#you just talk in circles around the fact that your entire campaign and argument is you place your comfort

[martyrbat]

[ID: a screenshot of a cropped Tumblr post that has a water filter over it. The post reads: ‘We HAVE to stick together and vote for Biden. It [SUCKS] and feels like we're betraying those he and his administration has hurt and helped slaughter, but WE HAVE NO CHOICE! Vote blue. Then rain down your hatred again after he wins. We CAN sway Biden with enough pressure. We CANNOT sway Trump.’ END ID]

"you idiots are never going to move that mountain out of the way by pushing it. what you should be doing is pushing this cliff instead"

[avelera]

I've been talking with a few people irl about the TikTok ban and I was wondering if I could get your take on it? (iirc you work in election security). Mainly I'd like to know why TikTok/China is *uniquely* bad wrt dating mining/potential election interference when we've seen other companies/governments do the same thing (thinking of the Russian psyops here on Tumblr in 2016). It feels like the scope is so narrow that it doesn't come close to targeting the root problem (user privacy and data mining as a whole), leading me to think it's only point is "ooh China Scary". Thoughts? (No worries if you'd rather not get into it, I just thought of you as someone who might have more insight/informed opinions on the matter).

So I'm not really familiar with all the details of the case and certainly not all the details of the bill. But I will give my perspective:

TikTok as a particular threat to users' data and privacy has been known for some time in the cybersecurity world. US government employees and contractors have been straight-up forbidden to have it on their phones for some time now. I, for example, have never had it on my phone because of these security concerns. (Worth noting, I'm not a government employee or contractor, it was just a known-to-be dangerous app in the cybersecurity world so I avoided it.)

This is because the parent company, as I understand, has known connections to the Chinese government that have been exploited in the past. For example, to target journalists.

Worth noting, another app that would potentially be on the chopping block is WeChat, which also has close ties to (or is outright owned by?) the Chinese government. This is just speculation on my part but it's based on the fact that all the concerns around TikTok are there for WeChat too and it has also been banned on government devices in some states, so I imagine it would be next if the bill passes.

I think this is important to note because I've seen some hot takes here on Tumblr have said that the entire case against TikTok is made up and there is no security threat. That is simply not true. The concerns have been there for a while.

However, the question of what to do about it is a thorny one.

The determination seems to be that so long as TikTok is still owned by its parent company with its direct ties to the Chinese government, there really is no way to guarantee that it's safe to use. From that angle, demanding that the company sever ties and set up some form of local ownership makes sense.

I am not a lawyer, but, that being said, forcing them to sell their local operations to a locally-based buyer is a pretty invasive and unusual step for legislators to take against a private company, even in a clear case of spying. I'm sure TikTok's widespread popularity is a big part of the threat it poses, which lends to the argument used to justify such an extreme step. (Because it is on so many phones, it really could be a danger to national security.)

That said, at one point young activists on TikTok embarrassed Trump (lots of good context in this article) while he was campaigning in 2020, and there was some talk then about shutting it down which seemed pretty clearly linked to how it was used as a platform to organize against him. I'm sure there's at least some right wing antipathy towards the app that has a political basis going back to this event. Trump signed an executive order banning it, the ban going into effect got bogged down in the courts, and then Biden rescinded that executive order when he got into office, pending an investigation into the threat it posed.

Those investigations seem to have further confirmed that the Chinese government is getting access to US user data through the app, and further confirmed it as a security threat.

Now, to muddy the waters further, there's several dodgy investment funds including one owned by former Secretary of the Treasury to Trump Steven Mnuchin that are circling with an interest to buy TikTok if it does sell. That's very concerning.

Funds like Mnuchin's interest in purchasing TikTok (even though they do invest in other technologies too, so it is in their portfolio) definitely makes the motivations behind the sale look pretty damning as momentum builds, that it could be some sort of money grab here in the US.

China has also pointed out that forcing the sale of a company because of spying concerns like this opens a whole can of worms. If China thinks that, say, Microsoft is spying on their citizens, could they force the US company to sell its operations in China to a Chinese investor? Could they force Google? Could they even further polarize the internet in general between "free" and "not free" (as in, behind the great Chinese or Russian firewall, as examples) if this precedent is set, so that no Western companies can operate in authoritarian states without selling their local operations there to a government-controlled organization, and thus be unable protect their users there? Or, if you don't have so rosy a view of Western companies, could it effectively deal a blow to international trade in general by saying you have to have to sell any overseas arms of a company to someone who is from there? Again, I'm not a lawyer, but this is a hell of a can of worms to open.

But again, this is muddy because China absolutely is spying on TikTok users. The security reason for all of this is real. What to do about it is the really muddled part that has a ton of consequences, and from that angle I agree with people who are against this bill. Tons of bad faith consequences could come out of it. But the concerns kicking off the bill are real.

[snarkymonkeyprime]

Oh hai; more of the sci fic weirdness that is eating my brain.  No Dean here but maybe plot?

Given how little had resulted from the autopsy, Castiel went with the only lead he had; that of the former Councilwoman’s successor, Balthazar Severin.  To his annoyance, the flamboyant civil servant was currently not in his offices nor at his home; he was instead traipsing about with donors and other hangers-on in an over-priced, gaudy ballroom in one of the grander buildings downtown.

He bit back an annoyed groan as he called out the address.  The car’s communication screen flickered and announced pleasantly, “Please buckle up for safety,” before sliding into the fast-paced traffic of the early evening.  

As he rode, Castiel pulled out his case tablet, flicking through the information he’d gathered. Rebecca Errol had been hounded by scandal in the last few terms of her Seat.  Everything from purchased votes to greased palms over development deals.  Little wonder why Severin had managed to be win by such a large gap.  Not that Castiel saw much difference.  The Council had long since been a localized but fully corrupt replacement of local governments.  Only really shocking concept was that states continued to function at all.

A half hour later, he arrived at the ballroom.  He left the car and it dinged as it sped away, searching for a parking space. Given it was Friday and relatively early, Castiel believed his car would simply end up circling until he called it back after his interview.

I hate the city, he admitted.  He ignored the valet’s look of superiority and flashed his ID screen.  The man’s face paled and he gestured rapidly.

At least some things still work.  The wide entry to the ballroom was brightly lit and full.  He didn’t stifle the look of disgust.  All this opulence and for what?  Ego stroking?  The amount of money spilling from the crystal chandeliers and elaborate buffet tables would certainly be better served elsewhere.  Not that he could voice such an opinion.

He asked about quietly, seeking the newest councilman.  He found him rather by accident, talking with a tall brunet nearest the open bar.

Both men turned at the same time as Castiel stepped close.

“Councilman Severin? Might I have a word?”

Before the man could respond, the younger, taller one held out a hand.  “I’m Sam, his attaché.  You can make an appointment with his office in the morn-“

Castiel held up his ID screen.  “It’ll take only a few minutes.”

Balthazar tapped Sam on the shoulder and inclined his head to the left when the man looked back.  “I do so love it when he’s aggressive.”  He grinned at Sam’s annoyed squint.  “What, Agent Novak, might I do for you this fine evening?”  He sipped his drink, pale eyes on Castiel’s.  

Maybe I just hate people, Castiel grumbled.  He pulled out his case tablet.  “Last night, Rebecca Errol was murdered at her campaign headquarters.”

“So sad,” Balthazar muttered.  He waved away Sam’s groan of protest.  

“Might not be the best reaction,” Castiel pointed out, hiding his smile at Sam’s look of no shit he threw at Balthazar.  

“You’d have a harder time finding someone who liked her over someone who didn’t,” Balthazar drawled. He shrugged.  “In any event, I don’t know why you’re bothering me with this news.”

“Councilman Severin, you have to understand why I’d be asking.”  Castiel fought back a yawn.  He didn’t truly believe the man had anything to do with her death.  Even the idea of hiring an outsider appeared laughable. Balthazar was many things but from what little Castiel knew of him, he was too lazy to engineer assassinations over something as small-time as a Council Seat.

“Please, call me Balthazar. You make me sound so old,” he wheedled.  

“Fine.  Balthazar.  You’re an obvious suspect given your past in regards to Errol.”

Balthazar pulled a face. “Oh, yes; she and I were fond of our public tête-à-têtes, were we not?”  He held his half-empty glass loose in be-ringed fingers.  His gaze wandered the room, flickering about like a moth distracted by a wildfire.  One could think him well beyond the intoxication of the socially-acceptable; but Castiel could see the pale blue eyes that roved were still sharp and clear.

Balthazar caught his look and smirked, before swallowing the last of his drink.  “My condolences to my predecessor but you’ll no doubt find I have not been in her presence – or in fact, near her base of operations – in nearly a fortnight.”  He didn’t lift his gaze from Castiel’s as he replaced his glass with a full one from a wandering waiter.  He looked away then to peer at his drink, shifting it under the myriad lights of the ballroom.  “In fact, I would believe she has been rather naughty these last few months.” He let the glass dangle from his fingers.  “Perhaps those avenues are better traveled?”

Castiel ignored the question.  “Have you ever actively hired Alters?”

Strangely, Balthazar glanced at Sam before answering.  Any sly humor had tempered as he responded.  “I don’t seek them out, no.  I may have hired them in the past but not with any intent.  Mods are rarely so useful to require purpose.”  His flirty, drunken behavior vanished entirely.  He stood straighter, glass forgotten in his hand.

The man was a chameleon. Castiel could see why he’d been able to win the election so handily, even with Errol throwing money at every corner. Balthazar appeared to be expert in behaving exactly as expected or desired, no matter the venue.  But beneath that shifting exterior peeked a cunning awareness that Castiel found far more interesting.

“Why?” Balthazar asked, tone low.

“Her killer is thought to be one.  He, uh, removed her mods.”  She didn’t have many.  One in her left ear for communicating with staff and cash card chips on the back of her right.  He showed the crime scene, her right arm ending in a bloody stump and the left half of her head torn away, exposing bone and brain.

“Bloody hell,” Balthazar breathed, his face pale.  That reaction alone was enough to convince Castiel that Balthazar had no hand in her death.

The other man took effort to tear his eyes from the photo.  He cleared his throat and pushed Castiel’s tablet down and out of sight.  “I may not have liked the woman but I never wished her dead.” He turned to Sam and leaned in, whispering low.  

The other man frowned but nodded.

He turned back.  “Why do you think an Alter is involved?”

Castiel flicked through his tablet, pulling up the same distorted image he’d shown the shop owner at Winchester Station earlier.  “This.  This was the last person seen around her compound before the morning when her body was found.”

Balthazar grimaced.  “Unfortunate looking soul,” he muttered.  He shook his head.  “I am genuinely sorry she suffered like that, but I’m afraid I’ve nothing to offer.”  He held out his empty hand.  “Nor have I seen that man before.”

To Castiel’s surprise, Sam took the tablet from him, frowning at the image.  “Do you think her mods had anything to do with it?”

“Not at present, no,” Castiel replied slowly.  He retrieved the tablet.  It was an avenue he was considering and found it interesting that a councilman’s attaché had clued in so quickly as well.  Everything about the crime scene spoke of a serial killer with intent.  This wasn’t an assassination.  He’d taken his time with Errol.  Careful and methodical.  Though, his superiors were quick to indicate anything but.  To them, the easiest and cleanest answer was a political argument turned bloody.  Castiel feared it something more.

It resembled two other unsolved cases he had.  In far too many ways.  The grotesqueries.  The destroyed mods.  The time.  He hadn’t exaggerated when speaking with the shop owner; he was certain this killer targeted Alters.  And given Errol’s demise, apparently even ones with minor mods.  Which meant more than half the population at this rate.  

He eyed Sam, watching his reaction.  “Do you have information?”

Sam blinked in surprise. “Er, no.  Sorry.  I just . . . her body getting damaged like that.”  He drew his hand along his mouth and shuddered.  He coughed and looked toward Balthazar who watched him carefully.  “I’ll, uh, have flowers sent to her office in the morning, Councilman.”

Balthazar nodded, a slight smile on his lips.  “So thoughtful, Samuel.”  

Castiel turned off the case tablet and returned it to his coat pocket.  “Chances are, it’s as you intimated; an enemy of hers.  Possibly angry over her election loss.”  He tugged on the collar of his coat.  “I’d be more suspicious of you, Balthazar, if she’d died before votes were cast.”

Balthazar’s grin was cold. “Indeed.”  He raised his eyebrows.  “Well, if I’m no longer needed?”

Unwilling to consider the avenue closed, Castiel nodded.  “For now.”

There was no missing the narrowing of pale eyes.  “Do help yourself, Agent,” Balthazar purred, gesturing to the excess around them.  “As a dutiful servant of the Council, you’re more than welcome.”

Castiel worked a hollow smile.  “Thank you, but no.  I’ve still plenty of work to do.”  He touched two fingers to his temple in a false salute.  “I’ll be sure to leave a message with your office when I’ve more to discuss.”

“Until then,” Balthazar murmured, raising his glass.

Castiel felt two pairs of eyes on his back until well out the ballroom’s false opulence.  He glanced over his shoulder as he headed toward the street and noted both men were now huddled together, the taller one’s hands motioning quickly in agitation.

He frowned.

Something there.  Something to pursue.

Outside, the cold musty air a boon compared to the stuffy confines off the ballroom, he tapped a code on his wrist.  The medallion he wore there vibrated and quite quickly he heard the soft hum of his car as it approached.

He slid into the vehicle with a grunt and directed it to home.  A fruitless day, in the end.  He’d done little more than unearth new questions.  He tapped a code into the console of his car, opening his private computer link.

“Yes?”  The soft, male voice filled the cab of the car.

“Run a search on Winchester Station.  I want to know who owns the building, who runs it, anything.”

“Yes, sir.”  A click and the AI disconnected.

He rubbed his jaw, wondering why his instinct wouldn’t let him risk the public channels.  Why only the ones provided by his old friend, Gabriel. Paranoid, maybe?  Yet, some quiet part of him knew it a wrong turn to use the Department’s servers.  Given their insistence on this being an assassination and Castiel knowing it spoke of worse, he figured he may as well give in.  For now, at least.

He sighed and ground his knuckles into his eyes.  “I’m turning into him, probably,” he muttered.

Thinking of Gabriel reminded him that he owed his friend a visit.  Maybe Gabriel had heard something.  Or knew who might have performed the killer’s mods.

Or knows who performed the shop owner’s.  He sat back in his seat, eyes unfocused as street lights and head lights turned into streaks of brilliant white and gold.  Something very strange there.  Mods so well hidden were expensive.  And if that were true, why would someone with that kind of financial access work in a backwater repair store like that?

He sighed and shut his eyes, settling in for the long drive home.

“What I wouldn’t give for an ordinary murder.”

[ibijau]

Part 2 of That Age Reversal AU

warning for canon typical violence, and for, like, all of Nightless City :)

Bent over some ancient maps of the region around Nightless City, Nie Huaisang barely noticed his brother entering his tent. 

The Sunshot Campaign, so far, was going decently but not great. It had been easy in the warmth of summer to make war, but now that winter was settling in, new difficulties were encountered on their side. Nie Huaisang, useless as a commander of men and a tactician, at least participated in the effort by organising supplies lines so they wouldn't run out of food and medicine. 

It wasn't the most glorious of tasks, and Nie Huaisang knew he would get out of that war without a title, no matter how important his contribution. It suited him just fine.

Still, he would have liked for some of the other sect leaders to cooperate with him a little more. They were all always begging for supplies, yet refused to contribute money or any goods from their territories, not until he sent Nie Mingjue to threaten them for it. 

And now Nie Mingjue had returned from the Langya front, hopefully having obtained something, if not from Jin Guangshan himself, then at least from one of his allies.

"So, how are things over there?" Nie Huaisang asked, never looking up from his map. It was so ancient, from back before Qishan Wen had risen to such prominence, but it was the only one he'd found in their library and he was trying to compare it with his memories of past travels to Nightless City. 

When his brother remained silent too long, Nie Huaisang finally looked up his way. He instantly worried at seeing Nie Mingjue so sombre. 

"Did something happen?" 

Nie Mingjue hesitated. Instead of answering, he came closer and pulled Nie Huaisang into a hug. It happened more and more these days. The initial glory of fighting for freedom was melting away, and Nie Mingjue was starting to realise what messy affairs wars were. It had become even worse since Meng Yao's departure, with Nie Mingjue’s temper rising too easily sometimes. Nie Huaisang tried to make him meditate as often as possible and closely monitored his spiritual energies, still traumatised by the memory of their father's death. 

"You're so quiet tonight," Nie Huaisang complained lightly, as if this weren't anything more than a mild annoyance. "Come on, say something. If you don't want to talk about the war, give me news of Meng Yao. Did you get to see him?" 

Nie Mingjue tensed, and the hug turned so tight that it was nearly painful. 

"I saw him," Nie Mingjue muttered. "They made him a foot soldier, like any normal recruit." 

Nie Huaisang sighed, and patted his brother's back. Of course he had expected that, knowing Jin Guangshan, but Nie Mingjue still held illusions about fairness and justice. 

"It's their loss," Nie Huaisang said firmly. "And Meng Yao is too clever to stand for it very long. It's good for him to see first hand how the Jins are, so he gets over his obsession with his father. That way, when he comes back to us, he'll know…" 

"He's not coming back," Nie Mingjue snapped. 

"Is he dead?" Nie Huaisang gasped, unable to see any other reason why their friend wouldn't return to them. Meng Yao knew they valued him the way Jin Guangshan never would. Aside from death, what could keep him from them? 

"He's not dead," Nie Mingjue hissed. "But he's also not coming back. He's made his choice." 

Relaxing a little, Nie Huaisang once more patted his brother's back, then rubbed little circles into those tense muscles. Of course, it was normal for Nie Mingjue to feel a little betrayed once he realised Meng Yao had really left them. And Nie Mingjue was only seventeen, with a heart too big and a mind still too soft, he felt everything so intensely. Whatever he said now, Nie Huaisang was certain his brother would welcome Meng Yao with open arms when he came back to them, and help organise his courtship with Lan Xichen. 

It would be so nice when things fell into place. 

"Da-Ge, you really like Meng Yao a lot, don't you?" Nie Mingjue asked. 

"I do."

"Weren't you disappointed when he left us?" 

Nie Huaisang grimaced. 

"A little, but you and Xichen were so excited about doing this for him, and… He needed to make that mistake to understand. I know he's a good and serious young man though, and ultimately he'll make the right choice. And when we have him back, we're not letting him go again! Not unless a great beauty comes begging to marry him."

"He's not coming back," Nie Mingjue stubbornly insisted, making his brother roll his eyes. 

Ah, teenagers could be so stubborn! This would be a lesson, not just for Meng Yao, but for Nie Mingjue as well. And when they had both learned it, they'd all be happy together again. 

-

Quiet wasn’t a word Nie Huaisang would have ever thought of using to describe the Unclean Realm, but upon returning there after the war, it was the only one that fit. Those high, thick walls felt safe in a way they hadn’t in years. The disciples making noise during training seemed peaceful compared to what Nie Huaisang had heard during the war. There were no more battles, no more wounded to care for, no more dead to bury with what little respect they could manage when they needed to be so hasty about it. Nie Huaisang’s office, a cramped room that saw little sunlight, felt like the height of comfort after so many months in a draughty tent where he always ended up getting mud on his clothes.

More than that though, the Unclean Realm felt safe because finally the elders had all been forced to accept that Nie Mingjue and him weren’t just foolish children playing at ruling. Nie Mingjue had proved an amazingly competent leader of men whose troupes adored him, helped in this by the fact that they had never lacked in any of the supplies they needed thanks to Nie Huaisang’s careful organisation.

Nie Huaisang wasn’t so foolish as to think he no longer had enemies, not after so many years of fear, but for the first time since his father’s death he felt certain that he had more allies than opponents.

It was an odd thing to feel safe again in his own home.

All Nie Huaisang needed to be happy was for Nie Mingjue to finish recovering from what he had suffered at the hands of Wen Ruohan, and then all would be well.

It really was the only stain on the many victories they’d obtained during the war. The fact that Wen Ruohan had managed to capture Nie Mingjue, that he had hurt him… But it was in the past now. Nie Mingjue was better, almost entirely recovered, and arguing daily with the healers for the right to get out of bed. Another week, the healers said, and so that morning, as he walked out of his brother’s room, Nie Huaisang privately gave it about a day before Nie Mingjue became too bored and ignored their orders.

With this consideration in mind, Nie Huaisang headed to the training ground to give some orders to the masters in charge. He couldn’t stop Nie Mingjue from doing as he liked, but he could at least make sure others would keep an eye on him and mind he remained reasonable during practice.

It was there, in the main courtyard, that Nie Huaisang discovered Lan Xichen. The young man, who was following his first disciple toward the building that contained his office, smiled brightly when he spotted him, and immediately walked his way at a pace so quick it came rather close to running.

