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pascalina · 3 years

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The brothers' movie

11/07/2015

They don't use the same last name, but they are siblings. Pedro Pascal (40) the Chilean actor who starred in Game of Thrones and now has a starring role in the Netflix series Narcos, uses his mother's surname because it is easier to pronounce in English. 17 years younger, Lucas Balmaceda Pascal (23), also an actor, debuted in Los 80 and today stars in the TVN series Juana Brava. Here, both talk for the first time about their relationship, their love for cinema and their mutual admiration.

José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal was born in Chile, but a few months later he had to go into exile with his parents and his older sister, Javiera, to Denmark. It was the end of 1975. Thanks to the Rockefeller scholarship granted for his father, the doctor José Balmaceda Riera, a year later they moved to the United States: first they lived in San Antonio, Texas. Life there was just beginning and it was not easy.

Seventeen years later, in 1992, Lucas Balmaceda was born in Orange County, California, into the comfort of a family that was financially in its prime. His dad was at the peak of his career: as a fertility specialist and director of one of the University of California's reproductive health centers. But suddenly they moved back to Chile when Lucas was three years old and his brother Nicolas was eight. The two older ones stayed there. Pedro was already studying drama at Orange County High School of the Arts. Then he went to New York to study theater at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

After a couple of small appearances in TV series, in 2014 he took the big leap in his career: he played Prince Oberyn in Game of Thrones, which made him world famous. Today, he has a starring role in the series Narcos. He is also filming a movie with Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe.

Fame came early for Lucas. After leaving Saint George High School in 2010, he studied theater at the Universidad Católica, and he began to shine: in year fourth, he starred in the theater play "La noche obstinada", by choreographer Pablo Rotemberg, and got a role in the successful television series Los 80 and today, in his last year, he is the co-star of Juana Brava, the new TVN nighttime series.

Scene one:

Lucas appears in Pedro's life

P: "I was 17 when Lucas was born. He was a baby when I left to go to university. I remember my first visit back and Lucas, who was not even two years old, was already the owner of the house. I remember those looks, wanting to tell me: 'I don't know who you are, but this is my house, mate.

To this day I have never seen that personality in another child. It was fascinating to see that wit in someone so small. Since he was a kid he had that fierce intelligence... The four siblings, Javiera, the eldest and the queen of the family; Nicolas, the doctor; Lucas and I are like a compact and consistent unit. I can't imagine life without them".

L: "Pedro was studying at the university in New York when I was born. When he went home for vacations to see the family, as I didn't know him, I thought: 'who is this guest, who is this weirdo who kisses my mother? She's mine!'. Back in Chile, every year Pedro came to visit us. It was the most entertaining thing in the world for me. He was much older and he would come with all the coolness, with all the culture of cinema, with horror movies that were not available here. Then we would watch them and play them out, we would do sketches. We would play that Pedro was a murderous monster and we would escape from him. We were each a character. He was very funny, he did voices, he impersonated people. He gets mad when I tell him, but I've always found that he has a Jim Carrey thing about him, he manages to make some impressive faces. When he came on, I couldn't stop watching him, he was too entertaining. We are all big movie buffs thanks to my dad. When I was three years old, he took my brothers and me to see Batman. I remember crying hysterically. I was very young, sensitive, and being in the cinema was like entering to another reality: loud noises, giant screen. I didn't understand anything.

Scene two

Transplanted

P: "What's Chilean about me and what's gringo about me is a very interesting question, because I don't think even at 40 years old I've been able to figure it out. I was raised and educated in the United States and socialized a lot with American pop culture, but Chilean pride has always been unwavering. My parents were exiled for eight years. So our visits to Chile were regular. My whole life I have lived in the United States and my whole life I have visited my relatives in Chile. However, since my siblings were raised in Chile, my connection to the country is much stronger today and it is something I am grateful for. Something that happens to me a lot is that when I say I've been in the U.S. my whole life, they say, "Well, you're a gringo then! And after a conversation in my fluent Spanish with a clear Chilean accent that same person turns around and says: I've been listening to you, you're Chilean!

L: "I am Chilean because I lived and grew up here since I was three years old, but at the same time I have a cultural disconnection: my parents lived 25 years in the United States, my brothers are gringos. My visual culture is super gringo, the TV shows I watched when I was a kid or the movies I watch to this day I understand them from that place: as an American. More than being born in the United States, I feel it's because of my family's background".

