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lordabovehelpme · 4 years

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Can I request something for Kylo Ren, in which the reader is dating him and is a pianist? She often provides music on the piano for the employees of Star Killer and for a prank, she plays different tunes to Kylo’s every move and he gets annoyed by it? She does so until he gets annoyed enough to smash her keyboard to pieces in front of everyone and they all get a good laugh from it! 🤪😂

In the Hall of the Mountain King- Kylo Ren x reader

A/n: Hello! Thank you for requesting. It’s actually funny you bring up piano, because I’ve been playing since I was about two years old. However, because of this I couldn’t bring myself to write about destroying a piano. I hope this still works!

Summary: You, a pianist, find yourself the new center of attention for the employees of the Star Killer.

Masterlist

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When you and Kylo first started dating you begged and begged for him to get you a piano. You’ve been able to play since you were a kid and you love it, albeit if someone asked if you were good you would deny it.

That one day that Kylo surprised you with a piano in your shared quarters you nearly cried. Gleefully sitting on the bench and running your fingers over the ivory keys. Kylo’s eyes twinkled in adoration when you started to play Clair de Lune; the melody filling his heart.

One afternoon you were playing the piano, fingers flying creating beautiful tunes. A stormtrooper had been sent to your quarters on a mission to find Kylo, but stopped when he heard you.

“Um, hello. I am looking for the Supreme Leader.” You turn on the bench to face him. “Oh, he's not here right now.” The stormtrooper nods his head and turns to walk back into the vast halls. Albeit, he pauses, as if debating on a thought.

“I really like your playing. It's quite beautiful.” He bashfully admits.

“Really? Thank you so much.” You smile at his compliment. The stormtrooper nods his head again and finally walks away. Still smiling, you turn back to the keys and begin a new song.

Word started to flood across the base of your “magical hands that could produce melodies of another world.” Stromtroopers and Generals started to take detours in their daily walks to work to catch moments of your songs; it was the new hot topic of the ship.

Later in the week, you were walking to the landing dock to meet Kylo after one of his quick missions. You are known as much kinder than him; compassionate and welcoming. People always smile and say hello to you as you walk by. You have never wanted anyone to fear you as they fear Kylo so you always smile back.

“Miss Ren?” A bashful stormtrooper grabs your attention. You turn and nod, encouraging them to continue. “Would you mind playing some more piano later today?” The surrounding crowd, now engaged in your conversation, make noises of agreement.

“You’re playing is really pretty. It calms me on my back to my quarters.” A passing general added.

“Me too!” Added another stormtrooper.

“My favorite is when you play the slower ones.” A technician added.

“Really, I like the faster ones with more rhythm. It creates a spring in my step.” Laughed another person in the crowd.

You’re now blushing with all the compliments and attention, “I didn’t know you all could hear me.”

“I think I speak for all of us when I say we love it.” The first stormtrooper said.

Kylo arriving now a second thought, “Well, how about we move my piano into the main hall then? That way I can play for you all during your work.” Cheers and nods of agreement. “Do you mind helping me move it? It’s quite heavy.” You chuckled.

“Sure thing.” A group of stormtroopers followed you to your quarters, moving the piano for you.

People gathered around the instrument as you sat on the bench. They were all buzzing from excitement. Hushed conversations were happening as they awaited you to begin. You started playing Une barque sur l’océan and everyone stopped to fully listen.

Kylo walks away from the landing dock, wondering where you were. Weren’t there usually more stormtroopers around? He starts his trek back to your quarters. But then he hears it, a strong melody flowing through the halls. Then he notices a crowd of people where the music is coming from. Nobody sees him as he approaches. He comes to find you playing, but he finds something interesting too, everyone looks so happy. You look up and the melody stops.

“Kylo! Welcome back.” You say getting up from the bench. The energy of the room goes from happy and content to worried and frantic. People rush away to their stations and duties, scared the Supreme Leader will have their heads.

“What is going on?” He asks, furious that they were not working.

“They asked me to play and I couldn’t help myself. You know how much I love it!”

He sighs, remembering how peaceful everyone seemed, something he had never seen from them. He debates in his head, maybe having you play wasn’t so bad. He huffs, “Did you mind playing for them?”

“Not at all! It was so nice creating a place of peace for them.” You smile.

God, that smile, he thinks. Well, he wouldn’t mind being able to hear your sweet melodies as he worked.

“If we keep the piano here will you play while I work sometimes?”

“Really? Of course! That would be lovely!” Jumping in excitement, you wrap your arms around him.

Thus, from then on you always played for the ship. People often compliment you, saying how much they love it, some even start to make song requests.

As time went on and it became more and more of a regular thing to have you play, you started to get cheekier with the melodies you play at times. Specifically, whenever Kylo would walk around the halls all stoic and menacingly you would play In the Hall of the Mountain King, matching the beat to his loud stomps. People caught on fast as to why you were playing that specific tune, often quietly laughing to themselves.

One day however, Kylo got back from one of his more intense missions. He was drained and all he wanted was to retire to your arms for the rest of the day. His muscles still flexed with adrenaline as he walked down the halls, hand hovering over his lightsaber as if he was still in battle. He heard your playing echoing throughout the ship, yet people were watching him. Were they snickering? The thump thump thump of his boots approached you. He noticed something interesting, you timed your song with his steps. Were you mocking him? You were! He felt the rage and fury build throughout his body, grabbing the lightsaber and igniting it.

You’re happy to see him coming home to you, looking up you smile at him but you’re met with a hum of power. His visor is trained to the piano, his body vibrating with fury. You immediately stop playing and gasp, moving between him and your precious instrument.

“Kylo! Kylo, please don’t.” Throwing your hands up as if you could stop the massive man.

“You were mocking me!” He accuses, lightsaber still humming.

“No, no no no. I know it may look like that but it’s actually a compliment!” You’re crying now at the thought of him destroying something so sentimental to you.

He stops, looks at you, and waits for an explanation.

“It's a piece called In the Hall of the Mountain King. I thought it fit because you have a nice rhythm to your steps and we are in your hall, plus, you are the Supreme Leader. So, practically a king”

He waits a moment before turning off the powerful weapon. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, tears stopping.

“I’m sorry. I know some people find it amusing. I won’t play it again.” You look up into the darkness of his visor. You can feel his strong gaze on you.

“No, it’s not your fault. You shouldn’t have to worry about what piece you play. It was wrong of me to assume it was your doing, when it is obviously the incapable people of this ship.”

You smile and hug him, “Thank you.”

“Do you really think I’m a King?”

“Only the best.”

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I hope you all liked it!

Love, Lordy.

#kylo ren x reader #kylo #kylo ren #piano #kylo x reader #kylo ren x you #asks #actyourownfandom-23

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lawrenceop · 3 years

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HOMILY for The Baptism of the Lord (B)

Isa 55:1-11; Isa 12:2-6; 1 Jn 5:1-9; Mark 1:7-11

Many things have been missing since the pandemic began. Right now, for example, because our community is in self-isolation due to sickness, I am, once again, missing having people here in church worshipping God alongside us Dominicans. But I hope that at least some of those who are missing can be helped in however small a way by this livestream. But like so many other new measures being undertaken at this time, it’s all too virtual, too distant, and ultimately too inhuman and sometimes, even inhumane.

For we are bodily, relational, physical persons, which is why we long to touch, taste, smell, feel, and hear. Sight and mental ideas, though important, we realise are just not enough, which is why a live-streamed Mass or Zooming in to ‘visit’ our grandparents is never sufficient but all too limited and limiting. If there’s anything we can realise more deeply in the midst of this pandemic, it’s that we are human beings, a unique combination of the bodily-physical and the spiritual-psychological, and so we need to be sustained, and nourished, and kept healthy in both body and soul altogether. Many of the debates and disagreements we’ve had at this time as Catholics have revolved around the unique difficulties of being human and staying humane, of serving both body and soul, of having a care for the whole human person.

It seems to me that, although we can be grateful for the applications that our modern technology enables, nevertheless all our solutions, being solutions devised by other frail human beings and being dependent on soulless machines, are fatally limited.

The reason we celebrate Christmas, and the focus of this Christmastide season which ends today with this Feast of the Lord’s Baptism, is all about God’s solution for humanity’s fundamental sickness, a pandemic that has plagued us since Adam and Eve sinned against the wisdom and goodness of God, choosing, somewhat irrationally, to follow their own limited knowhow to find happiness over and above God’s way, which is the way of self-giving love. God’s solution for the sickness of sin, therefore, takes into account our human condition, our human nature, which is a rational, intelligent, thinking nature, capable of knowing truth and of choosing to do good. God’s solution for the plight of humanity, therefore, is altogether perfectly humane and is perfectly suited to our being human. For our sakes, God became Man, and Christ, by his teaching and his actions, becomes God’s way to be human, teaching us how to be more genuinely human, more humane, if you will. Thus St Thomas Aquinas says: “to open the way to God for everyone, God willed to become man, so that even children could know and love God as someone like themselves; and so by what they can grasp they can progress little by little to perfection.”

So, God became Man in order to remove our sins, indeed, more than that, he comes to enlighten our minds with truth and to rectify our wills; to reform and remake us from within so that we are motivated not by our sinful desires, but by loving what God loves, and doing as Christ does. In other words, in the person of Jesus Christ, God comes to befriend you and me so as to make us friends of God. As St Thomas says: Man’s sickness consisted in falling into wanting and doing the wrong things, so “righteousness of the human will consists in the proper ordering of love, [and] rightly ordered love is to love God above all things as our supreme good”. So, “to excite our love towards God, there was no more powerful way than that the Word of God, through whom all things were made, should assume our human nature in order to restore it… because the strongest way God could show how much he loves man was his willing to become man for his salvation; and nothing can provoke love more than to know that one is loved.”

In fact, today’s Gospel makes it even more amazing. For God loves us so much that he’s not content to just become Man and so become the cure for our sins. More than this, God wants to become the cure for the natural end of our human condition, namely, God wants to save us from eternal death. And so we’re made, by Christ and through Christ and in Christ, into beloved sons and daughters of God! This is the beauty of the Incarnation, of the Christmas mystery that we have been celebrating, and it is at the heart of the Christian Gospel: that we should become sharers in the divine nature of God’s own immortal Son.

And the way that God communicates this grace, this spiritual transformation, this renewal of mind and heart that elevates our human nature, is in a bodily, physical way because that is how human beings relate to things and with one another. So, through the Sacraments, beginning with Baptism, Jesus Christ touches us, moves us, embraces us, changes us, and indeed, unites himself to us so that we can be united to God. For at your own Baptism, the Father also declared: “You are my Son, the Beloved; my grace rests on you.” (Cf Mk 1:11)

One of the things that has been missing from our churches – one of the first things to be taken away, in fact – is the holy water at the entrance. In St Dominic’s, our stone holy water stoups are so large that they look like a baptismal font, which is fitting because the holy water that should be there points to the Sacrament of Baptism. Sadly, instead of the holy waters of Baptism, we now have sanitisers, and perhaps you’ve also absent-mindedly crossed yourself with this as you entered a church!

But, once again, this man-made solution can serve to show us how very different and limited this is compared to God’s solution. At first glance there can seem to be some similarities: the sanitiser kills germs, and Baptism washes away sin. But this is only a very superficial similarity. For whereas the sanitiser only kills the bacteria and viruses on your hands, in the crevices of your skin, and so on, it merely acts on that which isn’t human and reacts with those things that are outside of me, on the surface of my hand.

The Sacrament of Baptism, on the other hand, doesn’t merely wash over me externally. Rather, it acts on that which is human, acting interiorly on my rational soul, forming my human dispositions and making me more responsive to the Holy Spirit, more obedient to the Word of God, more humbly and trustingly Child-like towards God my Father. In a word, the Sacrament humanises me, by restoring my relationship with God and with other people, placing me within the communion of God’s friends that we call the Church. The Sacraments, because they are devised by God for us human beings, make us more truly human by making us more open to love. So the grace of Baptism, which is at work within us over our lifetime, makes me become more like God the Son, more Christ-like, more loving of God and his commandments, as St John says in today’s Second Reading.

However, something can still be missing, and that something is you and me. I don’t just mean that people are missing because they’re staying away during this pandemic, or because of Covid restrictions. I mean that people can be missing, even well before 2020, if they’ve not really wanted the Sacraments but treat it like a cultural rite of passage; if they’ve not really been engaged with the Christian life and its demands; or if they’ve not really been present to all the graces that God has been pouring out upon us. Tragically for many, the Christian life, which is a call to a living relationship of love with God, can lapse into something distant from my full human experience. So, to use a rough analogy, it can become a bit like being at a Zoom meeting but with my camera and mic turned off; or trying to have a party with friends via Zoom: it’s virtual, not quite real, because it doesn’t really touch me or change me as a human person. Consequently, what’s missing has been the whole human person, body and soul. And yet, it is for this full human encounter that God became Man, and that Christ continues to give himself to us in the Sacraments.

So, this is vital: for the Sacraments to take hold and deeply work in us; for God’s grace to actually have a powerful effect in my life, then my disposition, my receptivity, my willingness to be changed by God, and to let him encounter the whole Me is needed. As St Augustine says, “God who created you without you, will not save you without you”. Because God acts humanely, and so he respects our human freedom, and he wants to save the whole human person in a humane way by inviting you and me into a relationship of mutual love with him. God does this through the Incarnation of his Son; through the attractive teaching and example of Christ; through the grace of Christ communicated by the material instrumentality of the Sacraments and the beauty of the Liturgy; and through the communion of Saints. So, if today you should hear his voice, harden not your hearts, but respond to his invitation, and give yourselves, body and soul, to this relationship of love. As the prophet Isaiah says, the Lord calls out to you and me in a way that engages us, body and soul: “Come… eat… listen. Pay attention, come to me; listen, and your soul will live.”

If you’re not baptised yet, but thinking about it, come. If you’re already baptised, like me, then let's listen and follow Jesus more closely. For, as St Augustine says, thus we shall realise that “to fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.”

#Baptism #Sacraments #theosis #sanctification #discipleship #moral life #Christianity #grace

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irandrura · 3 years

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The Elder Scrolls - a disclaimer and rant

I am going to make some posts about The Elder Scrolls, and in particular, its background, setting, and characters. That means that a disclaimer is probably necessary.

Here’s the tl;dr version: yes, I know about the lore. Please trust me when I say that I was really super into it about a decade and a half ago, and I’ve kept an eye on it since. I have read the Michael Kirkbride forum posts. I have read C0DA, The Seven Fights of the Aldudagga, Sermon Zero, the Loveletter from the Fifth Era, and so on. I know the forum roleplays like The Trial of Vivec. I know that Ayrenn is really a time-travelling mining robot from outer space. I think all the stuff I just referenced varies widely in quality, opinions quite reasonably differ on it, and it’s frequently at odds with what’s actually depicted in the games, but at any rate, I promise that I know it.

So when I go on and talk about Psijics – I know, all right? I know. I am choosing to engage with the setting on a level that focuses more on characters, human stories, and, well, the narratives of the games. The TES apocrypha is interesting, but of limited relevance to the things I’m interested in. There are many valid ways to enjoy TES. Okay?

Now, the longer part:

If you haven’t played TES, and… actually, scratch that, for like 90% of people who’ve played TES, none of the above needed to be said. The thing is, when you play a TES game, it is a fairly straightforward elves-and-wizards-and-dragons fantasy setting in the D&D mould. Indeed, the earliest versions of it, back in the 90s, were based on a D&D campaign. So there’s relatively little surprising about it, and “it’s like D&D” will carry you most of the way towards understanding it.