“What a pleasure to see you, Lan er-gongzi,” Nie Huaisang greeted him. “Ah, no, my apology… it’s Zewu-Jun now, right?”

“Please don’t call me that,” Lan Xichen begged, blushing and wringing his hands. “It’s embarrassing, and we’re friends, right?”

“I just don’t want to be disrespectful to a great war hero. Mingjue is very keen on letting others people call him Chifeng-Zun, it’s getting to his head a bit. He’s such a brat. And I suppose you’re here to see him?”

Surprisingly, Lan Xichen shook his head.

“Hopefully I’ll talk to him later, but first I wanted a word with Nie zongzhu, if possible? I need your help with something that concerns your brother.”

“Then I cannot possibly refuse,” Nie Huaisang replied. “Let’s go somewhere more private, Zewu-Jun.”

“Nie zongzhu!”

Nie Huaisang laughed at the younger man’s outrage and embarrassment, glad to see that even after everything they had all gone through, at least this remained the same. It really was such fun to tease Lan Xichen.

A few moments later, the two of them were in Nie Huaisang’s office, and Lan Xichen finally explained what his problem was.

“Nie zongzhu, you know that your brother and Meng Yao… that is, Jin Guangyao have had something of a falling out during the war?”

Nie Huaisang nodded. Nie Mingjue had refused to give him any details, but apparently the two had had an argument of some sort, shortly before Meng Yao left to become a double agent at the court of Wen Ruohan. Nie Huaisang had some vague suspicions that the argument might have been about that very decision to act as a spy, something which Jin Guangshan now claimed to have ordered. Knowing Jin Guangshan and Meng Yao both, Nie Huaisang rather suspected that the young man had gone off on his own in a new attempt to gain his father’s attention, which had sadly worked.

“They were such good friends,” Lan Xichen sighed. “And I like both of them so much, it really pains me that they cannot seem to reconcile. A-Yao really wants to, you know! And he’s so sorry for what he had to do while pretending to work for Wen Ruohan. I know that Mingjue is angry at him for it, but he really had no choice, it was the only way he could save him.”

Nie Huaisang nodded again. This too, his brother refused to talk about, and so he had only heard it from Lan Xichen. But apparently, after Nie Mingjue and some of his men had been captured, Meng Yao had killed those Nie disciples to amuse Wen Ruohan, all while waiting for a chance to kill the tyrant. Yet Nie Mingjue had only seen this as a betrayal, and would have killed Meng Yao if Lan Xichen had not pointed out that their friend had saved him.

Nie Huaisang, who would have slit open anyone’s throat, even his own or Lan Wangji’s, if it could have saved Nie Mingjue, simply failed to understand why his brother remained so stuck on this. It was sad, yes. He would have preferred for their disciples to make it alive, because they were his too, certainly. But sacrifices had to be made sometimes, and ultimately Nie Huaisang cared for nothing but his brother’s well-being.

For saving Nie Mingjue, Meng Yao had Nie Huaisang’s eternal gratitude.

“Mingjue can be a little stubborn,” Nie Huaisang said, which they both knew to be an understatement. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do about this situation.”

Lan Xichen smiled nervously, twisting his fingers.

“I have an idea, but I’m not sure Mingjue will like it. If I had your support, though… he listens to you and values your opinion so much, if you support it, I’m sure he will agree!”

“You overestimate the power I have over my brother,” Nie Huaisang chuckled. “I’ve never even gotten him to eat his vegetables. But go on, tell me your idea, Zewu-Jun.”

Lan Xichen bit his lip, and closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath.

“I was thinking Nie Mingjue, A-Yao, and me could become sworn brothers,” he announced. “That way, they’d have a better chance to spend time together and reconcile! And it would be good for A-Yao to have friends outside of Lanling Jin. Even if Jin zongzhu has recognised him, I don’t think any of them really see his worth. But if he’s sworn brother with a future sect leader and with the brother of another sect leader, then they’ll have to treat him with more consideration, right?”

He sounded so innocent and hopeful, Nie Huaisang wanted to lean over and pinch his cheeks like he would a child. Lan Wangji really had the best little brother, and Nie Huaisang envied him to have someone like that at his side, instead of a wilful brat. If things had been different, Nie Huaisang really would have tried to steal Lan Xichen away.

“It’s not a bad plan, but it’s not exactly a good one either,” Nie Huaisang pointed out. “Nie Mingjue is too stubborn to accept this. And besides, if you swear brotherhood with Meng Yao, won’t it make it awkward later down the line when you marry him?”

Lan Xichen, always perfect and elegant even in the middle of battle, gaped at him with an expression of mild horror so ridiculous that Nie Huaisang couldn’t help laughing.

“Sorry, was that supposed to be a secret? Your brother kind of spilled the beans.”

“My brother told you I want to marry Jin Guangyao?” Lan Xichen gasped, the horror on his face getting worse.

Nie Huaisang grinned, and waved his hand.

“Something of that effect. He told me you had a person in view, and of course I’ve seen how you are with Meng Yao, so it was easy to draw a few conclusions. I can only wish you great happiness, although I will say that I’m upset you kept it secret from me. I thought we were friends, Lan er-gongzi.”

Lan Xichen gaped some more, opening and closing his mouth a few times, much like a very pretty goldfish. He then closed his eyes and, like before, took a deep breath before speaking again.

“Nie zongzhu, although he is very dear to me, I have no such intentions toward Jin Guangyao,” Lan Xichen proclaimed in a pinched voice.

“But there is someone,” Nie Huaisang teased, still a little pained that his friend had kept such a secret from him. “Come one, tell your Huaisang-ge about the boy you like. Is it someone I know? Does he like you back? I know it’s a boy, Wangji said as much, but he wouldn’t say more.”

“Brother talks too much,” Lan Xichen muttered, a heavy blush spreading on his face. “I haven’t said anything because I thought Nie zongzhu had enough problems on his own without being burdened with this. When we wrote to each other about my brother and Wei Wuxian, didn’t you always say you had no time for that sort of things yourself?”

Nie Huaisang waved his hand. “My case is different. Who can think of romance while raising a brat like Mingjue? I refuse to consider it at all for the moment, I’m too busy. Maybe when he’s sect leader, I can think about that... But that doesn’t mean I can’t make a little time for gossip now,” he added with a mischievous smile. “Zewu-Jun, tell me about your boyfriend. I need to make sure it’s someone worthy of you. Obviously Wangji thinks he is, or he’d have put an end to it, but Wangji has awful tastes so that doesn’t say much.”

“Nie zongzhu, please stop teasing me,” Lan Xichen begged. “You really don’t know?”

He looked so distressed that Nie Huaisang, for a moment, truly felt sorry for poking fun at him like that. At the same time, his curiosity was piqued. If both Lan brothers thought it obvious who Lan Xichen liked, how could he have missed it? Even with Lan Xichen being a kind and sweet boy who treated everyone warmly, including an old man like Nie Huaisang himself, there had to have been signs which he had missed.

Nie Huaisang told himself it was just that he saw Lan Xichen as another little brother and so the idea of him being in love was mildly unpleasant, but even that didn’t sit quite right. After all, he’d been delighted from the start by Nie Mingjue’s angry little crush on Jiang Cheng, while the idea of Lan Xichen liking anyone just displeased him.

Maybe it was just that nobody could ever be good enough for this boy who smiled like the sun.

“Let’s make a deal, Zewu-Jun,” Nie Huaisang offered with a devious grin. “If you tell me about your boyfriend, I’ll support you when you tell Mingjue about your idea of becoming sworn brothers.”

Lan Xichen inhaled sharply and pinched his lips, looking as if he might cry.

“Nie zongzhu, that’s not fair. The two things have nothing to do with each other!”

Nie Huaisang nodded, his grin growing wider. “Zewu-Jun, life is unfair.”

Lan Xichen looked down at his hands, fidgeting nervously. It was the most anxious Nie Huaisang had ever seen him, and as the silence between them started to stretch, he found it worrying. Lan Wangji clearly approved of the match, meaning it couldn’t be an awful one, nor an impossible one, so what could have made Lan Xichen so fearful to reveal it?

Nie Huaisang, feeling the other man’s anxiety be passed on to him, was about to call off the deal when Lan Xichen took a deep breath. He then looked right into Nie Huaisang’s eyes and spoke with new determination.

“I cannot give a name,” he explained, his voice trembling slightly. “This person isn’t free to be courted at the present, and I do not wish to add to his troubles. But I… I like him very much, and I have hopes that he at least likes me a little. It will be a few years before he is free to live his life as he pleases, but when he is… when he is, I will do my best to make him fall in love with me.”

“Isn’t it troublesome to have to wait like that?” Nie Huaisang asked, surprised by that dedication. “I remember being nineteen, I wouldn’t have had the patience to wait for anyone.”

“This person is worth it,” Lan Xichen replied vehemently, his face the brightest shade of red Nie Huaisang had ever seen. “He really is, and I really hope I can convince him to let me have a chance when the time comes.”

He sounded so hopeful and determined that Nie Huaisang couldn’t help being touched. For a reason he couldn’t quite name, he also felt envious of this mysterious man. His own experience with romance had been people attracted by his status as sect leader, or people trying to trick him into letting his guard down to plot against him and his brother. Hopefully he might get a chance at something a little less tainted once he was finally free to step down in favour of his brother, but even then he didn’t expect to ever provoke the sort of passion that Lan Xichen apparently felt.

“That man would have to be a fool to not fall for you,” Nie Huaisang stated, trying not to sound too bitter. “But if he is a fool, come to your Huaisang-ge for comfort and we’ll see what to do. Maybe I’ll decide to seduce you and keep you here in the Unclean Realm. That way you can at least become Mingjue’s brother, and we have much better food here than the Cloud Recesses.”

Lan Xichen quickly looked down. “I would very much like to be Mingjue’s brother, yes,” he whispered.

Nie Huaisang could only laugh at his quiet eagerness. He leaned over the table to gently tap Lan Xichen’s burning cheek.

“You really are such a sweet boy, I’m glad my brother and you are friends. Now, there’s an easier way for you to become his new big brother, so let’s go talk to him about your idea. He won’t like it, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea anyway, but I promised to help and so I will.”

Before Nie Huaisang could move his hand away, Lan Xichen grabbed it in both of his and squeezed it gently. To make matters worse, he then smiled that beautiful, bright smile of his, the one that really did make Nie Huaisang want to steal him away from his sect.

Maybe it was for the best that Lan Xichen wasn’t his little brother, because Nie Huaisang would have let him get away with too much, even worse than he already did with Nie Mingjue.

That night, when everyone had gone to bed, Nie Huaisang heard a specific knock on his door. Even recognising the signal, he grabbed his sabre on the way to greet his guest, but as expected it was only Nie Mingjue, alone and looking calmer than he had that afternoon when Lan Xichen had presented his plan.

Nie Huaisang couldn’t help smiling. That was just like his brother to act like that, exploding with emotion at first, only to later give things a more thorough consideration once he had calmed down. He silently invited his brother to come in, and quickly closed the door behind him.

While Nie Huaisang went to sit crossed legged on his bed (heavy conversation could be had in comfort), his brother decided to remain standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. He’d grown so tall, and yet he still looked like a little boy sometimes, shy and uncertain about what to think about complicated situations until he had checked his emotions and thoughts with his big brother. Nie Huaisang was going to miss that, the day Nie Mingjue realised he didn’t need him at all to make his mind about things.

“Do you really think I should do it?” Nie Mingjue asked. “What Jin Guangyao did was… it was really bad. I know he saved me, but I didn’t want to be saved like that.”

Nie Huaisang gave the question some serious consideration, now that he wasn’t distracted by Lan Xichen’s infectious optimism.

“It would put you in a delicate position,” he admitted. “Since you’re the youngest, you’d owe him respect, which you can’t seem to give to anyone except Lan Xichen.”

“And you,” Nie Mingjue protested.

“Only when it suits you,” Nie Huaisang corrected with a shrug. “But Meng Yao would also have a responsibility towards you, to be a model and a guide. And if he fails to act in a way that fits your sense of justice and decency, it would be easier to confront him if he’s your sworn brother. Otherwise, he’ll just be the member of another sect, one we don’t even get along with all that well, so you would have no right to say anything about his behaviour unless Jin Guangshan too condemned him.”

“Which he won’t,” Nie Mingjue bitterly grumbled. “But I don’t know if I can trust Jin Guangyao at all, not anymore. He’s not an honest man.”

“Neither am I,” Nie Huaisang reminded them, both of them knowing to what extremes he had gone in those terrible early years. “A-Jue, sometimes… sometimes the world forces us to make choices that we don’t like. I’ve made those choices, and I would make them again, because you matter than much to me, and I cannot regret them. This will be your choice. I won’t force you to go along with Lan Xichen’s idea, and I won’t even ask that you try to be on good terms with Meng Yao if it is so unbearable to you. But he will remain my friend, and I will remain grateful to him for saving you, no matter what choice you make, and I believe the same goes for Lan Xichen. Do you understand that?”

Nie Mingjue somberly nodded.

They dropped the conversation that night, and did not speak of it again in the days that followed. But in the end, Nie Mingjue agreed to the sworn brotherhood, saying he wanted to keep an eye on Meng Yao and that seemed the best way to do it.

-

It started slowly, a few light drops announcing a storm none of them could have predicted.

On the whole, Nie Huaisang felt little interest in Wei Wuxian’s actions and methods. The boy’s insolence amused him at best, because it infuriated so many of those stuffy sect leaders who had made his own life a living hell whenever they had dismissed him. He was perhaps a little sorry for Jiang Cheng who clearly didn’t know what to do with such an unruly shixiong. And he definitely felt very sorry for Lan Wangji who would never get to marry that chaotic boy now, but he was certain Lan Wangji was reasonable enough he’d recover from it with a little time. In fact, Nie Huaisang was already trying to come up with a list of available ladies of good birth and good cultivation that might suit him better than Wei Wuxian ever would have, anyway.

As for the rest, it really did not concern Nie Huaisang. He had maintained his grip on Qinghe Nie by staying resolutely outside of all those quarrels that other sects enjoyed so much. Nie Mingjue often berated him for staying so neutral, but it was simpler than trying to keep up with all the arguments that were happening all the time.

It was not his problem when Wei Wuxian, at a Night Hunt on Phoenix Mountain, alienated almost everyone present by showing off his methods. All Nie Huaisang cared about was that Nie Mingjue, using only legitimate skills and methods, easily took down half of the preys present that day, reminding everyone that the future leader of Qinghe Nie would be a man above all else.

It did not concern him when Wei Wuxian, on a whim, decided to further antagonise Jin Zixun and steal some war prisoners from him, even turning one of them into a fierce corpse of apparently unprecedented power. Nie Huaisang watched those events unfold, and felt very glad that neither those Wen nor Wei Wuxian were in his charge.

Perhaps it should have caused him surprise when Wei Wuxian seceded from Yunmeng Jiang and established himself with his evil cohort in the dreaded Burial Mounds of Yiling. But at nearly the same time the renewed engagement of Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli was announced, which was a topic worthier of Nie Huaisang’s attention. He ordered new robes, and commissioned a new guan for the occasion. It was a lovely wedding, and he spent most of it chatting with either the Lan brothers or Meng Yao, which was the most pleasant use of time Nie Huaisang could think of.

There were rumour of unsavoury characters gathering at the feet of the Burial Mounds, horror stories about the Ghost General that reached the Unclean Realm, causing Nie Mingjue to worry… but more importantly Jiang Yanli was going to have a baby, and who would have thought Jin Zixuan of all people would be the first in their generation to not only get married but also become a father? It made Nie Huaisang tease his brother about getting on with it already, or else someone else was going to snatch Jiang Cheng right in front of him. Nie Mingjue grumbled something about pots and kettles but refused to explain himself.

Then, for young Jin Ling’s hundredth’s day party, it became rumoured that Wei Wuxian had been invited, and Nie Huaisang felt comforted in his decision not to become involved. Everything was going to sort itself out, as it usually did. So Nie Huaisang enjoyed the party, playing at making Lan Xichen blush, until…

Until someone came in running, saying that Jin Zixuan was dead, that Wei Wuxian had used his Ghost General to murder him in cold blood.

After such a crime, even Nie Huaisang couldn’t refuse to get involved anymore. When Jin Guangshan called a gathering of all the sects in Nightless City to declare war against Wei Wuxian, Qinghe Nie had no choice but to come. To do anything else would have been to side with the Yiling Patriarch, and neither Nie brothers felt any inclination to do so. Wei Wuxian, whatever else he was once, had become a menace to be taken down and eliminated.

But perhaps, just perhaps, Nie Huaisang should have kept his sect out of this mess after all.

Because Wei Wuxian heard about their gathering, about the burning of his two closest accomplices.

To say he was unhappy about it would have been quite the understatement.

Very early on, Nie Huaisang lost track of what was happening around him. All he knew was that there were a great number of fierce corpses attacking them, more powerful ones than his cultivation safely allowed him to fight against. He was forced to stick close to Nie Mingjue, shamefully hiding behind his little brother when it should have been him protecting the younger boy. All he could do was weakly guard his brother’s back, and warning him whenever enemies drew closer.

The fight went on for what felt like hours, bringing wave after wave of relentless fierce corpses that never tired even though the living did. Nie Huaisang became convinced that they would all die there if Wei Wuxian couldn’t be stopped. He begged and begged Nie Mingjue to fly away while he still had the strength for it, so that at least he survived, but Nie Mingjue, pig headed brat that he was, refused to abandon their comrades, refused to act dishonourably even to save his own life.

But at last, after an eternity and a half, the number of fierce corpses diminished, letting them regain the upper hand. Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, who were among the few still standing, were left facing a scene of utter desolation beyond anything that even the Sunshot Campaign had brought. Corpses fresh and old surrounded them, and everywhere all they could hear were the moans of the dying and the wounded rising in the most horrible sound Nie Huaisang had ever heard.

“Mingjue, take care of our people,” Nie Huaisang ordered with an empty calm he hadn’t felt in years, not since his father died before his eyes in a fit of murderous madness. “Do not squander your spiritual energy trying to heal them, but send a message home so those who stayed behind come help us. Leave the dead where they are for now, we can’t do anything for them, but gather everyone who is wounded and can be moved safely. If anyone is well enough to help, make them help. No spiritual healing! We don’t know if Wei Wuxian won’t be back.”

Nie Mingjue nodded numbly, looking lost and small for all that he was so much bigger than Nie Huaisang now. It was tempting to go hug him, to tell him that things would be fine, but Nie Huaisang couldn’t be sure of that, and they had no time for sentiment until they knew what had become of Wei Wuxian.

“Get to it!” Nie Huaisang shouted. “We don’t know how much time we have!”

His brother startled at his tone and turned to obey, but quickly stopped to look again at Nie Huaisang.

“Da-Ge, are you also going to look for survivors?”

“I’m going to look for the Lans and the Jiangs,” Nie Huaisang announced. “They were closer than us, they’ll know more about what’s going on.”

“Then I’m coming too,” Nie Mingjue decided. “I’m not leaving you alone. If he comes back…”

“You will do as I say and help our people!” Nie Huaisang hissed. “Find them, help them, protect them. That’s all you have to worry about for now!”

“But Da-Ge!” his brother protested, stepping closer, only for Nie Huaisang to stop him with a gesture and a hard look.

“For once in your life, you’re going to obey the order I give you, Mingjue. Now get to work! We don’t know how much time we have!”

Nie Mingjue, wilful brat that he was, knew better than to insist. He walked in one direction, while Nie Huaisang hurried into the opposite one, calling out for Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng. If anyone had managed to keep an eye on Wei Wuxian it would be these two idiots who didn’t know when to give up on a lost cause.

Nie Huaisang walked among the dead, shouting and screaming and crying for whoever would hear him, increasingly hopeless to be heard when all around him were nothing but dead and dying people. Then, at last, he heard a voice calling him back.

“Nie zongzhu!”

It was a familiar voice. Too familiar, in fact. Nie Huaisang found himself running on wobbly legs until he reached the young man calling for him, a white shape stained with red. Falling to his knees next to him, Nie Huaisang gathered Lan Xichen in his arms, cradling him close against his chest.

“How are you feeling?” Nie Huaisang asked as he touched the other's cold face, already preparing himself to use what little spiritual energy he had to help the younger man if necessary. “Where are you hurt?”

“I’m not,” Lan Xichen sighed, clinging to him like a terrified child. “It was just so much, I needed to rest, I just needed to rest, but now I can’t get up anymore. What about you? Did they hurt you?”

“Mingjue protected me,” Nie Huaisang admitted, ashamed that he still had the strength to run around when Lan Xichen had fought to exhaustion. “What about your brother? Is he fine? When did you last see him?”

Lan Xichen tensed at the question, clinging to Nie Huaisang so hard that it hurt, hiding his face against the older man’s shoulder.

“He’s gone. He’s gone!” he sobbed. “He left us, he just left us! I thought that he was going to go over and kill Wei Wuxian when he collapsed, but instead he… Huaisang-ge, how could he choose him over us?”

