appropriation is the taking, marketing, and exotification of cultural practices from historically oppressed populations.

What is Cultural Appropriation?

In recent years, conversation has begun around the “cultural appropriation” of yoga. Cultural appropriation is the taking, marketing, and exotification of cultural practices from historically oppressed populations. The problem is incredibly complex and involves two extremes: The first is the sterilization of yoga by removing evidence of its Eastern roots so that it doesn’t “offend” Westerner practitioners. The opposite extreme is the glamorization of yoga and India through commercialism, such as Om tattoos, T-shirts sporting Hindu deities or Sanskrit scriptures that are often conflated with yoga, or the choosing of Indian names.

Yoga teachers and students are starting to ask the questions, “What is the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation?” and “How can I still practice yoga without being offensive?”

See also Do You Really Know the True Meaning of Yoga?

According to Rumya S. Putcha, PhD, a scholar of postcolonial, critical race, and gender studies, we’re still asking the wrong questions. “The terminology ‘cultural appropriation,’ in and of itself, is a way of diluting the fact that we’re talking about racism and European colonialism,” she says. “It undermines what is happening as only ‘culturally inappropriate’ so as not to disrupt mass yoga marketing, leading us to ask surface-level questions like ‘I don’t want to be culturally inappropriate, so how can I show cultural appreciation appropriately?’ It’s not about appreciation versus appropriation. It’s about understanding the role of power and the legacies of imperialism.”

Shreena Gandhi, PhD, a religious studies professor at Michigan State University, and Lillie Wolff, an advocate with Crossroads Antiracism, emphasized in their 2017 article “Yoga and the Roots of Cultural Appropriation” that the goal of these conversations should not be for white practitioners to stop practicing yoga, but rather for them “to please take a moment to look outside of yourself and understand how the history of yoga practice in the United States is intimately linked to larger forces”—such as colonization, oppression, and the fact that a devotional practice that was free of cost for thousands of years is now being marketed and sold.

See also The Timeline and History of Yoga in America

As an Indian-American teacher, practitioner, and writer, I often ponder why this means so much to me and why I can’t offer simple bullet points for what makes something “appreciative” versus “appropriative” of yoga. I just know when I start to feel sick or hurt—like at a conference table when an administrator suggests that Eastern elements, such as bells used to train the mind to focus on the present (dhyana), will threaten the comfort of white American practitioners. Or when the young CEO of a new yoga organization asks me where she can get her 300-hour yoga certification done the fastest, missing that yoga is a lifelong process of balanced living. Or when I see social media celebrities and yoga advertisements promoting athletic, model-like bodies in sexy apparel, potentially encouraging more attachment to items and creating insecurities rather than relieving people of suffering. Or when I’m walking by a shop with my parents, only to see their confusion over why holy Hindu scriptures—which my father can read, being literate in Sanskrit—were printed on a hoodie and tossed into a sale pile.

“I think they don’t realize that these are not just designs. They are words that carry deep meaning for people,” my father says.

See also Sanskrit 101: 4 Reasons Why Studying This Ancient Language Is Worth Your Time

Ask these questions to deeper your understanding around cultural appropriation.

Questions to Ask about Cultural Appropriation 

His sentiments make me realize that many Western yoga companies and consumers are unaware of what they are branding and buying. And that’s what we need to change together, by asking deeper questions such as:

“Do I really understand the history of the yoga practice I’m so freely allowed to practice today that was once ridiculed and prohibited by colonists in India?”

“As I continue to learn, am I comfortable with the practices and purchases I’m choosing to make, or should I make some changes?”

“Does the practice I live promote peace and integrity for all?”

Educating ourselves, like the practice of yoga, can be seen as an evolutionary process. Start where you are. You may have already developed a lot of awareness that is becoming more finely tuned. And for some—Indian or not Indian, experienced yoga practitioners or not—this article is a first-time exposure to something you never realized.

See also The Wake-Up Call Yogis Need to Bring ‘Real Yoga’ Back Into Their Practice

Rina Deshpande is a teacher, writer, and researcher of yoga and mindfulness practices. 