However, TES games are also renowned for containing lots of in-game books you can read, which are often some of the most striking and evocative parts of the games. These are supplemented by a large library of apocrypha: often unofficial material, posted by developers (and ex-developers) on the internet. The most infamous of these writers is Michael Kirkbride, who has some… very unusual tastes and interests, but there are a range of other names as well. In any case, the result is that TES has an ‘expanded universe’ composed of these non-canonical writings. Often canonical texts in-game hint at some of this vast, unofficial hinterland, and sometimes ideas invented in the apocrypha sneak back into the games themselves.

Further, the apocrypha often hints at what seems to be a very different setting to the one directly experienced in the games: one that’s less about warriors and wizards and adventure and more one about divine magic, transcendence, myth, and meaning. The descriptions often seem to be somewhat at odds. This can best be demonstrated with some examples.

For instance, here is Michael Kirkbride’s description of a High Elf warship, written before any game had depicted the High Elf homeland:

Made of crystal and solidified sunlight, with wings though they do not fly, and prows that elongate into swirling Sun-Birds, and gem-encrusted mini-trebuchets fit for sailing which fire pure aetheric fire, and banners, banners, banners, listing their ancestors all the way back to the Dawn.

This is Old Mary at Water.

You will immediately notice two things. The first is that this sounds really cool. Some of it you need some context to parse (the old elven homeland is called ‘Aldmeris’, hence ‘Old Mary’ as a mocking nickname given by its foes; the High Elves believe that they are literally, genealogically descended from the spirits that created the world at the Dawn), but even so, man, that warship sounds awesome. This Kirkbride guy can write. The second thing, though, is that it is extremely unclear what any of this even means. Given that descriptions… what does this ship look like? Try to picture it! What the heck does ‘crystal and solidified sunlight’ look like? How exactly does a trebuchet throw fire? What?

You might then go on to play a video game where the High Elves are taking part in a war to conquer the continent. If you’re like me, you’re probably keen to see one of these fabled warships. But then it turns out that in-game, High Elf ships look… like this. Or like this.

(Indeed, the High Elves are often a good example of this. An earlier written text, in a pamphlet enclosed with the video game Redguard, described the elven capital of Alinor as “made from glass or insect wings” or “a hypnotic swirl of ramparts and impossibly high towers, designed to catch the light of the sun and break it into its component colours”. Needless to say, should you visit it in a game, it does not look like that.)

After a while, you start to notice that there is very little connection between the world implied by the apocrypha and the world experienced in the games. Kirkbride says that the “closest mythical model” for the ancient knight Pelinal “would be Gilgamesh, with a dash of T-800 thrown in, and a full-serving of brain-fracture slaughterhouse antinomial Kill(3) functions stuck in his hand or head”, and says “Pelinal was and is an insane collective swarmfoam war-fractal from the future”. Indeed in Kirkbride’s descriptions Pelinal seems to have been an ultraviolent schizophrenic who led a wild, genocidal band of anti-elven warriors, was very definitely gay, and who had only a red, gaping hole where his heart ought to be (which in turn is a reference to the missing heart of the creator-trickster deity Lorkhan, whom Pelinal was in part a mortal incarnation of). You might find that really cool or you might find it banal, but there’s no denying that it’s extremely different to the Pelinal whose ghost you can meet in-game. The apocryphal Pelinal is a mad butcher whose closest mythic model, contra Kirkbride, actually seems to be Achilles; the game Pelinal is a straightforwardly sympathetic chivalric knight. This is complicated somewhat by the in-game books being written by Kirkbride and therefore being gonzo bananas insane, so the ‘canon’, such as it is, is unclear – but at any rate it is impossible to deny that there’s an incongruity.

I could go on with examples for a long time. I haven’t even mentioned the most famous – the 1st edition PGE description of Cyrodiil compared to what it actually looks like in Oblivion – or more recent ones, like the gulf between Alduin the mythic dragon who will consume the world and indeed time itself in its terrible jaws and the frankly quite underwhelming beastie you fight in Skyrim. The point I’m making is that there are effectively two TES settings: one relatively down-to-earth, immersive, and depicted in great detail in the video games, and one that’s this absurd mash-up of magic and science fiction and whatever psychedelics Michael Kirkbride has been taking this week.

I write this long disclaimer because it has been my experience discussing TES in the past that people who are mostly interested in the former – in the relatively grounded setting experience in the games – sometimes run into an elitist attitude from people who are interested in the latter. Sometimes fans of the apocrypha can come on much too strong, or gatekeep the idea of being a fan of ‘TES lore’. Any sentence that starts with “actually, in the lore…” is practically guaranteed to go on to be awful.

My point is not that the apocryphal TES is bad. As I hinted above, in my opinion its quality varies extremely widely: there are things that Kirkbride has written that I think are pretty cool (I unironically love the Aldudagga) and there are things he’s written that I think are indulgent tripe (C0DA stands out). Ultimately it’s all about what you enjoy, and I would never try to tell anyone that they shouldn’t have fun reading or speculating about or debating the zaniness of some of these texts. Indeed, as far as online fandoms and video game fan fiction goes, TES probably has the most fruitful ‘expanded universe’ that I’ve ever seen, and I think that’s wonderful. Kirkbride himself has said that “it’s really all interactive fiction, and that should mean something to everyone” and “TES should be Open Source”, which is a position I wholeheartedly endorse – and does a lot to take the edges off some of the worse things he’s said.

Rather, my point is that everyone should enjoy what they feel most interested in, or most able to enjoy. Further, I argue that there is absolutely nothing wrong – and for that matter absolutely nothing less intelligent or less intellectual – about a person preferring to engage with the version of TES most clearly depicted in the video games. Part of this might be defensiveness on my part, because in my opinion what TES has always done best is a nuanced depiction of cultural conflict: this is particularly the case in Morrowind and Skyrim, and ESO’s better expansions tend to deal in this area as well. As such I take relatively little interest in the metaphysical content of much of the apocrypha. For me, Shor, say, is most interesting as the protagonist of several conflicting cultural narratives, rather than as a metaphysical essence.

I would also argue that the most recent game content has taken a good approach by going out of its way to legitimise a range of possible approaches to the setting. The latest chapter of ESO, Greymoor, includes a system where the player can dig up ancient artifacts, and a number of NPC scholars will comment on them for you. This allows the game to indicate in-character scholarly disagreement over issues fans have previously debated. One item shows disagreement over whether the mythical character Morihaus was literally a bull, or a minotaur, or whether he was a human allegorically referred to as a bull. Another one points to disagreement over the possibility of magical spaceships: apocryphal materials have referred to ‘Sunbirds of Alinor’, ‘Reman Mananauts’, etc., as sorts of magical astronauts, but that seems so ridiculous given what we’ve seen in the games as to be easily discounted. I like items like this in-game because they seem to say to players, “It’s okay to disagree over questions like this – no one is doing TES wrong.”

That said, I am reasonably positive that I’m in the minority here, because I am in the camp that usually says that legends exaggerate, and so Morihaus probably wasn’t a bull and magical spaceships don’t exist. This is not a popular position. My reason, of course, is that I think tales are more likely to grow in the telling rather than shrink, and I have a dozen of what I think are hard-to-deny examples of this happening in TES (e.g. heroic narratives of the War of Betony are very different to the grubby reality you uncover in Daggerfall, or Tiber Septim is almost certainly from Alcaire rather than Atmora). However, this means that I openly take an opposite methodology to Michael Kirkbride. Kirkbride was once asked by a forum poster whether some in-game writings are exaggerated. His reply was: “I prefer, "It is very possible, as is the case throughout this magical world, that some of the exaggerated claims made about some subjects pale in comparison to the Monkey Truth. ZOMGWTFGIANTFEATHEREDFLUTYRANTS."”

Needless to say, I find this implausible, and it means that, for example, I interpret the Remanada as an obvious piece of propaganda, inventing a story about Alessia’s ghost in order to retroactively explain why Reman, probably born the son of a hill chieftain with zero connection to the previous dynasty, really has imperial blood. This is a very different but in my opinion more historically plausible take than Kirkbride’s, who has a naked thirteen year old Reman standing atop his harem and slaughtering recalcitrant followers.

I’m not saying that my approach is objectively correct. It’s all fiction – and as Kirkbride said, TES is open source. The only thing that matters is what you the reader, player, or interpreter find the most interesting. For me, that means generally favouring what is seen in the games over the developer apocrypha, which I can take or leave.

At any rate.

I’m going to go on and make some more fannish posts about stuff in ESO that I liked.

Just… if it’s relevant, be aware that I am familiar with the zany stuff. Some of it I like, a lot of it I don’t like, and I feel no obligation to use it if I don’t like it.

There. Disclaimer over.

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thenuanceddebater · 4 years

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Personal Post: Why I Disappear

Alright. This has been a long time coming. This might be one of the most open, personal, etc. posts that I’ve made on this blog. I’m not going to hide anything (save for some identifying details), and I’m going to go through messy stuff like emotions and whatnot. So, I’m putting it under a read more. Please do not think that you need to read this if you don’t want to.

When I first started this blog, I was in undergrad and almost failing out. I had some family issues going on with my grandfather (who is now deceased due to what I could charitably call medical malpractice to the point where it helped change a national procedural standard), and I was hurting. I didn’t have many (or really any) friends, and I needed something to vent to. I made an account to shout into the void – to post long content that wouldn’t ever really get popular or any traction whatsoever for my own benefit. I needed a place where I could yell at people and feel smart. I really didn’t think anything would ever happen, or that I’d even get like... 50 followers. And then my content it kind of... did take off to a degree.

I wasn’t really prepared for that, but at the time it was really fun. I’ve got a bit of an obssessive/ addictive personality, and tumblr became an addiction. At first, that was okay. I was involved in the culture-war discourse, but not really taking it any more seriously than I took other things. I had a summer internship during summer 2016 where I would make tumblr posts when I didn’t have enough work to do, and enjoyed talking to some of the friends I made on this platform. Then it got bad. I started disagreeing with people on “my side,” the 2016 election happened and I felt isolated from the left and the right, and the alt-right started to become a real thing on this website.

Charlottesville is what finally killed it for me. I saw so many people I had at least some respect for trotting out positions that were not only wrong, but odiously wrong. I had acquaintances, classmates, good friends who were affected there. Who were on the ground when it happened. And I know a lot more about Charlottesville than most people on this website. I got sick and tired of having to defend myself, of having people who didn’t know what they were talking about speak back on issues that they did not fully understand. At that point, tumblr became toxic for me. And it’s never really come back. It just took me a while to realize it.

I deleted the tumblr app from my phone in fall 2017, and it’s never come back. I took what was originally intended to be a 3 month sabbatical from tumblr, and then realized that I didn’t want it back in my life. It had kind of... fulfilled its purpose, and I was on to new things. I got a job, and started studying for law school. Then I got into law school. Tumblr was the last place I made that announcement. I used the fact that I had “gotten busy” as an excuse, but that’s not fully accurate. Yes, I was and am very busy. But if I really wanted to, I could make time to post. Maybe not the pages, upon pages, upon PAGES that I used to. But something. What it really was is that I no longer wanted to. The way this website works, at least on the political side, pushed me away.

Alright, now a MAJOR confession time. I have a lot of anxiety. As in, diagnosed “I went to therapy for a year to help deal with it” anxiety. I’m not in therapy anymore, and I cope with it pretty well (especially compared to some people I know and have a great deal of respect, love, and admiration for). I’m privileged in that regard. So many people have it worse. But, there are still certain things that trigger an immediate strong anxiety response. One of them is seeing that I have notes that aren’t just reblogs or likes. For some reason, when I see a number above that little lightning bolt (or when I saw the activity tracker go crazy on older tumblr) it just makes my heart start pounding. It’s not that I think I might be wrong. I still welcome correction and critique of my opinions. It’s not that I don’t want people to reblog my stuff, or comment on it. That’s (1) not my choice and (2) absolutely silly.

It’s more that I’m anxious about how the response is going to make me feel. Some of the angriest I’ve been in recent memory is reading tumblr posts. The angriest I’ve been since the whole... grandfather who was like a father to me died due to medical malpractice thing was when I read a response to a post I made about genocide. The second angriest is when I read a response to a post about Charlottesville. The angriest I’ve been in recent memory is when I read that post that brought me back to the website where people were encouraging others to resist unlawful arrest and citing to a case that was outdated.

I’m not an angry person. I don’t like annoying myself like that. But for some reason, I just can’t help myself sometimes. The number of times I’ve been annoyed enough to want to respond to something in recent memory is... quite high. Sure, there are times where I come back just because I want to check my messages, see something positive, or a question and then am inspired to write something. But that’s not what it usually is. Not really. It’s usually the educator/ elitist in me who wants to correct something that he sees as wrong. And when that thing is dangerously wrong or disingenuously wrong, well that creates some emotions considering that I like to believe that people operate in good-faith and this website really stretches that belief sometimes. And sometimes I can deal with that, and sometimes it really, really bothers me.

I’ve also discovered that I really don’t get very much from tumblr. I used to use it as shouting to the void, and as an activity I could do other than just playing video games and procrastinating on my school work. Well, I do a lot of things now. I have a lot of friends now, and more school work and obligations to student organizations, law journals, my summer internships, etc. I used to use tumblr as a way to feel like I was smart. To feel like I mattered and that I could do great things. I have other ways of doing that, as well as a lot more internal self-esteem and external validation of that self-esteem. Back when I made my tumblr, I was convinced that I was a bad person. Now, I know I’m not, and am in fact a pretty good person. Back when I made my tumblr, I had no outlet for the intellectual energy other than my long-term girlfriend and school work. Now, I have so many outlets for that energy, that it’s honestly mindboggling. Oh, and I still have that same now very-long-term girlfriend (just in case anyone was curious. Our ten year anniversary is next year. I’m 25. I’ve been dating this woman for almost 40% of my life. And she’s honestly fucking amazing, brilliant, and I’m so damn lucky to have her.). It’s not like I’m starved for interaction or avenues to pursue anymore. When I made my tumblr, I was convinced that I’d fucked my life up to such a degree that I was never really going to be able to un-fuck it. Now, I’ve shown myself that I was wrong. I was really, really wrong. About a lot of things, but especially that. I’m not the same person as when I made my tumblr. Not at all. And that’s a really good thing.

But when I go and look at some other people, some other blogs that I used to follow/ still follow (I’m not going to name names), I don’t see that kind of change. I see that they are still the same (or very similar) people. It’s been years. They’re talking about the same things, using the same words, etc. That’s... crazy to me. When I logged on to tumblr this fall and I saw that fucking Charlottesville was somehow still a debate topic, I just about lost it. There’s a post I made that accurately summarizes some of the emotions I felt, but really a lot of it was that this website is Neverland. If you stay here, you likely never grow up. All that happens is that the Wendys, Johns, and Michaels decide that they want to grow-up, and leave to go and do so. So, all that’s left are the Peter Pans and Captain Hooks engaged in constant warfare about the same things for weeks, months, years. And when a Wendy, John, or Michael decides to come back well. Neverland is still the same. Welcoming them back to the same fight that they remember from years ago – from when they were a different person. I don’t know why, but that’s just so damn sad to me. There’s a reason why my old bio said “just a human striving endlessly for the perfection that he can never hope to attain.” Because that’s what I do. And tumblr has kind of an... anathema to that and is antithetical to the concept.

So, tumblr gives me little to nothing, pisses me off, and its never-changing or evolving nature makes me sad and goes against my very being. So, why come back at all? That’s... a damn good question. Not really sure that I can answer it. I suppose the answer has to be that there’s no good reason to come back, but that I will likely continue to do so anyway. Call me a masochist if you must, but sometimes there’s something that I want to share (or that I think the people who SOMEHOW still follow this dead-ass blog should know), or an idea that I think is useful, or I just so happen to type a “t” on my keyboard and tumblr gets pulled-up and I see something and decide to post on it, etc. and I come back. VERY temporarily. Only until I’m pulled away or driven away again. I think that’ll probably keep happening. At least to some degree.