Nie Huaisang cursed. He had thought that Lan Wangji had gotten over this, now that Wei Wuxian had shown his true face. The very fact that the Lans had been there in Nightless City had felt like a proof that Lan Wangji had truly understood there really was no hope for his one sided crush.

Instead, Lan Wangji had only been waiting for a last chance to join the man he loved.

“Xichen, what happened exactly?”

“He ran when Wei Wuxian collapsed, and… we were all so tired, but Brother still had some strength and he flew away with him. Huaisang-ge, what are we going to do?”

“Our best,” Nie Huaisang hissed.

It took some effort to get back on his feet, especially with Lan Xichen leaning on him so heavily, but Nie Huaisang managed, driven by a newly found hatred for the man who, until moments ago, he would have called his best friend.

“Xichen, do you think anyone else saw this?”

The younger man, trembling in his arms, managed to shake his head.

“I don't know. I don't know! I think... Just me, some Lans… there were still so many fierce corpses, I don’t think anyone was paying attention. Huaisang-ge, how could he do this? He’s our sect leader, he’s supposed to be righteous, he’s supposed to be an example, how could he choose that man?”

“He’s an idiot, like his father before him,” Nie Huaisang retorted, pulling the younger man closer to him. “Xichen, listen to me. Nobody can know what your brother did. Nobody except you, your uncle, and whoever your uncle chooses to trust. You hear me? Don’t tell Mingjue, and no matter what you do, don’t tell Meng Yao. It has to be a secret. If anyone knows, they’ll ask for Wangji’s head.”

Still leaning hard on Nie Huaisang’s side, Lan Xichen nodded weakly. 

“We’re going to find your uncle now, and we’re going to tell him what happened,” Nie Huaisang whispered, which got him another nod. “And then, you two are going to save Wangji from himself, and nobody will ever know what happened. Can you walk, Xichen?”

“I think I can,” Lan Xichen mumbled, only to nearly collapse at the first step he tried to take.

It broke Nie Huaisang’s heart to see him like this, wounded and exhausted more than he had ever been in the war, betrayed by his brother. More than ever Nie Huaisang wanted to steal Lan Xichen away to the Unclean Realm so he could be kept safe and happy, among people who would never choose a murderer over him.

But he couldn’t do that. After what Lan Wangji had done, Gusu Lan would need its Second Jade more than ever. They did not deserve him, but they would need him, and Nie Huaisang knew too much about that to really consider this silly fantasy of his.

What he could do, however, was pick Lan Xichen in his arms, the younger man too exhausted to resist the indignity, and help him look for his uncle. There was an odd sense of rightness to it, to holding Lan Xichen so close against his chest, the younger man's arms tight around his neck, like a bride carried into bed, or a child cradled by their mother. If Nie Huaisang had not been so distressed over everything that had happened, he might have questioned it.

But right then, none of that mattered. All that counted was getting Lan Xichen back to his uncle, and then returning to his own brother to check how he was doing. And perhaps when he found Nie Mingjue again, Nie Huaisang would hug him tight, just because he could.

Just because between the two of them, there could never be such a betrayal as what Lan Wangji had just committed that day.

[devinetheory-2]

I found this unnervingly accurate and fascinating.

Things Narcissists Do When They Think No One Is Looking ..

1 – Go through your personal things

2 – Create numerous dating profiles

3 – Try to get in touch with their exes on social media

4 – Visit websites of very dubious merit. KIK Skype etc.

5 – Try to turn your family and friends against you

6 – Plant spyware on your devices or install hidden cameras etc.

7 – Sabotage your finances

8 – Spy on you

9 – Flirt with your best friend (or even your adult children)

10 – Plan secret rendezvous with their side-supply

11 – Hoover old sources of supply (a.k.a., their exes)

12 – Pave the way for their next relationship

If you’ve been in a relationship with someone you suspect is a narcissist, there has likely come a time when you developed a burning desire to know the things narcissists do when they’re by themselves.

If we’re to be sophisticated about it, we must consider that like other citizens of society, they engage in activities that are conducive to maintaining a certain level of livelihood.  Things like going to work, having their cars serviced, and going to doctor’s appointments.

But apart from those harmless undertakings, things turn rather bleak.

Narcissists rarely ever admit to it, but all your worst fears regarding your relationship are playing out just underneath the radar of your awareness.

You know that ever-present, vague sense of dread you have in the pit of your stomach, wondering if they’re lying or telling the truth?  That’s your intuition, which can cause physical sensations in the body.

Our “gut feelings” are called that for a reason — research suggests that emotion and intuition are very much rooted in the “second brain” in the gut.  In fact, Michael Gershon, professor and chair of pathology and cell biology at Columbia, says, “The gut can work independently of any control by the brain in your head—it’s functioning as a second brain.  It’s another independent center of integrative neural activity”.

But don’t take my word for it.  You can read all about it on Psychology Today in an article titled, Your Backup Brain.

My job here is to give you a breakdown of what the narcissist in your life – employing very specific techniques of psychological depravity – does when they think no one is looking. Hidden secrets that would literally bring you to your knees…

Here, I map out thirteen of the most common things narcissists do when they think no one is looking.  The possibilities on this topic are endless, but the following is a sampling of the ones I’m most familiar with, some of which I personally experienced. 

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Things Narcissists Do When They Think No One Is Looking ..

1 – Go through your personal things

Narcissists are constantly doing things that they will eventually be confronted with.  Therefore, they spend inordinate amounts of time trying to dig up the most minuscule piece of incriminating evidence against you so that they will have ammunition when they are finally caught.

Many times, what they find “incriminating” is just a figment of their imagination or something entirely fabricated.  For example, I used to work in the banking industry for years before I left to become a teacher and, later, to create this space for narcissistic abuse recovery.

As a bank employee, I wore suits which required me to wear pantyhose.  One day, I accidentally tore a hole in a pair of them and discarded them in the trash.  My ex, during his regular “dirt diving” practice, found them and confronted me with them, accusing me of having been unfaithful.

Of course, he was entirely wrong, but you can probably imagine how it turned out.

Long story short, narcissists engage in sneaky, underhanded behaviors every day. In many cases, they think other people are like them, but just better at hiding it.  In others, they simply want to have something to throw in your face when you discover they’re still doing ‘that thing’ they promised you they would stop doing.

A general exception to this shady practice is the cerebral narcissist, who uses their intelligence to lord over others.  They think most people are simpletons who don’t have anything interesting going on in their lives, except, of course, other academics and scholars whom the cerebral narcissist is insanely jealous of.

2 – Create numerous dating profiles

Not all narcissists cheat, but most of them do.  The ones who don’t tend to be of the “cerebral” ilk and simply do not enjoy having intimate relations with other people.

But if the narcissist you know is attractive, extroverted, and likes being the center of attention, it is very likely they are doing things you would be horrified to learn about.

To the narcissist, seducing people is another tool for manipulation, control, exploitation, and destroying the self-esteem of their partner(s).  In most cases, there’s serial cheating, withholding affection, degrading requests, verbal assaults, and addiction to off-color websites.

Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, they’re so skilled in the bedroom that their partners often stay in the abusive relationship because they’ve never had it so good, which creates a twisted dynamic leading to self-loathing, guilt, and shame.

At any rate, narcissists have a track record of being serial cheaters.  This explains why they generally have their cell phones on lockdown, leave the room when certain calls come in, and are oddly obsessed with a text exchange as you’re sitting down to dinner during your anniversary.

If you’ve caught them doing this, don’t be fooled by their seeming attempt to earn back your trust.  It doesn’t matter if they let you go through their phone if they’ve secured a secret line behind your back.

If it feels weird, you’re probably onto something.  Don’t ignore your gut on this one.

3 – Try to get in touch with their exes on social media

Imagine this scenario.  You’re sitting at your work desk and decide to call your partner (whom you suspect is a narcissist) to check in and get a feel for how things are going.  They seem fairly friendly and the two of you make plans for dinner and a movie that night.  You hang up feeling relieved and begin to think your recent arguments were probably just normal relationship issues.  You feel slightly elated thinking about how the evening will unfold.

The narcissist, however, hangs up and goes back to liking their ex’s Facebook and Instagram photos.  The two of you have been arguing a lot lately (due to their relationship crimes), so they have to line up another source or two of narcissistic supply to have as a backup for when you finally come to your senses and give them the much-needed boot.

Moral of the story?  Never trust that the narcissist will be a decent person.  Ever.

4 – Visit websites of very dubious merit.

Webcam sites, porn, KiK, Snapchat, Tubmblr etc.

Since the media powers-that-be are now filtering and blocking certain terms and phrases, I am unable to express the exact terminology I’d like to use here, but, suffice it to say that many narcissists, when alone, spend hours on various websites of very dubious merit.

Sites that would break your heart and devastate you for weeks on end if you’re in a romantic relationship with them.

If you have discovered your narcissistic partner has been visiting such sites, you can bet with 99% certainty that he or she also has online dating profiles and is probably hooking up with other people behind your back.  At the very least, they are likely engaging in things via the internet with people they’ve met online that would make you feel unwell.

5 – Try to turn your family and friends against you

Contrary to popular belief, the narcissist’s smear campaign doesn’t begin just after your breakup.  In many cases, it’s been alive and well for some time.  You just weren’t aware of it.

The reason everyone now runs in the opposite direction from you or, at the very least, looks at you with a raised eyebrow, is that the narcissist has been smearing your reputation since before the relationship even ended.  The two main reasons for this are:

All relationships are doomed in the narcissist’s mind and they want to get a running start on assassinating your character.

They assume you will vent to people in your shared social circle and want to ensure they cut you off at the pass so you will look unstable when you muster the courage to start talking about your experiences.

These actions are to preserve the false image they’ve portrayed all along.  Unfortunately, they’re often very successful at doing this.  If your friends or family have suddenly started pulling back or questioning your judgement, the narcissist has likely planted the seeds of doubt in their minds.  If they openly side with the narcissist when you begin sharing your relationship struggles, it’s time to start whittling down your inner circle.

6 – Plant spyware on your devices or install hidden cameras in your shared residence

This can happen a few different ways.

If you’re dealing with a narcissist, don’t assume they aren’t smart enough to track you using your devices.  I’ve seen this assumption come crashing down around people’s ankles more times than I’d like to admit.

One common method that abusers use to legally track you is by using the geolocation services built into all smartphones; if you know, or can guess, the password to someone’s cloud account, you can follow their movements via the software designed to find lost or stolen phones that comes installed on many devices.   Many times, the abuser sets up a cloud account for the person they want to track, giving them full access to their target’s location at any moment.

If you suspect you’re dealing with a narcissist, don’t accept a phone from them that they’ve set up for you using their cellular account.  If you do, you can assume they’ve set it up to track you.

Another way abusers can keep tabs on you is by installing spyware on your electronic devices.  Some of these spyware can be installed remotely.  It’s somewhat more difficult to install spyware this way than it used to be, but it still happens.

Most spyware is designed to track not only your location but also monitor your calls, voicemails, texts, and emails – and even watch you using the camera on your device.

7 – Sabotage your finances

I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve worked with in my coaching practice who’ve been financially devastated because they gave in to the narcissist’s seemingly genuine requests to give them access to their accounts.make you feel unwell.

They may have loaned you money or paid for a big-ticket item at some point to make you believe they are generous, but it was only to instill in you a sense of obligation in preparation for the debilitating shaft you’d get from them later.

Another scheme that falls into this category is their asking for your support while they are unemployed. These schemes are all designed to “break the seal” in the area of financial matters so they can take shocking liberties later, such as:

Getting loans in your name

Taking out a second mortgage on your home without your knowledge

Not paying IRS taxes, resulting in your possible confinement in jail

Expecting you to pay for everything while they save their own money for themselves

Forcing you to get all the utilities and insurances in your name so you’ll have to pay for them all

…and so on and so forth.

If you’ve been having problems in your relationship and believe your partner is a narcissist, it would be in your best interest to avoid mingling your finances in any way.  If you already have, start a secret account and begin adding money to it whenever you can.  Have your statements delivered to a family member’s address.

Prevent narcissistic financial abuse early by stashing away money when you can and refusing to put your name on any legal documents with them.

8 – Spy on you

We already covered spyware and tracking apps that narcissistic abusers can use to keep tabs on your whereabouts in #6.

However, many narcissists will literally stalk you so they can see what you do when they’re not with you.

While legal definitions of stalking vary from one jurisdiction to another, a good working definition of stalking is unwanted or obsessive attention by an individual toward another person through the carrying out of behaviors intended to frighten, distress the victim, and/or instill a sense of guilt and hopelessness in the victim (which often leads to learned helplessness).  Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and usually include following the victim (in person) and monitoring them.

According to Lamber Royakkers, author of The Dutch Approach to Stalking Laws (California Criminal Law Review 3, October 2000):

“Stalking is a form of mental assault, in which the perpetrator repeatedly, unwantedly, and disruptively breaks into the life-world of the victim, with whom they have a current relationship or a recent one. Moreover, the separated acts that make up the intrusion cannot by themselves cause the mental abuse, but do taken together (cumulative effect).”

Disruptions in daily life that are necessary to escape a stalker can include changes in employment, residence, and phone numbers.   Many targets of stalking have had to move to another country and basically go into hiding.

Many of my coaching clients have been stalked by their narcissistic partners.  Stalking behaviors carried out by narcissists can include:

Constant texts, emails, and phone calls

Frequent, unwanted deliveries of gifts, cards, and flowers

Constantly driving by your home

Showing up at your place of employment or favorite hangout

Spreading rumors or publishing personal information about you on social media

Cyberstalking

Using social media to follow and friend your social media followers and friends in order to keep an eye on you

Installing spyware on your computer or cell phone

Finding out about you by using public records or online search services, hiring investigators, going through your garbage, or contacting friends, family, neighbors, or co-workers

Using technology, like hidden cameras or global positioning systems (GPS), to track where you go

Threatening to hurt you, your family, friends, or pets

Stalking is often mistaken as hoovering in that once a source of supply expresses a desire to end the relationship, the narcissist refuses to give up their power by forcing themselves into the victim’s world through harassing, following, and monitoring.

Stalking is a common behavior of narcissists when a source of supply tries to initiate No Contact.  When stalking begins, the victim typically has a clearer picture of what kind of person the narcissist is…which is why they want to go No Contact in the first place.

If you believe you are being stalked, you should avoid downplaying the issue as it will only get worse over time.  You may have to take protective measures to secure your sense of peace, privacy, and security.

9 – Flirt with your best friend (or even your adult children)

When it comes to narcissistic cheaters, no one is off-limits.  In fact, narcissists often derive a twisted sense of accomplishment if they can get your loved one interested in them, like your best friend or adult child.

So, imagine you’re at work and it’s the narcissist’s day off.  You think everything is relatively calm and feel a spark of emotional safety.  Then, you get a call from your best friend and they give you the very unsettling news that the narcissist has made a pass at them.

If you’re best friend is truly loyal, they will tell you about this the moment it happens.

But in some cases, the flirting continues while remaining a secret.  Maybe your friend has experienced a string of failed relationships.  Or they’ve recently gone through a difficult divorce.  Vulnerability makes a person a prime target in the narcissist’s mind and this may well include your best friend.

My best advice?  Never trust the narcissist alone with your friends or family members.

10 – Plan secret rendezvous with their side-supply

Speaking in very general terms, when a narcissist has an out-of-town trip planned, whether for work or for their third cousin’s wedding, there is a strong likelihood that they will meet their side supply there or even take him or her with them.

Narcissists are creatures of economy and rarely pass up an opportunity to groom supply.  In fact, the narcissist could well be dubbed The Constant Gardner because they are perpetually trolling for and grooming new targets, even though they always have a main source of narcissistic supply.  Furthermore, they are continuously ending relationships for various reasons, especially with those who require a lot of “maintenance” (i.e. normal human interactions) or have stopped giving them money or other fringe benefits.  Therefore, they must fill in the gaps left by those they’ve discarded by securing new supply sources.

Those work trips the narcissist always goes on?  They could very well be genuine, but don’t be surprised when the new supply calls you, asking who you are and what you’re doing calling the narcissist!

11 – Hoover old sources of supply (a.k.a., their exes)

Narcissists typically don’t let go of their exes completely (unless their exes completely let go of them).  They’ve been known to contact old flames out of the blue, sometimes as long as ten years post-breakup!

Not all narcissists do this, but most do.  When a person has passed the litmus test for being “good supply”, narcissists literally can’t help themselves and will often reach out in an attempt to resurrect old relationships (albeit, one-sided ones).

This explains why you may have noticed how the narcissist in your life likes to remain “friends” with their exes or wants you to be friends after your relationship has ended.

It gives them an ‘in’ if they ever need to cycle back around.

12 – Pave the way for their next relationship

You’ve probably read a hundred times how narcissists leave relationships and then swan dive right into a new one.

Maybe this happened in the aftermath of your own relationship with a narcissist.

The main reason this happens is because narcissists don’t bond with people.  Not romantically, not traumatically (at least, not for them), nor matrimonially.  We from these bonds with narcissists, but they are not able to form emotional bonds with us due to their true lack of empathy and inability to attach to others.

Another reason narcissists are able to form relationships so quickly is that, any many cases, the relationship isn’t so new.  If you’ll remember from earlier, narcissists are always combing for fresh sources of narcissistic supply.  Because of this, most narcissists are perpetually in various stages of relationship with other people, from the shiny, newbie supply to those who are enduring varying levels of the narcissistic abuse cycle.

Therefore, when they showcase the new supply on their social media accounts, it’s usually not someone they’ve just met, though narcissists are often very skilled in making it appear so.

13 – Emotional abuse of partners and spouses

If you’ve ended a romantic relationship with a narcissist, you probably saw them out and about, loving up on the new partner and seemingly having the best time of their life.  You see them flashing an engagement ring on social media and sending out ‘save the date’ notifications, broadcasting how silly in love they are and giggling about how they feel like a couple of teenagers.

Your first reaction might be to (stunningly) wonder what this new person has that you don’t.  Just maybe, the narcissist had been right about you all along.  Perhaps you really ARE the reason your relationship with them didn’t work out.

Then, you feel completely disabled by the seeming about-face the narcissist has made with the new supply, sending you into a depression so deep you can barely get through the day.

This is just another phase of the narcissistic abuse cycle and applies to you the same as it does everyone else.  The narcissist you know is no different from the others.  As personal and unique as it all may feel, it’s just another blueprint narcissistic manipulation.

When you see this happening, it’s crucial not to take it personally.  This is one of the narcissist’s favorite times, when they are love-bombing new supply while simultaneously making you feel like discarded trash.  The narcissist can’t help but gloat over how they’re able to make you feel emotionally destroyed, left to pick up the pieces while they’re off living their life as though your history together means nothing.

What you’re not thinking about is how the new supply will be subject to the same emotional abuse that you’ve endured.  There are no exceptions to this.  Don’t listen to the new trend of so-called professional advice which states that narcissists are only abusive towards YOU because your personality is incompatible with theirs, which is on my list of ‘Stupid Sh*t Therapists Say’.

Narcissists are abusive towards everyone.  Regardless of status, ethnicity, intelligence, religious beliefs, or how tiny their waist is.  The new supply simply won’t be spared, unfortunately.

Dealing with a narcissist

Healing From the Trauma of Narcissistic Abuse

It’s absolutely crucial to come to terms with the unsettling things narcissists do when they think no one is looking so you can make educated decisions for your future and your wellbeing.

Don’t let yourself fall into a false sense of security because the narcissist knows what to say to soften your defenses and make you doubt your judgement.  Pay attention to patterns because patterns don’t lie.

With the right support, you’ll be shocked how amazing it feels when you can flourish on the other side of abuse and heal your life in ways you never

[bloody-bee-tea]

Untamed Winter Fest Day 3

Goodwill

Meng Yao watches Lan Xichen play for Nie Mingjue, and he thinks it would be so easy, so very easy, to twist that song into something else.

He already has the necessary music sheets safely tucked away in his room back in Jinlingtai, knows how he would weave the song of turmoil into Clarity, to form one masterfully crafted murder weapon and use it on Nie Mingjue.

He knows about the problems of the Nie clan, knows their sabers are killing them slowly, and sometimes all at once, and he has seen the signs in Nie Mingjue. It’s especially pronounced when he’s emotional, his qi deviating more quickly every time he gets angry or annoyed and Lan Xichen has to come by more often to play him the song.

It would be so easy. 

Meng Yao would offer to Lan Xichen to learn the song, so he can take over from time to time for him. Lan Xichen is running himself down, Meng Yao can see it, fulfilling his duties as a sect leader and flying to Qinghe to tend to Nie Mingjue. It would be a welcome relieve for him, if Meng Yao stepped in, and Lan Xichen would trust him to play Clarity to the best of his abilities, providing for Nie Mingjue the same as Lan Xichen does.