Christopher Dougherty

About our author

Rina Deshpande is a teacher, writer, and researcher of yoga and mindfulness practices. Having grown up with Indian yoga philosophy, she rediscovered its profound value as a New York City public school teacher. For the past 15 years, she has practiced and shared the benefits of yoga across the globe. After studying yoga and mindfulness as self-regulation at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she designs curriculum for science research and K–12 education. She is the author of Jars of Space, a new book of handwritten and illustrated yogic poetry. Learn more at @rinathepoet or rinadeshpande.com.

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In 2017, I bought and read Maud’s Story, a 2013 self-published/Vanity Press book written by my Aunt Charlotte LeBaron — my Mother’s brother Verlan LeBaron’s first wife. 

It’s a short book consisting mainly of letters supposedly written by Maud Lucinda McDonald LeBaron* — letters run-together in often hard-to-decipher paragraphs more akin to vignettes. 

It appears, at the time of this book’s writing, Aunt Charlotte still held fast to The Church of the First Born. This I assume because “Maud’s Story” contains a revised version/a rewrite of the history and teachings of the “Prophet Joel LeBaron” saga; wherein she turns the tale upside down and Joel into a martyred Prophet. By so doing, she shows, though not intentionally, how religious myths are made.

Maud Lucinda McDonald LeBaron is my maternal grandmother, of whom I’m “the spittin’ image” — I was always told while growing up. The above photo of her looks so much like me at that age, I look at it and think it is me. I can’t tell the difference!

When I saw, on Amazon.com, Aunt Charlotte had published my Grandma Maud LeBaron’s story, I spent $4.00  … and three hours reading it. Such was its brevity. That even includes the many times I had to re-read parts, attempting to understand what the heck had been said.

Suffice it to say, the book was no bargain! It left me wanting more. It’s supposed to be Grandmother LeBaron’s story; but missing in the biography are many tales Grandma used to tell about her life.

Nevertheless, nobody else has published anything much about Grandma Maud. So I’m glad Aunt Charlotte wrote as much as she did. “If you don’t like how the story was written, write it yourself,” they say.

Still, I resent that Aunt Charlotte used Grandmother Maud: She wrote a book “about” Grandma that was largely meant to draw in Grandma’s progeny, relatives and others; and convert them to her’s/Charlotte’s and Uncle Joel’s Church of the Firstborn doctrine — a la Charlotte LeBaron’s viewpoint, however — if they were not already members of Joel’s church. In that sense, Maud’s Story really should be “Charlotte’s Story.” 

I was disappointed “Maud’s Story” wasn’t imbued with more of Grandmother’s colorful history. And disgusted she borrowed heavily from The LeBaron Story — a book my mother Esther LeBaron Spencer largely wrote — without stating she was quoting from that book; let alone crediting my mother.

She includes in her booklet numerous “Quotes from Grandma’s Notes.” Doesn’t write much, otherwise, about Grandma. Perhaps, to get more of Grandma’s history, Charlotte expects us to read The LeBaron Story, a manuscript consisting mostly of my mom’s work that Aunt Charlotte helped her husband Verlan LeBaron compile, finish, and publish.

Both The LeBaron Story and Maud’s Story strike me as an apologist’s story written to preach the Church of the Firstborn/CotFotfot doctrine. 

In other words, Maud’s Story‘s general flavor is biased and provincial. It whitewashes and glorifies the Alma Dayer and Maud Lucinda McDonald LeBaron family, making them, the Mexico-LeBarons, look like a Godly family with a saintly mission.

I find this covert preaching of the CotFotfot dogma distasteful — especially the revising of its doctrine and history to make it more palatable than it was when my Uncles Ervil and Joel LeBaron first spawned this sect/cult in 1955—a take off from their older brothers Ross Wesley LeBaron Sr. and Ben LeBaron’s cults, as well as other Mormon fundamentalist cults.

 To summarize, Aunt Charlotte has white-washed history in The LeBaron Story and Maud’s Story so as to turn Uncle Joel into a Prophet, Saint, and Martyr. And his untimely murder into a Modern-Day Cain and Abel Story. But there’s a lot more to this dirty tale than meets the eye. So “Charlotte’s Story” is as much a myth in the making as it is a revisionist-history’s gold mine.

My final thoughts on Maud’s Story: Grandmother should have given a sermon or two in church if she was as erudite and well-versed in the cult’s dogma as she appears to be in Charlotte’s short biography where she uses Grandmother Maud to preach Joel’s dogma.