Will I ever come “back” like I was in undergrad or the summer before I got my job? I don’t know. Signs point to “no,” but I’ve been wrong before. I’ve been oh so very wrong before. And maybe I’m wrong about what tumblr gives me. Maybe I can have a healthy relationship with this website to the point where the reblogs don’t give me anxiety, and I’m not either sad or angry (to some degree) when I make a response. But right now, I really doubt it. And I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed anyone, but that’s just where I am right now.

So yeah. I think that’s it. I’ll be around temporarily right now (my internship has really good hours, and I’ve got time in the evenings before I game with friends and talk to my girlfriend to take a look at some things). But come the end of August, I’ll likely be gone again. Maybe even before that. I’m not going to close this blog (because I’ll likely be back again), but content or opinions are never going to be consistent.

If anyone wants to talk, feel free to message me, send an ask, etc. Seeing as I’ve basically dumped a lot of stuff at once (and broken some of the wall separating “TND” from me as a person) I’m down to answer pretty much anything.

#personal #personal thoughts #why i am like this #original content

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9or10allgood · 5 years

Text

I love Tumblr. Far more than Facebook, which has become a seething morass of political partisanship, and while I’m all about seething partisanship when it’s discussed by people willing to engage their intellects, I’m less so when “debate” means posting memes and gifs which are, let’s be honest, the electronic equivalent of saying “nanny nanny boo boo”.

Anyway… Tumblr. You can, to some degree, control your content. If you are, like I am, mildly (*snort*) obsessed with a certain tall, lanky, Scottish actor, you can find like-minded individuals and follow them and bask in his glory to your heart’s content. Likewise, you can follow fandoms based on television shows and movies and plays and music… and you get my point. You’re all here so, of course, you do.

And, if you are interested in things like politics or social issues or the environment or science or all of the above (and more), that content is also readily available on Tumblr.

Generally speaking, I find the folks on Tumblr to be considerably more relaxed and open and accepting than on Facebook. I attribute that, for the most part, to the members being mostly younger. I’m a great believer in young people. The future belongs to them and I am, present circumstances notwithstanding, mostly optimistic about the future.

I’m a Boomer. I was born eleven years after the end of WWII. (Good Lord, I feel old!) There were no twenty-four-hour television or radio stations, and the internet wasn’t even conceived of, even by the most forward thinkers. Doctors still made housecalls as a matter of course. Milk was still delivered to your door every morning. The polio vaccine was still being tested. Putting a man on the moon was a science fiction fantasy.

As a generation, we “Boomers” were guilty of a lot of things, beginning with not quickly enough shedding some of the baggage from the generation before us. We were still largely segregated and we are paying the price still and we will until - I don’t know how long and that disturbs me more than I can say. We were too quick to distrust the other - just ask the immigrants that came to these shores during and after the War. There was a dear older lady in my church when I was in high school. A kinder, more charitable, more joyful woman you could never hope to meet. She was a German war bride - met an American soldier and they fell in love and married and he brought her home to his small, south Georgia hometown. Their first decade was tough - folks were slow to forget and she was sometimes ostracized. Even when I knew her, people would sometimes refer to her (in lowered tones) as Leroy’s German frau.

We were abysmal when it came to the environment. I mean, look at the cars we drove in the sixties and seventies before the oil crisis forced a turn toward economy cars. Gasoline was $.37 a gallon - and that was hi-test! What did it matter that my mother’s 1971 Mercury Grand Marquis land yacht only got 11 miles to the gallon? Gender equality? Seriously? Gender Identity?!?!? How you came out of the womb is what you were. Period. And if your family had that special uncle or the aunt with a Very Close Friend, well, it just wasn’t talked about, was it…

On the other hand, there were things we did do. That social conscience that drives our society today? You can thank those who loudly and visibly protested the Vietnam War for a lot of it. Sure, there were anti-war movements always, but the Vietnam War lit a fire that, with the availability of news cameras and microphones and news cycles, burned hot and bright until the last helicopter departed the US Embassy in Saigon on April 30, 1975. And when the war was over, there were plenty of other things to get riled up about: the environment, women’s rights, the right to choose, civil rights, gay rights. Anger over things that are wrong today didn’t just start in the 2000s. A lot of us - and I mean a lot! - have been pissed off for a while.

Putting a man on the moon belongs to the generation before the Boomers, obviously, but the drive to continue space exploration - the space shuttle, the probes that are still sailing toward places beyond our solar system, the International Space Station, the Hubble telescope - belong to us. Medical advances? Advances in diabetic screening and treatment, the MRI, treatment of HIV/AIDS… Cancer research was largely theoretical until the ‘70s. The idea of DNA re-sequencing as a therapeutic treatment? Late ‘70’s.

And as for culture? My generation embraced the idea of embracing the accoutrements of other cultures. Clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, music, food… we were all about it. I see people commenting on “cultural appropriation” as if it’s a bad thing. We - my generation - considered it to be a tangible form of acceptance.

(As an aside, I have a dear friend who is battling uterine cancer. She has lost all of her hair due to chemotherapy. On one of her “good days”, she and her family took in an Indian (the country) festival and, while she was there, saw an artist creating henna tattoos. On impulse, she asked the woman to create one for her scalp. It was a masterpiece, absolutely glorious, and it gave my friend so much of her joy back. For the first time, she was proud to show herself without a wig or scarf. I think if I’d heard anyone say anything about “cultural appropriation”, I would have punched them in the mouth.)

My point to this ramble is this. Lately, I’ve been seeing anti-Boomer things on Tumblr. Boomers are rude. Boomers are backward. Boomers are outdated. And while I get that it’s just a thing for generations to complain about each other, it’s the absolutism that I see that bothers me. When I was young and dealing with my parents’ generation, I didn’t consign the whole kit and kaboodle to the Dark Ages. And, from my viewpoint as an older person, I don’t heave a great sigh and clutch my pearls over the entirety of the Gen X'ers, the Millennials (raised one!), or the Gen Z'ers. I may get annoyed with one or two individuals and have a sudden urge to shake my cane and yell “get off my lawn, whippersnapper!” but I manage to contain myself. (There was the young man in the electronics department at WalMart who, in his most condescending manner, asked me if I knew what a USB port was. I wanted to tell him that I’d been working with computers since before his father first bought his mother a malt at the chocolate shoppe. Instead, I just gave him The Look™ and he mumbled an apology.)

Absolutism about anything is corrosive. I mean, think about it. It lies at the heart of so many of the evils that are tearing at us now. It feeds the desire to hate all of the “other” because of a crime perpetrated by one or a few. Wars result from this kind of thinking. Down through history, you see it. And it’s so much more easily spread now with social media. Again, I would abandon FB altogether - except that it’s how I keep up with the folks back home - because it’s become a political, partisan, largely unintelligent cesspool. All because those on the Left believe that those on the Right are the Minions of Satan and those on the Right think that those on the Left are Bloodsucking Snowflakes. And, of course, they don’t all think that, but it’s so easy to click a “Like” or a “Share” without really thinking about the message they are sending, and before you know it things are out of control and we’ve put a dictator wannabe in the bloody Oval Office!

(Sorry. I’m still upset.)

There are those who ask why boomers are offended. I mean, “ok boomer” is just a joke, right? Well, yeah, but that same reasoning has been applied to how many derogatory labels. (I read one comment that “Boomer” isn’t an ageist slur. Except it kinda is, y'know?) And, again, it spreads and it gets blown out of proportion and there are those who are just ready to jump on a bandwagon - any bandwagon! - and the next thing you know, it’s trending on Twitter and we’ve got one more thing to get mad about that shouldn’t be anything at all because there are so many other things that we really should be mad about and trying to do something about…

Do you get my point?

If someone of any generation gets on your last good nerve, by all means, express yourself. (Short of violence, obviously.) But ease up on projecting the “they’re all bad" mentality. It isn’t true. It doesn’t make anything easier. And we’re all better than that.

Aren’t we?

#boomers #ok boomers #just a few observations #by a boomer

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highkingfen · 5 years

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You are so “positive fake”. You say you understand why people are mad yet never address the lgbtqia problem. No wonder since you aren’t in the community anyway. Stop pretending things are perfect your the reason the fandom is bad right now, it’s ok for us to be mad and hate the author. Fuck your fake happiness. Hope you stay in your depression until you realize what you do is wrong

Alright, It took me a moment to answer this because the last sentence you said just broke my heart. Whatever our opinions are, wishing someone to stay in illness is just pure cruelty. We may agree to disagree, but this is going way too far and I think most of my friends here and irl would tell you the same. Please ask yourself why you needed to end your message that way.

Second, this is not fake positive. If you read my blog, you’ll see I post sad things to, I just actively decided not to engage in the fandom debate because I have a different opinion, and also because I don’t think adding my voice will bring something to the conversation. I do talk actively about the season 4 finale, just in private.

In fact, today I will record a special episode of my podcast Fillorians United with Vanessa Zoltan from Harry Potter and the sacred text and one of our point of discussion will be how to conciliate your love of something while having a problematic author (for her, it is JK latest tweets). I wanted to bring that into the fandom later and hope this will make people heal a bit more. That’s my way of taking care of the fandom. Vanessa is really insightful and her word in private helped me feel better about how I handle The Magicians content, when I will publish the mini-episode, please listen to it.

Third, I am not vocal about it but I AM in the LGBTQIA+ community. I am a biromantic asexual who is married to a bisexual transgender man. I do not see my sexual identity as my identity as some member of the community may have (i.e my husband is strong in Montreal Queer community and needed to find others like him, I do not carry that wish but respect his and, by being with him, meet a lot of people in the community as well.) I DO understand what you are going through. I DO read a lot about it. But does this mean your voice is more valid than mine?I don’t think so. I think the internet and this fandom is big enough for people to be mad and express it and have people that don’t feel as strongly as you and still want to enjoy doing gifset and writing fics without making it political. Both are ok. I hate seeing people getting angry at actors or lashing at the on twitter like they had a saying in what happened.

People forgot that most of them learn the true finale 2 days before us and that their job is to act. If they defend the show they are in, most of it is because this is their secure job and they fight for it to stay alive. You don’t like this? Then stop watching instead of being mad at people that are simply the tools of what writers wrote.

I also want to make a note for anyone that, as someone who studied Public Relation during a crisis, I would have recommended to Sera and John not to talk anymore because whatever they do or say will never be good enough for part of the fandom. Better for them not being attacked for everything they tweet and focusing on their job. They are in a hurricane and, right now, I don’t blame them to need to be in their safe house. When the storm will be calmer, I would tell them to go back on twitter. But right now, whatever they say will not be enough and will just put oil on fire. This is why I do not resent their silence. Even if I wish they’d talk, I understand why they don’t.

Also anon, all of The Magicians isnt hurt and hating the show now. I want to show you how amazing this fandom is

Because of the fandom, my 2nd edition of The Magicians DND book on Kickstarter is 130% funded and If I get 1500$ will be able to afford to take off work for a whole month and work on it, but even if I get 3 weeks it is because fans were willing to give me a bit of their money to say “hey, what you do is cool and I want to encourage you.” In my wildest dream, I’d never believed this could happen.

I see people doing cosplays and getting ready for ComicCon, encouraging each other, screaming when they see pictures. And I am here for it. I went in so many fandom that was taking apart everything a cosplayer didn’t do instead of adoring the hard work people put into it

There is AT LEAST 5 lets-keep-busy-during-the-hiatus project happening! From The Welter Challenge to a Big Bang to a Queliot or an Alice week! It is WONDERFUL to see that despite it all, some of us stay and don’t want the hiatus to means nothing happens here

people are SO fucking creative! I can’t keep up to ao3 anymore which is AMAZING! When I arrived in the fandom there were 15 fics at most. I see people doing pins and shirt and prints and fan art and gifset and analyzing the clothing and their meaning and I’m just....!!!! I think something becomes meaningful and bigger than itself the moment it makes people create.

The fact that, while I write this, I have several tweets telling me that I am loved, defended and 98% of people here do not tolerate bullies. We do not gatekeep your ship, or your notp, or if you only participate by reblogging and not doing new stuff. A fan is a fan. But what we gatekeep is hate, is attacking people because you want them to feel as bad as you, is wishing someone depression

See. I was positive. Yet I didn’t talk about the season finale. Because there is 3 season and a half that I FUCKING adore, people that are worth praising and I decided to focus on that.

Lastly, my choice to be positive is harder than it looks. Sometimes I want to scream too. Or reblog rants. But I try to spin this into my creations and another way to make people smile, feel a bit better and heal. I said it and I will repeat it again, I started to adore Fen when I realized she made the choice of kindness. And you see her struggle in season 3 because part of her want to cross her arm and let the bad things happen. But Julia reminds her, and me, that hurting doesn’t mean other people are hurt too,

This is why I will finish this with a word of wisdom; If the show hurt you so much that you want to hurt back, maybe its time for you to step away from the fandom for a moment, and ask yourself if it is worth making someone cry while being anonymously mean.

#the magicians #A bunny Asked!

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thisbitchinthecorner · 4 years

Text

1735 Day 6- Sleigh Bells

For @drawlight

1735

In a fine salon in Paris, several distinguished men are seated around an ornately carved table, all engaged in a rousing debate of religion and philosophy.

“I hear what you’re saying, my friend, but what if there is no God and that morality is a construct created by man to keep control of their lesser impulses.” A younger gentleman said, upsetting the group.

“One would have to presume that man’s impulses are evil in nature. I do not believe that men are created evil, surely there is a God and He plays a role in all our lives.” An older, more aristocratic man replied.

“But what if there is a God and He doesn’t interfere with our lives at all. What if we were just created for creation sake, and that God has abandoned us to our own devices.” The evening’s host, a fair haired, refined man said as he lifted his glass.

“Abandoned?” Aziraphale sputtered, nearly dropping his chalice of fine French wine. “You believe God would abandon mankind?”

“Mr. Fell, when is the last time God spoke to humans? Moses? Can we even be certain that is was God speaking and not Satan? Or just a hallucination of the mind? No, I believe that there is a God, but that He has no interest in what his creations do with their lives.” The host replied.

“Just because you cannot understand God’s plan doesn’t mean that The Almighty has abandoned humanity.” Aziraphale mused. “I mean, God’s plan is, by definition...”

“Ineffable.” A voice belonging to a suave, elegantly dressed figure interrupts their discussion. “What my friend is trying to say is that God’s Plan is ineffable and not meant for us to understand. But my money is on God laughing at us all for trying to make sense of any of this nonsense.”

“Ah! Mr. Crowley, good to see you.” The host said warmly. “Come, there is always a place for you at our table.”

“I hear he has some most unusual ideas about Heaven and Hell. Such a delight to have the chance to converse with him!” The younger man says in a hushed tone, clearly quite impressed.

The group continues to debate as the evening grows late.

“Do you honesty believe that God doesn’t give a damn about humans?” Aziraphale argued.

“No! I’m saying The Almighty does’t care about humans- I’m saying She doesn’t care about any of Her creations!” Crowley threw his head back in laughter as the room erupts in furious protest over his choice of pronouns.

“Come now, you know that’s not true.” Aziraphale, ignoring the ramble, yelled.

“Is it, angel?” He replied quickly. Too quickly. The table fell into a hush as the members whispered among themselves.

Sensing the shift in the room, Aziraphale lowered his voice. “Now, my dear, why don’t we agree to disagree. Let us toast to the rousing discussions had on this fine evening, and a toast to our enigmatic host, Monsieur Voltaire.”