And it would be so, so easy to use that trust and twist it around, use it against Nie Mingjue and finally give him what he deserves.

But Meng Yao can’t do it.

It grates him to know that it’s only Lan Xichen’s goodwill who convinced Nie Mingjue to even take him on as a sworn brother, but he sees the way Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue look at each other, sees how worried Lan Xichen is for Nie Mingjue, and Meng Yao could never hurt Lan Xichen like that.

His love and respect for Lan Xichen far outweighs the hate he harbors for Nie Mingjue and his previous treatment of Meng Yao.

When Lan Xichen vanishes his guqin and makes to leave, he expects Meng Yao to follow him, like he always does, but Nie Mingjue calls them back.

“I need to have a word with Meng Yao,” he tells Lan Xichen, not even asking Meng Yao himself for permission, and he deliberately doesn’t use the new name Meng Yao chose for himself.

Not that Meng Yao is going to start an argument over that; he still isn’t used to Jin Guangyao himself, doesn’t feel like the name fits him at all, but it’s too late to turn back on it now.

His father would never let him live it down.

“Mingjue,” Lan Xichen mildly says, and he seems worried; knows about the never-ending friction between Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao, and so far he has been very good about never letting them alone together.

Maybe it’s time they finally hash this out between them.

“It’s okay,” Meng Yao tells him, resting a reassuring hand on Lan Xichen’s arm, and he’s acutely aware of the sharp glare Nie Mingjue sends him. “We’ll just have a talk and I’ll see you next week.”

Lan Xichen continues to hesitate, looking back at Nie Mingjue and having a whole silent conversation with him like it seems.

Meng Yao tries to not let that sting; he knows Lan Xichen had to fight Nie Mingjue to even make him consider Meng Yao as a sworn brother, and he’s still not sure why Nie Mingjue even agreed.

Sure, Meng Yao killed Wen Ruohan, but both Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen are accomplished fighters; something Meng Yao will never be, no matter how many people he kills through subverted ploys.

Meng Yao isn’t exactly sure why Lan Xichen himself wanted him as a sworn brother, can only imagine that he feels like he has to repay Meng Yao for saving him and playing his part in the Sunshot Campaign, but it’s a thought Meng Yao doesn’t like to dwell on.

Lan Xichen finally nods, and turns around to leave them alone, and when Meng Yao turns back towards Nie Mingjue, he wishes Lan Xichen had insisted Meng Yao leaves with him.

Meng Yao is sure that if Nie Mingjue had the power to kill with just a glare, he would drop dead immediately.

“What can I help you with, da-ge?” he asks, falling into the appropriate bow, knowing full well that it will enrage Nie Mingjue further, and he only scoffs at him.

“Stop with the charade,” Nie Mingjue tells him. “I see how you watch Lan Xichen, I know what you want from him.”

Meng Yao goes cold at that, because if Nie Mingjue knows, then Lan Xichen knows as well. Meng Yao doubts that there’s anything Nie Mingjue wouldn’t tell Lan Xichen. And since he doesn’t act any different around Meng Yao, it’s as good as a rejection.

“What do you want?” Meng Yao asks, noticeably colder than before and Nie Mingjue actually seems pleased at that.

“I want you to stop your goddamn scheming and instead pull your head out of your ass and consider who you’re actually hurting with it,” Nie Mingjue tells him and Meng Yao can do nothing but stare at him.

Nie Mingjue regards him for a few moments before he stands up, and starts to circle Meng Yao. It puts their height difference into sharp display and Meng Yao feels exactly as small as he is, compared to Nie Mingjue.

“You know why I am so angry about you killing the head of the guard? And the implication behind the missing Xue Yang?” Nie Mingjue wants to know and Meng Yao’s mind starts to spin. 

If Nie Mingjue knows that he let Xue Yang go, Meng Yao is done for.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Meng Yao still tries, because he has to. “I didn’t let Xue Yang go.”

“And you would do good to remember that, too,” Nie Mingjue tells him. “Because you know who would be hurt the most by learning about this? Lan Xichen.”

Meng Yao continues to turn with the still walking Nie Mingjue but he narrows his eyes.

“I don’t understand,” he tells him, trying to get a real explanation from him and Nie Mingjue stops briefly before he laughs.

“You truly don’t, do you. How does that feel, to finally not know?” he wants to know and Meng Yao has to push down on the rising hate in him. 

He can’t hurt Nie Mingjue. It would make Lan Xichen sad.

“There it is,” Nie Mingjue says with a small smile. “That’s the thought you need to remember.”

“What do you mean?”

“It would hurt Xichen,” Nie Mingjue says, and like always when Nie Mingjue uses that all too familiar name, something constricts in Meng Yao’s chest.

“You think I’m angry that you killed someone, but I’m not, not really. I saw how he treated you and honestly, I was just waiting for you to snap. But do you know how Xichen would feel when he finds out about that?”

“You didn’t tell him yet?” Meng Yao asks and he can barely believe it. 

He thought Nie Mingjue would spill the beans to Lan Xichen almost immediately.

“Are you stupid? Did you not hear a word I just said? Xichen wouldn’t understand, he’s too good for that, it would just hurt him, knowing that you killed someone for a personal slight,” Nie Mingjue snaps and then takes a deep breath before he goes on. “He hasn’t stopped talking about you since I sent you to the Cloud Recesses with Huaisang. I’m not going to shatter the image he has of you, but if you keep going on like this, I’ll have to to protect him from more pain.” Meng Yao can do nothing but stare at him, and Nie Mingjue scoffs, shaking his head.

“You think you’re so clever and yet you see nothing. Do you think everyone is stupid? I know you’re going for your father next. You hate him too much to just let him go. But if I were you, I would think long and hard about that, because Xichen might be too good for this world, but he’s not stupid and even he has a breaking point. And if you reach that, if you break him, I will kill you.”

“I won’t,” Meng Yao says, because has he not already overthrown his plan for Nie Mingjue, just because it would kill Lan Xichen to see his sworn brother dead? He knows better than to cause that kind of pain to Lan Xichen.

“If you love him--and I know you do, don’t even deny it--then you’ll do something useful with all your scheming and wit.”

“Like with Wen Ruohan?” Meng Yao asks, because it’s easier than to admit that he does, in fact, love Lan Xichen.

“Exactly like that.”

Meng Yao considers that for a few seconds and then tilts his head.

“But not Wei Wuxian,” he slowly says, “because Lan Wangji loves him and will stand with him. It would put Lan Xichen in a painful position.”

“Good,” Nie Mingjue agrees, and it should grate, his condescending tone should make Meng Yao plan his murder all too soon, but instead he finds that it soothes something in him, his approval.

“But Jin Guangshan--”

“Needs to be observed. I doubt the clans will follow him much further if he continues like this. But his nephew, what’s his name? Jin Zixun? He’s dangerous.”

“And he hates Wei Wuxian,” Meng Yao agrees. “And Jin Guangshan is afraid of Wei Wuxian. It’s a bad combination,” he muses and Nie Mingjue nods.

“Are you enabling me to kill right now?” Meng Yao asks, keeping a close eye on Nie Mingjue, who rolls his eyes at him.

“I’m enabling you to remember that Xichen should be your first priority, and that there can be a good way to use your head. And I’m reminding you that, if you should do anything to hurt him, I will have your head for it.”

“Understood,” Meng Yao says.

He feels lighter than he has in months, knowing that someone sees him for what he really is and still accepts him, and maybe even has his back, is an entirely new feeling to him.

He bows to Nie Mingjue, this time sincerely paying his respects to the other, and then turns around to leave.

He’s already at the door when Nie Mingjue speaks up again.

“And if you really, honestly have to kill someone just for the heck of it, I would start with the disciple who told the Wens all about the secrets of the Cloud Recesses.”

Meng Yao freezes in his steps, because that’s a name he has tried to get out of Lan Xichen the whole time they were on the run.

“Tell me,” he demands.

“He goes by Su She now,” Nie Mingjue tells him and Meng Yao allows himself a smile.

“You kept tabs on him.”

“He betrayed Xichen. Of course I did.”

Nie Mingjue might love Lan Xichen differently than Meng Yao does, but he doesn’t doubt for a second that Nie Mingjue would kill anyone who dared to hurt Lan Xichen, Meng Yao included. 

“I’m looking forward to working together with you,” Meng Yao says over his shoulder and Nie Mingjue laughs.

“As long as you remember the most important thing,” he gives back.

“Lan Xichen,” Meng Yao replies and sees Nie Mingjue nod from the corner of his eyes.

Meng Yao opens the door, ready to leave, now that he has a new goal, and steps outside, only to find Lan Xichen waiting for him outside.

“Did you eavesdrop?” Meng Yao asks, stomach already dropping to his knees, but Lan Xichen shakes his head.

Of course he wouldn’t eavesdrop. 

“I stayed close, in case you two decided to use something else than words,” he explains and gives Meng Yao an apologetic smile. “But it looks like my worry was unfounded.”

“We reached an understanding,” Meng Yao told him and fell into step next to Lan Xichen. “There is nothing for you to worry about. I know the friction between us grated on you but da-ge and I agree on the important things.”

“That’s good then,” Lan Xichen says with a relieved smile. “I don’t want you two to fight all the time.”

“We won’t, no worries,” Meng Yao says and puts a hand on his arm, trying to reassure him with more than just his words and his heart beats heavily in his chest when Lan Xichen leans into the contact and gives him a blinding smile.

Nie Mingjue is right. Protecting Lan Xichen, keeping him happy, is the most important thing and Meng Yao is glad Nie Mingjue managed to remind him of that before Meng Yao did something unforgivable.

[onebangtanstan]

Power Style - Chapter Eleven : The revenge

A/N : Ok this is shorter than the previous chapters but DYNAMITE CAME OUT so that's what I've been doing. GO STREAM! 💜

He notices me staring him down. He scoffs before coming my way. We lock eyes and start an unspoken staring contest, just like the other day. As he's getting closer to me, I feel the muscles in my body tense up. His presence is enough to piss me off.

"You're late Namjoon." He's now standing right in front of me, forcing me to look up.

"It's M.Kim to you." His eyes are shooting bullets at mine, and so are mine, but neither of us looks away. We're both way too proud to do so.

"I don't have time for this." I turn away from him, starting to feel dizzy from keeping my head up to look at him. "Go get your make up and fitting done, we're all waiting for you Namjoon." I refuse to give into his twisted game, we're here to get a job done, whether we like it or not.

He executes himself, but I sense he's not happy with that. We can all see that he's stalling, and trying to annoy us. Thank God my team knows what they're doing and isn't giving into him either. 

We can finally start the shoot an hour and a half after the original time. He stands in front of the camera, and I don't recognize the man posing right now. He turns into this extremely professional guy. The harsh lines he usually wears on his face have completely disappeared, making him look even better than usually.

Even though he annoys the shit out of me, I have to admit that he is a beautiful man. He's the stereotype of the ideal guy : tall, well-built, perfect amount of muscle, a jawline that could cut you. Even when he's the biggest asshole, his clenched jaw and frown make him look good.

To my surprise, we actually finish the shoot quite quickly. The team packs up and starts heading back to the office. I'm about to do the same when I'm turned around by a firm hand on my arm. I am facing Namjoon once again. I mean, I am being towered by him once again.

"Listen to me" He spits, talking only a few centimeters from my mouth. "It's the last time you talk to me like that, do you understand me?"

I set myself free from his grip by throwing my arm down. "No, you listen to me." I feel the fury raising in my body. "We have to work together, and I couldn't care less if you don't like me. The thing is, I am in charge of this campaign so you're on my turf now. You listen to me and do what I say. Am I making myself clear enough for your tiny brain?" 

It looks like he wasn't expecting this reaction from me. He's about to answer but I immediately turn around and start storming out of the room.

I walk back to the office, feeling the need to clear my mind. I can't have him disturbing my schedule, and I most definitely can't go into the meeting with the mindset he put me in.

By the time I get back to work, the whole team is already sitting in the conference room, working on the editing. We do that all afternoon and plan the group shooting for the next day. We're going to have to take unit pictures, group pictures and shoot the commercial. We will be there all day, so I let everyone go early to get enough rest for tomorrow.

I decide to chill at home for the evening. I still have a bit of a bad mood because of today, so I put on yet another cheesy rom-com.

Just as I sit down with a bowl of popcorn, I receive a text from Jin. For once, I don't have that tightening in my stomach. I open it :

J : Hey, how are you doing? We haven't talked lately..

G : Hi! I'm good, how about  you? I know, I'm sorry, I had a lot going on..

J : No worries, I've just been thinking a lot about you..

We end up texting the whole evening, catching each other up on our lives, and it feels really good. We eventually start talking about deeper stuff. Jin tells me that he really likes me and can't stop thinking about me, making me blush. Thank God he can't see me right now. I start typing and send a text without thinking too much about it. I have to give him something.

"Jin I need to tell you something. One of the reasons I have been distant with you is because I have issues with relationships. I'll explain it to you eventually but not by text. I hope you understand that it has nothing to do with you, and that I appreciate the time we spend together."

A few minutes -that feel like an hour- pass before he answers, making my heart pound. 

"That's okay Gina, I understand. I'll go at your pace." I smile at his text.

We say our goodnights and I end up falling asleep with a warm feeling inside of me.

I wake up in a good mood, but the group shot pops into my mind, bringing my mindset down just a bit. I feel very pressured and anxious about it. Everything has to go perfectly, because we won’t have time to redo it.

I do the usual, get ready and head to the set. I stop on my way to get a cup of coffee and also get a big bag of french pastries for everyone. We'll be needing a bit of sugar before the day starts.

The boys haven't arrived yet, but we are already going through the schedule for the day. I talk with each person to make sure they know what they're supposed to do. Of course they do, I'm just doing that to calm my nerves.

Tae and Kook are the first to arrive. They're very clingy towards each other which makes me smile at them.

"Hey guys" I say as I hug each of them. "How are you guys doing?"

"We're very good." Tae tells me, making Jungkook blush. My heart could burst, they're so cute. I haven't gotten to a point where I can talk to them about whatever is going on between them, but I feel like that will be coming up sooner than later.

"Perfect. I need you all in a good mindset today."

"Well, we'll see about that." Jungkook starts, making me raise an eyebrow. "Yoongi is riding with Hobi and Jin, he spent the night there. And to be honest, we never know what to expect from those sleepovers, especially about where their minds are set."

Tae elbows Jungkook in the arm, making him realize he spilled something he shouldn't have. He opens his eyes wide.

"Shit" He says, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

"It's ok, I had figured something was going on there. I won't pry, don't worry." I wink at them. 

I notice relief on their faces. I offer them to get something to eat before getting their makeup done, making Jungkook run towards the bags of pastries. 

While they're picking out what to eat, I hear the door open. Jimin enters the room and boy, does he make head turns. He has that je ne sais quoi about him that makes his presence noticed. He barely looks at anyone, heading straight for Tae and Kook. I see him take a pastry, only eating a few bites, and leaving towards the toilet straight after. "JIMIN" Tae starts running after him.

I quickly look away, feeling that I shouldn’t be witnessing whatever is going on, and notice the door open. Yoongi, Jin and Hobi enter. Jin is first, and comes straight to me, giving me a warm hug. It feels good to be circled by his big arms. He breaks the hug with a peck on my forehead. There must be an army of butterflies in my stomach at this point.

Hobi comes in for a hug next, being his usual charming self, but something is off. The spark in his eye is not there. It almost looks as if he's cried? I hold on tight to him, sending some love through my arms. I feel him sigh. 

"Fancy a drink tonight?" I ask him. He needs someone, I can feel it.

"I would love that." He speaks in a low, appreciative voice. I can see his eyes twitch for a second.

"Your coat is amazing!" I quickly change the subject, sensing he's about to breakdown. He smiles back at me and goes to say hi to the boys.

Yoongi, who was already with them, came towards me as Hobi arrived. Shit, there's going to be tension today.

"Hi Gina" Yoongi is near me now, and he looks.. Well, he looks like himself. Nothing is being let through by his face, nor his eyes.

"Hey! How are you?" I ask, trying to hide the fact that I know something is wrong.

"Okay, I guess.." 

We both turn our heads as we hear Jimin's voice coming from the other side of the room.

"V, I said let it go!" 

Tae walks behind him, arms hanging on each side of his body, a powerless look on his face. All the boys turn around to him with an empathetic smile, almost as if they were telling him « it’s okay, you did your best ». They seem know the struggle he’s just gone through. The whole crew is looking at them too, which is exactly what Jimin wanted. He knew that by coming in here, the conversation would stop.

"The only one that could talk to him right now is Joon" Yoongi tells me. I scoff, having trouble seeing Namjoon comforting someone. Yoongi turns to me "He's actually lovely to the people he cares about. He helped me through a lot."

"Yeah, well he made it clear that he doesn't care about me or even about making my life easier."

Yoongi is about to answer, but a loud bang resonates. It's the front door.

Namjoon appears with his leg still in the air. Everyone has stopped what they were doing to stare him down for kicking the door open.

But I couldn't care less about that. I've noticed something else. Something that could fuck up the entire shoot. 

Seeing it sends me in a state of rage so intense that I clench my fists, feeling my nails press into my palms. He stands tall in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. He's proud of himself, and he's now looking at me with a defying smile.

HE IS FUCKING SMILING AT ME. I am dumbfounded by the nerve this man has.

It might not seem like a big deal for everyone else, but I know that he did this on purpose to delay the shoot as payback for what I said yesterday.

He dyed his hair white.

A/N : White-hair Namjoon is back. Hands down his best era, no argument on that (second best, now that we have Blue Namjoon)

I mean LOOK AT HIM.

[go-diane-winchester]

Why Misha's fans behave so cult like

Thank you so much for the ask.  And don't apologize.  It is a very legitimate question.  First of all, I did a post of this subject as to why Misha's fans behave the way they do.  Why are they so willing to go to such extreme measures for a fictional ship?  Why don't they think twice before sending a death threat?  I hypothesized that Misha has the personality of a cult leader and he uses sympathy to gain support and devotees.  How was it that Misha managed to amass the support of a group of people with such similar personality types.  The only thing they haven't done for him yet is kill themselves for him.  Well, that is because they exhibit a group of personality traits that makes cult leader types like Misha prey on them. 

1.  They want to feel validated. 

They are looking for approval.  They want to be accepted.  They want to be part of a group.  What a cult does is that it welcomes you and immediately you feel like you are no longer an outsider.  The majority of people in Misha's destiel fan base are young people.  Teenagers feel very out of place.  School is a horrible social concept.  And most kids suffer throughout their entire schooling career, because they want to fit in rather than find at least one true friend and stick with them.  They don't realize that the whole school doesn't need to like you.  As long as you find one friend to care for you, you are fine.  The prettiest girl in you school [you know the one that has that handsome jock boyfriend - every school has one] also feels out of place.  If she has one little zit, she freaks out.  She managed to become popular and now if she gets toppled from the top, she will be a loser and it scares her.  So you see, it bothers everyone, even the popular kids.  Sometimes, I like being average.  Because even if you fall, you don't fall very far.  In the destiel cult, whenever one of them does something wrong, others clamour to explain the action and make excuses for each other.  They protect their own.  Even if the person is wrong.  They validate each other.

2.  They seek an identity.

There are people who feel like loners.  Like they don't belong.  They will be in a crowded room and still feel lonely.  They want to find their place in the world.  They want a group they can clique with.  With Misha, there are two groups.  The slash fans and the LGBT.  Slash is a personal thing.  When I was young and into slash, only a few girls in a chat room spoke about it.  They all were likeminded because they all liked slash and it was enough for them.  They never fought over ships.  When actors where asked about ships they were part of, they would just make a joke, smile and more on to the next subject because that is the right thing to do.  What Misha did, was speak openly about destiel.  So suddenly destiel had a ''platform''.  Instead of saying that slash was a personal thing, Misha said that slash was a taboo subject, and that he and the hellers were ''breaking the norm and making it acceptable''.  He also made it about the LGBT, who are an ostracized group in many social circles.  Certainly in a school environment.  So they started to feel that the destiel group was the only one that will ever welcome them.  That is how he recruits.  And that is why he speaks about destiel even when nobody asks him about it. 

3.  They are followers, not leaders.

These are people who want to look up to someone.  In this case, the cult leader.  They want to be told what to do, and they are very good followers.  They cling to every word that comes out of his mouth.  They will quote him, because to their ear, everything he says is quote-worthy.  In Misha's case, it is not just things that he says but also lines of dialogue that are written for his character.  Because the words came out of his mouth, they are significant.  In Misha's case, he doesn't give instructions directly.  What he does is, he plants a thought seed in their mind and from there it grows until the hellers take action because of that thought seed.  When he wanted his minions to fight off the girl whom he wanted a threesome with, all he did was tell his friends he was mugged and then tweeted to his fans that he got a few scrapes but that he was fine.  They just took it from there, stalking every social media account that the girl had and even following her onto Tumblr. 