In truth, Grandmother was a musician and homemaker … no Scriptorian! She left the preaching and proselytizing up to leaders in the cult; preferred to be in the kitchen cooking and feeding people, when she wasn’t teaching piano lessons and taking care of kids and the homestead.

Perhaps Aunt Charlotte didn’t know it but William Preston Tucker (my now-deceased husband) and my Uncle Ervil LeBaron put their heads together to write those letters Charlotte says Grandma wrote to Spencer W. Kimball!

I was there at the time. I recall these two leaders of the LeBaron Church/cult talking about how they could use Grandma Maud as a ploy to get the President of the LDS church to read their [LeBaron cult] literature because she had grown up with Spencer W. Kimball.

They figured he would read a letter from Maud, his childhood friend, though not literature from her sons and their LeBaron cult. (So they were sneaking up on Pres. Kimball by way of Maud.)*

Suffice it to say, Aunt Charlotte wasn’t honest about the story of how my Uncle Joel became the self-proclaimed One Mighty and Strong. Therefore, I don’t trust much of what she relates in her book. I know for sure, for example, Grandmother Maud DID NOT write most of those letters Charlotte credits her with.

You only have to look at Grandma’s “Notes ‘n’ Quotes” Charlotte wrote “in Grandma’s own words” to get a good example of how Grandmother wrote. When you carefully compare “Grandma’s words” to those eruditely-written letters to Spencer W. Kimball, you can see they were NOT written by Grandma LeBaron.

A final word: Should anyone consider doing a reprint of Maud’s Story, please get a good Editor to go over it beforehand. Also, do not run Grandmother’s “Notes ‘n’ Quotes” together as if they were one organized piece. They’re not!

They are short vignettes, and should be separated as such; so the reader isn’t hoping to find the rest of the tale in the next paragraph, only to be left hanging by the tail — for a whole new tale takes up in the next paragraph!

*”Ghost writing“/deception was the name of the game when I was sequestered in the LeBaron cult in the 1960s. The sect’s two leading Scriptorians My Uncle Ervil LeBaron and my husband William Preston Tucker would write the exposé or such. Then publish it with whatever name or signature they thought would be most impressive and most likely to convert those receiving the literature.

(Comments transferred from Facebook”:)

Says Moira Blackmore:

I knew Maud, she went out of her busy days by visiting me all alone in Galeana with my 4 baby girls, and when their were shooting guns in my back neighborhood… thank you Steff … I love you, Maud, I love Charlotte as well, years later … 

  My response to Moira: I appreciate your feedback, Moira, and your attempts to always be positive and loving. That’s what makes the world go around. I’m so happy Grandma visited you and helped lift your spirits during a very bad time.

I remember her being concerned about your being over there alone; and her begging someone to take her over to visit you. I do not remember who she got to do the driving as she could not drive.

And now I’m getting off onto a bunny trail: I know she visited you out of care and concern for you and your situation. But she was also often there for visitors and people she was trying to help convert to the cult. Converts meant more people saved, more tithing money — and consecrations of all their wealth to the Bishop’s storehouse!

Such money was largely how Grandma and her sons managed to survive down in the Mexico-LeBaron colony. Especially was more money needed as each of her sons married more and more wives who bore more and more children. 

Given her help with the church’s conversion of new members, it seems aging Grandma Maud had no energy and time left over for her own hundreds of grand, great-grand, great-great, and great-great-great-grandchildren, and so on and on … not to mention her thousands of other relatives ad infinitum.

During the two years I lived at home, before I was married off at age 16, I recall only a few times after we moved to the LeBaron colony that she ever came by her daughter/my mother Esther LeBaron Spencer’s place to visit; even though we lived within walking distance of Grandmother Maud.

 Nor did my Grandmother Maud ever visit me, once I was married, even in my hours of need and desperation; although I lived within walking distance of her.

I may as well have not had a grandmother. But she did help Mother a lot after my father died. By then I was 18 and married — no longer living with my mom. 

When I was fourteen and we moved from the United States to where Grandmother Maud lived in Mexico, I had thought: Now I will finally have one of those grandmothers I have so often read about in children’s literature and so longed to have as I was growing up. 

But Grandmother Maud, though she had favored and spoiled my mama when she was raising her, was never emotionally there for me nor the rest of my mother’s thirteen other children, as far as I know. Not much, anyway.