As the occupants raised their glasses, more than a few conspicuous glances were exchanged.

Very quietly, their host turned towards Aziraphale, speaking in a hushed tone. “You know, Mr. Fell, many have had their eye on Mr. Crowley for quite sometime. Out of everyone, I’m glad it’s you.”

“Oh!” The angel’s eyes grew wide, but before he could answer, a certain demon flanked his left.

“Lift home?” Crowley asked.

“Let me get my coat.” Aziraphale replied in kind.

The pair exited together, this was not unexceptional, except for tonight, there would be talk long after their departure.

A jingle of sleigh bells heralded the arrival of Crowley’s carriage; a sleek, black sled pulled by 2 massive, jet black horses with glowing red eyes. Crowley opened the door, allowing Aziraphale to enter first. The demon snapped his fingers and the horses galloped at magnificent speeds.

“I rather like our fine host.” Aziraphale said, breaking the silence. “That is, I respect his opinions more than that horrid Rousseau fellow.”

“I agree. Voltaire is a friend, we have much in common.” The demon remarked.

“Is he also a snake?” Aziraphale asked innocently.

“Ha! No! I’m saying that he alters is appearance to reflect who he is on the inside.”

“Like you in Golgotha and Rome and...”

“Yes. Exactly like that.”

“Ah. I like him very much, but his ideas are quite radical.” He turned the conversation. “You know, I believe we might be the topic of gossip after this evening.” Aziraphale fidgeted in his seat as he spoke.

“Why is that?” Crowley, desperately trying to maintain his composure.

“I believe it’s because you called me angel.”

“It just slipped out. I don’t believe I revealed you as a celestial being.”

“I think, I mean, what they assumed, was that we are...Well, I think they took it as a term of endearment.”

“A term of endearment?” Crowley nearly slid off his seat. He settled himself and gave a laugh. “I called you angel because that is what you are.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale said quietly, trying not to sound disappointed.

“You always call me dear, so how is angel any different?”

“I don’t know, it seemed rather...personal, intimate.”

“I can stop if you prefer.”

“No no, I didn’t say that. I’ll get used to it.”

“Very well then.” Crowley snaps his fingers and the sled comes to an abrupt halt. The bells on the harness continue to ring, providing a beautiful melody against an otherwise quiet night; a serenade of chimes singing through the streets of London.

“Thank you for the ride home.” Aziraphale said warmly, almost hesitant to leave.

“You’re most welcome. Goodnight angel.” Crowley grinned as he raised his eyebrow.

“Oh you!” Aziraphale laughed as he shuts the door behind him.

“Goodnight, my angel.” Crowley whispers to himself as he commands the sleigh forward, into the darkness. In his coat pocket, an invitation for the next salon gathering, three months hence at Voltaire’s Burgundy residence. The writing on the card caused his heart to skip a beat.

“To Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell”

Well. He thought to himself, I’ll be damned. As he carefully slid the invite back into the jacket pocket.

What he couldn’t know is that in his London residence, a certain angel received the same invite. He tucked it away, in an unassuming box, the contents included: a red flower forever in bloom, a single black feather, a scroll with scorched ends and several other items. None of them having any particular monetary value, yet each precious in their own way to their owner.

#31 days of ineffables #good omens #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #justenoughofabastardtobeworthknowing

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all-things-are-nothing-to-me · 5 years

Text

The Sun Still Rises

Knowledge chooses its project, each project is new and chooses its moments, each moment is new, but simultaneously emerges from the memory of all the moments that existed before

— The Interior of the Absolute

1. The Beginning

The Fire Cells Conspiracy revolutionary organization didn’t begin its activity from out of nowhere. It wasn’t as if a straight line had cut through space and time. It was a future crying out from the past. The Conspiracy comprised a collective synthesis, connecting the backgrounds and viewpoints of all who participated in it and drawing valuable conclusions from past experiences of subversive projects and attacks we took part in.

It represented our desire to take a step further, not to climb some ladder of informal hierarchy that fetishizes violence and its methods, but to simply advance, move forward, and explore new perspectives, making the shift from a “bunch of friends” to an organization, from the sporadic to the consistent, from the spontaneous to the strategic.

Along the way, we assumed a critical stance toward the past, but we never went out of our way to be hostile. We are anarchy’s misfits, born from its potent moments and gaping voids. Additionally, the goal of critique and self-critique is not to put an end to something, but just the opposite: it’s an aspiration to evolve something. The fact that we’re not going to elaborate a corresponding critical review right now doesn’t mean we’re afraid to recognize our mistakes. Rather, it’s because that kind of examination is better served by distance and cool nerves than by impulse.

During no phase of our brief, intense history did we lose our collective memory of the anarchist milieu we come from. We also feel we discovered something we have in common with comrades who began the struggle before us, engaged in their own battles, were arrested and imprisoned, but never lowered their heads. We discovered the unrepentant passion for revolution that connects histories and realities of struggle from different decades in a shared context of individual and collective liberation.

In that context, we forged our own alphabet. Speaking the language of direct action, we openly raised the issue of creating organized infrastructure. As anarchists, we often distance ourselves from the concept of organization because we equate it with hierarchy, roles, specialization, “you must,” and obligations. However, words acquire the meanings given by the people who use them. As the Fire Cells Conspiracy, we stormed into battle over the meaning of revolutionary anarchist organization.

2. The Path from Spark to Flame

From the very beginning, we rejected the idea of a centralist model and chose to start from the basis of individual initiatives that wanted to collectivize. What emerged during organizational meetings were issues of coherence, consistency, individual and collective responsibility, and direct action as a means of transforming our words into deeds. At group meetings, each comrade had the opportunity to propose a plan of attack, thereby opening up a debate on planning, timing, political analysis, and operational problems posed by a given target’s location. During these discussions, there was no guarantee that we would reach agreement. Opposing arguments sometimes developed into a powerful dialectic, especially regarding the strategy and prioritization of timing, and quite often there was more than one proposal, so we then had to choose which we were going to select and which we were going to keep in “storage” to be refined in the future. It was a process that allowed us to open our minds; broaden our horizons; learn from one another’s different experiences; vigorously defend our opinions; figure out how to recognize our mistakes; understand the concept of shaping something together; become conscious of the need for strategy; and — most important of all — create relationships not in the name of some “professional” revolutionary goal, but based on friendship, true comradeship, and real solidarity.

We love what we do because it contains our entire essence. Therefore, the “Conspiracy” isn’t just all of us together, it’s also each one of us apart. Even in cases when there wasn’t collective agreement on a particular action, we didn’t resort to “begging” from the prevailing democratic majority. Instead, the minority of comrades who insisted on carrying out the attack took the autonomous initiative to move forward with their choice. That happened in parallel with the rest of the collective, which supported them at specific times if necessary, naturally playing a part in our overall organization.

That’s why a number of communiqués were signed by groups (Nihilist Faction, Breath of Terror Commando, Terrorist Guerrilla Unit) that arose out of each separate initiative. During the second phase, after reaching agreement, whether as the entire collective or as a separate initiative, we planned the attack. Each one of us contributed our knowledge; information was culled from newspapers, magazines, and the Internet; the area where the action was to take place was reconnoitered and mapped; the approach to and withdrawal from the target was laid out (avoiding cameras and police checkpoints), including alternate routes in case something unexpected happened, and of course keeping in mind the eventuality of a confrontation with the pigs. There were also support groups, “hideouts,” ways of asking for help, etc. (In a future manual, we will analyze and explain our experiences, which are related to how we perceive what is going on while an attack is being carried out.)

During the third phase (which was never far removed from the initial proposal about target selection), we worked on the text of the communiqué. When a topic was suggested (for example, attacking the police), the comrade who made the proposal argued for its content. Then a discussion began, during which each person fleshed out the concept, expressed disagreements, pointed out problems, and offered other ways to approach the topic. As soon as the debate finished, no matter how many meetings were needed to finish it, the collective brought together the central themes of all the meetings and shaped the main axes around which the communiqué would be written. The writing of a communiqué on a specific topic was usually shared out among those who wanted the responsibility, and after it was written, we got together to read it and make corrections, additions, and final touches. If the communiqué was connected to a separate initiative, then the comrades involved in that separate initiative were responsible for writing it.

The same process held for our Thessaloniki comrades, and when we collaborated as the Athens-Thessaloniki Fire Cells Conspiracy, comrades from both cities coordinated those actions based on principles of mutual aid and comradeship.

3. “Everyone Does Everything”

Of course, we’re well aware of the dangers lurking within each collective project that aspires to call itself antiauthoritarian — the appearance of informal hegemony and the reproduction of corrupt behavior, of which we are enemies. We feel that the purpose of power is to divide. To eliminate the possibility of the emergence of any informal hierarchy within our group, we struck directly at the heart of specialization and roles as soon as they surfaced. We said: “Everyone does everything.” Everyone can learn and devise ways to steal cars and motorcycles, fabricate license plates, forge ID cards and official documents, expropriate goods and money, target-shoot, and use firearms and explosives.

Therefore, it was and continues to be important to us that the means and methods we use for our actions be straightforward and relatively simple to obtain and prepare, allowing them to spread and be used by anyone who decides to move toward the new urban guerrilla warfare. These include gasoline, jerry cans, camping gas canisters, and candles that can easily be obtained at a supermarket, but also improvised timing mechanisms that — after the appropriate “research” in technical manuals and guides available on the Internet, plus a little innovative imagination — anyone is capable of fabricating.

We certainly aren’t forgetting that, while “everyone does everything,” each person also has their own separate abilities and personal inclinations, and it would be a mistake to gloss over those differences. With desire and mutual understanding as our guide, each of us undertook to do what we felt most capable of. For example, if someone was a good driver or a skillful thief, or perhaps had a knack for writing, that didn’t mean their creative abilities would be suppressed in the name of some false collective homogeneity. It was up to each comrade to offer their abilities and methodologies to the other comrades without making a “sacrifice” of their own participation, and it was even better if that happened in the broadest possible way, going beyond the narrow context of the collective and facilitating access by the entirety of the antiauthoritarian current — for example, through the publication of practical guides like those released by some German comrades, which contain a number of different ways to make explosive devices.

Additionally, our actions never involved fixed, immutable roles. Without resorting to the cyclical rotation of tasks, which recall compulsory work hours, all the comrades took advantage of a common foundation that allowed them to be able to execute any task at any time during an attack. The process of improving your ability to use materials and techniques is naturally a continual process of self-education. Along those lines, we want to emphasize how crucial it is to simultaneously develop a group’s operational capacity as well as its revolutionary viewpoint. At no point should the level of sterile operational capacity intensify without a corresponding intensification of thought and discourse, and the same obviously holds true for the converse. We had no central committee to designate roles. There were only particular tasks within a specific plan — positions that changed according to the desires of the comrades who took part.

4. Guerrillas for Life

We’ve always felt that an organization doesn’t necessarily have to be exclusive to the comrades who are part of it. Our action neither begins nor ends within the context of the group. The group is the means to revolution, not an end in itself. Because when the means become their own raison d’être, “diseases” begin to appear, like vanguardism, the armed party, and exclusive orthodox truth.

Through the Fire Cells Conspiracy, we say what we believe in, who we are, and what tendency we represent, but in no way do we say that someone has to precisely follow some so-called correct line or participate in our group in order to be recognized as a comrade.

Thus, we ourselves have also taken part in processes apart from the Conspiracy, like joining coordinated action networks, attending assemblies, participating in marches and demonstrations, supporting attacks and acts of sabotage, putting up posters, and painting slogans. But we never thought one thing was superior to another. That’s because the polymorphism of revolutionary war consists of an open and permanent commitment that has nothing to do with fetishized spectacle (embracing armed struggle as the only thing that matters) or accusatory fixations (insisting on the quantitative characteristic of “massiveness” as the criterion for revolutionary authenticity). On the contrary, we position ourselves as enemies directly against the “polymorphism” of café gossip, speeches in university auditoriums, leadership roles, followers, and all those conservative fossils of dogmatism and habit that act as parasites within the anarchist milieu, wanting only to control young comrades, sabotage them, and prevent them from creating their own autonomous evolutionary path through the revolutionary process.

We believe that the concept of the anarchist urban guerrilla isn’t a separate identity one assumes only while engaging in armed attack. Rather, we feel it’s a matter of merging each person’s private and public life in the context of total liberation. We aren’t anarchists only when we throw a Molotov at a riot police van, carry out expropriations, or plant an explosive device. We’re also anarchists when we talk to our friends, take care of our comrades, have fun, and fall in love.

We aren’t enlisted soldiers whose duty is revolution. We are guerrillas of pleasure who view the connection between rebellion and life as a prerequisite for taking action. We don’t believe in any “correct line” to follow. During the past two years, for example, new urban guerrilla groups frequently posed the issue of robberies and expropriations from the banking machinery as yet another attack on the system. Their communiqués and claims of responsibility are powerful propaganda for the rejection of work via holdups and robberies directed at the belly of the capitalist beast — the banks — with the goal being individual liberation from the eight-hour blackmail of wage-slavery on the one hand, and collective appropriation of and direct access to money for infrastructural needs and revolutionary projects on the other.

We are exiting the scene of urban guerrilla warfare’s past ethical fixations, which rarely took a public position on the issue of revolutionary bank robbery. We feel that there is now plenty of new urban guerrilla discourse and practice that opposes — in a clearly attacking way — the bosses’ work ethic as well as the predatory banking machinery, proposing armed expropriation as a liberatory act, and obviously not as a way to get rich.

Nevertheless, we don’t consider the expropriation of banks to be a prerequisite for someone’s participation in the new guerrilla war. There is one revolution, but there are thousands of ways in which one can take revolutionary action. Other comrades might choose to carry out collective expropriations from the temples of consumerism (supermarkets, shopping malls) in order to individually recover what’s been “stolen” and use those things to meet each person’s material needs, thereby avoiding having to say “good morning” to a boss or take orders from some superior. Still others might participate in grassroots unions, keeping their conscience honed — like a sharp knife — for the war that finally abolishes every form of work that enriches the bosses while impoverishing our dignity.

We feel the same way about voluntarily “disappearing” to go underground. The fetishization of illegalism doesn’t inspire us. We want everyone to act in accordance with their needs and desires. Each choice naturally has its own qualities and virtues as well as its disadvantages. It’s true that when a group voluntarily chooses to go underground (“disappearance” from the environment of family and friends, false papers, etc.), that certainly shields them from the eyes of the enemy. But at the same time, their social connection to the wider radical milieu is cut, and to a certain point they lose a sense of interaction. Of course, the same doesn’t apply when there are objective reasons for going underground (arrest warrants, a price on one’s head), in which case clandestinity is the attacking refuge of those caught in the crosshairs of the law. This creates a parallel need for the existence of support infrastructure, both among guerrilla groups themselves as well as within the wider antiauthoritarian milieu, that will “cover” the tracks of wanted comrades. Prerequisites would be a certain complicity and discretion, which concepts are frequently seen as “outdated” but in our opinion should once again be launched piercingly into battle. If comrades from a guerrilla group engage in regular above-ground interaction — participating in movement meetings and processes, taking part in debates, and creating projects with others that address shared concerns — then the hermetic nature of the guerrilla group should clearly be protected from open ears and big mouths. Therefore, it’s general attitude also must be one of discretion in order to circumvent the deafening exaggerations that can turn it into a “magnet” for bastards from antiterrorist squads and the police. Taking a page from our own self-critique, we must mention the fact that many of us behaved completely opposite to the above, which — along with the viciousness of certain conduct originating within the anarchist milieu — “guided” a number of police operations right to us. In any case, self-critique lays down solid ground from which to develop oneself and offer explanations, but the current text isn’t appropriate for that. We’ll return to it in the future.