4.  They seek meaning.

This ties in with looking for identity.  Every human being wonders what their purpose is.  They want to look for meaningfulness in their lives and their actions.  Some people do good deeds.  Some people look for faith and spirituality.  Some people indulge in an art form.  Slash fiction is an art form.  But what Misha has done, is he has overemphasized it so much, that now the hellers feel that this is their purpose.  They want destiel to be canon.  They want their hard work of fighting for it to be validated to achieve fruition.  And they will do anything to make that happen.  If it doesn't happen, the almost ten years of hard work that they put into campaigning for destiel will go down the gutter.  They don't want the ship to be canon because it deserves to be canon.  They want it to be canon, because they want to be right.  They want to tell people ''I told you so''.  I theorize that some of them don't even like destiel.  They just want to belong somewhere and fight for a cause.  It gives them purpose.  There are some people who identify as destiel positive. 

5.   They have schizotypal thinking.

Schizotypal thinkers are people who always have the most fantastical take on anything.  They don't think like other people.  If an incident happened, like a picture frame falling on the floor, logical thinkers will say ''maybe a gust of wind dropped it when someone opened the front door''.  Schizotypal thinkers will go for every out of this world, paranormal reason rather than the most common sense one.  They don't really have mental illness.  They just have colorful imaginations bordering on stupid.  There are cults out there that center their entire thinking around a particular fantasy or nightmare that these types of people have in order to attract them.  For people who feed on meta and headcanon, this cult chose destiel.  They want to theorize and speculate about a scene rather than accept it at face value.  Although I have noticed that seeking validation for Castiel and proving his importance is also something that they tend to do.  I hope you have never read destiel meta because it will mess you up.  Destiel meta is so over-reaching and shocking to logical thinkers because they dodge what would actually make sense, and go straight towards something that is nonsensical and ship friendly.  In fact, most of their posts are about really stupid, debunkable meta, because they want to prove how right they are about destiel.  They are not enjoying their ship.  They are suffering from it. 

6.  They are highly suggestible.

They are very gullible people.  When they find a cult leader, they believe everything he says.  Even if he has a sad excuse for doing something wrong, if he gave the excuse, then it is good enough for them.  They will accept the excuse.  I have seen Misha insult them to their faces and they just laughed.  That is because Misha has put himself into such an authoritative position that, they cant even dream of questioning him, and they will tear apart anyone who dares speak up against him.  Anyone who leaves the cult, has to do so without announcing it, because if they are stupid enough to announce it, they will be harassed, or a group of devotees will try to re-indoctrinate them.  Sort of like a therapy session to keep you in the group.    

7.  They constantly blame others.

This is fairly self-explanatory.  They don't take responsibility with they mess up.  Even as a group, they will put the blame on other people.  I have seen hellers pretend that death threats were never brought up in a conversation.  In fact, you have to remind them ''hello, I was talking about death threats''  to which they answer usually is ''we are not all like that''.  They literally don't recognize that they are causing damage here.  They think they are the victims.  They are they are being bullied because nobody wants to recognize their brand of truth.  They do that with their cult leader, Misha's behavior as well.  He can do no wrong.  One heller is currently making excuses for why he was leering at children through a school fence.  There is one more frequent characteristic I have noticed about them.  They ''misunderstand'' the argument being made.  I used quotation points, because they do it on purpose.  It is their way of throwing sand in your eye to confuse you so you wont know which way the argument is going. 

8.  They are always angry.

These people get angry at the drop of a hat.  They get defensive and are argumentative.  I theorize that social justice is very cult-like too.  Because social justice warriors get offended for everything.  These people have angry energy in them and they look for ways to expend their angry energy.  Sometime they will join groups that allow them to stay defensive over the imaginary injustice that they are suffering.  In the case, of destiel, they treat it like an ideology instead of a ship.  Because Misha Collins ''himself'' spoke up for destiel, it is worth fighting for.  Misha gave them half of their validation.  Canon will give them their other half.  Destiel shippers get so angry if they hear that someone hates their ship, its almost like you kicked their puppy or something. 

9.  They have very low self-esteem.

These people don't have any personal value.  All the value they have is attached to how they can contribute to the cult.  Misha have high level minions that he is in contact with, like Melanie aka mishasdiary.  She actually has fans of her own within the cult.  Can you believe that?  Misha puts the shippers down, but throws out something shippy, like bait to keep them hooked.  Its their drug so he dishes out liberally.  For example he will make a sexual remark about Dean and call the hellers perverts in the same conversation.  The high level minions will give the hellers a chance to earn Misha's respect by giving them tasks to do, for example voting for Misha, his character or destiel when need be.  Or perhaps fighting Jared for making a joke that ''offended'' them.

As far that that girl is concerned, sweetie, I think its safer for you to just stop talking to her.  Don't debate with her.  Don't reason with her.  She is not going to listen to you.  If she persists, just tell her very nicely that you would rather not talk about that.  The problem is not her death threats.  The problem is your immediate safety.  Hopefully, she will take the hint and leave you alone.  If she doesn't, then I think you might have to get an adult to intervene, like the school counsellor.  Don't confront her yourself.  The best bet is to go out of your way to avoid her as much as humanly possible.  I wish you the best of luck and let me know if that tactic worked. 

https://www.bustle.com/p/if-you-exhibit-these-9-personality-traits-youre-more-likely-to-join-a-cult-9432374.

[eirianerisdar]

Hey, I recently discovered your blog and I just wanted to say that love your fanfics! Your writing is beautiful. If you're taking requests, would you mind writing something to show the bond between Anakin and Obi-Wan, you know, the famous Kenobi and Skywalker duo and your take on how the Galaxy viewed them?

Sorry this is so late, anon! This fits into @finish-the-clone-wars’s 25/7 Writing Wednesday prompt let me convince you. I wanted some good third-person perspective so this is a companion fic to A Face in the Crowd.

This fic is also cross-posted to FFN.

For the Brother I Did Not Deserve

Generals.

Jedi.

Heroes.

At the height of the Clone Wars, Skywalkerand Kenobi were household names across the galaxy.

Adults spoke of them in cafés and bars as Generals Skywalker and Kenobi, trackingthe progress of the Open-Circle Fleet across the Outer Rim sieges by war-reelsand holonet news. Senators and aides alike called them Masters, as politicians have called the Jedi for ten thousand yearsand more, since the Jedi Order first swore their service to the Republic.

But the young knew them as heroes. 

Siblings squabbled over which would win ina full-out duel, Obi-Wan’s devastating calm against Anakin’s fiery resolve;friendships were formed and broken over the keenness of Anakin’s sword-hand andthe steadiness of Obi-Wan’s voice. And yet these petty arguments bonded all theyounglings the galaxy over; there was no skirmish, battle, or campaign thatcould not be won if Obi-Wan and Anakin were there. The fact that they were twomen in an army of millions did not matter. As far as any youngling whoseparents supported the Republic was concerned, the war was already good as won.Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker would see to it.

It was in such a spirit that Yorrick gavehis all in a terrific (and oft-repeated) argument with his best friend, Meron.

 “General Skywalker leveled an entirebattalion’s worth of super battle droids last week on Malastare!” Meron yelledas he flailed around Yorrick’s room, nearly knocking over Yorrick’sneatly-stacked collection of Kenobi collectible info-cards as he did so.

“So?” Yorrick interjected from where he satprimly on the edge of his bed, crossing his arms as Meron turned to glare athim. “General Kenobi would have talked his way out of needing to fight them atall. He did as much before.”

“An entire. Battalion,” Meronhalf-shrieked, eyes aglow and looking every inch of his current eight years.

Yorrick rolled his eyes. They might be thesame age, but there were times where Meron’s excitement over GeneralSkywalker’s latest exploits only manifested itself in long, ramblingconversations where Meron’s utter hero-worship surged like the waves ofCoruscant’s Western Sea, beside which Yorrick’s family had a summer home,courtesy of his father’s position in Galactic government.

It wasn’t as though Yorrick didn’t admireGeneral Kenobi as much as his best friend did Skywalker – it was just thatYorrick thought it best to express said admiration in quietly collecting Kenobimemorabilia and keeping up with the holonet news on the Open Circle fleet,instead. He may have sent a fewletters here and there, but he had never received a reply, nor had he expectedone. General Kenobi had a war to fight.

Meron, on the other hand, loved nothingmore than to recount for the billionth time the moment where his heroacknowledged him.

“–I didn’t think he’d actually salute back, you know, since my father and I were so farback from the parade line and there was so much noise going on–”

“I know, Meron,” Yorrick said, a faintsmile curving his lips despite himself as he watched his friend’s face light upat the memory. “He saw you, and he returned your salute. Congratulations. I alsoseem to recall you telling me that you forgot to lower your hand until basicallyall of the 501st had passed by.”

Face flaming red, Meron punched himgood-naturedly on the shoulder. “I’ll convince you Anakin’s better even if it’sthe last thing I do,” he mumbled.

“That’ll take some convincing, “ Yorrickgrinned. “But go on. I dare you.”

“I’m going home in a week. I’ll have youconvinced before then.”

“I’m sure the Alderaani Royal Academy willbe very happy to take you off ourhands,” Yorrick said, dryly.

That earned him another punch.

But Meron’s next words wereuncharacteristically quiet. “My father said you could visit in the winter. Youwill, won’t you?”

A pause.

“That’ll depend on my father,” Yorrick said, earnestly, “but I’ll fight both him and the RCA for it.”

Meron scoffed. “The Republic CoruscantiAcademy’s filled with spoilt brats with their noses in the air.”

“And what does that make us?” Yorrickpointed out. “Alderaani Royal isn’t that much better.”

“Spoilt brats with our noses completelylevel.”

“Oh, shut up,” Yorrick said, smiling.

Meron waved goodbye a week later, nothaving convinced Yorrick in the slightest but glad to call it a ceasefire. “Maythe Force be with you!” they yelled at each other, as was their custom. It madethem sound cool, like the Jedi Generals they loved so much. Meron as Anakin,and Yorrick as Obi-Wan – brothers in all but blood.

The Siege of Coruscant began a monthafterwards.

And another week after that, Yorrick’sworld fell apart with a single announcement from the newly instated Emperor.

Red-eyed and sleep-deprived, Yorrick wentto school two days later to find that it had been renamed the Royal ImperialAcademy overnight, and that there was a new uniform waiting for him, grey andhigh-collared and stamped with the Imperial crest over the left breast,claiming his heart.

He came home in his new uniform, enduredhis parents’ proud fawning over how dashing it made him look, and stood in hisroom alone staring at the Open Circle posters still plastered over the walls,the imitation lightsaber in its brackets reverently hung over his desk, therows of real flimsi books on Jedi and Republic history, and the packet ofStewjon tea he had begged his father to order for him just last month sittingbefore them, still unopened.

He’d been taught how to hold a blaster forthe first time that day; the first lesson in a new mandatory courseacademy-wide.

The Emperor had said General Kenobi was atraitor, as was the rest of the Jedi. An Order now eliminated utterly andcompletely, in a heroic effort by the GAR that once served them.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was dead.

Yorrick crossed to the comm at his desk. Ithad been there, undisturbed, for two days now; the light blinking at its edgeshowed that there was at least one missed message there waiting for hisresponse, but only now did he sit at his desk and flick it open. 

>

Yorrick buried his face in his elbow for amoment, and sighed.

Then he keyed in his friend’s comm code.

The comm channel fizzed to life, andMeron’s voice issued from it, warped with static and yet clear as the day heleft over a month ago. 

“Blastit, Yorrick! It’s been two whole days–”

“I know,” Yorrick said, quietly. “Ijust…haven’t been feeling that good.”

A pause. 

“Iknow,” – and there was a telltale tremor in Meron’svoice not caused by static or interference – “I can’t believe it, either.”

Yorrick’s eyes prickled with tears – thefirst since he heard the news. “How…how could they betray us like this?”

“Right?I don’t know how Chancellor Palpatine could have done this!”

Now that caused Yorrick to sit up, and to stare at the comm in his hand.

“What…what are you talking about?” hewhispered.

“TheChancellor,” Meron said, with a note of confusionin his voice. “You don’t believethat…that drivel he said about the Jedi, do you?”

“Drivel?” Yorrick said, slowly. “That’s nota word you would use. I would, butnot you. Who’s been talking to you?” A feeling was building in his chest. A scream.

“That’snot the point,” Meron retorted, after a tellingpause. “You don’t seriously believe theJedi betrayed the Republic?”

“I…” Yorrick began, and faltered. “I don’tknow what to believe.”

“Yorrick,this is Anakin Skywalker,” – Meron’s voicequavered, and then steadied with determination – “and Obi-Wan Kenobi we’re talking about.”

Hearing the name set something off withinYorrick’s chest. Perhaps it had been there since two days ago, or longer, but he had read about the five stages of grief before, but for the moment, he waswell past denial and fully into anger.

“I know!” he yelled, and cared not that hisvoice cracked dangerously on the word. “What do you think I’ve been doing these two days? I’ve been thinking. That’sall I’ve been doing. I haven’t slept. I haven’t eaten. I went to school todayand everything’s the same but also different and we’re not allowed to talkabout the Jedi any more, and the teacher played this audio recording from theEmperor’s office that showed the Jedi trying to assassinate him,” – Meronyelped at this but Yorrick plowed on, relentless – “and then,” he shouted, asthe tears spilled over his cheeks and scalded invisible scars down to his chin,“I come back home, and I look at my walls, and I realise that I’ve got enoughillegal posters and things here to warrant my arrest. Do you understand me, Meron?!”

A long, long silence.

“I do,” Meron said, quietly. “But audiofiles can be edited, you know that. And you knew Obi-Wan Kenobi as well as Iknew Anakin Skywalker.”

Yorrick barked a bitter laugh through histears.

“Did I, really?” he murmured. “And didyou?”

“Yorrick–”

“The Chancellor was crying for help,”Yorrick was sobbing, now. “And General Windu just told him not to resist hisown murder. Treason. What am Isupposed to say to that?”

“TheJedi didn’t do this,” Meron said, helplessly. “I can’t tell you how I know. But I do.”

That did it. “You don’t know that because you’re not a blasted Jedi, Meron!”Yorrick shouted. “And neither am I! We never were, Meron, and be glad weweren’t, or we’d have betrayed the Republic and been executed like all thosetraitors deserved.”

Meron was silent for a long, ugly moment.

And then: “You don’t mean that.”

“I do,” Yorrick said, wiping his nose onthe pristine sleeve of his new uniform.

“Yorrick,I don’t want this.” Meron sounded far, far olderthan his years. “But I see I can’t convince you.”

“I don’t, either,” Yorrick said,straightening although he knew the other boy could not see it – reaching forhis uniform cap as though it would lend him strength. He placed it on his head,and felt steadier than he did a moment before. “But this is how it is.”

Meron’s breath was loud through the channelstatic. “Fine,” he said, and therewas such a wealth of control in that word that Yorrick felt for a moment ashamed.“We’ll talk later. May the F–”

Meron cut himself off with a sharp inhale.

Yorrick stared at the comm. The words oftheir familiar greeting and farewell echoed through him. He let them go.

“Goodbye, Meron,” he said instead.

“Goodbye,” Meron said, and as the comm channel collapsed, it caught thebeginnings of a sob.

Yorrick stood, and placed the comm back onhis desk.

And then he crossed to the nearest posteron the wall, grasped its edge with the sleek leather of his new uniform gloves,and tore it down, uncaring of how it split neatly in the middle, dividing theopen circle insignia upon it exactly in two – a rending that left a chasmbetween them.

Yorrick repeated the motion again andagain, broke the lightsaber on the wall over his knee, hurled the bag of teainto the growing pile of discarded objects and stared, narrow-eyed when itsplit open on the broken wing of a shattered Jedi Starbird.

His father, when he found out, praised himfor his initiative and helped him carry it all out to the trash compactor, asteady hand on his shoulder as they watched each box go in.

Time passed.

Meron’s comm number faded in his memories.

Yorrick redecorated his room in pale greyand black, opting for the bare minimum of decoration except the six-spoked-wheelof the Imperial Crest painted on one wall.

And then he focused on his studies to theexclusion of all else.

Utter conviction.

At fifteen, he was an Imperial Cadet. 

At eighteen, he accepted a commission fromthe Imperial Navy as an Ensign.

And at twenty-eight, he was a Commander. Ayoung one, at that, and his meteoric rise to that rank did not go unnoticed.

Being on the same ship as Darth Vader wasas terrifying as scuttlebutt told, but Yorrick employed good sense and stayedsilent unless he was called upon, whereupon he did every task assigned to himin as quiet and efficient a manner as possible.

He got quite good at ignoring the twist ofguilt in his gut.

And then, of course, came the Death Star.

Something stirred in the depths ofYorrick’s memory when he heard of the superweapon, of course. Somethingconnected to the mind of an eight-year-old child, who loved a hero for hisability to talk his way out of a conflict without a single drop of blood spilt;but by that point in time he had learnt to treat his Orders as though he were adroid and nothing else. It protected his neck, and by extension, his parents.

And so Yorrick was on the Death Star whenthe Princess Leia was brought in, and he was a shadow at the rear of the bridgewhen Tarkin gave the order to fire on Alderaan. 

Millions of voices, silenced in a matter ofmoments.

Meron’s family home, where he and Yorrickused to play hide-and-seek amongst the gardens.

Meron. 

The name chipped at the walls around hisheart, and threatened to unbalance him. 

Yorrick returned to his cabin and threw up.

And then he stood up, and carried on.

And then the call came in that there wereintruders on the station, and he ran to his post, well-heeled Imperial Navyboots clacking on the durasteel floors, and as he ran, a sound drifted towardshim; a familiar noise of plasma meeting plasma, the scream of kyber crystalsand Force-borne blades.

That sound used to signify hope – hope thatObi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker had won yet another campaign, the sound oftheir lightsabers a victory cry in war reel after war reel.

Yorrick rounded the corner to the hangar,and gaped as Vader’s lightsaber locked with that of the old man in anunmistakably Jedi cloak. 

“Kenobi!” Vader roared.

And with that single word, Yorrick’s world collapsedagain.

This Obi-Wan Kenobi was not theblade-dancing hero of his childhood memories; this man’s arms shook with theeffort of deflecting Vader’s powerful strikes, and his beard and hair werewhite where they once had been russet.

And yet- 

He was still every inch the Master;commander of a situation where there should have been no hope. Not for him.

A young, golden-haired boy darted into thehangar, closely followed by the princess, a man who had the look of ascoundrel, and a Wookiee.

Obi-Wan glanced at them, then back atVader, and his lips curved in the sly smile Yorrick remembered so well – thesmile that said you’re beaten, evenif nothing seemed to be working in his favour.

The smile of calm in the face of whatshould be an inescapable storm.

Yorrick had always understood it. Now itfelt utterly wrong that he should be on the other side of it; part of thatstorm, about to be destroyed by something he did not understand.

It felt horribly like guilt, and the denialof a truth that he had suppressed for too long.

Obi-Wan withdrew his lightsaber and raisedit in a salute, still smiling–

–Yorrick threw out a hand before he knew whathe was doing, mouth open in denial–

–andVader cut down Obi-Wan Kenobi.

But in the ringing emptiness of the momentsafter it happened, Yorrick’s shout lodged in his throat as he realised thatthere was no body.

Only a cloak. 

“No!” The boy with the golden hairscreamed. He drew his blaster and fired uselessly at Vader, even as hiscompanions yelled at him to join them on the ramp of battered transport.

They were only metres away.

Yorrick should probably have drawn hisweapon to stop them. He didn’t.

He turned, instead, as what seemed to be anentire battalion of stormtroopers raced past him; as he heard the firing of thetransport’s repulsors, over the lash of blaster-fire.

Yorrick found his way to the nearestseparate hangar, climbed into a shuttle with nothing on his person but hisuniform and his regulation blaster, and set off. It helped that in the chaos,he managed to get to hyperspace with only a few scanting brushes with the DeathStar’s turbolasers.

And then – when the star-studded expanse ofspace beyond the viewport morphed into the blue-white streaks of hyperspace –only then, did Yorrick allow himself to weep.

Months later – after a long circle of theOuter Rim and a delicate situation involving many repeated yellings of “Don’t shoot! I’m a defector! A defector!”Yorrick found himself, at last, on a Rebel base, having gone through a verygrueling interrogation courtesy of Crix Madine.

At least he’d proven his loyalty wasgenuine.

He asked around if anyone had heard of aMeron Junshi. It was the barest sliver of hope, but the last time they spokewhen they were both children Meron had seemed on a one-track road to theRebellion even if Yorrick had not known enough to suspect then.

“Junshi? That’s an Alderaani name,” onepilot said. “I think you’d be better off finding–”

“Junshi. Meron Junshi,” a clear, soft voicesaid behind him.

Yorrick turned, and his eyes widened.