For me, she never was a grandma that made cookies for her grandkids, let alone did she give us grandchildren any other gifts. Nor even hugs. She always had a big twinkling smile for me and her other grandchildren, though; whenever we saw her at church or elsewhere.

 Our Family was not a hugging-touching family. But pioneer-woman Grandmother was also simply overwhelmed and overworked, given her primitive lifestyle and her monumental duties; including being the church pianist and the colony’s piano teacher.

To put it succinctly, there was simply no way my ever-aging grandmother could muster all the time and energy needed to keep up with her exponentially growing progeny. She was already 68 years old when my family moved to the LeBaron colony; I was 14 years old then.

I had always lived within walking distance of her, while in the LeBaron colony; so she did come by three or four times, after I was married, to give me some piano lessons. She was around seventy-three years old then! Thanks, Grandma! 

But, other than that, in the four years I lived near her, and on my own, after I was married at sixteen, Grandmother dropped by one other time — though not to see her new grandchild, my first child, that I had almost died giving birth to, at age seventeen. My baby and I were simply taken for granted, as was generally the custom there!

 The reason she came by that one other time was to take back a piece of piano sheet music she had given me that she now wanted to turn around and take away from me to give to an investigator of our cult who was a pianist! I told Grandma, “No! You gave the music to me!! It’s mine now! I want it. You can’t take it back to give to somebody else!”

Grandmom was furious with me for not giving it back to her so she could gift it to the investigator of our “Church”! Getting converts — new people into God’s work — was part of her and her sons’ bread and butter. So that investigator was more important than I, her granddaughter. On top of that, she treated me as if the music still belonged to her, though she had given it to me the year before. Such “Indian trading”! 

Now I know where Mother learned this taking-back what she had given me, as if she still had tabs on it; so could turn around, whenever she wanted to, and give it to somebody else — even though I still very much wanted it and it belonged to me!

I never knew what to depend on. Then you wonder what causes schizophrenic kids? I’m at least sure this behavior did not help any. 

Bottom line: When there are lots of kids and relatives, they are not highly valued. They get taken for granted. They are pawns in the hands of the powers that be and regularly sacrificed for “the cause”!

     Rachel LeBaron Anderson:

 The BIG question: “Will what you are going to say improve the world by being said?”

    Steph Spencer Good question, Rachel! I ask myself that important question all the time as I write my Memoirs!

  Rachel LeBaron Anderson You are bringing healing to the younger generations trying to make sense of everything, building strong roots, many generations will be glad someone wrote things down.

  Steph Spencer Thanks so much for this insightful response and feedback! As always, Rachel, you show wisdom and intellect. Your remarks are much appreciated and will help me as I take time to make sense of everything on my end. That is certainly one of my goals!

    Dena McLean I enjoyed reading this book, not only to learn about family but specifically learn more about my Great Grandmother Maud. I know the story is all in perspective but I like to hear all perspectives.

Even if I don’t agree with the religious views, I find it fascinating how they chose Joel LeBaron, Alma’s priesthood keys and all the people connected to each story and then trying to find them in genealogy. Right now, I’m trying to discover if the man who baptized Maud was John Smith, as in Joseph Smith’s brother’s son or another John Smith. I hope to find some truth.

Steph Spencer Thank you for this valuable feedback. As always, I’m impressed with your scholarliness. To be sure, Charlotte’s Maud’s Story is skewed: It attempts to convert people to the belief that Joel was a true Prophet, etc.

Aunt Charlotte Kunz LeBaron was there pretty much from the beginning of Joel and Ervil’s “Church,” but chose to change how Joel got the “priesthood keys,” et cetera. Newcomers to the story believe her fabrications. That’s how myths are built.

Review of Charlotte LeBaron’s “Maud’s Story” Post updated.View Post In 2017, I bought and read Maud's Story, a 2013 self-published/Vanity Press…

[a-alex-hammer]

Colin G Platt On Peer-to-Peer – Bits on Blocks

Last week I went out with for a beer and pizza with Colin G Platt of Blockchain Insider fame after we did a podcast interview about my book The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains at the 11FS office in Devonshire Square in London. Quite appropriately we settled down at the The Bell, a pub in east London and sometime home of the Ethereum London meetups, and talked about how peer-to-peer cryptocurrency payments are.