5. The First Phase of the Conspiracy and the Proposal for the “New Conspiracy”

The guerrilla has finally escaped the pages of books dealing with decades past and taken to the streets with ferocity. Because the urban guerrilla doesn’t offer utopian freedom. She allows access to immediate freedom. Accordingly, each person begins to define herself and liberate herself from society’s passivity.

There is now noise everywhere — the marvelous noise of widespread destruction — as well as the requisite revolutionary discourse to follow bombings against targets that serve domination. A determined armada of anarchist groups is setting fire to tranquility in the middle of the night, groups with names that reflect the “menu” they offer the system (in Athens: Deviant Behavior for the Spread of Revolutionary Terrorism, Warriors from the Abyss/Terrorist Complicity, Revolutionary Conscience Combatants, Lambros Fountas Guerrilla Formation; in Thessaloniki: Chaos Warriors, Attacking Solidarity Cell, Arson Attack Cell, Schemers for Nighttime Disorder, Fire to the Borders Cell, Combative Conscience Cell, Revolutionary Solidarity Cell, etc.). Many of these groups are also experimenting with a new international liberatory project as accomplices in the alliance known as the International Revolutionary Front/Informal Anarchist Federation.

Those of us who have taken responsibility as members of the Fire Cells Conspiracy are not intimidated by the dozens of years in prison the courts have in store for us. To begin with, we are creating an active collective inside prison.

We know that, for us, the opening phase of the struggle has been completed. However, we also know that nothing is over. The Conspiracy will not remain disarmed. It will continue to be a valid commitment in prison, as well as an open proposal to the antagonistic sector of the metropolis.

The Fire Cells Conspiracy proved itself as a network of cells, just like its name suggests. Right now, we’re not attempting to go over its operational record. We simply want to clarify its political perspective.

We feel that committing to a new Conspiracy most closely approaches the essence of the word, so we are opening up that possibility by making a proposal for a new Conspiracy comprising a diffuse, invisible network of cells that have no reason to meet in person, yet through their actions and discourse recognize one another as comrades in the same political crime: the subversion of Law and Order. This Conspiracy would consist of individuals and cells that take action, whether autonomous or coordinated (through call-outs and communiqués), without needing to agree on every single position and specific reference point (e.g., nihilism, individualism). Instead, they would connect on the basis of mutual aid focused on three key points.

The first point we are proposing in this informal debate is agreement on the choice of direct action using any means capable of damaging enemy infrastructure. Without any hierarchization of methods of violence, comrades can choose from rocks to Kalashnikovs. However, direct action on its own is just another entry on the police blotter, so it should be accompanied by a corresponding communiqué from the given cell or individual claiming responsibility and explaining the reasons behind the attack, thus spreading revolutionary discourse. The pen and the pistol are made from the same metal. Here, let’s note that the Conspiracy of the period that is now over never dismissed any incendiary method in its arsenal. It would be disingenuous of us if some young comrade thought that using the name of a new “Conspiracy” was conditioned by the use of supposedly superior methods (e.g., explosives). The new urban guerrilla warfare depends much less on operational methods than it does on our decision to attack power.

The second key point of agreement is to wage war against the state while simultaneously engaging in a pointed critique of society. Since we are revolutionary anarchists, we don’t just talk about the misfortune caused by power and the ruling oligarchy. We also exercise a more comprehensive critique of the way in which the oppressed accept and propagate the promises of happiness and consumerism offered by their bosses.

The fact that we engage in struggle against the state doesn’t mean we blind ourselves to the diffuse complex of power that administers contemporary interpersonal relationships. Antiauthoritarian discourse frequently alters and generalizes a concept like the state, relieving the rest of the people who constitute society of their responsibility. In doing so, it creates a sterilized viewpoint that treats entire social sectors as revolutionary subjects, whether called proletariat or oppressed, without revealing the individual responsibility each one of us assumes in the enslavement of our lives.

The state is not a fortress. You won’t find any door that leads you to some kind of machine or engine that can be turned off by throwing a switch. The state is not a monster you can kill with a stake through the heart. It’s something quite different. We could compare it to a system: a network comprising thousands of machines and switches. This network doesn’t impose itself on society from above. It spreads throughout society from within. It even extends to the sphere of private life, reaching into and touching our emotions at a cellular level. It molds conscience and is molded by it. It connects and unites society, which in turn nourishes and sanctifies it in a continuous exchange of values and standards. In this game, there are no spectators. Each one of us plays an active role.

— Costas Pappas, No Going Back

The enemy can be found in every mouth that speaks the language of domination. It is not exclusive to one or another race or social class. It doesn’t just consist of rulers and the whole potbellied suit-and-tie dictatorship. It is also the proletarian who aspires to be a boss, the oppressed whose mouth spits nationalist poison, the immigrant who glorifies life in western civilization but behaves like a little dictator among his own people, the prisoner who rats out others to the guards, every mentality that welcomes power, and every conscience that tolerates it.

We don’t believe in an ideology of victimization in which the state takes all the blame. The great empires weren’t just built on oppression. They were also built on the consent of the applauding masses in the timeless Roman arenas of every dictator. To us, the revolutionary subject is each one who liberates herself from the obligations of the present, questions the dominant order of things, and takes part in the criminal quest for freedom.

As the first phase of the Conspiracy, we have no interest in representing anyone, and we don’t take action in the name of any class or as defenders of “oppressed society.” The subject is us, because each rebel is a revolutionary subject in a revolution that always speaks in the first person to ultimately build a genuine collective “we.”

The third key point of agreement in our proposal regarding the formation of a new Conspiracy is international revolutionary solidarity. In truth, our desire to apply all of ourselves to creating moments of attack on the world order may cost some of us our lives, with many of us winding up in prison. “We” doesn’t refer to the Conspiracy or any other organization. It refers to every insurgent, whether they are part of a guerrilla group or taking action individually on their path to freedom. As the first phase of the Conspiracy, our desire and our proposal to every new cell is that the full force of revolutionary solidarity be expressed — a solidarity that cries out through texts, armed actions, attacks, and sabotage to reach the ears of persecuted and imprisoned comrades, no matter how far away they may be.

The solidarity we’re talking about doesn’t require those showing solidarity to express absolute political identification with the accused. It is simply a shared acknowledgment that we are on the same side of the barricades and that we recognize one another in the struggle, like another knife stuck in power’s gut. We therefore also propose support for the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front, so that it can function — as demonstrated by the Italian FAI comrades — as an engine of propulsion.

From this point on, any comrade who agrees (obviously without having to identify herself) with these three key points of the informal agreement we are proposing can — if she wants — use the name Fire Cells Conspiracy in connection with the autonomous cell she is part of. Just like the Dutch comrades who, without us knowing one another personally but within the framework of consistency between discourse and practice, attacked the infrastructure of domination (arson and cyber attacks against Rabobank) and claimed responsibility as the Fire Cells Conspiracy (Dutch Cell).

We feel that a network of such cells, devoid of centralized structure, will be capable of far exceeding the limits of individual plans while exploring the real possibilities of revolutionary coordination among autonomous minority structures. These structures — without knowing one another personally — will in turn be able to organize arson and bombing campaigns throughout Greece, but also on an international level, communicating through their claims of responsibility.

Since we live in suspicious times, we should clarify something. Actions claimed using the Fire Cells Conspiracy name that aren’t consistent with any of the points we’ve laid out and don’t take the necessary precautions to prevent “damage” to anything other than the target of the sabotage will definitely arouse our suspicion, given the likelihood that they will have been hatched by the state.

Returning to our proposal, “anonymity” with regard to personal contact will reinforce the closed nature of the autonomous cells, making it more difficult for the police to “compromise” them. Even the arrest of one entire cell that forms part of the new Conspiracy wouldn’t lead the persecuting authorities to the other cells, thereby avoiding the well-known domino effects that took place in our time.

In the past, the fact that that we first-phase comrades may not have been involved in certain incidents never stopped us from publicly expressing our support or our critique, and the same applies to the present if new comrades choose to use the organization’s name. Without needing to know one another, through the communiqués that accompany attacks we can begin an open debate on reflections and problems that, even if viewed through different lenses, are certainly focused on the same direction: revolution.

Consequently, we first-phase comrades are now assuming responsibility for the discourse we generate inside prison by signing as the Fire Cells Conspiracy, followed by our names.

The new “Conspiracy” will maintain and safeguard its customary independence, writing its own history of struggle. This significant continuation will surely connect the dots on the map of rebellion, sweeping them toward the final destination of revolution.

6. The Epilogue Has Yet to Be Written

Through our actions, we are propagating a revolution that touches us directly, while also contributing to the destruction of this bourgeois society. The goal is not just to tear down the idols of power, but to completely overturn current ideas about material pleasure and the hopes behind it.

We know our quest connects us to many other people around the world, and via this pamphlet we want to send them our warmest regards: the Fire Cells Conspiracy in the Netherlands; the FAI in Italy; the Práxedis G. Guerrero Autonomous Cells for Immediate Revolution and the ELF/ALF in Mexico; the ELF in Russia; the anarchists in Bristol, Argentina, and Turkey; the Autonome Gruppen in Germany; the September 8 Vengeance Commando in Chile; the comrades in Switzerland, Poland, Spain, and London; and everyone we’ve left out, wherever the rejection of this world is in bloom.

This text has no epilogue, because praxis will always continue to nourish and transform itself. We’re just making a quick stop, concluding with a few words someone once said:

It’s an astonishing moment when the attack on the world order is set in motion. Even at the very beginning — which was almost imperceptible — we already knew that very soon, no matter what happened, nothing would be the same as before. It’s a charge that starts slowly, quickens its pace, passes the point of no return, and irrevocably detonates what once seemed impregnable — so solid and protected, yet nevertheless destined to fall, demolished by strife and disorder... On this path of ours, many were killed or arrested, and some are still in enemy hands. Others strayed from the battle or were wounded, never to appear again. Still others lacked courage and retreated. But I must say that our group never wavered, even when it had to face the very heart of destruction.

— Fire Cells Conspiracy: Gerasimos Tsakalos, Olga Economidou, Haris Hatzimichelakis, Christos Tsakalos, Giorgos Nikolopoulos, Michalis Nikolopoulos, Damiano Bolano, Panayiotis Argyrou, Giorgos Polydoras

#greece #extinction rebellion #insurrectionary anarchism #nihilism #ccf

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hopevalley · 5 years

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I just want to thank you for keeping this public. I have promoted you on Twitter and will continue to do so. I want to help in any way I can.

I debated all morning on how to reply to this. I know this is reference to Melinda making her blog private for Tumblr users only, and I think it’s important for me to express my opinion on that situation.

But first: thank you for the Twitter promotion! I have a Twitter account, but I admit I rarely use it (because I find it confusing to use lol). It’s @july_skies !

Regarding Melinda’s decision to privatize her blog: I support it. She works hard on her content and deserves to feel that people who like it will be capable of supporting it in a direct way (reblogs specifically). Nothing sucks more than making stuff and seeing that nobody’s looking at it or enjoying it, and whether or not that’s what it seems like to (general) you, that’s how it comes across when people don’t reblog her stuff. It’s depressing. It’s like she’s throwing her hard work right into the void.

While I’m on the subject, I’d like to talk about content creation a little more, to help give you guys a better idea of fandom and your place as a consumer of fanworks; I know a lot of you might be new to the concept, and you can’t know if nobody thinks to tell you.

For my “credentials,” let’s just say I’ve been a content creator for more than half my life and there’s something we lifers call fandom participation or fandom engagement. They are more or less the same thing, and the terminology boils down to us answering this question: “How is the fandom at large engaging with our content?”

In the last handful of years, participation is down across the board. When I first got into writing fanfiction I’d get at least 40 comments on anything I wrote. Many of my works ended up with 60+ comments on them!

Now I’m lucky if anyone comments at all, especially in this fandom. Again, it’s a problem everywhere, but I still get comments on fanfic I posted five years ago in other fandoms; meanwhile, this one remains relatively silent.

I post on AO3 for two big reasons. 1) ACCESSIBILITY. AO3′s site layout is easy to read! It’s easy to format! It’s friendly to people with issues seeing small print! And then we have 2) I do it to give people the option of commenting anonymously (in case they’re shy or nervous).

Having an account there isn’t required at all. People just choose not to engage with me when I post fanfiction.

It feels bad to spend hours of your time on something only to see 0 notes/comments/likes/reblogs/whatever on it later. Four ‘likes’ doesn’t feel that good either. Did people actually like it? Are they pity-likes? Do they even care? People mindlessly ‘like’ a lot of things; maybe they did that with your content, too. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy seeing ‘likes’ but a ‘like’ is more or less an acknowledgement that they’ve seen the content, not that they enjoyed it or want more of it.

Also, likes/kudos don’t draw in more readers: comments do. When a reader’s scrolling down the front page of their favorite AO3 fandom, they click on the ‘fics that look like they might be ‘good’ and even though it’s not always TRUE that the ‘best’ stories have the most comments, a lot of readers filter by the number of comments!

Comments tell other readers: this is worth checking out!

Let’s look at a quick example of one of my ‘fics:

This is from my AO3 account, a random WCtH fanfic. It’s not a long one, but it’s not short either. It’s a reasonable read in terms of time spent to read it, and as you can see 185 people clicked on it, 14 people ‘liked’ it (kudos are “likes”), and I have two comments: one of those comments is @trash-god and the other is me replying to her comment.

Her comment isn’t ‘less than’ because she’s a close friend, but she and I spoke at length about this story on Discord and her comment was just a nice little ‘addition’ to that conversation. Sure, the story’s about characters not many people care about, but look at that: 185 hits on the story. 14 likes. And only one person who read it took five seconds to leave a comment? Really? What about the 13 other people who ‘liked’ it?

What this says to me as a creator is that the ONLY person who is going to comment is the one person who might feel obligated to, and if that’s the case, why don’t I just save my stories to show her privately? Why bother posting them out into the void to hear nothing but silence from everyone else?

This is the direction that @whencallstheheart is coming from. What’s the point of spending hours creating these things when nobody interacts with you? Posting to silence feels bad. And look, to put it into perspective, editing gifs to post, writing fanfic, doing write-ups, maintenance of a blog, site, or social media presence: it’s super time-consuming.

Melinda and I both work full-time jobs as it is. My job hit full busy season and I’m even getting overtime now. I’m in training to take over the department next year and I’m tired at the end of the day. When I get home I have eight cats, a house to take care of, and a spouse, not to mention my in-laws live right next door and need help sometimes. We also have a property we just planted 1500 trees on by hand that we have to monitor, and my husband owns a house we rent to someone that needs work done on it, too. Sometimes, life is busy.

And don’t get me wrong! I enjoy creating, just like I’m sure Melinda does. I feel awful if I can’t “create.”

But if my choices are:

work for five hours on a fanfic or episode write-up only to get 4 likes on it, OR

play a video game or watch a movie or read a book or sit on the deck watchin’ the sun go down while I work on a crocheting project…

The latter definitely appeals to me more knowing I have to get up in the morning to go back to work again. My time is worth something. Neither Melinda nor I are getting paid to create this content. We put it together for free, in what spare time we have, in the midst of our own chaotic lives. My website costs me a chunk of money every year to keep up and running ad-free, and I could get all 1500 trees weeded in the amount of time it takes me to put together an episode write-up or decent fanfic.

All content creators ask for in exchange for their free labor is a sense of community, and that can be anything from:

comments on fanfics you enjoyed, even if they are just to say, “I read this and enjoyed it.”

messages that say, “I really like how [this edit you did] turned out.”

reblogs on Tumblr, retweets on Twitter, emails to website owners

you can even create your own blog and use it to begin conversations with those creators!