SCENE THREE:

The performance

P: "There were good years and bad years (when I started my acting career in the United States). Many years I was a waiter to supplement my income. But from a very young age I was auditioning for professional jobs. In my late twenties my career in the theater was relatively consistent. Then, when opportunities in television arose, I was consolidating and it became much easier to pay my expenses. I think that struggle, going through those situations, empowers you a lot and it's one of the things I'm enormously grateful for. And Game of Thrones was an incredible gift. It's the best role I've ever played and they're the best people I've ever worked with."

L: "It's Pedro's fault that I wanted to be an actor. But when I told him I wanted to study theater it was hard for him, more than anything, because he cares about me and studying theater is hard. You have to be very wise and have a super high self-esteem to take care of yourself. Pedro went through many things. If there is an actor who doesn't have contacts in the United States, it's him. Everything he has achieved is because of his work. That's why when people ask me why I don't go to the U.S., it's a resounding no. Being Pedro Pascal's little brother is not going to get me around the corner; I would have to be Tom Cruise's twin to achieve anything. Even so, Pedro had many failed career starts. In 2011, for example, he was offered a starring role in a series called Wonder Woman and it was eventually canceled. That's why, when Games of Thrones came up, I was like, wow! We were all freaking out, because Games of Thrones is like a worldwide trending topic. All the episodes he was in, we were all watching them together at my house, eating pizza or sushi."

SCENE FOUR:

Mutual lessons

P: "I try not to get too involved in anything Lucas does or how he does it. He has single-handedly created each of his experiences and is one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. He loves his work and is continually developing his skills for television and theater, and eventually film. He executes like a real artist and, to be honest, it is more common for me to learn something from him than for him to learn something from me. I mean that very sincerely. Lucas reminds me to work hard and keeps me inspired. When I saw him in Los 80 I was incredibly proud, but not surprised. I was seeing something I had always known. The only advice I've given him is to not be such a workaholic, to take care of himself and to be proud of what he's accomplished and what he still has yet to accomplish. Deep down, I'm always going to be the protective big brother."

L: "Pedro is an object of admiration for me. What he says is law for me. Sometimes I ask him: 'Pedro, did you see that movie?' and he says: 'Yes, I didn't like it'. I tell him: 'Oh, I didn't like it either'. The nice thing about our relationship is that it happens so sporadically, once or twice a year, that the moments when we see each other are very intense. We either fight a lot or we love each other too much, but it's always like a story, like a movie. While he's there and I'm here, we talk a lot on WhatsApp and Facebook".

P: "With Lucas we always keep each other up to date on what movies to watch, what TV shows are good. I bug him all the time asking him about what's going on in his life and I'm always asking him about his perspective on things. Despite being away from each other for a long time, Lucas and I are very close and always have been. I see Lucas at the beginning of an amazing career, with an unwavering curiosity and passion. I love it when he confides in me about things he is enjoying or situations he is dealing with."

L: "I've never seen Pedro in theater, but I've been told he's tremendous. On camera, I find that he has a very intense look. He also has, and in that we are very similar, a very strong visual culture, the fact that we have always liked horror movies. He plays characters that hide something, dark characters. A great strength is that he is very sensual, he knows how to handle himself well from seduction".

P: "Lucas is brave, he's fearless. There's nothing he's not willing to try, he's never going to give up on a challenge, he's never going to leave something halfway, no matter what that means to him. Lucas is unstoppable.

Link interview

#pedro pascal #lux pascal #siblings

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gayforheadphonesgirl · 5 years

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Falling Back Into You (Chapter 1) - Alex Morgan imagine

(A/N): Here’s a multi-chaptered SingleMom! Alex Morgan imagine nobody asked for but I’m going to give you guys anyway lmao. Alex and r are former teammates on the USWNT and haven’t seen each other in years. Shoutout to the cracl heads who are helping me name OCs.

It’s been about 10 years since (Y/N) had seen most of her US national team teammates, with her retirement and social work keeping her away.

So she had absolutely no idea that the kid who caught her eye in a soccer camp she helped with was more connected to her than she thought.

The seven-year-old girl peaked (Y/N)’s attention with her prowess on the field, but what really intrigued her was the kid’s smile that (Y/N) swore she already saw somewhere else.

The girl continued to practice after camp finished, running up and down the field with her small legs handling the ball.

Drawn to the child’s motivation, (Y/N) approached her.