Princess Leia smiled at him. “And as I keeptelling every new recruit, I don’t bite.” She led him to a quieter corner, andher face grew gently serious. “How did you know Meron?”

Did.

Past tense. 

He watched her watch him take the news. 

“He was by best friend,” he eventuallysaid, although it felt like a lie, now, after twenty years of silence. “He was a brother to me, and I–”

Her brown eyes softened further. “You’reYorrick. He spoke of you often.”

All the breath left Yorrick at once. Tearsstarted at the corners of his eyes. “I owed him an apology. Now I won’t have achance to say it.”

“I’m sorry,” Leia murmured. “He died on theTantive IV – my ship. He died protecting me and the plans I held for the DeathStar.”

In a way it made sense. Meron had spent somuch of his childhood in hero-worship of Anakin Skywalker that it was fittingthat he should die as a hero. Yorrick had loved him so much as a brother, likeObi-Wan did Anakin – but Obi-Wan had never spoken it out loud, either. Yorrickknew it with utter certainty.

How deluded Yorrick had been, to throw itall away on a lie.

Yorrick dashed away the tears. “We wereclosest during the Clone Wars. His role model was Anakin Skywalker. Mine wasObi-Wan Kenobi.”

Leia smiled at that. “As half theyounglings in the galaxy did, it would seem.”

Yorrick laughed. It was a weak, feeblething from too many years of disuse, but it would do.

Leia took his elbow in a soft grasp. “Ithink you should meet someone.”

Yorrick allowed her to lead him intoanother room, where the blond-haired young man whom Yorrick had also seen onthe Death Star was sat, tinkering with a pile of mechanical scraps.

“Yorrick Calder,” Leia said, “allow me tointroduce Luke Skywalker.”

Skywalker.

Luke extended a hand with a blinding smile– the same smile Yorrick recalled from the war-reels, two decades before. 

Yorrick shook Luke Skywalker’s hand, andfelt a weight lift off his chest as he did so.

And for the first time in twenty years, he was convinced that there was something to hope for.

END

This is a companion fic to A Face in the Crowd; read that if you want to hear Meron’s perspective.

This is also cross-posted to FFN.

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[devontroxell]

What Makes a Piece of Content Valuable

Content marketing is one of the most popular online marketing strategies due to its accessibility, flexibility, and synergy with other marketing approaches. The basic idea is to create valuable content that people want to read, and use that content to generate brand visibility, traffic, and conversions.

The success of the entire strategy is dependent on that qualitative descriptor: “valuable.” Your content has to be valuable for your strategy to succeed. But what is it that makes a piece of content valuable, and how can you tell if your content achieves it?

Content Goals

Different businesses will define value in different ways, because they’ll have different goals for their content marketing strategy. Most times, businesses use content to achieve some combination of the following:

·           Brand visibility. Some content is intended to promote the visibility of your brand, introducing it to new people and raising awareness among your customers. It’s a useful effect if you want to encourage customer loyalty or just make your brand known to a wider circle of people.

·           Brand reputation. Writing content that exhibits “thought leadership,” or an authoritative stance on an important subject, can improve your reputation. If people enjoy reading your content, and if they respect its accuracy, depth, and entertainment value, they’ll come to like your brand more—and be more willing to buy from you.

·           Traffic generation. One of the most important benefits of content is its ability to generate traffic, and it can generate traffic in a number of different ways. For example, if you publish offsite content that contains links to your website, you can generate referral traffic. If you use content as part of your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign, you can generate organic search traffic. If you curate and syndicate content on your social media accounts, you can generate social traffic. You can even generate direct traffic and repeat visitors by building a stronger reputation.

Source: SearchFactory

·           Conversion optimization. Content is also a great vehicle for calls-to-action, (CTAs), which motivate your readers to make a purchase, fill out a form, or take some other meaningful action that ultimately leads to revenue. With respect to this point, content becomes directly valuable; if it’s sufficiently persuasive, it can generate revenue for your brand.

·           Community building. Content also works well as a tool for community building. If you encourage group discussions, publish content regularly, and interact directly with your followers, your content can serve as the basis for a thriving community around your brand.

Source: SproutSocial

11 Hallmarks of Effective Content

Regardless of what your goals are, effective pieces of content tend to have many similar qualities.

These include:

1.         Original ideas. First, your content needs to present some kind of original idea. There are millions of people creating content on the web, so if you’re saying the same things as everyone else, you’ll easily go unnoticed. Try making a bold claim or a unique argument, or presenting a brand-new idea. If you can’t come up with something truly original, try coming up with an original response to an existing idea.

2.         An immediate “grab.” People have short attention spans, especially on the internet. If you want your content to get noticed and read, you have to have some kind of an initial grab. For conventional articles, this means writing a compelling headline—even if that means delving into “clickbait” territory. Your headline should be accurate to the content you’re writing, but it should also pique reader interest—and potentially evoke a response.

3.         Specific facts. Good content also offers reliable facts and/or statistics. Specific facts strengthen your arguments, and make your content more authoritative. As an added bonus, these facts are more likely to attract links as citations in other work; other content creators will want to link to your work, helping you generate more referral traffic and building your domain authority so you rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

4.         Sufficient length. There’s no minimum or maximum for “valuable” content length, but in general, longer content tends to perform better. Longer content gives you more room to provide exhaustive arguments and additional details. The majority of content on the internet is less than 1,000 words, so writing long-form content also helps you stand out. That said, short content also has a place if you want to cover a topic concisely.

5.         Mixed media. Written content is the dominant form of content online, but you can attract more followers and improve engagement with your work by including other mediums. Improve your written content with images and videos, or consider starting an audio-based podcast to capitalize on a different audience. Use a mixture of different formats and mediums to see the best results.

6.         Readability. If you’re writing content, you need to make sure it’s easily readable. You can improve readability with formatting, like writing in short paragraphs and using bulleted and numbered lists. However, it’s also important to write at a relatively low reading level, and ensure all your sentences are coherent.

7.         An objective benefit to the reader. What does a reader stand to gain from reading your article? Are you teaching them a new skill? Are you giving them an update they need to work effectively? Are you answering a question they have? Solving a problem? Are you helping them think about a complex problem in a new way?

8.         A call to action. If you want your content to generate conversions (like purchases or completed forms), you need to master the art of presenting calls-to-action (CTAs) in your work. Good CTAs blend in with the content—they aren’t painfully apparent—and they give readers direct instructions on what to do next. That said, not every piece of content needs a CTA to serve its purpose.

9.         Persuasiveness. In many cases, the value of a piece of content is increased because of its persuasiveness. Through skilled argumentation and objective reasoning, your blog post could persuade someone to change their mind on a given topic, or convince them to move forward with a purchase they’ve been considering for a long time.

10.  Opportunities for engagement. Content can also be valuable because of its ability to inspire engagement. In other words, can this content get your followers to talk to each other (and to you)? Does it make people want to share it? Engaging content tends to be controversial, or at least debatable. It also evokes an emotional response in many cases. You can also make your content more engaging by asking probing questions, or by intentionally starting a group discussion.

11.  Entertainment. Some forms of content are almost exclusively entertaining, forgoing research in favor of humor. However, it’s even more popular to include elements of entertainment in otherwise valuable content. For example, you can make a few jokes while discussing an important topic, or present the content in the form of a dialogue or story so it’s easier to digest.

Your content’s value also depends on your consistency with the strategy. For example, regularly publishing high-quality content on a variety of different publication channels will gradually increase your brand visibility and public recognition of your expertise. Followers will know to check your accounts and channels for new content routinely, and they’ll come to hold your latest work in even higher regard.

Source: Muddit Aggarwal

Curation and Distribution

Let’s say you’ve developed a few pieces of incredible content. What good is it going to do if there’s nobody around to read it?

If you want your content to be more valuable for your brand, you need some way to distribute it. Hypothetically, if your content is sufficiently valuable to readers, they’ll share it with other people and spread word about the authority of your brand. However, you still need platforms through which you can generate initial interest.

One of the best options here is distribution via social media, where you can reach a wide audience of both followers and new people who have never heard of your brand.

  However, you can also distribute your content via email marketing, paid advertising, or other promotional methods.

If you’re interested in building your reputation on social media, or establishing your authority before circulating your own content, you can curate the content of other creators. Here, the idea is to find valuable pieces of content that other people have created, then share them to your followers while simultaneously adding value—such as providing commentary, or offering a counterargument to the main point of the article.

Content curation is also a way to produce content for your own website or blog, which we’ll cover in the next section.

Costs and ROI

So far, we’ve talked about what makes a piece of content “valuable” in terms of its appeal to readers, and in terms of how much revenue it can generate for your brand. But we also need to think about the other side of the equation—the costs of producing content.

In marketing, one of the most important metrics to measure is your return on investment (ROI). This is a measurement of how much value something returns to your organization, compared to how much it cost to create. It’s important to take this into consideration when developing your content, and ascribe “value” based on relative ROI.

For example, a $100 piece of content might generate $200 of value, while a $200 piece of content might generate $250 of value. Technically, the latter piece of content is more “valuable” in the sense that it creates more total revenue, but the former piece of content yields a higher comparative return.

Accordingly, you can create more valuable content for your brand by considering the amount of time, money, and effort it takes to produce content. If you want to see a higher ROI for your content strategy, you can try to maximize the appeal of your content while minimizing your investment.

One of the best strategies here is content curation, wherein you’ll collect the existing work of others and assemble it in your own original way. For example, you can create a “top 10” list that reviews some of the best products or services on the web, or you can add commentary to an existing video or post.

You can also host other creators’ pieces of content on your site, or provide links to many videos or lists of reading materials.

Subjective Differences

Another important consideration to bear in mind is the subjective nature of content value. There are pieces of content that have gotten lots of shares and links, despite not offering much in the way of original ideas, and there are amazing pieces of content that have gone practically undiscovered.

There are many variables that can influence the true value of a piece of work, including:

·           Industry. Different industries have different norms and standards for what qualifies as “good” content. For example, some industries require much deeper dives and original research, while others can get away with shorter, “fluffier” content.

·           Timing. Your timing also matters, though it’s sometimes beyond your control. If you write a piece of content that reacts to a current event, you can take advantage of public interest. If you’re too late on a topic, or if your topic is obscured by another, more exciting event, you could get lost in the shuffle.

·           Personal taste. Remember that individuals have varying tastes, and they don’t always conform to your expectations of them. You might find something funny, or interesting, or helpful in your personal life, but there’s no guarantee someone else will think the same.

The Importance of Measurement and Analysis

Because content value is somewhat subjective, and because value is hard to measure, one of your greatest keys to content marketing success is committing to measurement and analysis. It’s on you to consistently measure the results of your content efforts, including traffic levels, conversions, and brand awareness—as well as public reception to your content.

One of the best tools here is Google Analytics. It’s completely free, and it can help you measure almost every kind of traffic or onsite user behavior you can think of.

Source: Chrome.Google

It’s also a good idea to conduct and review user surveys, where you can collect data about reader preferences and analyze your past efforts. A good service here is SurveyMonkey, which is free to get started.

Source: SurveyMonkey

Be prepared to experiment with different types of content and different approaches. It’s going to take time to find the right rhythm to create consistently valuable content.

Are you interested in improving your content marketing strategy? If so, you’ll need a tool that can help you research, curate, and publish the best possible content. Sign up to try Scoop.it for free today, and give your content curation strategy the boost it needs!

The post What Makes a Piece of Content Valuable appeared first on Scoop.it Blog.

What Makes a Piece of Content Valuable published first on https://wabusinessapi.tumblr.com/

[margaretbeagle]

What Makes a Piece of Content Valuable

Content marketing is one of the most popular online marketing strategies due to its accessibility, flexibility, and synergy with other marketing approaches. The basic idea is to create valuable content that people want to read, and use that content to generate brand visibility, traffic, and conversions.

The success of the entire strategy is dependent on that qualitative descriptor: “valuable.” Your content has to be valuable for your strategy to succeed. But what is it that makes a piece of content valuable, and how can you tell if your content achieves it?

Content Goals

Different businesses will define value in different ways, because they’ll have different goals for their content marketing strategy. Most times, businesses use content to achieve some combination of the following:

·           Brand visibility. Some content is intended to promote the visibility of your brand, introducing it to new people and raising awareness among your customers. It’s a useful effect if you want to encourage customer loyalty or just make your brand known to a wider circle of people.

·           Brand reputation. Writing content that exhibits “thought leadership,” or an authoritative stance on an important subject, can improve your reputation. If people enjoy reading your content, and if they respect its accuracy, depth, and entertainment value, they’ll come to like your brand more—and be more willing to buy from you.

·           Traffic generation. One of the most important benefits of content is its ability to generate traffic, and it can generate traffic in a number of different ways. For example, if you publish offsite content that contains links to your website, you can generate referral traffic. If you use content as part of your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign, you can generate organic search traffic. If you curate and syndicate content on your social media accounts, you can generate social traffic. You can even generate direct traffic and repeat visitors by building a stronger reputation.

Source: SearchFactory

·           Conversion optimization. Content is also a great vehicle for calls-to-action, (CTAs), which motivate your readers to make a purchase, fill out a form, or take some other meaningful action that ultimately leads to revenue. With respect to this point, content becomes directly valuable; if it’s sufficiently persuasive, it can generate revenue for your brand.

·           Community building. Content also works well as a tool for community building. If you encourage group discussions, publish content regularly, and interact directly with your followers, your content can serve as the basis for a thriving community around your brand.

Source: SproutSocial

11 Hallmarks of Effective Content

Regardless of what your goals are, effective pieces of content tend to have many similar qualities.

These include:

1.         Original ideas. First, your content needs to present some kind of original idea. There are millions of people creating content on the web, so if you’re saying the same things as everyone else, you’ll easily go unnoticed. Try making a bold claim or a unique argument, or presenting a brand-new idea. If you can’t come up with something truly original, try coming up with an original response to an existing idea.

2.         An immediate “grab.” People have short attention spans, especially on the internet. If you want your content to get noticed and read, you have to have some kind of an initial grab. For conventional articles, this means writing a compelling headline—even if that means delving into “clickbait” territory. Your headline should be accurate to the content you’re writing, but it should also pique reader interest—and potentially evoke a response.

3.         Specific facts. Good content also offers reliable facts and/or statistics. Specific facts strengthen your arguments, and make your content more authoritative. As an added bonus, these facts are more likely to attract links as citations in other work; other content creators will want to link to your work, helping you generate more referral traffic and building your domain authority so you rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

4.         Sufficient length. There’s no minimum or maximum for “valuable” content length, but in general, longer content tends to perform better. Longer content gives you more room to provide exhaustive arguments and additional details. The majority of content on the internet is less than 1,000 words, so writing long-form content also helps you stand out. That said, short content also has a place if you want to cover a topic concisely.

5.         Mixed media. Written content is the dominant form of content online, but you can attract more followers and improve engagement with your work by including other mediums. Improve your written content with images and videos, or consider starting an audio-based podcast to capitalize on a different audience. Use a mixture of different formats and mediums to see the best results.

6.         Readability. If you’re writing content, you need to make sure it’s easily readable. You can improve readability with formatting, like writing in short paragraphs and using bulleted and numbered lists. However, it’s also important to write at a relatively low reading level, and ensure all your sentences are coherent.

7.         An objective benefit to the reader. What does a reader stand to gain from reading your article? Are you teaching them a new skill? Are you giving them an update they need to work effectively? Are you answering a question they have? Solving a problem? Are you helping them think about a complex problem in a new way?

8.         A call to action. If you want your content to generate conversions (like purchases or completed forms), you need to master the art of presenting calls-to-action (CTAs) in your work. Good CTAs blend in with the content—they aren’t painfully apparent—and they give readers direct instructions on what to do next. That said, not every piece of content needs a CTA to serve its purpose.

9.         Persuasiveness. In many cases, the value of a piece of content is increased because of its persuasiveness. Through skilled argumentation and objective reasoning, your blog post could persuade someone to change their mind on a given topic, or convince them to move forward with a purchase they’ve been considering for a long time.

10.  Opportunities for engagement. Content can also be valuable because of its ability to inspire engagement. In other words, can this content get your followers to talk to each other (and to you)? Does it make people want to share it? Engaging content tends to be controversial, or at least debatable. It also evokes an emotional response in many cases. You can also make your content more engaging by asking probing questions, or by intentionally starting a group discussion.

11.  Entertainment. Some forms of content are almost exclusively entertaining, forgoing research in favor of humor. However, it’s even more popular to include elements of entertainment in otherwise valuable content. For example, you can make a few jokes while discussing an important topic, or present the content in the form of a dialogue or story so it’s easier to digest.

Your content’s value also depends on your consistency with the strategy. For example, regularly publishing high-quality content on a variety of different publication channels will gradually increase your brand visibility and public recognition of your expertise. Followers will know to check your accounts and channels for new content routinely, and they’ll come to hold your latest work in even higher regard.

Source: Muddit Aggarwal

Curation and Distribution

Let’s say you’ve developed a few pieces of incredible content. What good is it going to do if there’s nobody around to read it?

If you want your content to be more valuable for your brand, you need some way to distribute it. Hypothetically, if your content is sufficiently valuable to readers, they’ll share it with other people and spread word about the authority of your brand. However, you still need platforms through which you can generate initial interest.

One of the best options here is distribution via social media, where you can reach a wide audience of both followers and new people who have never heard of your brand.

  However, you can also distribute your content via email marketing, paid advertising, or other promotional methods.

If you’re interested in building your reputation on social media, or establishing your authority before circulating your own content, you can curate the content of other creators. Here, the idea is to find valuable pieces of content that other people have created, then share them to your followers while simultaneously adding value—such as providing commentary, or offering a counterargument to the main point of the article.

Content curation is also a way to produce content for your own website or blog, which we’ll cover in the next section.

Costs and ROI

So far, we’ve talked about what makes a piece of content “valuable” in terms of its appeal to readers, and in terms of how much revenue it can generate for your brand. But we also need to think about the other side of the equation—the costs of producing content.

In marketing, one of the most important metrics to measure is your return on investment (ROI). This is a measurement of how much value something returns to your organization, compared to how much it cost to create. It’s important to take this into consideration when developing your content, and ascribe “value” based on relative ROI.

For example, a $100 piece of content might generate $200 of value, while a $200 piece of content might generate $250 of value. Technically, the latter piece of content is more “valuable” in the sense that it creates more total revenue, but the former piece of content yields a higher comparative return.

Accordingly, you can create more valuable content for your brand by considering the amount of time, money, and effort it takes to produce content. If you want to see a higher ROI for your content strategy, you can try to maximize the appeal of your content while minimizing your investment.

One of the best strategies here is content curation, wherein you’ll collect the existing work of others and assemble it in your own original way. For example, you can create a “top 10” list that reviews some of the best products or services on the web, or you can add commentary to an existing video or post.

You can also host other creators’ pieces of content on your site, or provide links to many videos or lists of reading materials.

Subjective Differences

Another important consideration to bear in mind is the subjective nature of content value. There are pieces of content that have gotten lots of shares and links, despite not offering much in the way of original ideas, and there are amazing pieces of content that have gone practically undiscovered.

There are many variables that can influence the true value of a piece of work, including:

·           Industry. Different industries have different norms and standards for what qualifies as “good” content. For example, some industries require much deeper dives and original research, while others can get away with shorter, “fluffier” content.

·           Timing. Your timing also matters, though it’s sometimes beyond your control. If you write a piece of content that reacts to a current event, you can take advantage of public interest. If you’re too late on a topic, or if your topic is obscured by another, more exciting event, you could get lost in the shuffle.

·           Personal taste. Remember that individuals have varying tastes, and they don’t always conform to your expectations of them. You might find something funny, or interesting, or helpful in your personal life, but there’s no guarantee someone else will think the same.

The Importance of Measurement and Analysis

Because content value is somewhat subjective, and because value is hard to measure, one of your greatest keys to content marketing success is committing to measurement and analysis. It’s on you to consistently measure the results of your content efforts, including traffic levels, conversions, and brand awareness—as well as public reception to your content.

One of the best tools here is Google Analytics. It’s completely free, and it can help you measure almost every kind of traffic or onsite user behavior you can think of.

Source: Chrome.Google

It’s also a good idea to conduct and review user surveys, where you can collect data about reader preferences and analyze your past efforts. A good service here is SurveyMonkey, which is free to get started.

Source: SurveyMonkey

Be prepared to experiment with different types of content and different approaches. It’s going to take time to find the right rhythm to create consistently valuable content.

Are you interested in improving your content marketing strategy? If so, you’ll need a tool that can help you research, curate, and publish the best possible content. Sign up to try Scoop.it for free today, and give your content curation strategy the boost it needs!

The post What Makes a Piece of Content Valuable appeared first on Scoop.it Blog.