You guys have been pretty good about engaging with the show itself through us, but don’t forget to engage with the content you enjoy seeing that comes about because of the show.

Fandom content keeps the show alive even when it’s not currently airing, and supporting content creators keeps them creating. Everyone wins, then!

To talk specifically about written content...

Readers are the ones who ensure more material is created. Hands down.

And again: I love writing!! I DO. I’ve been writing seriously for more years of my life than I haven’t been writing seriously! But it’s disheartening to post a fanfic and get my one obligation comment.

Now, it’s fine if you don’t read fanfiction or even enjoy it. It’s also fine if the things I’ve posted aren’t to your specific tastes. Trust me, I get it; nobody is obligated to comment on my fanfiction, and I don’t want anyone to feel that they should be.

But please know this: if you do enjoy something, whether it’s fanfic or edits or something else, you NEED to engage with it, or it WILL disappear. People don’t like talking to walls. It’s frustrating and it isn’t a good use of their time.

(This is one of the reasons I haven’t bothered doing a novelization of the series. It could be fun, but for 0 comments it’s not worth spending the time on.)

Again, you guys have been great when it comes to engaging with the show material, particularly while the show is airing. It’s been fun speculating with you and hearing all of your different thoughts. I know sometimes Tumblr doesn’t make it easy to communicate, either, and you’ve all done a great job of getting around that.

But in between seasons things get slow on this blog and it’s hard for me (or anyone running a blog) to feel motivated to provide content of any sort if you’re not going to take the time to engage in it.

I’ll never mark this blog as private, but if I get to the point where I can’t get any engagement from the fans, I’ll shut it down. The point of having a “fandom blog” is to interact with other fans.

I enjoy providing content to you guys, but if participation drops off to nothing, I’ll be taking that as my signal that the audience is gone and my time would be better spent elsewhere.

So if you’re here and you’re enjoying things, don’t forget to take a little time out of your day to let your content creators know! Not just me and Melinda, of course, but your favorite people on Instagram, Twitter, and other sites as well. ♥ You might be surprised how happy they’ll be to receive interaction from other fans.

And another plug for fanfiction, because 1) they always get the short end of things considering how hard it is to amass the creative energy necessary to tell a good story, and 2) I noticed it’s the #2 page on my website getting visited: if you’ve enjoyed anything you’ve read for When Calls the Heart, tell the author! Here’s the section for WCtH on AO3! Is English not your native language/you’re not confident in your ability to write English? No worries! I’ve gotten many thoughtful comments in other languages and from people who spoke limited English, and trust me: I treasured every one. If you’re just not sure how to comment on fanfic, send me a message and I’ll give you some tips!

I don’t intend this as a slight against my anonymous friend up there AT ALL; I think it can be hard to be in fandom, especially if you’re newer to the scene. There’s a lot of history that’s long gone by now and missing out on it means it’s harder to step into fandom without also accidentally stepping on toes.

Sometimes we take for granted that we have an almost unlimited supply of fanfiction, gifs, memes, blogs, and so on at our disposal. But none of that comes from thin air and it never did. It’s the cumulative hard work of millions of people throwing their hearts and souls into something they’re passionate about in an effort to engage with other fans.

I hope this helped put things into perspective a bit!! Sending love at all of you that stuck around this far; I know it was quite a bit of a ramble LOL!

#when calls the heart #anonymously asked #answered mail #thank you for the kind comment but here's my perspective #in the hopes that you'll understand melinda's a little more #the lack of engagement gets me down too tbh #if i felt people would comment on and want to talk to me about #a novelization i'd start writing it tomorrow

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areiton · 6 years

Text

come find me

Read on A03

prologue

It’s not surprising.

You tell yourself you know it’s coming, and there’s an element of truth there, when you let yourself dwell on it--not that you let yourself dwell on it.

He’s sixteen and beautiful, all pale skin and big whiskey brown eyes that follow you avidly for an hour a day, and catch on you, when you least expect it. He’s sixteen and a bright pink mouth that never seems to close, that curls in a smirk and argues and is always, always wet, always wrapped around his pen, nibbling on a hangnail, once wrapped around a red sucker that almost gave you a heart attack and his eyes were laughing as he watched you.

He’s sixteen and every beautiful untouchable thing, because he is your student, a sophmore and you are going to hell, you tell yourself as you stroke yourself in the dark of your apartment, rough and fast, and close your eyes to see that hungry look in his eyes, the dazed stare when you turn from the chalk board and catch his gaze trained on your ass.

You groan and come, remembering the flush high in his cheeks as he squirms, the way he pants on the lacrosse field and you feel sick because he’s fucking sixteen.

He’s been watching you all year, and you are absurdly grateful that Derek is too angry to bring friends around, because of all people for your nephew to befriend, he latched onto Stiles fucking Stilinski and you don’t think you could handle him here, in your den, the scent of want and him filling up the safe haven you’ve created.

You want him here and you live in dread of Derek dragging him home.

Still. You watch him watching you, and you know--even if you were not a werewolf, you would know, from the avid look that never wavers, by the way he ignores the clumsy flirting of pretty girls his age, by the way he lights up when you relent and engage in his brilliant, infuriating debates, what he wants.

You think about it, in the privacy of your shower, think about the cloud of arousal that clings to him, and you are not a good person, have never been anything more than selfish and narcissistic and thoughtlessly cruel, but you are not so low as to touch a sixteen year old boy, the best friend of your recently orphaned nephew, no matter how much you might want him.

You don’t want to be in Beacon Hills. You wouldn’t be, if it were not for Derek, who lost everything--you couldn’t bring yourself to drag him away from the only home he’s ever known, not with only two years left of school.

That’s how you found yourself here, at this school you once attended, teaching World History and caught by a infuriatingly gorgeous, clumsily sexy, sixteen year old boy.

It’s impossible and you are careful, never allow yourself to be caught alone with him, not here, not in town, not ever in your home.

And yet. There is this, now. Stiles, slipping into your empty classroom.

The school is quiet as it always is on Friday, emptying quickly, even the teachers making a break for freedom, and you enjoy the quiet, use the empty hours when Derek will be occupied with lacrosse or Stiles or his part time job at the station--you try not to dwell on the absurdity of your nephew working for the Sheriff--to grade tests and prepare for the coming week, before you drive to a small Thai restaurant owned by one of Satomi's pack. You’ll pick up a standing order, far too much food and take it home to indulge in a lazy night of delicious, organic food you don’t have to prepare, and a movie that is just the right side of cheesy, before you crawl into your big empty bed and fuck yourself with a long slim dildo, all the while refusing to think of what Stiles’ cock must be like, if it matches the his long elegant fingers.

You like your quiet routine, and now Stiles is standing in front of your desk, his fingers tapping along the edge of it, and there is a steady confidence in his heartbeat, and just a hint of sour nerves in the muddled heat of arousal.

You finish the test and fight down the urge to smile because this boy.

This beautiful, brilliant boy, who you want.

Who you cannot have.

“Peter,” he says, finally, a burst of noise and you fight down the shiver at your name on his lips.

You mark a final answer wrong and set the test aside, and finally, finally, look up at him. Arch an eyebrow and drawl, “Can I help you, Mr. Stilinski?”

He fidgets, a flush in his cheeks and even though you know you’re playing with fire, even though you know it’s the stupidest thing you’ve done in a long time, you huff and give him a stack of tests. “Grade while you figure it out.”

Happiness warms his scent and he settles in the chair next to your desk--too close--and bends to his task.

You don’t stare at his fingers, wrapped around his pen, or his lip, caught between his teeth.

Definitely not the smooth line of his neck, head tilted just enough to bare the pale length of it.

You shift in your desk chair, willing down your erection and forcing back the fangs itching at your gums.

He’s quiet, as still as you have ever seen him, seemingly content to simply be near you and it’s only when you’ve finished grading the final test, when you’re waiting patiently for him to finish his last, that you say, curious and stupid, “Isn’t there something else you’d rather be doing on Friday night?”

Stiles inhales sharply and his scent blooms with want and he looks up from under his lashes, beautiful and bewitching and wicked. “No,” he murmurs.

You stare at him, hold his gaze the way you never allow yourself and his breath goes short and fast, his mouth open and biteable.

He’s sixteen and you are going to hell.

“Peter,” he murmurs, swaying forward, tantalizingly close.

“Stiles,” you whisper, and pull away.

Hurt flashes in his eyes, and doubt, and you hate it, the way his scent goes wet and bitter, the way his entire body wilts, his eyes dim and uncertain.

“Stiles, you’re sixteen,” you murmur, and---

It’s stupid, it’s wrong, it’s the very worst thing you could do, but you do--

You cup his jaw, rub a thumb over his soft, plush lips, and your dick jerks when his pink tongue flicks out, tastes, draws your thumb in and his eyes flutter closed as he whines, high in his throat.

You watch, hard and incapable of looking away, of pulling away.

Gods, he is sixteen.

“I can’t,” you force out and drag your hand away, force it into your lap, clenched in a fist to hold the wet warmth close and he blinks at you, beautifully dazed. “I’m your teacher . I’m fifteen years older than you.”

“I don’t care,” he insists, and you smile because you know he doesn’t.

Sixteen and brilliant and fearless. And so stupid it’s almost laughable.

You want him, despite that. Maybe because of that.

“I do,” you say, gently. “I won’t do that to you, or myself.”

Stiles’ gaze goes hard and hurt and you sigh. Draw him up with an impersonal hand on his elbow, steer him to the door of your room. “Don’t do this again, Stiles. It would hurt Derek and your father if I report this, and I will. For your sake and mine, if this happens again, I will report you.”

“You want me,” he says, stubbornly sure and you consider him.

“Yes,” you agree, because you are not a good man, and you are not accustomed to denying yourself what you want. “And it doesn’t matter because I am saying no.”

He stares at you, hard and then nods. Hitches his bag onto his shoulder, and you hate the furious hurt in his eyes.

You blame that, later.

You touch his hand, and he jerks, wide eyed as you lean into him, and breath into his ear. “If you still feel this way, find me in ten years.”

He stares at you as you pull away, his eyes bright and shining again, and you don’t have time to react as he brushes a lighting fast kiss against your lips, his scent heady with determination and hope before he slips away, wordlessly.

You watch him go and wonder if he will.

Know that he won’t--he is sixteen and infatuated and it will fade, as soon as you vanish from sight.

If your chest tightens and aches at that thought, you don’t allow yourself to dwell on it.

~*~

You see him, at Derek’s graduation, and he’s there, in the apartment, for the small party Derek hosts, nothing like the parties you know his classmates are throwing, but it’s fitting for your quiet, reserved nephew.

You see him and he flicks a single glance at you, before his attention refocuses on Derek. You refuse to let that subtle slight sting.

This is what you wanted.

A month later, you receive the letter you’ve been waiting on, and by August, you’re living in LA, a professor at UCLA and Stiles is a fond memory that you think, with time and distance, will fade.

But sometimes, occasionally, when you are lonely and hard, you think about it, the warm determination in his scent and wonder, if you stayed, if he would have found you.

~*~

It will be years, long, devastating years, before you return to Beacon Hills.

#steter #arei writes fic #come find me #steter fic

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jandjsalmon · 6 years

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A fandom message from EarthLaughsInFlowers regarding the unpleasantness - because she doesn’t have a tumblr but feels invested in our fandom as a reader and reviewer. I’m sure many of you fic author’s have been privileged to receive one of her well thought out and well spoken reviews. She sent me a massage and asked me to share this with you.

It’s large (because she is endearingly verbose) - so it’s going under a keep reading tag - but it’s really wonderful to read her pov on the subject in case any of you are interested. She’s just SO kind. 💙💛 <3 Jandy

I wish there were an easier way (to talk to all of you). I really don't have anything to hide in terms of being contacted, it's more than I don't have the time. I spend a lot of my day on my computer. I spend some of each day indulging what has become a really wonderful hobby, reading and responding to Betty and Jughead fan fiction. I have no idea why I landed on them. I saw season one and was like, aren't they wonderful? The first story that I read (by randomly Googling -- isn't that lucky?!) was Fall in Light, so that certainly helped.

For me, I think you're all wonderful, highly creative, passionate people. It's a joy seeing these authors and illustrators and cheerleaders entirely new world to me. It's fascinating. The prospect of spending any more time on my computer keeps me away from engaging more than I do. I thought what I needed was boundaries. I've been maintaining this very charmed loop. I read something, write a huge comment, and I generally get a response from the author. Sometimes we write back and forth. It's a lovely experience, and a great interaction for me. Something with this past week has changed how I feel about that, so I've actively been contacting authors on Tumblr (and here) whose work I admire to let them know that they are appreciated and respected for their beautiful efforts. I really do feel like I should reach out more. I gladly consume so much. I want to give back more to the people who are essentially feeding my really fun, new, hobby. I've noted elsewhere that I read and write/type incredibly fast. So I can push myself a bit more out of my comfort zone.

I've read Haunted. I liked Haunted. I commented extensively on Haunted. I've decided that while I have put Haunted to bed, and don't need to read it in whatever form it takes next.

There are two things firm in my mind about what I've seen visiting Tumblr pages over the last few days.

You cannot claim something that is not yours to claim. Art, literature, a car, an identity, if it's not yours, it's not yours. If you want to use it, ask. I understand there's an argument that everything is a copy of something else, but we're not talking about how The Lion King is Hamlet re-worked. We're talking about someone who copied writing from one author, and passed it off as their own. We have to treat the online world as the real world, and in the real world, if you do that, you face consequences for your actions. If you claim to create something but you didn't, that's wrong. It is brave to own up to mistakes. We are living in a time when people don't own up to mistakes, and still get rewarded. So it's good to set the right tone. For me, every time something does something they know is wrong, and they think that they can get away with it, it's not only the sin, it's the cynicism. We all know copying the works of others is wrong. It's drilled in our heads as kids. So it's not just that this person, who wrote lovely responses to my very long comments (responses that I continue to like), did something wrong, it's that they knew it, and didn't fix it. They thought that they could get away with it. There is something unsettling about that. I often say, "don't say sorry, change!" when I am exasperated. I think we apologize too much now, and we think that's the end of it. We don't allow for the fact that the other person may not want to accept our apology, and we don't allow for ourselves and others to learn from the experience.

It is peculiar to sit on the outskirts (by choice) of a fandom, and look in. I know very little about fandom, but I do know how to comment on stories on Ao3, and authors out there are respected and appreciated and admired. You've poured your heart, souls and experiences into these stories, and have crafted some incredible works of fiction. I don't know how to debate whether or not fan fiction is "real" literature, because to me it is. On a personal level, I can identify with it, react to it, respond to it. That's incredible. So that work needs to be commended and rewarded. You're all really gifted! It's strange, as a reader, to have interacted with Haunted, and to know that's over. It doesn't change how I look at other works on here, because I view it in isolation. I don't think that plagiarism is an isolated incident, but as a reader, it doesn't affect how I look at, say, Blood, Sweat and Heartbeats. I understand that my view as a reader could be different than a writer. You're pouring yourselves into producing content (for free!), content that is disruptive of the traditional process of who gets to tell stories, and why, and how, and where. I've read more about birth control, LGBTQA, fore play, experimentation, experiences like child birth, abortion, miscarriage, addiction, families, friends... I've read more sophisticated explorations of all these topics and more on this site, in the past year, than I ever have, and again, reading everything and then writing about what I've read is a hobby for me! That's extraordinary. Occasionally I got to do it all in a story that might have also involved space, or zombies, or the Middle Ages, and that is very special. I sincerely hope that any people who feel disheartened by this past week remember, again, your efforts are loved and valued. Your contributions are special. If the person who uploaded Haunted chooses to share something in the future, then that's great too. You can learn from your mistakes and move forward.