Here’s a summary of our conversation. Obviously it is heavily edited and we’re not as witty or eloquent as this in real life (well I’m not anyway).

Colin: So… I read your post. Bitcoin transactions aren’t peer-to-peer eh? I beg to differ. I think they kinda are.

Antony: Well you see, I’m not talking about the network architecture; the nodes themselves are peers and share data with each other without a central coordinator. That’s definitely peer-to-peer.

Colin: I’m not talking about the nodes. We agree on that bit. I’m talking about the transactions.

Antony: Ok so let’s talk about transactions – the tokens themselves. What is a token? In the physical world when I hand you a fiver from the Bank of England, that’s a peer-to-peer transaction. That goes from my hand to your hand.

Colin: Quite, and there is no one who can censor that.

Antony: We’ll leave censorship resistance for another time, but let’s focus on peer-to-peer for now. But that’s not what happens with Bitcoin or Ethereum or any of those cloud based accounting systems.

Colin: Yes, I think I know this bit from your blog post.

Antony: What happens with those is I create an instruction in my wallet then send it to 10,000 bookkeepers to validate it. They forward it to the 10 or so miners who write it to a block, and then the 10,000 bookkeepers store it in their ledgers. Every bookkeeper debits my address and credits your address-

Colin: Wince emoji-

Antony: and that’s not peer-to-peer at all! You, as the recipient, weren’t involved in that process at all. You didn’t even need to exist! How can that be peer-to-peer?

Colin: What was it for?

Antony: What was what for?

Colin: Why did you pay me lots of Bitcoins?

Antony: It doesn’t matter. I paid you Bitcoins for, I dunno, shilling my book?

Colin: So the transaction was done between you and me, peer-to-peer. The business, the deal-

Antony: Yes, but that’s not the payment-

Colin: So let me introduce you to the three parts of *moving* money: (1) The transaction (2) The payment message (3) The settlement.

Antony: Go on… And keep it simple with examples please.

Colin: Ok, you’re at a restaurant and finish your meal. You’ve created an obligation to pay-

Antony: I like the word obligation. We have that in Corda, in Roger’s tokenisation kit for developers.

Colin: Shut up about Corda for one minute, would you?! You’ve created an obligation to pay. That’s the transaction – the business that sets up the debt. Is that peer-to-peer?

Antony: Yes. Me and the restaurant.

Colin: Is it peer-to-peer irrespective of how the restaurant lets you pay?

Antony: Yes.

Colin: Even if you pay in Bitcoins.

Antony: Eye roll emoji. YES. That’s got nothing to do with the payment, that’s the business transaction.

Colin: Ok great, so we have the transaction, payment, and settlement… The transaction is peer-to-peer. Let’s now think about the payment. How would you like to pay, sir?

Antony: Everyone in London seems to tap their cards now. It’s nuts. Think of the personal data they’re giving away with each tap. Think of the personal privacy implications! Then Visa fails for a while like it did a few months ago and everyone doesn’t know how to pay. That’s why I like cash. No bank is going to monetise my data while-

Colin: Focus, Antony.

Antony: Ok the payment – I guess it’s physical cash, debit card, credit card, bitcoins, whatever.

Colin: And when is the payment done?

Antony: Well it’s obvious isn’t it. It’s when the cash goes into their till, or when their card machine says “Approved” or after 6 blocks on the blockchain-

Colin: Or 5.

Antony: Or 1.

Colin: Or uncomfirmed.

Both: Hahaha yeah whatever.

Colin: So that’s the payment. But is it settled?

Antony: Well with physical cash, the payment and the settlement is the same. With a debit card where the money is in the restaurant’s bank account instantly, it’s also settled, or at least within a few seconds. Credit card I guess settles a few days later or whatever based on how good the restaurant was negotiating with their bank. Bitcoin in theory never really settles so it’s a bit of a hot potato, but in practice 6 confirmations should be ok, probably shorter for a coffee and longer for a house or a lambo.

Colin: So you could define settlement as “When the recipient can re-spend it“.

Antony: I guess so… Like I remember when you deposited a cheque and your bank account would update your balance and show you that you had it coming, but it would only be available to take out of a cash machine a few days later. I guess it has settled when your bank lets you take it out of the machine.

Colin: Finally, we’re there. We’ve talked about the transaction, the payment, and the settlement.