What Makes a Piece of Content Valuable published first on https://improfitninja.weebly.com/

[coin-news-blog]

Andrew Yang’s ‘Freedom Dividend’ Is Not Only Unnecessary, It’s Unethical

New Post has been published on https://coinmakers.tech/news/andrew-yang-s-freedom-dividend-is-not-only-unnecessary-it-s-unethical

Andrew Yang’s ‘Freedom Dividend’ Is Not Only Unnecessary, It’s Unethical

Andrew Yang’s ‘Freedom Dividend’ Is Not Only Unnecessary, It’s Unethical

Andrew Yang has taken to Twitter in dynamic fashion as of late, advertising his universal basic income (UBI) proposal known as the “Freedom Dividend.” While throwing money at people out of pocket always generates a buzz, there’s a mathematically and ethically broken side to the plan few are talking about.

A Real-Life Political Cartoon

Not so long ago people used to joke about the typical shyster politician and their larger than life campaign promises. Wisecracks about the next White House wannabe centered around grease-ball politicians literally throwing money at voters to buy their support. Well now, under the guise of a hip new presidential campaign, the money throwing is actually happening. To critique Andrew Yang is no easy task, given the understandable and dynamic support he’s received against the backdrop of a totally corrupt and greedy political and financial system. It stands to ask, though: Is he really set to change things? Upon closer examination, UBI is little more than an inept and unethical ploy for socioeconomic power.

If it feels this good to give 10 Americans $1,000 a month imagine how it will feel to do the same for hundreds of millions of us. It will be one of the greatest days in human history.

— Andrew Yang🧢 (@AndrewYang) November 1, 2019

Generous (With Other People’s Money)

Math. It’s a discipline unlike others for its exact answers and lack of room for debate. One plus one is two. There’s not much dissent possible here, outside of the occasional stoner drum circle or deep metaphysical fireside discussion. Nothing wrong with either, of course, but this is just to lay the groundwork for an argument. Namely, that one cannot give away value one doesn’t have. While Yang is currently giving a “Freedom Dividend of $1,000 a month for an entire year to 10 American families” out of his own pocket, once in office that money set to “do the same for hundreds of millions of us” will come from your pockets.

UBI: something doesn’t add up.

Mixed Up Math

Yang’s campaign website lays out the groundwork for his proposed “Freedom Dividend.” While a dividend is usually defined as a share of profits paid out to shareholders, Yang’s “dividend” will be made possible “by consolidating some welfare programs and implementing a Value Added Tax of 10 percent.” Not exactly a share of profits as much as money pulled from the pockets of Americans, but for the sake of argument, that will do for now. In assuaging fears of inflation, negative economic impact and even incoming communism, Yang maintains on the site:

The federal government recently printed $4 trillion for bank bailouts in its quantitative easing program with no inflation.

This assessment is massively dishonest, and if not, massively ignorant of basic economic realities. It ignores math, in other words. There are many types of inflation and some of the most pernicious hide beneath the surface of popular reference. While consumer price index inflation (CPI) may appear almost unaffected during some periods of quantitative easing (QE) due to a mix of market factors (including the psychological aspect of consumer confidence), asset price inflation is the real trigger for more serious problems. In other words, even as the debt racket of modern government paper spirals out of control, if the people are confident in their money and the state’s reassurance of its value, CPI may stay relatively stable, and businesses will be unable to increase prices due to this psychology and other factors such as healthy, corrective deflation.

Source: St. Louis Fed, realinvestmentadvice.com

While Yang claims the printing of $4 trillion for bailouts caused “no inflation” the housing and asset market is calling BS in unprecedented and truly frightening fashion. If a house was worth $200,000 five years ago, and now is worth $300,000, this doesn’t necessarily mean the house changed, or that the property became legitimately more valuable. What it often means is that the dollar became significantly weaker against the asset. As these asset prices are thus inflated, banks are able to give out bigger and bigger loans against the asset collateral. Once the jig is up, the bubble bursts and the tumble down is severe, with collateral value no longer covering loans. The graph above shows just how dramatically this buildup is happening currently, with asset inflation signaled by U.S. household net worth against GDP at an all-time-high since 1952 of 535%.

Stolen Generosity

Not only is Yang’s proposition economically unsound, it’s also morally objectionable. This is a hard pill to swallow for many hopeful millennials and Yang gang supporters of all ages, tired of scraping by and struggling in the current corrupt, Keynesian paradigm. That notwithstanding, Yang’s “Forward” is no different from the vague and vapid “Hope,” Change,” or “I’m a better man” of previous candidates.

To pay the Freedom Dividend, Yang proposes you be robbed. Business owners not wishing to apply his suggested VAT would be punished for refusal. Consumers not wishing to pay it, as well. It’s an unpleasant reality, but there’s no way to put it more accurately. Yang explains:

A Value Added Tax (VAT) is a tax on the production of goods or services a business produces. It is a fair tax and it makes it much harder for large corporations, who are experts at hiding profits and income, to avoid paying their fair share.

Many are unsure of what Andrew Yang’s fair share of their income should be. If I similarly were forced to pay every neighbor I have a portion of my paycheck because 15 or 20 of them said I must, or be put in a cage, people would be understandably scandalized by the sociopathic suggestion. But if the theft is euphemized as a “Freedom Dividend” it’s suddenly made much more palatable to the masses. While some maintain taxation is a necessary evil for preserving civilization, this position is illogical. There’s nothing civil about stealing from anyone under threat of violence, and a social need doesn’t justify criminal activity, anyway. If it did, the folks in the U.S. during the plantation slavery era would have been correct in their protests against abolition: “But who will pick the cotton!?”

Bitcoin’s Fix

Leaving Andrew Yang’s universe for a moment, it seems important to address crypto as a potential solution for the current political corruption he supposedly stands against. A recent opinion piece in the Washington Post proclaims: “Facebook’s cryptocurrency won’t help the poor access banks. Here’s what would.” The piece goes on to detail the impossibility of Facebook’s upcoming Libra cryptocurrency actually helping the unbanked of the world, due to government regulations. The article un-ironically closes by suggesting that the very same overbearing government is the solution, stating: “It’s true that financial inclusion would help millions of Americans and benefit the economy. But it can be achieved through time-tested and democratic institutions. In fact, the United States already has a public payments system: the Federal Reserve.”

What so few in the space seem to realize about crypto is that the potential for banking the unbanked, pulling people out of poverty, and enabling savings and the building of wealth for the average individual is already here. The state stands in the way with endless surveillance, KYC/AML requirements, taxes and capital controls, so it happens in the regulatory cracks, at present.

Instead of a $1,000 monthly paycheck in trash money, why not drop all restrictions on trade and allow people to grow their wealth and businesses independently? If we’re worried that criminal warlords and kingpins would take over, just look around — they already have. It is precisely because of the illogical centralization of power and lack of a logical, level playing field that a candidate like Yang can gain any prominence at all. In a free society — and no offense here to Yang personally — he’d likely be known as just a common con artist.

Source: news.bitcoin

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

‘I saw people I really trusted turn into monsters…’ - Music Business Worldwide

Four years ago, Kiesza was on the verge of becoming one of the world’s biggest new pop artists.

That’s certainly what her New York label, Island Records, was telling her – and for good reason.

In April 2014, the Canadian singer/songwriter’s smash hit Hideaway climbed to No.1 on the UK Singles Chart.

In the months before this feat, it had won influential backing from BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, who made the then-independent track a staple of her on-air shows.

Hideaway went on to go multi-Platinum in Italy and Canada, Platinum in the UK and Germany, and Gold in the US – not to mention becoming one of Island’s rosiest commercial triumphs of 2014.

Written entirely by Kiesza with her producer, Rami Samir Afuni, the track has now been streamed more than 700m times across YouTube and Spotify alone.

Kiesza, often cited as a streaming-first case study by Spotify at the time, had the world at her feet; she was forward-thinking, self-writing, hitmaking artist with the global backing of a $6bn-a-year corporation in Universal Music Group.

But then, the wind changed.

Despite bursting out of the blocks with one of 2014’s smashes of the summer, and being backed as a priority global artist by a US major label, Kiesza’s commercial stock soon began to slip.

Her follow-up to Hideaway, Giant In My Heart, was released four months later in August 2014.

It became a UK No.4, but promotion and radio support, especially in the States, noticeably tapered off.

In October 2014, the album from which both tracks were taken – Sound Of A Woman – arrived, but it underperformed, coming in at No.40 in the UK and No.42 on the Billboard 200.

Something was going wrong.

Today, less than five years on, Kiesza is fresh out of her deal with Island Records, and fully independent. 
She is optimistic, too, having recently joined forces with Carl Hitchborn, founder of British independent label High Time Records, who is committing to the singer/songwriter like no-one has before.

Kiesza, then, finds herself in an unusual position.

She is full of positivity for the second phase of her career, but also free to tackle a difficult question – one which which major-signed acts typically never get to publicly answer: 
How did a bright new talent get so buried, so quickly, after contractually committing herself to the upper echelons of the music business?

The answer is a cautionary tale for any self-starting artist with a label contract in their hand – and/or any wisp of naivety about the hard-hearted expectations it may contain.

Initially, Kiesza created and released Hideaway – including its award-winning, one-shot video – entirely independently.

The record was signed to Lokal Legend, the indie label of her producer and collaborator, Rami Samir Afuni, who also happened to be an A&R at Island.

Once Annie Mac started backing the song, however, major labels started to circle.

A meeting was taken with Atlantic, but – at the behest of her producer and other team members, says Kiesza – “it was always going to be Island”.

“From that day forward, I didn’t hear another honest word from my label.”

A deal was struck in early 2014 with Island, then run by David Massey. It was agreed that Hideaway would remain quasi-independent until it reached No.1 in the UK, at which point the global Island machine would engage.

“We agreed a deal for a single EP and two albums,” says Kiesza today. “With Hideaway No.1 and blowing up everywhere, I was being told, ‘You’re going to be the biggest star in the world… you’re the next this, you’re the next that.’ That was exciting – as it would be for anybody.”

“But from that day forward,” she claims, “I didn’t hear another honest word from my label.”

The problem, according to Kiesza, was rooted in divergent ambitions: Island wanted “another Hideaway”, to prime the EDM-hungry pump of US radio; Kiesza, in contrast, wanted to lay the pathway to becoming a varied career artist – one able to shift across, and indulge in, multiple genres.

This ability to flit between different styles had previously served her well in writing rooms, and caught the attention of Stellar Songs/Sony/ATV – where she signed for publishing in late 2013.

But in Island, she says, she found a label whose focus on US pop radio left little space for anything that wasn’t “more of the same”.

“When things are successful in this business, people start to change – they start to grab.”

“Hideaway was like a unicorn – it wasn’t a normal situation,” she tells MBW.

“When things are successful in this business, people start to change – they start to grab, and they show their true colors. And when something goes as quick as Hideaway, they can change in an instant.

“I saw people I really trusted turn into these monsters – almost overnight. The whole experience was very stressful and frightening.”

This growing tension between artist and label was made worse, says Kiesza, by a management company which was keen for her to plough a Hideaway-like dance-pop furrow.

When Kiesza presented follow-up single Giant In My Heart to her team, she observes, “everyone got terrified”.

“Because Hideaway was still going so fast, the label was like, ‘It needs to go straight to radio [in the US],’ instead of building it organically and allowing some time for the sound to crossover,” she says.

“I knew it was too soon to go that hard that quickly on radio, and different states would need time to adjust to a house song.

“[Giant In My Heart] researched poorly despite Shazaming at No.1, and they stopped plugging it, almost as soon as it began.”

At this point, Kiesza started to suspect people within her label were deliberately passing responsibility for her campaign – particularly, making money available for videos – to one another, leading to a sense that nobody could sign off on the backing she required.

“everyone at the label took the glory for its success.”

“They all freaked out because it wasn’t Hideaway,” she says. “I told them it was going to take longer, because we’d started to notice that it was gradually becoming a super-fan favorite; many of my fans connected with Giant in My Heart on a deeper and more personal level than Hideaway.

“But the label insisted on the exact same strategy for Hideaway, repeated – even though we told them it wouldn’t work. We knew the only way it was going to [break] was with time, to let people organically live with it. And when the song didn’t build as fast as Hideaway they just panicked and did nothing.”

Kiesza says she and her choreographer, Ljuba Castot, began independently promoting the track at club nights in the UK and New York, attaching it to pop-up performances of Hideaway – a move she believes was instrumental in its Top 5 UK performance.

“After hitting No.4 in the UK,” she says, “everyone at the label took the glory for its success.”

She adds: 
”I haven’t met anyone in the music industry who isn’t the nicest person I’ve ever met. They hug you, embrace you, and talk about all these plans.

“Then you leave their office… and then they send you a text or email telling you why what you asked for can’t happen. Or they just pretend like it was never even discussed.”

Things went from bad to worse when Kiesza pressed for the label to promote Sound Of A Woman, a strings-led dramatic ballad, as her third single.

“They didn’t want to create any kind of new strategy, least of all for a ballad,” she says. “Behind my back, they remixed it, and didn’t send me the remix. They put a drum and bass beat behind it. I found out at the last minute and I couldn’t believe that they did that without my knowledge.”

She adds: “They took my art and they changed it without my agreement! And then they got really mad with me when I told them no.”

Sound Of A Woman was eventually released, with muted support, as Kiesza’s fourth single on May 2015 – over a year after Hideaway had taken charts and dancefloors by storm.

“one day, when I was in the studio, I got a text which said: ‘I don’t think your vision for you is in alignment with ours.'”

The artist was in despair. She was beginning to feel her career slipping away from her – and had twigged that her record company now viewed her as a problem signing.

The lowest point came in the months following Sound Of A Woman’s release.

She claims: “[Island] weren’t backing any of my music – by this stage, they wouldn’t even send out the simplest thing as a marketing email. I was funding my own videos – but I knew I was stuck with them.”

She adds: “I was working with a new product manager, because [Island] blamed my old product manager and A&R for why things weren’t working. And one day, when I was in the studio, I got a text which said: ‘I don’t think your vision for you is in alignment with ours.’

“I was crushed.”

‘I don’t think your vision for you is in alignment with ours.’

There’s no getting around the fact this is a pretty manipulative thing for someone to say to a young woman who, by nature of her career, holds a microscope up to her self-image more than your average Jane.

Yet, to her credit, Kiesza continues to see the argument from both sides.

“None of these people were bad people – I think they were completely ruled by fear when things were new or uncertain.

“It was the same for the label, my management and on tour: you start getting treated like a porcelain doll, or a baby. People don’t want you to get upset, so they hide what’s going on from you.

“It’s very lonely and isolating when your entire social circle relies on you for income… You start getting treated like a porcelain doll, or a baby. People don’t want you to get upset, so they hide what’s going on from you.”

“It was really stressful, walking into rooms when there’d clearly been an argument going on – at which point it would fall silent. Once, on tour, I was even asked to leave a meeting which was about me. It’s so strange.

“I think it’s because, while everyone wants you to do what they want, they’re also kind of afraid of you – there’s this fear on every level.

“It’s very lonely and isolating when your entire social circle relies on you for income. You’re travelling the world with these people, you sometimes spend 24 hours a day together, and yet on some level, they all remain strangers.”

Kiesza credits David Massey with introducing her to Stuart Price, who is now working with her on new material – including new single Phantom Of The Dancefloor, out August 10, which ambitiously mixes operatic trills, gothic meltdowns and a deep-wobble house chorus.

Massey’s recent departure from Island to Arista, says Kiesza, enabled her to break away from the Universal label; there was a ‘key man’ clause in her original deal which permitted her to go when Massey did.

Eventually, Kiesza also decided to leave her second management company, after growing tired of “calls going unanswered”.

“I wrote over 100 songs [at that time] but only had one of my own songs – that wasn’t a feature or collaboration – released,” she claims. “It went out without a proper plan, and in every business in the world, planning is everything.”

“No-one from the team called or touched base with me afterwards. It was unbelievable.”

After three-and-a-half years of working together, and having already presented a complete concept album, Kiesza terminated her agreement with Crush.

“I couldn’t get my manager on the phone, so I ended things through a text message,” she says. “No-one from the team called or touched base with me afterwards. It was unbelievable.”

She adds: “Essentially I waited three-and-a-half years for nothing. I think that was my biggest heartbreak in this industry: I put all my faith in them, and believed they had my back.”

Today, however, Kiesza has good reason to believe in the future – and a new, effusive champion in Carl Hitchborn.

As per High Time’s standard artist deals, Kiesza will now see her management, label, branding, sync and live activities all handled by a single global team.

“Kiesza’s experience is a clear example of how the traditional music industry is not really designed for artist development – it’s designed to focus on quick hits,” argues Hitchborn (pictured with Kiesza). “There is no consideration for the human element of a person’s career.”

“I believe she’ll be in arenas within three years and stadiums within five years.”

Hitchborn and Kiesza are now working on an initial “two-year plan” which, in the first instance, focuses on re-engaging her social channels with just a slice of the millions of people who have downloaded, streamed or pirated her music over the years.

Says Hitchborn: “I’m stunned at how great Kiesza’s new music is, and how she creates these amazing videos herself. I’ve not only met an incredible artist, I’ve met the most creative person I’ve ever known.”

He adds, without hesitation: “I believe she’ll be in arenas within three years and stadiums within five years.”

As for Kiesza’s past? She’s learned harsh lessons she says she’ll never forget.

“If I could go back in time, I never would have signed to a major label,” she comments.

“I can’t say there aren’t people being innovative and attempting to change the system from within – I have a friend running Columbia Records now [Ron Perry] who is changing things because he’s creative and from an independent background. But, in general, that whole system needs to evolve – especially because consumers today want so much, so often.”

“when you take an artist and you roadblock their creativity, you are destroying them.”

She adds: “When you’re Drake, you can do whatever you want: the big players are getting all the funding, and all the attention from everyone in the industry.

“But I worry about the other 99% – there are hundreds of those artists out there stuck in a system that isn’t fair and doesn’t listen to them.

“Here’s what often gets forgotten: when you take an artist and you roadblock their creativity, you are destroying them – in essence you are suffocating their soul.

“Creativity is very often the only way they know how to connect themselves to the world.”Music Business Worldwide

This content was originally published here.

[dallasareaopinion]

On election day let’s talk about God

Have you ever noticed that if you look at a picture of hurricane from space and then a picture of a galaxy of the type like ours they look very similar? I am not talking specifically, but in general form. The hurricane has outer bands that circle the eye, but generally is one large complex of a storm circling the eye. A spiral galaxy, our type, has arms that stretch out from the center, yet overall is a large complex of stars circling the center of the galaxy.

And why do I bring this example up? No real reason except it helps illustrate another point that I cannot do the math to prove or disprove. And that is the entire universe is rotating around a center. I believe in consistency in what God created so just for my world I am thinking the universe also rotates like the moon around the earth, the earth around the sun, sun around the center of our galaxy. It makes sense for the universe to be rotating around its center or origination point, at least in my little world.

And what has the got to do with the price of tea in China or God for that matter? So lets stop there for a moment.

Ever since the dawn of humans, mankind has been trying to define or explain our creation.  And if you read ancient history, there are all sorts of theories about creation. Eventually the Judeo-Christian version of creation dominated the theological viewpoint in this part of the world. The one God, creator theory, God above all others, yet there is only one God. ( yeah, people seem to ignore that contradiction, and I’m sure some theologian has figured it out) Anyway, I am not going to argue theology and which version of creation is right because this is more about how humans have it wrong.

I am not saying the Judeo Christian version of events is incorrect, actually far from it. I believe much of this is correct, but presented in the wrong terms. I do believe there is a moral imprint on our hearts so to speak. Most people know right from wrong, even when committing something that is considered wrong. Some people do not have this in the wiring of their brain and psychologists have many terms for these people, but most people have a basic understanding of right and wrong.  And that brings up another point for the moment, science basically is the labeling, measurement, and description, or the how of creation. And this includes psychologists trying to label human behavior. Just because I say this doesn’t mean I agree with everything scientists say, yet they have great value because they are exploring the definitions and measurements of our origins.

Did Moses actually experience God with the burning bush? Or was handed the Ten Commandments directly from God? I am not sure if you have to believe the literal interpretation of the Bible to believe God does try to connect with mankind to give direction. Yet, the Ten Commandments are a great framework for mankind. I even believe some literal interpretations may not be enough. And when Jesus pretty much paraphrased them into two: Love God above everything and love your neighbor as yourself it makes life much easier. Maybe we take life too seriously. Religion sure does.

And that leads me to my point. Religion is mankind’s version of events. And this means we are viewing creation through mankind’s lenses and not through God’s. And I say that knowing we cannot view creation through God’s eyes. So we must step back and realize our lenses, our eyes are inadequate to see creation or define it. And also that there are two creations, the physical creation of our universe and then the creation of life and the ability to understand there is life and take it to the next level, the choice of life, or as some label: free will.

So how do you prove this theory? Just like the universe rotating around the center of the universe, I cannot do the math, I cannot directly explain this, because I do not have God’s eyes. I have to find some examples within the context of what we do know.