My few days on Tumblr left me distressed. I saw a lot more positive than bad, but I saw negativity. I can't tell if it's one account spewing out venom, but that's one account too many. I occasionally check Tumblr for stories to read, or pictures to see, or author commentary. In a massive coincidence, I happened to check on Monday. In another massive coincidence, I happened to be chained to my computer for work (on my vacation). So I watched everything in real time. I watched many of you process your shock, and I watched many of you voice powerful and complex opinions on the nature of forgiveness, what plagiarism means to you, the value of fan fiction, your place in fandom, and your own experiences with a blending of these issues. It was really moving. I read it all. I bounced from account reading it all.

And then I watched the abuse roll in. And I decided that I couldn't just sit around watching. I feel for those of you who have been attacked. What a hideous experience. My heart goes out to you. I talked earlier about it being brave to apologize, well, it's damn near heroic to face the abuse that some of you are facing, just for having a different opinion. I started to notice blogs turning off Anonymous commenting, beseeching Tumblr staff to do something, blogs going silent, blogs being deleted.

It's been a heady experience, again, as someone who solely wanted to be able to write comments under stories to suddenly think, "I can't just not say something. That's wrong. I don't know what possesses a person to do that, to hang out on someone's blog and send them hate filled messages. But I can do something nice. I can be a nice Anon! I always identify myself, as best I can "Hi! I comment on your stories on Ao3 as EarthLaughsInFlowers! I don't have Tumblr!" and send nice messages. That's all I've got so far. That's a troubling best answer, as a fully grown adult. But I promise to do that more.

So now, if I'm checking Tumblr, I'll leave you a nice note. I would want that. Please, keep sharing your stories! Keep sharing your art! Keep sharing your ideas!

You are valued, you are appreciated, you are respected. Sending you all love.

EarthLaughsInFlowers

#EarthLaughsInFlowers asked me to share her thoughts #about plagiarism and our fandom #and how much she loves us #plagiarism and fandom #drama we didn't ask for

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sjrresearch · 4 years

Text

War Crosses Generations in Strategic 'Iron Conflict'

It’s believed that it was Ulysses S. Grant that first proclaimed, “War never changes.” We could stop and debate the validity of that statement - which later became a mantra of sorts for the Fallout series - but instead, let’s consider that, while war may remain the same, the implements of it definitely do change. There’s evidence written all over history, but for gamers, those changes may best be represented in the titles we play.

Each new entry in series like Call of Duty and Battlefield puts us in control of period-specific digitized weapons of war. With Iron Conflict, developer Angela Game took a different approach. Instead of separating the tools of World War II, modern militaries, and everything in between, it opted to mash it into one strategic gaming experience.

To learn more about how and why Iron Conflict melds together the weapons of yesteryear and the deadly implements of today, we went right to minds behind the upcoming real-time strategy game. As a third party analyzing the concept behind any game, it’s always important to ask “Why?” Knowing where an idea came from can sometimes help connect players with the experience. At the very least, it satiates curious minds.

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According to the talent crafting Iron Conflict, the development team is not only full of “passionate gamers and fans of all things military,” it has a few history buffs guiding some of the decisionmaking. What better way to indulge the passions of everyone on the team than to craft a game around them? Though the core concept does feature aspects of military history, the team realized that some sacrifices to historical accuracy would have to be made.

Balancing Accuracy and Gameplay

Some video games parallel history and do their best to recreate important moments in time. Ample research is completed to ensure timelines match up and historical figures are accurately depicted. Iron Conflict may not be that type of game, but Angela Games explains that “if players do learn a thing or two, we’d be more than delighted!” The developers may be approaching the RTS to depict weapons of the past, but the idea wasn’t pursued for the sole purpose of educating players. “Our game was designed to address what we feel is a dearth of quality real-time strategy games being made today. “

In video game development, there are usually reasons that drive the decisions made, and rarely is something done “just because.” For the team behind Iron Conflict, sacrificing historical accuracy wasn’t done frivolously. The team had a pretty solid reason for deviating from the real-world versions of classic military weapons and machinery:

“Our game is all about the units. It’s a competitive tactics game at heart more than it is intended to be a recreation of any specific battle or history. Some of the units featured in the game would be absolutely overpowered if we stuck too close to accuracy - a B2 bomber could annihilate many of the units we’ve featured in this game many times over, all without being seen! But that wouldn’t be very fun in a competitive game.”

Though gameplay can often take precedence over historical accuracy, Angela Game notes that Iron Conflict still remains “as respectful as possible” to the real-world versions of well-known weapons of war. The team had to find that integral balance between units that all RTS games require while ensuring playable units like the B2 bomber didn’t feel too fictionalized.

When players pick up Iron Conflict for the first time, they’ll take command of troops dating back to World War II. While there are many conflicts to cover before the global war of the 40s, Angela Game made the deliberate decision to start with the Second World War, calling it a “jumping-off point for the current state of the world today.” The developer continued, stating, “It’s when the major world powers started to find their identity. No other conflict in modern history has been as transformational.”

The process of compiling a list of historically accurate units can be a complicated one, but the team at Angela Game was happy to undertake it. “Tracing modern history from this starting point to today through the units we’ve featured in Iron Conflict has been one of the most interesting parts of the process.”

A Multi-Faction War

Rather than focus on one military, Iron Conflict will give players a choice. During the beta that’s launching on August 15, “over a hundred units from the Chinese and American militaries” will be available to choose from. Angela Game initially put the focus on these two nations, but they won’t be the only options as the game progresses development. Currently, Russia is slated for the future, which would provide players with a bevy of options.

After selecting their faction, players will launch into randomized battlegrounds that can support up to 20 players. Game modes include 3v3, 5v5, and 10v10 immersive battles that unfold in stunning visuals thanks to the power of Unreal Engine 4. No one unit can survive the fray without a little help, so players will have to focus on teamwork and communication to emerge victorious from the rubble of war. There may be a slight learning curve when first starting out, especially since every unit type, from tanks to warplanes, will have distinct controls. There’s no doubt that, before long, players will start favoring one unit over others, much like they do in hero-based multiplayer shooters.

Iron Conflict has clearly come a long way from conception to execution, but if there is one thing that has remained a constant, it’s that it was always going to be a multiplayer title. As the Angela Game development team explains, “We are a passionate team, but still a small one, so our efforts have been focused primarily on ensuring that the multiplayer is as good as it can be!” Unfortunately, that does essentially close the door on any single-player experience, but there should be plenty of multiplayer content to keep players engaged for years to come.

Iron Conflict is slated for a Q3 2020 release on Steam and has plenty of opportunities for post-launch support. With a team as dedicated as Angela Game behind it, Iron Conflict is clearly utilizing history to the best of its ability while keeping the focus on gameplay mechanics.

At SJR Research, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse SJR Research’s service on our site at SJR Research.

#gaming

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faithfulnews · 4 years

Text

Defining DNA – Episode 131 | The Unstuck Church Podcast

No church or organization ever wandered into a great culture.

If you enjoy this episode, subscribe on your device for more: iTunes RSS Google Play Stitcher Spotify

Here’s something unfortunate I’ve noticed through the years as our team has served more than 400 churches: Churches tend to let culture slip as long as people get their job done and don’t mess up morally.

They tend to hold people accountable for performance and character, but not so much for how well they fit the organizational DNA.

One reason for that might be that few churches are actually clear on their organizational DNA.

I’m not talking about “core values.” I’ve written before about how we’ve made a shift from talking about core values to focusing on team behaviors. Ultimately, the culture of your organization is built from the patterns of behavior you champion and tolerate—whether positive or negative.

The good news is, you get to choose your culture. And, if you don’t have the culture you want today, you can absolutely shape the culture your team will have in the future.

As the leader, it’s your responsibility to define the culture you value, model the behaviors that will shape it, and create the right systems for coaching and accountability so the wrong culture isn’t tolerated.

I love this second episode in our series on building healthy and high-performing teams. It’s really practical. Lance Witt, our director of the Unstuck Teams process, joined Amy and me again this week, and I think you’re going get a lot out of it. Here’s where we go in this episode:

Why getting clear on your organization’s DNA matters so much… even though it never feels urgent

How culture is created and shaped by the behaviors we value, behaviors that we model as leaders, and behaviors we tolerate—either positive or negative

3 key questions you can use to evaluate how well you’ve been shaping culture with intentionality

How clear culture helps you attract the right people and turbocharges a new hire’s onboarding

Where to start, if you haven’t yet started trying to define your organizational DNA, and how to gain momentum

As the leader, you're responsible for defining the culture you value, modeling the behaviors that shape it, and creating systems for coaching & accountability. #unstuckchurch [episode 131] Click to Tweet

Starting to define DNA? Think about what makes you pound your fist on the table. The things that bug you often reveal a violation of a cultural behavior you inherently value. #unstuckchurch [episode 131] Click To Tweet

Leader Conversation Guide

Want to take this conversation back to a staff or senior leadership team meeting?

Our Show Notes subscribers get a PDF download that recaps the episode content and includes a discussion guide you can print out and use at an upcoming meeting.

Opt-in here and get the Leader Conversation Guide for this episode, as well as access to the archive. hbspt.forms.create({ portalId: "2343950", formId: "a40514d1-7e6e-4c74-ae0e-08efa70c2fa2" });

Share Your Thoughts and Questions on Social Media

We use #unstuckchurch on Twitter, and we start a real-time conversation each Wednesday morning when the episode drops. You can follow me @tonymorganlive and The Unstuck Group @unstuckgroup. If Facebook is where you spend your time, I’m there, too.

Join Us for a FREE Webinar

How Your Church Staff Can Build a Culture of Action & Get More Done

45 minute webinar + 15 minutes [live Q&A]

Don’t let culture and performance issues get your church stuck in 2020.

On Monday, February 24 at 1pm EST, I will host Lance Witt, our director of Unstuck Teams, Crull Chambless, executive pastor at Harvest Church in Billings, MT, and Bobby Kirchner, executive pastor at Big Valley Grace Community Church in Modesto, CA, for a practical conversation on how your church staff can build a culture of action and get more done.

Spend an hour with us, and you can expect to gain more clarity and practical next steps to help you:

Build a culture of action and accountability

Give feedback and evaluate performance effectively

Navigate necessary organizational restructuring, especially in seasons of rapid growth and/or with added campuses

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Links & Resources from the Episode

How to Develop High Impact Church Teams (Part 1)

How to Increase Your Team’s Productivity by 30% (Part 3)

Balancing Leadership and Management (Part 4)

The Unstuck Way – an example of organizational culture

Culture Champion – 4 Roles a Senior Pastor Can’t Delegate (Part 4) – Episode 86

[webinar replay]Get Your Church Staff Unstuck

Meet Lance Witt, Our Unstuck Teams Director

High Impact Teams by Lance Witt

The Unstuck Teams Process We’re scheduling 2020 Unstuck Teams engagements with churches now. Visit theunstuckgroup.com/teams to learn how it works and start a conversation with our team.

Write a Review—It Helps!

Particularly on iTunes, your ratings and reviews really do help more pastors discover the podcast content I’m creating here. Would you take a minute to share your thoughts? Just open the the podcast on iTunes on your phone or computer, click Ratings & Reviews, and leave your opinion.

Transcript

Tony: 00:00 You really do get to choose your culture, and if you don’t have the culture you want today, you get to shape that culture for your team that you’ll have in the future. And as the leader, though, you’re responsible for defining the culture you value. You’re responsible for modeling the behaviors that are going to shape that culture and you’re responsible for creating the right systems for coaching and accountability, so the wrong culture isn’t tolerated.

Sean: 00:28 Welcome to The Unstuck Church podcast, where each week we are exploring what it means to be an unstuck church. Each one of us has DNA. It’s fundamental, yet ,helps distinguish who we are as a person. In the same way your church has DNA. It’s an essential part of what makes your organization what it is. The tricky thing is that often DNA can be mysterious or sometimes just unclear. On today’s podcast, Tony, Amy and Lance explore how your church can more clearly define your DNA so that your staff team can thrive in health and performance. Make sure before you listen to get the show notes. You can get them every week in one email along with our leader conversation guide, the weekly resources we mention and access to our podcast resource archives. Go to theunstuckgroup.com/podcast to subscribe. You may also want to learn about The Unstuck Teams process mentioned in this episode as well as our upcoming webinar on creating healthy and high performing teams. Visit us at theunstuckgroup.com/teams and theunstuckgroup.com/webinars for more info. Now let’s join Tony, Amy and Lance for today’s conversation on defining organizational DNA.

Amy: 01:38 This week we’re continuing our series of conversations on creating both healthy and high performing teams. And joining me today is Tony Morgan, as always, and Mr. Lance Witt. Tony and Lance, our conversation this week is focused around helping churches define their organizational DNA. So Lance, let me start with you. What exactly is organizational DNA and then why is it important for churches to clarify it? They have a lot of things going on. Why is this something they need to put their time and energy into?

Lance: 02:08 So, Amy, when I think about organizational DNA, I think about what is kind of the core essence of your leadership environment. For those who lead in an organization, it’s not so much about what they do in their day to day world, but really it’s how they do what they do and how they do leadership in their particular culture. In other words, there’s a certain style or personality that an organization has that really does define sort of its leadership DNA. So, you know, I think about good examples of this. Like there is a Ritz Carlton way of doing customer service. There is a Starbucks way of doing business that separates them and differentiates them from other organizations. You know, I know even at Unstuck, we have what we call The Unstuck Way. It’s a set of guidelines or principles that really do define our organizational DNA. And again, it differentiates us from others. So, let me give you two examples that everybody will be able to relate to: chicken and airlines. So you think about Chick-fil-A and Kentucky Fried Chicken both sell chicken, but they have radically different organizational DNA. Sort of the “how” they go about selling chicken is really different. And then you think about in the airline side, you’ve got Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. They both fly commercial planes but very different organizational DNA. I’ve done quite a bit of looking at Southwest Airlines and kind of their DNA and how they’ve articulated it, and they actually talk about the warrior spirit, a servant’s heart, a fun-loving attitude. Those are all sort of behavioral things that define the DNA of their leadership culture. And so I do think it’s really important, you know, even though you’ve got a lot of pressing urgent things going on in the whirlwind of your everyday life, kind of getting really clear about the organizational DNA really does matter.

Amy: 04:18 Tony, it seems like organizational DNA is really about culture, right? How do you define culture?

Tony: 04:24 Yeah, well Amy, actually there’s a bit of debate on how to define culture. In fact, if you were to Google definition of organizational culture, you’d come up with dozens, probably, of descriptors of what that’s all about. But personally, I tend to focus on the organization’s pattern and behaviors when I think about culture, and those patterns are shaped by the behaviors that we value, the behaviors that are modeled by top leadership and the behaviors that are tolerated within our organizations as well. And in all three instances, we have the opportunity to introduce positive characteristics into the culture of our organization, and we actually have the opportunity to introduce negative characteristics into the culture of the organization. So let me kind of walk through the keys for leaders to consider when you’re doing something intentionally to shape the culture. I want you to pay attention to these three areas with these questions. First, “Have we been intentional about the behaviors that we value?” That’s the first question we have to answer, and some things to help you discern whether or not we’ve done that appropriately — Have they been clarified in writing? Do we teach them? Do we tell stories about them? Do we celebrate those behaviors? So that’s the first question. Have we been intentional about the behaviors we value? The second question is this, “Do we intentionally model the behaviors that shape culture that we hope to create?” And some clarifying questions for you to consider with the second one — Do I model these behaviors as a leader? That’s the first thing we need to look at. And then more importantly, does the rest of my senior leadership team model these behaviors? And again, I’ve alluded to this, and I think I originally heard this from Sam Chan, who also works with churches and church leaders, that your organization, the culture of your organization is going to reflect how your top leaders, the top five leaders in your organization, operate. How they act, how do they live out what they’re trying to do in their leadership? And so that’s the key here is, do we intentionally model the behaviors that shape our culture? And then the third area, the third key question is this. “Do we tolerate behaviors that negatively shape our culture?” And here are some clarifying questions to ask around this third question — do we hire people who reflect the behaviors that we value? And this seems so basic, but if there’s a culture we’re trying to create, when we hire new people, we’re hiring not only for the skills, their competency, but we want to make sure that their behaviors, the way they operate, are reflective of the culture that we are trying to create. Do we coach to the behaviors that we value? Do we hold people accountable when they don’t live out the behaviors that shape the culture that we hope to create? So those are three key questions that I think we as leaders need to make sure that we’re responding to an intentionally, clearly. And that we’re living out, then, what it means to have clarity around being intentional about the behaviors we value, about modeling the behaviors that shape our culture and then making sure we’re not tolerating behaviors that might negatively shape our culture.