Antony: Yes, that was good. I haven’t really thought about it like that before. What about a cheque in the post? I hate cheques.

Colin: I hate cheques too. I guess in that case the payment isn’t a point in time, it’s more the full process from writing the cheque, telling me you’ve written it, putting it in the post, me receiving it, and me walking down to the bank and depositing it. That’s the payment. The settlement is when my account is credited and I can spend the money.

Antony: Ok fine. There are so many issues with cheques but let’s move on. So what?

Colin: Which bit of the transaction, payment, and settlement is not peer-to-peer in Bitcoin?

Antony: The transaction, as you define it, is peer-to-peer. I guess, the way you define it, it always is. I mean, all deals are done bilaterally. When do you ever *not* do a deal directly bilaterally?

Colin: I thought you worked in financial services. Trading on exchange, in a central limit order book? Clearing? Novations? Give-ups?

Antony: Oh yeah, of course, when you trade on an exchange you do a deal with someone anonymous and then pay yet another party, the clearer.

Colin: Or in crypto-

Antony: Yeah well in crypto the exchange is also the clearer because people trust that the guys running the exchanges won’t run off with the money…

Both: Hahaha when will they learn? / I know right?

Antony: So, the transaction that creates the obligation to pay is bilateral, but the Bitcoin payment – that’s not peer-to-peer. We talked about the payment as the handing over of cash from me to you or the tapping of a debit or credit card. In Bitcoin I guess the payment is, hmm. What is it?

Colin: It’s when you create and sign the Bitcoin tx and you publish it to the network and when the recipient see it has been sent to the network. An unconfirmed transaction – in the mempools but not yet in a block.

Antony: Yes, but whose mempool?

Colin: I suppose it’s the one that the recipient is looking at. So it’s a bit vague, and depends on their level of sophistication.

Antony: And when it has been mined in a block that has been accepted by the node that the recipient is looking at, I guess that’s the settlement? The settlement is defined by the recipient… depending on how many blocks they want to wait.

Colin: Exactly.

Antony: So Bitcoin’s settlement isn’t just probabilistic, it’s probabilistic AND defined by the recipient. Mind. Blown.

Colin: Galaxy brain gif.

Antony: Ok where were we? Oh, the settlement. Which we defined in Bitcoin as the movement of a block from the miner to the node that the recipient is watching,

Colin: Yes, well, one block or 6 or whatever. Antony, tell me, is the movement of blocks peer-to-peer?

Antony: Yes of course, we covered that. It’s a peer-to-peer network with no central server.

Colin: So the business transaction is peer-to-peer, the payment is not because you push it to the network, and the settlement is peer-to-peer.  So “Bitcoin is not peer-to-peer” is nonsense.

Antony: Well the settlement isn’t peer-to-peer – it’s not me to you. It’s peer-to-peer between the miner and the node being watched by the wallet. But, that’s not what I was trying to get at. I was trying to say that nothing moves between the sender of a bitcoin and the recipient, so it’s not a peer-to-peer token like physical cash. In fact Corda is the most tokenny blockchain because in Corda the data that represents the item of value, the money, the asset, whatever, physically moves from my hard drive to your hard drive. So in that respect it’s more like a token, unlike the public blockchains which are cloud bookkeeping services.

Colin: Stop shilling Corda solutions. I have to do enough of that on the show. Now, back to your earlier comment I wince emoji’d at – you said that the miners and nodes “essentially debit and credit bitcoin accounts in the cloud“.

Antony: Yes, in the “tokens vs account balances” debate, Bitcoin and Ethereum are more like account balances (ie addresses) being debited and credited by loads of computers almost simultaneously instead of by, say one single bank HSBC or wallet like Paypal or Uber wallets or whatever. They are not tokens!

Colin: But it’s not a debit and credit.

Antony: Yes it is! Minus one bitcoin against my address, plus one bitcoin against your address. Debit, credit. Number go down, number go up.

Colin: Tell me, bitcoins are different to money right? They are no one’s liability yet they are an asset to the holder.

Antony: Yes, Bitcoin is different to electronic money. Electronic money is all recorded as an obligation from the issuer (could be a bank, a wallet, or a central bank) ie it’s a liability of the issuer-

Colin: Yes I know that-

Antony: Bitcoin is more like physical gold. It’s no one’s liability. That’s why it’s more like a commodity than like fiat money.