“Still not tired after training with us I see” (Y/N) said, looking affectionately at the young player.

She looked up at (Y/N) and beamed. The older woman was caught off-guard with her eyes, a mix of green and blue that seem so familiar.

“Nope. I want to be the best in the world, like my momma!” The kid said, showing off some dribbling skills to the former USWNT star.

(Y/N) chuckled.

“Yeah? You’re mom was a soccer player too?” (Y/N) said, motioning for the girl to pass the ball to her.

“Yup! The absolute best!” The girl replied. The pair continued passing the ball back and forth.

“Well, I’d sure like to meet her. I want to learn and play with the absolute best in soccer” (Y/N) said, grinning at the kid.

The girl seemed keen to the idea, with her face lighting up at the mention of playing with her mother.

“That would be awesome. She’d kick your ass” The girl replied. (Y/N) giggles at the small girl using the word ass.

She was just about to reply when a new but familiar voice called from behind them.

“Mia! There you are. I’ve been waiting forever for you” The voice called.

“Mom!” Mia said, immediately leaving the ball and running towards her mother.

(Y/N) turned around to look at the pair and immediately, her breath caught in her throat.

“You should’ve been finished 30 minutes ago. Now look, you’ve forced one of your coaches to stay with you-” The mother started to say but stopped dead in her tracks when she looked up.

“(Y/N)?” She said, eyes widening.

“Alex?” (Y/N) replied.

Both women squealed in delight as Alex put Mia down to crash into a hug with (Y/N).

“Wow. It’s so good to see you” (Y/N) said, still hanging on tightly to the former Orlando star.

They pulled back and grinned at each other.

“How long has it been?” Alex said, smiling at her old friend. Mia looked curiously at the two adults in her midst.

“Too long, Alex” (Y/N) said with an elated look on her face.

“Wow, Mia. You were right when you said that your mom was the best in teh world” (Y/N) said, crouching down and ruffling the girl’s hair.

Mia giggled and playfully swatted (Y/N)’s hand.

“She said that?” Alex said, smiling down at her daughter.

“Yeah. But she definitely won’t kick my ass. As far as I can remember, I beat her during scrimmages in practice before” (Y/N) said, standing up and nudging Alex’s shoulder.

“Shut up” Alex replied with faux annoyance. Mia seemed to connect the dots and looked alternately at the two ladies.

“You played together?” Mia said, looking at her mother curiously.

“Yep. Won two World Cups together too” (Y/N) replied, grinning proudly at Alex.

The forward’s heart warmed at the flashback of memories with (Y/N) coming back to her.

“Too bad she had to retire before the 2023 Cup, then we could’ve won three together” Alex said smugly. (Y/N) scoffed.

“Well, my body wasn’t that strong. I’m a bit older than you remember” (Y/N) retorted playfully.

“Grandma” Alex said. (Y/N) gaped at her in disbelief.

“Ooooh burn” Mia said, laughing at the antics of her mom and friend. (Y/N) grinned at the kid.

“Feisty. Just like your mom I see” (Y/N) said.

Mia smiled and nodded her head. (Y/N) laughed and looked at Alex again.

“Wanna go get some ice cream? It’s on me. This kid killed it today” (Y/N) said. Mia perked up at the mention of ice cream and looked pleadingly at her mother.

Alex pretended to think about it but the smile that cracked her face moments after told Mia and (Y/N) she was gonna give in.

“Fine” Alex said. Mia squealed in delight and started running off the pitch.

“She’s quite something” (Y/N) commented, walking leisurely with Alex.

“She is” Alex replied shyly, suddenly conscious that she’s alone with (Y/N).

“Just like you” (Y/N) said, grinning at her former teammate. Alex playfully swats (Y/N) on the arm.

(Y/N) laughs and the pair continue walking in comfortable silence. Mia was already in the exit by the time the two adults caught up to her.

“You sure you have time to take us to ice cream?” Alex said, as the trio walked towards an ice cream parlor (Y/N) knew was near the field.

“Yeah, of course. No biggie” (Y/N) said, shrugging her shoulders.

They had arrived at the ice cream parlor not long after, got their fill and walked around the nearby park.

Mia headed off by herself in a playground in the park with a few other kids while Alex and (Y/N) kept an eye on her in a bench.

(Y/N) took a deep breath and finally asked Alex a question that’s been nagging at the back of her mind all day.

“So, how’s Servando?” (Y/N) said, taking a cautious spoonful of her vanilla ice cream.