And just like the universe rotating, no one wants to believe something different from what they already know, but oops, that knowledge is through mankind’s lenses, not God’s.  I know the rotating universe is far-fetched, so people will believe that taking God to the next level is far-fetched, yet that is exactly the problem I am trying to identify. There is a level of God we cannot obtain. Mankind just isn’t ready.  

Think about it this way, Creation is always defined as being perfect, but what is perfect. We define perfection in our eyes, not God’s because we do not know what God thinks is perfection. Like in Genesis, God saw that it was good, yet what did God see that was good. Honestly we have no clue and if anyone tries to argue they are arguing religion, mankind’s lenses, not God’s.

Or to try and give the most specific example I can think of right now, try stepping back and think, if God wanted to create life, what would he need to do so. If you follow the big bang theory through to this moment, we have a wide range of factors that have to come into play that eventually led to humans arguing whose God is better. So is this perfect? Most would say no because we cannot decide whose God is right. And quite frankly most of the arguments are not whose God is right, but whose version of God is right. I break it down in more simple terms that God created us somehow,  gave us moral direction and leaves us to our own devices because he wants to see what we can do with ourselves.  And this is why we screw up so much.

Last example; God had to create life somehow, and this creation had to be perfect in God’s ways for life to come about. God created this planet for us to live on. Yet, some say the planet isn’t perfect. And there is no God because of all the bad things that happen. There are instances where the bad comes from humans, so I argue, we aren’t following God’s directions he gave us and we can change and do better. And in God’s eye this is perfect. God wanted it this way. Or people say the Bible says we must learn to accept whatever comes our way because it is God’s will. I say there is a split. The above we can control and we must. God wants us to choose. He gave us the ability to determine right from wrong and if we want to be what God wants from us we must choose good. And this means making the effort. The Saints aren’t Saints because they sat around. They proactively went out and did good. Okay, you can argue what you think about Catholicism, but the general point is we have a duty to do what is right and to teach what is right and to implement the love God and neighbor in our lives.  The other side of the split is this planet is perfect. Look at it from the concept of to create life maybe we need a dynamic planet and that dynamic planet has a core, rotates, formed to create land and water, so life could develop and eventually become us. So even though we have volcanoes, hurricanes, earthquakes all of which we cannot control, this does not mean the earth is not perfect. In fact, this means it is, if this is what it takes to develop life. So when the Bible says you have to accept what is God’s will, then this is the part we have to put into God’s hands and accept.

So to wrap up, we were created, we are clueless as to what God considers perfect, and we need to quit defining God in our eyes and realize, we just need to follow the most basic of precepts. God gave us free will so we are to show God we love God by doing what God taught, ie go back to Jesus’ break down of the commandments. And other than that we cannot change the physical environment of our planet, it actually works for us and destroying our planet goes against God’s will since this planet is God’s gift to us. Theology in a nutshell. Ha ha ha

This all began way too early this morning so this is what is left of all my original thoughts. Hope you voted.

Cheers

okay okay, Ted Cruz is causing me to say something about the election and I really tried not to today. There are posters that popped up with the phrase Ted Cruz tough as Texas. And the bile won’t stop coming up once I saw those posters. Here is a man that let someone insult him no end on the National Stage and then the same person denigrated multiple members of his family. And then he says all is good with Trump so Trump will come down to Texas  and campaign for him. Really Ted?!?!?!?! Thank God there was a Libertarian on the ballot or I would have struggled with breaking almost 40 years of not voting for a Democrat or Republican. I do not like talking bad about people, but Ted you are not tough as Texas and I am going to leave it at that because in my mind it is real ugly. If you are a real conservative, you should be able to stand on your own merits, not ride the coattails of the most amoral President we have ever had.

Cheers again

[trendingnewsb]

How Violent Video Games Might Be Screwing With Your Brain

I’ve been committing war crimes in video games since the goddamned Carter era. In a game last night, I used a combination of a flamethrower and a trained bear to kill a man who I think was just trying to change a tire on his car. I’m typing this on a solid gold computer I bought with money made from distributing violent media. I’m not here to take anyone’s fun away.

But, to boil my point down to Tweet length:

I don’t think violent video games make kids do violence in real life. The evidence for that is weak to nonexistent. I do think violent video games can make some people into raging, intolerant jerks via a process that is rarely talked about. I think that assertion is supported by both data and common sense. Let’s see if you agree!

6

Moral Crusaders Get It Wrong

The always-weird experiments that “prove” a connection between violent video games and aggression seem to all involve having some kids kill shit on a screen, then testing them to see if they’ll harm somebody in real life, like playing a loud noise to punish another kid. Sure enough, the ones playing violent games were (immediately after) harsher on their peers.

Even if you’re not a trained Mad Scientist, you know why that’s a weak-ass connection. At best, that seems to happen for the same reason pro athletes get into shoving matches after a play, even though they wouldn’t do the same while, say, in line at a breakfast buffet. They’re keyed up, on edge. Let them calm down, and they’re fine.

Now, in the above-linked study, the scientists seemed surprised to find that they got the same reaction from cartoonish games and more “realistic” ones (I put the sarcasm quotes there because Street Fighter was one of their “realistic” games). Sure enough, a later study found no change in subjects based on how realistic a game’s violence was.

That right there is crucial to my theory: Games simulating violence don’t translate to real-world violence because they’re not actually simulating that at all. The sensations of real-world violence — genuine physical fear, shaking, cold sweat — just aren’t there. Games train you for that about as well as watching IT trains you fight sewer clowns.

I think lots of you would prefer to just stop reading here. Games are healthy and harmless and that’s that, goddammit. But …

5

Game Defenders Get It Wrong Too

The knee-jerk response to critics has always been, “Of course games don’t train you to be violent, or sexist, or anything else. It’s just a game, it’s imaginary!” But those exact same people will applaud articles about how games teach kids problem-solving, improve hand-eye coordination, and even help them learn social skills. Which makes sense. If you spend several hours a day doing something, it’s going to change you. Your brain is built to adapt to whatever it’s repeatedly asked to do — “They’re just games” is therefore a nonsense defense.

And obviously software can train you to do things in the real world — that’s how we teach pilots how to fly (at first). And we know that storytelling media can change your attitudes and worldview. You learned in elementary school about how Uncle Tom’s Cabin took the abolitionist movement mainstream, and how The Jungle caused such widespread outrage that the public demanded companies put fewer severed human fingers in their hamburgers.

Movies, shows, and songs invent catchphrases and fashion trends, and set beauty standards. They also make us think we understand subjects we don’t. To this day, parents teach kids to be terrified of strangers when it’s friends, family, and acquaintances who are most likely to harm them because on TV, the danger is always some predator snatching them off the street. And as I pointed out years ago, the Jaws franchise had horrific consequences for real sharks.

In fact, if somebody else wants to argue that war-based games make players more willing to support war in an abstract way (more willing to vote for it, root for it on TV, whatever), they’re free to make that case. If they want to point out that these games feed our weird gun fetish and make assault rifles seem like super cool toys, others have already made that point in a very eloquent way. But I’m talking about something different …

4

They Don’t Teach Violence — They Teach Us That Obstacles Should Be Easy To Eliminate

One key finding in studies is that video games (violent or otherwise) reduce impulse control in some kids, and lower their ability to tolerate frustration. You can read more about that here, or here, or here, or in any number of other articles if you just Google those terms. It seems to be worse for kids who play tons of games, and it may be worse when those games are violent. Please note that it’s really hard to study this — a human life is full of variables.

Since I am not a professional scienceman, I am going to use my own experiences as a lifelong gamer and rage monster to explain what I think is going on. The addictive loop that makes video games so appealing — and so much more appealing to people with a certain personality type — can be summed up thusly:

A) Here is a thing that is blocking your progress

B) Click a series of buttons to make it disappear

C) Here is a satisfying animation to celebrate your success

Over and over again, for hours at a time, across days, months and years. Hundreds of thousands of repetitions etched into the brain. Problems, button presses, solutions. This is training the brain, altering it. It has to be. It would be weird if it wasn’t.

So if “violent” video games are worse for us, it isn’t because of the violence. It’s because they’re all based around that incredibly satisfying mechanic of quickly eliminating obstacles, one after another (as opposed to games based around complex puzzle-solving, teamwork, memorization, etc). It’s not about tapping into our natural urge to kill; it’s about tapping into our natural urge to fix problems by eliminating them.

It’s a power fantasy, but not in the way moral crusaders insist. It doesn’t train us to want to slit the throat of anyone opposing us. It trains us to want and expect anything opposing us to vanish if we simply apply enough effort to the task. That’s what happened to me, anyway.

3

The Real World Does Not Work That Way

My patience with shitty people is so thin that it can no longer be considered to exist in three dimensions. My world is full of people expressing horrible, wrong opinions on various social media channels I apparently can’t quit, customer service workers who seem annoyed that I’m doing business with them, fellow drivers who seem to worship some kind of dark god of chaos, and voters who apparently just want to see the world burn. I do not handle it well.

When something doesn’t function — whether it’s a system, a human being, or my air conditioner — I lose my shit. I want the obstacles to go away. I don’t want to shoot them with a railgun or attack them with my Far Cry 5 bear. I haven’t been in a fight since I was eight — real violence would make me sick. I just want them gone. Not managed, not ameliorated, but gone. And I want to be told what simple sequence of actions I need to take to make that happen.

My ability to remain calm and analyze problems, or to patiently wait for long-term solutions to take their course, is dogshit. If those circuits even exist in me, they’re fried. The stress of unresolved problems is unbearable. It doesn’t make me violent, but it does make me irritable, rash, and impulsive. When I’m in those moods, that’s when I want most to retreat into games — a world in which nothing can oppose me for long. I think it’s been like that for as long as I’ve been playing.

“But wait,” you say, “why would this translate from the game world to the real world if violence doesn’t? Ha! I have defeated your entire point by noticing this inconsistency, even though you wrote this question and put it into the mouth of an imaginary interlocutor.”

Thanks for asking. The reason is …

2

Everyday Interaction Has Been Gamified

The entire appeal of social media is that it turns interaction with your social circle into a game. Your baby photos get a score in the form of likes, and the restaurant that screws up your order can get hit with a bad Yelp review, lowering their score. People who piss you off can be blocked, vanishing from your field of view as neatly as the victims of my Far Cry murder bear (his name is Cheeseburger, and he’s diabetic). When I order something on Amazon, I can watch the delivery progress on a little graphic meter, observing them failing me one step at a time. If I’m unhappy with the product, the one-star review feels as good as a headshot.

Read Next

13 Myths About Society Too Many People Believe

There is virtually no difference between eliminating an annoying person in a video game and doing it via social media, email, or text. A series of button presses makes them go away. Now compare this to the “game violence becomes real violence” argument: I’ve fired an AR-15 in many games and I’ve fired one in real life. There’s no connection whatsoever between the two experiences — the input from all five senses is completely different. The noise, the smell, the recoil, the muscle control of trying to keep the sights on the target — firing one in combat would be exactly as alien an experience for someone with 10,000 hours in Call Of Duty as it would be for someone who’d only seen that gun in a photo.

You can see this in action when watching harassment campaigns by gamers. I am far from the first person to notice this. The reason attacks from gamers tend to be so much more fierce and sustained than those from other groups (comics fans or whatever) isn’t that video games trained them to be violent or hateful — it’s that they applied gaming logic to the harassment. The annoying voices, the female critics, the evil opposing army must be eliminated, and doing so is just a matter of finding the correct combination of buttons to make them disappear. If typing “WE KNOW WHERE YOUR FAMILY LIVES, WHORE” makes the target delete their Twitter, well, target eliminated. It’s all just shit occurring on a screen.

Now look around and watch the way people gamify political discussions online. Think about all the scorekeeping — posting a meme to trigger the libs, counting the retweets, celebrating that your favorite pundit has more subscribers than the guy he trash-talks, driving up the Patreon dollar amounts for somebody the other side hates. Then there’s the broader, eliminationist tendency that now seems baked into the culture. The goal is not to change minds or make incremental progress toward improvement, it’s to make the bad people vanish. Get them banned, get them fired, shut down their speaking engagement, declare victory.

After all, in a game, you’re not trying to convert the enemy, or integrate them, or live with them, or compromise with them, even though virtually all problems in the real world are solved this way. You can sit there on your phone and play that biggest, dumbest game known as Reality 2018. Hey, I wonder if a study has found that heavy smartphone users also have lower tolerance for negative emotions in real life? It sure did.

1

Certain People Are More Vulnerable To This

Long before reading this part, someone has already linked to this article using the headline, “Writer Blames Video Games For Turning Him Into An Asshole.”

This is a knee-jerk reflex to criticism in 2018, to boil it down to an exaggerated, wrong version that can be easily dismissed. You know, so we don’t have to think about it anymore, so we can make the uncomfortable thing vanish from our world. This is, in fact, the biggest change to my industry in the Trump era: Now, people share content almost entirely based on whether it helps their side win. Controlling the flow of information is another way to gamify the world — Reddit would be boring if it was just a list of links, it’s those scores that keep people addicted. Downvote the bullshit, upvote the comments debunking the bullshit.

Of course I don’t think video games invented short tempers or intolerance, and who knows what kind of person I’d be if I was born into a different era. My belief is only that game mechanics make these traits worse in people who are already susceptible … which I now believe is a huge fucking chunk of the population.

Look at it like gambling. Some people’s brains react strongly to risk-taking, and those people are the ones who get addicted to gambling, which makes them even more addicted to risk-taking. They’re only a minority, but we still study the effects and warn people.

For someone like me, who had anger management problems as a kid (and is from a family of males who all have them), games hit me in a different way from the start — that’s why they’ve always been a soothing retreat. In a game, an enemy that takes two hours to beat is considered brutally difficult. An enemy that takes 20 hours to beat is borderline glitched. Now you turn off the game and step out into the real world, where you can pour your whole being into fighting problems that won’t even show a scratch after 50,000 hours. Bad people show up in your life, and 60 years later, they’re being obnoxious at your funeral.

My fear, then, is that games and the gamification of social interaction hurt our overall level of tolerance. That as a society, this trains us to be so impatient with problems that instead of seeing them through to a resolution, we are satisfied with solutions that make them merely disappear from our screens.

“Hey, we got the bad guy banned from Twitter! We win! On to the next target.”

“But he just switched platforms, and his fans are still brainwashed-“

“On to the next target.“

Games are great at giving you novelty to create an artificial sense of progression, showing you something new and different to fight down every hallway. We try to force real life to conform. Here’s a new outrage, here’s our response, here’s the somewhat satisfying resolution (the perpetrator of said outrage has been suitably dragged, maybe some headlines about lost sponsors or something), and then on to the next one. Last year’s controversies are boring. Do we still have troops in Afghanistan? Is Flint’s water safe to drink? Did the DACA thing get resolved? What happened with all of those refugees that used to be in the news every day?

It doesn’t matter. We’ve moved on to the next level, because many of us aren’t doing this to save the world — we’re doing it to keep ourselves entertained. Up-vote the stuff we disagree with, snark at the stuff we don’t, watch the Likes accumulate, and convince ourselves we won. It’s all game, something to kill time.

Aside from the data linked at the top about how heavy gamers lose impulse control and frustration tolerance, it is likely impossible to test my theory about the wider implications on culture. What I’d like to do is at least talk about it, rather than let the conversation be dominated by confused old men who think video game mass shootings train kids for real ones. We know that’s not true. My thing might still be.

David Wong is the Executive Editor at Cracked, follow him on Twitter or on Facebook or on YouTube or on Instagram.

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[thewhiteleghorn]

Vulgarity lies in the eyes of the beholder

A few days ago, we heard the entire buzz over a dress code announcement put up at an IIT girls’ hostel. The notice asked the residents to come in “fully covered, decent Indian or western dresses” for their house day.  Many news channels reported that though we have seen many such absurdities in the past, this was a shocker coming from a top notch academic institution that India takes pride in. IIT, Delhi later came out with a face saver clarification saying this was solely the warden’s personal opinion and they would ensure that the notice is withdrawn. The first thing that struck me when I heard this news was – such poor choice of words! Also, such a short notice to get a new outfit that fits and fits all the criteria as well?!  Pun intended:).Besides empathizing with the resident girls, this news maker warden did not quite shock me because we have all seen such frustrated hostel wardens sometime in our life. Call it generalization or prejudice; I shall willingly accept the accusation.

Come on, you have heard crazier things than this before. Remember the innovative welcome kit our very own tourism minister came up with for the female tourists? It actually had a safety advice asking them to avoid wearing skirts and short dresses. This was his damage control for the negative attention Nirbhaya incident had brought to India. Wow! I didn’t know we have such smart ministers! That was epitome .So there’s no sense of shock anymore. In fact, none of us should be surprised by this mindset because this is a collective result of so many years of our own doing. We can easily put the blame saying this is all part of a regressive attitude by a patriarchal society and keep ignoring it. But the harsh reality is, this is how the majority’s thought process still works. I am talking about men and women, educated and uneducated, religious and non religious, young and old, rich and the poor. Many of our fellow human beings have numerous justifications for thinking so but they simply refuse to understand the literal meanings of basic words like freedom and choice. What is worse is that a major part of the minority who feels strongly otherwise, chooses to keep quiet.  

If the tourists who come for a short vacation have to go through this, think about the women who have to live in this country. It gets to me the most, when they do this policing in the name of religion. If we thought it is only those few Muslim leaders who had issues with Sania Mirza playing in shorts, there are many more.  Until a while ago, salwar wearing women had to take a dhoti a.k.a. mundu on rent to wear on top of their clothes before entering Padmanabhaswami kshethram  in Thiruvanamthapuram. That seemed really bizarre because salwar is considered as acceptable clothing to even the self appointed cultural stewards. There’s a problem with that too when the men are roaming shirtless in the temple. And not to forget the Christian churches who have formally brought out a detailed dress code for brides. I have a strong take on this, being a Christian myself. There is nothing Christian about a sari or a gown- the bride’s costume would be the last thing on Jesus Christ’s priority in the Holy sacrament of marriage. He loves his children unconditionally, and it is way above all these man-made differences of caste, country, clothing and color. And according to my understanding; the clergy is believed to be carrying forward the priesthood of Jesus Christ, and hence I was expecting them to follow His ideals too. So, this was personally disappointing. They argue this is about culture than religion, but bingo the grooms still arrive in suit-boot. If the dress code required the groom and bride to wear traditional Indian wear, I would have respected the intent.

I have had numerous incidents where I was made to change my clothes because someone would have a problem with it and the child in me never understood why. Now, I have grown up to realize that what a girl should wear is a matter of national importance which is why everyone is so concerned about it. So, let me throw some simple logical light on this problem. Personal comfort and choice may not be concepts that we are mature enough to understand. But most would agree that clothing is a function of many factors including climate, culture and physical activity. All sensible people would also agree that these factors do not remain constant. Climate is changing, culture is evolving and so are physical activities- so why wouldn’t the ways of clothing evolve too? It would be easier for me to cite a Kerala example here. Salwars are no more North Indian in Kerala. Malayali women have integrated salwar as their own. If the previous generation broke the cultural barriers between states, why are they having a problem when the present is breaking it between countries? Yes,of course the pace is inevitably faster.If you still do not get the logic – I recommend you flip through the black and white albums at your home. You will understand that short skirts and tight tops where trending in your own family even in the 70’s.

What triggered me to write this is a conversation I had with a close circle recently. It was beyond my comprehension that deep inside many people close to me also forms part of that majority. Some part is of it comes from refusing to see the reality, some from ignorance and mere resistance to let go of false ideals. And those who are not chose to keep their mouths shut. Me speaking up won’t make a difference was their funda. Many still associate some part of violence on women to revealing clothing in spite of campaigns done against this mentality time and again. They do not even realize that by making such comments, they are being irresponsible citizens and turning a blind eye on the fact that like beauty, vulgarity also lies in the eyes of the beholder. When I told them –While I may not like men wearing only a lunki at home ,I don’t make a hue and cry about it since I respect personal freedom, I got an interesting answer. The answer was, why wouldn’t we use a privilege we have ,which was topped up by another argument that we put on our shirts when any guest pops up. I was wondering inside – but they had problems when I sit with my legs up on the sofa watching TV, even in the comfort zone of my own home, even when no guests are around. By the way, let me clarify I have nothing against shirtless men:P  

I hope there would come a time when we are able to see people as individuals primarily. I do believe there is a strange sense of equality spreading in the world in many dimensions which is a ray of hope but the progress is very slow. After all, we still live in a world that has North Korea when we are heading to inhabit Mars. So, not just the activists, everyone should buck up to react in their own sphere of influence. Silence implies acceptance. So, if you are reading this and you belong to the minority who believes in true humanity, I request and urge you to speak up irrespective of your gender and whether or not the issue at hand is directly affecting you.  We need true and consistent rebellion at grass root level rather than a passing hype. We need not make unnecessary noise, but make sure your voice is heard.