Colin: So clever cloggs, if it’s not anyone’s liability and it doesn’t sit on anyone’s balance sheets except mine and yours, whose liabilities are debited and credited when you send me a bitcoin?

Antony: Err, ok, point taken. No one’s. But I still like to think of Bitcoin’s blockchain as a big accounting ledger in the sky – a transactional one, with the nodes as bookkeepers and the miners as recorders. We can agree on that?

Colin: Yes as long as you don’t use the words debit and credit.

Antony: Number go down, number go up.

Colin: Number go down, number go up.

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Source/Repost=> http://technewsdestination.com/colin-g-platt-on-peer-to-peer-bits-on-blocks/ ** Alex Hammer | Founder and CEO at Ecommerce ROI ** http://technewsdestination.com

[beckypatterson1]

What can you STOP doing to reach your goal?

I want to share a secret with you. 

Every year since 2015...

I’ve resolved NOT to do something.

While everyone else is resolving to lose weight, start working out, read books...

I eliminate.

Here’s why (and how it works for me)

#1 I’m GREAT at quitting

I do it all. You could say I’m a pro.

Might as well use my strengths to my advantage! ;)

It is easier for me to STOP doing something than it is for me to start something up.

For example, it was easier for me to quit drinking wine with dinner than it was for me to start and continue going to boot camp three times a week at 6am.

Sure I missed having a drink, but not buying wine (or pouring myself a glass) was much easier to implement and do than go to the gym.

I also got the same results: I lost the last 3 stubborn pounds and saw less puffiness in my face and midsection.

I also had the BONUS UPSIDE of being more rested, not only because I got to sleep in later but because I wasn’t hungover and bleh from bad sleep and wine the night before.

Similarly, it was a lot easier for me to resolve that I’d stop reading emails, texts, and blog posts after I’d sent or published them… vs. coming up with a way to to get more things done at work.

BONUS UPSIDE: This practice helped curb my crippling habit of overthinking and obsessively analyzing.

I’d been ‘trying’ not to “overthink” and to stop “second-guessing” myself for years, recognizing it was an energy waste AND that as a strong, independent, educated woman I should have more self-confidence…

Yet no amount of self-help books and inspiring internet memes seemed to be IMPROVING that little problem for me, but this… the not re-reading thing? WORKED.

I found myself with more time, more mental energy, improved productivity overall, and a general growing confidence in myself!

Trust is something that builds slowly (and is hard to measure) but now that it’s been 4 (?) years since that resolution, I can see, very clearly, how much more trusting, confident and SECURE I am with my communications.

That practice (not re-reading) was also a testament for me that sometimes you just need to cut the monster off at the head.

THE BEST RESOLUTION YET.

This year (2018) I resolved to stop JADE’ing and it’s been r-e-v-o-l-u-t-i-o-n-a-r-y

JADE = Justify, Defend, Argue, or Explain.

I do not JADE.

I do not justify, argue, defend, or explain myself.

I maintain a power position instead.

I’ve talked a lot about this on Instagram and also in this blog post. Quickly, I’ve stopped justifying, explaining, arguing, or defending myself to others (especially preemptively!) and to myself.

Here are a few responses I use:

“I don’t need to justify that” “I am not going to argue with you.” “I do not need to defend my belief. It’s okay that we disagree.”

For the first 6 months, I was surprised to see I did the JADE thing to MYSELF a lot. I was justifying eating cookies, or not going to yoga so I could sleep longer, or leaving work early.

Following my “No JADE” resolution, I stopped justifying and arguing with myself.

Interestingly, soon after I noticed other people stopped trying to get me to do it too. I had reclaimed a position of power.

I also found when I stopped justifying and arguing with myself, I had a lot less shame and guilty feelings. In other words, I simultaneously lost the need to “defend” myself TO MYSELF.

A quick point of clarity: I may still need to “educate” (offer a clarification or fact to an honest inquiry) or apologize (I find an apology is best served without JADE!) but justifying, explaining, arguing, or otherwise trying to get someone to “see the light” is no longer a job I keep applying for.

The freedom, energy, time, mental space, and POWER this simple practice can give you is astonishing and it may be my FAVORITE resolution yet :)

What is one thing you can STOP doing to reach your goal?