Alex tensed up a bit at the mention of her ex-husband. She sighed but nevertheless turned to face (Y/N).

“You really haven’t been keeping in touch, no?” Alex said, smiling at her old friend. (Y/N) almost looked guilty.

“Sorry…” (Y/N) said, looking down at her half eaten ice cream.

“Don’t be. But…. he’s been gone for a while now. He didn’t want kids and when I suddenly had Mia, he didn’t want to stick around anymore” Alex said, shrugging her shoulders.

(Y/N) looked at her in disbelief and felt a feeling strongly reminding her of anger and hate bubble up inside.

“What? Why?” (Y/N) said, wondering how anyone would willingly choose to leave Alex and such a sweet kid like Mia.

“He just didn’t want us anymore. It’s fine though, I mean I guess I really didn’t want him anymore either” Alex said nonchalantly.

But (Y/N) was still fuming, taking angry spoonfuls of her ice cream. Alex chuckled at the sight of her friend.

“What are you laughing at? He’s a total dickwad!” (Y/N) said loudly, flailing her ice cream-occupied hands in the air.

“Dickwad” The pair heard Mia say. The adults whipped their head to look at the seven-year-old who was apparently already next to them.

“Nope. We don’t say that word” (Y/N) said, starting to panic at having accidentally taught a kid a swear ward.

Alex laughed at (Y/N)’s efforts to explain to Mia how she shouldn’t be saying that word.

“That’s…. that’s a really bad word and I’m really sorry I said that. Auntie (Y/N)’s going to be in trouble for that later. Don’t imitate it” (Y/N) rambled on.

Mia looked confused at the older woman’s rambling but simply nodded her head.

(Y/N) looked helplessly at Alex and mouthed ‘sorry’ but the latter just chuckled and waved her off.

“Your Auntie (Y/N) is a bad role model. Don’t be like her” Alex said playfully taking her daughter into her lap.

“Hey! I’m not that bad!” (Y/N) said defensively. Alex rolled her eyes and simply laughed.

The trio continued their day talking about soccer tactics, with Mia wanting to learn from her mother’s former teammate.

“Someday, I wanna be a World Cup champion like you two!” Mia said, skipping happily as they walked out of the park.

“I’m sure you’ll get to do that, baby girl. After all, it runs in the genes” (Y/N) said, ruffling her hair again.

“Where will you be going home to?” Alex said, continuing to walk with (Y/N) – Mia a few steps ahead of them.

“I have a loft a few blocks down on 26th street. Just moved in last month, actually” (Y/N) replied.

“Wow. So I’ll be definitely seeing more of you very soon?” Alex said, smiling.

“If you want to, yeah” (Y/N) replied, grinning back.

The trio came to an intersection where (Y/N)’s house was off to the left while Alex and Mia should head right.

“This is you right?” Alex said, pointing to the left. (Y/N) hummed in response.

“Yeah, but I’d like to walk you two home if you let me” (Y/N) said, shoving her hands into her pockets, moving around nervously.

Alex blushed at how cute and shy (Y/N) was being.

“We’d like that” Alex said as Mia nodded in approval. (Y/N) grinned and walked to the right with the pair.

Alex and (Y/N) continued catching up the rest of the way, with Alex finding out how (Y/N) has been spending her retirement.

“I’ve been pretty busy with social work still, we sometimes go to local communities and start a soccer club there. You know, just to get kids into the right kind of hobbies,” (Y/N) said. Alex nodded and was a bit impressed at how passionate (Y/N) was with what she was doing.

“I also have a small athleisure wear I manage. It’s not much but it pays the bills” (Y/N) said, chuckling.

“You’ve been pretty busy huh? Well, Mia is my whole life now. Although I do coach a university women’s soccer team” Alex said. (Y/N) beamed at the mention of the sport.

“Still can’t leave it, huh?” (Y/N) said, grinning. Alex nods.

“It’s the love of my life” Alex said. (Y/N) hums in approval.

They finally make it to Alex’s house after a few minutes and (Y/N) walks them up to the front door.

“Well, this is me. It’s been great seeing you” Alex said, smiling affectionately at (Y/N).

Mia had already opened the door and dashed inside to play with their pet dog Bob.

“Yeah… same here” (Y/N) said, leaning on the door frame as Alex stepped inside.