Lance: 08:11 So in order to put a little bit of flesh on this, let me throw a question back to the two of you cause I know that the two of you have worked on this, and that is when you think about The Unstuck Way, maybe you guys could just pull out one or two of sort of the markers of the kind of culture we want to have at Unstuck that might be a good example for a pastor or leader out there.

Amy: 08:35 Well, I think the first one Tony just modeled at least for me, if not for you Lance, but everything we do in The Unstuck Way begins with prayer. And I was all ready to dive in and Tony said, “Hey, let’s pray before we start recording this podcast.” So he models that, but as we work with churches, same thing. Everything we do begins and ends with prayer. And so I think that’s pretty embedded in our culture now. And it’s not just what we can do. We want to do what God wants to do. I don’t know. Tony, what comes to mind?

Tony: 09:02 Yeah, ironically, in the very first podcast episode of the year, we talked about hope not being a strategy, but actually one of the elements of The Unstuck Way is we bring hope to the pastors and the churches that we’re working with. And I think that’s important for us because those of us on The Unstuck Group Team, strategy just comes to us naturally, and I need to remind myself that it’s more than the strategy. It’s more than the structure we bring. It’s more than the systems and the action plans. I want to bring hope to the pastors and the churches that I’m working with. And obviously prayer going into an engagement is the prelude to that. But even through every conversation I’m having with a pastor or with a team, I just want to make sure when they walk away from that experience, they actually believe that God’s going to help them take their next steps. And they’re actually optimistic about the impact, the kingdom impact, that their leadership and their church is going to have going forward.

Amy: 10:09 And we look for those things when we hire and when we read our feedback that comes in because anyone who is just a critic on our team wouldn’t make it. Anyone who’s just drawing on their own strength. If that’s what we notice, they wouldn’t make it because we wouldn’t tolerate it, I guess to use your words, Tony.

Lance: 10:26 And as someone who’s fairly new to the team, I just can tell you guys it is so helpful to have that list because I’m finding myself now, when I’m showing up at a church, it’s front of my mind. What am I going to do to make sure I bring hope into this environment? And so to have that articulated just sort of turbocharges, I think, a new person’s on-boarding experience, and it’s been super helpful. So I appreciate you guys having thought that through.

Amy: 10:55 Hey Lance, my guess is that we have leaders listening right now that get this. You know, they understand what DNA is and why it’s important, but they’re probably wondering what specific benefits that they will see as a leader, as a team by investing time and focus on this. And we’ve touched on it a little bit, but how would you answer that? What are the benefits they’ll see?

Lance: 11:15 Well, let me give you a word picture. I think of culture or DNA, kind of like gasoline and your ministry strategy and programs sort of like an engine. And it’s not enough to just have high quality gasoline. Never, you know, no one ever holds up a gallon of fuel and says, wow, what a great looking gallon of gasoline that is. No, nobody ever does that. Gasoline is purposeful. It’s for powering the engine. In a high octane gas and a powerful engine will get traction quickly, but a high powered engine that’s got polluted gas, a polluted culture, the engine’s going to sputter. So articulating your desired culture shaping behaviors has benefits, I think, on so many different levels. Again, it brings things like alignment. I think it creates synergy. It’s clear expectations. You know, I’m thinking about Amy, your example just a minute ago, about prayer and that you’re about to rush into sort of recording this, and no, there was this alignment moment of nope. Prayer is kinda how we do things, you know, at Unstuck. And so we paused to do that. I think having a clear articulation of your culture also helps attract the right kind of people. You know, like you said, a critic, a negative personality��s probably not gonna last very long on our team. Well, it helps you actually filter out some people, but I think one of the biggest things it does is it differentiates you from other organizations, and it sort of removes the fog around kind of like really who are we and how are we different than everybody else. And, as I just articulated, as a new person on the team, it gives me sort of a clear playbook of how I’m supposed to behave as a leader in this organization. So I think we could just keep going on and making this list of all the different ways that clearly defining the culture actually helps us get after the mission that we’ve been called to.

Amy: 13:23 Do you Lance have a specific church that you’ve worked with where you’ve experienced, you’ve seen them experience the benefits of defining their DNA?

Lance: 13:30 The church I work with in South Florida, Christ Fellowship Church, I’ve been hanging around there for, gosh, it seems like a dozen years now. And I remember one day having a conversation with the lead pastors, Todd and Julie Mullins. And we were talking about how this was a void, and I wasn’t really sure how to go about helping them, but they actually came to Colorado, and we took a half a day and I just basically interviewed them and peppered them with questions about what is it that really matters to them, what are their values, what are the staff behaviors that have gotten rewarded through the years? And we began to just sort of unpack that. And then I would say over the next year or so, they began to sort of refine that and make those statements sticky. And I’ve just watched that become a training tool that they regularly go back to. They might be in a staff meeting, and they’ll call out one of their staff kind of behaviors that they’re emphasizing. And again, a church like their’s, that has multiple campuses, I think it’s been even more important to have a consistent, quality-controlled set of leadership behaviors that are expected across all the campuses. So, I’ve really watched it take root there, but it didn’t happen overnight. It took a while for it to really get kind of galvanized and then into the water system of the church.

Amy: 15:00 I like how you highlighted the multisite churches because ,if you’re going to be one church in multiple locations, of course your strategies need to have a lot of similarity, but your culture needs to be identical if you’re truly gonna replicate one church, right, Tony?

Tony: 15:15 Absolutely, I mean, just think of it. We talked about chicken earlier, but every Chick-fil-A that you walk into, it’s exactly the same culture. I mean, it doesn’t deviate in any way. The expectations are the same in every store and every location. And that’s part of the consistency we expect as customers when we order a chicken sandwich there. So the same thing holds true in multisite churches. If you’re trying to be one church in multiple locations, there needs to be consistency, not only of the experiences and the environments and the ministry strategies that are used, but the culture itself is going to be one of the key areas where when people walk into any location, they expect the same experience and the culture that we create helps to set that foundation.

Speaker 3: 16:07 And Lance, you’re mentioning the unstuck way. That was actually where that came from. We said if we’re going to have different people serving different churches all over the country but we want them to have a comparable experience with The Unstuck Group, we needed to define that culture so that everyone was operating with those same values and behaviors going out to serve the churches.

Lance: 16:27 That’s so good.

Amy: 16:27 So Lance, where should a leader start if they want to begin to define these at their church?

Lance: 16:33 Well, whenever I’ve done this with churches, I always start with the senior leader. I don’t think that culture can be disconnected from the values of the senior leader. And I know we all want to be collaborative and we want to get input through all layers of the organization, but at the end of the day, if the behaviors don’t reflect that of the senior leader, I think it’s never going to really get any traction. And going back to my example of Christ Fellowship, I would say one of the really strong values they have is hospitality. It just oozes out of them. And what I’ve noticed is now at every campus there’s this high sense of hospitality. They have a welcoming spirit that’s kind of over the top, and you just see it everywhere. But it started with senior leaders. Sort of the next layer down, I would say you gotta get some people who’ve been there a while and start asking questions like, what really is valued around here? What behaviors do we keep coming back to over and over when we’re training? What phrases do our senior leaders often use? What stories, you know, kind of are repeated over and over in the culture? And, you know, as just a starting place, you might even sit down at your computer or with a legal pad and even ask yourself as a senior leader, what do I expect from myself and those who lead on our staff? And sometimes it’s hard to articulate because it’s so second nature to us and it’s been in us for so long. But getting that out on paper really helps. And here’s a question I like to ask. “What makes you pound your fist on the table?” Because often the things that really tick you off, they reveal a violation of a leadership behavior that matters to you. And so, give yourself some time, allow some chance to sort of percolate in your spirit. But I think start the process of refining and defining what those leadership behaviors are.

Amy: 18:41 Tony, I’ve heard you say this too, when you’ve led teams through this, to think through who are the top four or five people on our team, staff or volunteers that when you see them in action, they model what you want in all your team members.

Tony: 18:55 Yeah. And going back to last week’s conversation, they’re modeling not only when it comes to the results we’re trying to achieve as a ministry, but also in the health, that they’re raising the health in the organization on the team as well. But you’re right, if you focus on the people that are bringing their best, kind of like those all stars on your team, and just try to look at what are the behaviors that they’re living out on a daily basis that cause you to want them to be around you. And they just bleed enthusiasm and they’re just bringing it every time. If you focus on their behaviors and then you can start to articulate what it is that you’re hoping to see across every level of your team as well.

Lance: 19:46 Let me add in one other thing, Amy. I think sometimes when you begin to make this list what you’re going to feel is there might be one or two that are a bit aspirational for you at this point. Like maybe they’re not fully baked into the culture, but you really do value them. And I think it’s okay to have one or two that may feel a bit aspirational, but you don’t want seven or eight because then it begins to feel like, okay, these values aren’t really us. But I do think to identify like what’s one where we’re not all the way there yet, but man, this matters to us, and we’re going to include it in our list.

Amy: 20:24 What I was going to ask Lance is of course you say it starts with the senior leader, but who else should the senior leader include in this conversation?

Lance: 20:32 I think it’s great to at least get input from everybody. Like, so I would start with my senior leadership team. I’d spend an hour or two on a whiteboard just doing some brainstorming. I’d percolate it down to my team, even all staff. I’d ask anybody for input. I’d get the board involved, you know, because again, they sort of have a unique seat to this. But my one caution is just to say it’s not a democratic process. Like this is not a majority vote thing. I think, again, at the end of the day, sort of senior leadership has to define it and ultimately holds veto power again, because it’s gotta ooze out of them as they preach and speak at staff meeting. It’s got to feel comfortable for them. So I’d get all the input I could, but at the end of the day, I think the leadership decision rests, kind of, with senior leadership.

Amy: 21:29 I heard you mentioned to avoid too many aspirational culture, values, behavior. But are there any other do’s and don’ts for you, Tony, or you Lance, that you’d share in your experiences in working with churches on this?

Tony: 21:42 Yeah, so this is just my experience through the years when it comes to working with churches. What I’ve seen is it’s easier for churches to hold team members accountable for character and performance, just getting the job done that they’re hired to do. But for whatever reason, when it comes to accountability around these culture shaping behaviors, there’s a tendency to kind of let those slip. And I’m not sure what’s behind it. I mean, Lance has talked in the past about what do you say? Something around kindness?

Amy: 22:17 Terminal kindness, I believe is his phrase.

Tony: 22:19 Yeah. Maybe that is playing into it, but it’s really important, not only when you’re bringing people on the team, but the coaching that you’re providing, that you’re providing accountability for character, certainly. For performance, absolutely. But you have to hold people accountable to these culture shaping behaviors as well. And that includes specific coaching and redirection when we see somebody living outside of those boundaries, giving people an opportunity to take next steps and actually follow through with culture that we’re trying to create. But when they don’t, you need to hold people accountable to that even if that includes at some point removing them from your team. Because what I’ve seen is this, when churches let these culture shaping behaviors slip on their teams, these are where the real cancers start to fester in the team organization. And it certainly will push good people away from your team if you let that continue.

Lance: 23:26 Yeah, that’s such a good word. Let me just give some practical, kind of “my experience” working with churches. I would just say first off, don’t have too many. You don’t want, you know, 18 culture shaping behaviors. I don’t think that’s helpful. I would say make them sticky, like find language and that feels comfortable to your culture but are sticky and memorable. And then I would say make them as kind of practical and specific as possible. So one of the churches I work with, one of their leadership behaviors was “speak with candor,” but then they had almost like a dropdown menu of two or three bullet points under any behavior that sort of puts some flesh on it. So I remember under speak with candor, one of the bullet points was “speak your mind without being a jerk,” And I thought, “that’s so good.” I mean, I get that everybody’s going to get that, right? And then I would say lastly on this one, Amy, would just be train on these consistently. I think about how at the Ritz Carlton, at the beginning of every shift, they take 15 to 20 minutes to train on one of their 24 leadership behaviors. Not once a month, not once a week, at the beginning of every shift.

Amy: 24:44 They have 24 you said?

Amy: 24:44 They have 24.

Amy: 24:48 So that’s too many.

Lance: 24:49 I would say for churches that’s a little much.

Amy: 24:51 So what is the right number, Tony? Lance? What should churches aim for?

Lance: 24:57 I’ve seen say somewhere between five and 10 is a good number to shoot for.

Amy: 25:03 All right. Well once they’re defined, you’re just saying train on them consistently. What are some best practices, Lance, for communicating them and keeping them in front of their teams?

Lance: 25:11 Yeah, so I have a word picture I like to use with this and when it comes to culture, “you don’t power wash it, you drip it in.” So power wash it is we come up with this grand plan. It’s our new cultural values or behaviors. We put it on a banner, we put it in the hall and we make all this hoopla about it and then we never do anything with it. And I just think way better than power washing it is just dripping it in little by little. So staff meeting is a natural place where that can happen. I would say, how are you integrating it into the on-boarding of a new person who’s come on your team? As leaders, we ought to drip it into our personal conversations that we’re having. When we think about rewarding and celebrating in our culture, it’s like, “Okay, who’s modeling sort of these desired behaviors?” And then maybe most powerfully is just regularly look for the opportunity to tell stories that bring the behavior or value to life. And so it’s kind of at every turn, I think you’re just sort of, you know, infusing it into every environment in your culture.

Amy: 26:18 That’s really good. Well, thanks to both of you for your time today. Tony, do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up this conversation?

Tony: 26:25 Well, of course, but you know, now I’m going back to that line, speak your mind without being a jerk. I have a tendency to speak my mind. You will tell me if I’m being a jerk, right?

Amy: 26:41 I will!

Lance: 26:42 Amy will!

Tony: 26:42 Yeah, this is the final thought that I had after today’s conversation is that you really do get to choose your culture. And if you don’t have the culture you want today, you get to shape that culture for your team that you’ll have in the future. And as the leader though, you’re responsible for defining the culture you value, you’re responsible for modeling the behaviors that are going to shape that culture, and you’re responsible for creating the right systems for coaching and accountability. So the wrong culture isn’t tolerated. So the good news here is there is coaching available. Our Unstuck Team’s process addresses both team performance and health, but a component of both of these areas is making sure you have the right organizational culture in place to live out the mission and vision God has for your church.

Sean: 27:34 Well, thanks for joining us on this week’s podcast. Don’t forget to register for the upcoming Unstuck Teams webinar on February 24th at 1:00 PM Eastern. To learn more and sign up, go to theunstuckgroup.com/webinar. If you’d like to explore more about how The Unstuck Teams process could benefit your church, visit us at theunstuckgroup.com/teams. Next week, we’re back with another brand new episode. So until then, we hope you have a great week.

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