Another example: I wanted to spend less money, especially “Shopping.”

In the past, I resolved to “create and stick to a budget” (it didn’t work). I even tried creating rules like “I won’t buy coffee, only make it!” (also didn’t work)

You know what DID work? Unsubscribing from all retail emails (i.e. Target, Express, Kohls, Amazon, Nordstrom, Payless, Wayfair, Michaels, REI, etc).

I was hesitant to worry I’d miss out on a sale, but I’ve learned two things:

#1, I save so much not being on their lists (impulsive shopping is the devil) that it’s okay if I pay full price

#2 I still never pay full price because I always find a coupon code.

Here’s another rad example that’ll blow your mind. My friend Emily wanted to “eat healthier” (this was her 2018 resolution).

Emily considered using my meal planning App, but was hesitant because she wasn’t vegan/plant-based.

I didn’t argue with her ;) I kept listening instead.

She listed all the things she considered… meal delivery like Plated or Blue Apron (“They’re too expensive for me”) taking a cooking class (“I don’t really want to waste my weekend at school”), buying cookbooks (“It seems like even more work to do all that planning yourself. Shopping list? Ugh”) and so on.

I asked Emily what it was that she was eating now that’s NOT healthy.

“Everything,” she told me.

I didn’t believe that but… you know, I resolved not to argue ;)

Instead I said, “Okay Em, then what is the least healthy thing you eat regularly?”

Her answer was glazed doughnuts. She told me she didn’t eat them every day, but on the days she stopped for coffee, she bought one. (They’re smartly placed behind the cashiers so you can’t help but see them).

A million “solutions” ran through my head:

Make coffee at home

Resolve to “give up” doughnuts

Make Overnight Oats for the week

Order Oatmeal instead

Except I knew Emily was already TRYING to do those things. I also knew from my own experiences that tacking MORE on wasn’t the solution. I wondered what Emily could “quit.”

Then it hit me. “What if you quit going into the coffee place? What if you just do the drive-through?”

Emily explained she had gone in because it was faster. She’d sit in the drive-through longer. I asked if she could “work” while waiting in her car and she said yes, she could do her emails or make some calls.

That was it. That was the solution. Emily stopped going into the place and guess what? She stopped eating so many doughnuts, which made her feel good about herself, and when you feel good about yourself, you tend to eat better and make better choices, and so on. Emily didn’t have to DO MORE, she just had to do 1 thing less.

ABILITY trumps motivation

Most of us are already too busy.

Asking more of yourself is HARD.

Success has to be possible.

Less has to be more.

With all of my private clients, this one sentence rings true the most:

“SUBTRACT a bad habit to subtract pounds.”

Most of my clients thought they weren’t working hard enough or that in order to lose weight, they needed to be “perfect.”

It makes me so happy to show them the opposite is true.

That they don’t need to cook everything from scratch, obsessively read labels, count calories, hire a personal trainer, or stop watching Netflix. Those could be solutions, but most often they just need to stop doing a few things like drinking beer most nights or buying ice cream every week.

Sometimes they have to first investigate WHY they are doing those things before they can stop doing them.

For example, sometimes they need to find a new hobby like knitting or writing poems or building bird houses so that food and dieting isn’t their hobby. Almost all of them need to give themselves pleasure--taking baths, having alone time, being sweet to themselves, etc EVERY DAY so that they don’t turn to food for pleasure. (I talk more on this in the Feeding the Soul Without Food workshop if you want to learn more).

To close out this post I want to say that my elimination-resolutions stuck.

I’m not saying there weren’t slip-ups occasionally, but my “success” has been consistent and for YEARS. I’ve had zero success with other types of “goals” and “resolutions” where I’m tasking myself with more chores.

I suppose the one exception was when I resolved to read a book a week, although that was as a plan to STOP working so much (and that worked!) Another example of cutting the monster’s head off ;)

Bottom line: I always manage to accomplish my “goals” (lose weight, save money, get organized, enjoy life more) but NOT doing something.

WITHOUT adding anything else to my life or to-do list. Plus it’s nice not to have the added pressure to do something else, or feel disappointed when I can’t do it.

Don’t make your life harder.

Make it EASIER.

What is one thing you can STOP doing to reach your goal?

from Recipes Blog https://happyherbivore.com/2018/12/what-can-you-stop-doing-reach-your-goal/