“I’ll see you soon?” Alex said, with a hopeful glint in her eyes. (Y/N) blushes a shade of pink and nods her head.

“Definitely” She replied. She almost, almost doesn’t notice the subtle lip bite Alex does before smiling back at her.

“Good. Well. Bye” Alex said, motioning to close the door. (Y/N) stood up straight and shoved her hands into her pockets again.

“Bye” She said. Once the door closed, (Y/N) released a breath she didn’t know she was holding in.

Who would’ve thought she would run into the girl she’s been in love with all these years?

To be continued

#alex morgan #alex morgan imagines #uswnt #uswnt imagines #singlemom!alex

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twoidiotwriters1 · 4 years

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Written In The Stars XV (Harry Potter xF!Oc)

A/N: Tumblr malfunction as I was editing this and everything went to shit. But I hope it works now! Also, @omiwashere for some reason your url doesn’t appear to me as on option so i can’t tag you at all, perhaps you have another url?

Words: 3,252

Warnings: Bit of unicorn blood, bit of violence

Series’ Masterlist

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Chapter Fifteen: The Creature in the Forest.

"It's too late to change the plan now," Harry lamented, "We haven't got time to send Charlie another owl and this could be our only chance to get rid of Norbert. We'll have to risk it. And we have got the Invisibility Cloak, Malfoy doesn't know about that."

On Saturday, the three kids -Harry, Mel, and Hermione- went to Hagrid's hut to take his 'little baby' away.

"Bye-bye, Norbert!" Hagrid sobbed as they disappeared under the cloak with Norbert beside them, "Mummy will never forget you!"

"Mummy," Mel shook her head, "why a dragon, why not another sweet, black puppy?"

They walked in complete darkness, voices catching their attention.

"Detention!" McGonagall shouted, "And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you –"

"You don't understand, Professor, Harry Potter's coming – he's got a dragon!"

Mel had to cover her mouth so she wouldn't laugh. She was beaming, Malfoy finally getting what he deserved!

They waited at the top of the astronomy tower. About ten minutes later, four brooms appeared in the night sky.

It was fast and easy: Charlie's friends were nice, they took Norbert as if it was an everyday thing, and they flew, they went further... until they were completely gone.

They were downstairs when Mel realized something important was missing. Before she could warn her friends, a voice came from a dark corner:

"Well, well, well," Filch whispered, able to see them since they forgot Harry's cloak back in the tower. "we are in trouble."

Mel was silent. She was weighing her options, what could she do to get everyone out of trouble.

She was a Dumbledore! Somewhere inside that pea-brain she had the social skills to make their way out of this mess.

"Harry!" Neville appeared next to McGonagall, "I was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag–"

Harry shook his head violently next to her, Professor McGonagall saw him.

"I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr Filch says you were up the astronomy tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."

Mel closed her eyes, breathing heavily. This was it, if she didn't give a proper explanation, they'd be doomed.

But what could possibly explain the situation that didn't give them away?

Draco was found and he was telling stories about a dragon and Harry... they didn't get along with Malfoy, all the teachers knew that...

Mel took a moment to control her voice and then, in a very serious tone she answered:

"We lied."

Harry looked at her, Mel avoided his eyes afraid that it might give them away.

"You lied?" McGonagall asked harshly, "About what?"

Mel shook her head taking her time, she added:

"We wanted to teach Malfoy a lesson."

Her Professor nodded once.

"I see. I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on,' said Professor McGonagall to Mel's relief, "It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too?"

"No, Professor," Mel added in panic, watching Neville's disappointed face, "Neville wasn't supposed to hear it... but that doesn't excuse us"

"I'm disgusted," said Professor McGonagall, "Five students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense. As for you, Mr Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. Miss Dumbledore, you've been spending your time with the Weasley boys, I should've guessed something was going on. All five of you will receive detentions – yes, you too, Mr Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous – and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."

"Fifty?" Harry gasped.

"Fifty points each," said Professor McGonagall.

"Professor – please –"

"You can't –"

Mel put a hand on Harry's shoulder, shaking her head frantically.

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students."

Next morning was a nightmare, students were insulting her and every single one of her friends except for Ron. All of them were quieter, ashamed of what had happened, but she kept her head high.

She answered every question in class, worked hard to be the head of her year, she wasn't going to feel ashamed about helping Hagrid.

People weren't happy about that either, how dare she be so loud and know-it-all after losing so many points? Mel had to make her way out of her bad reputation soon.

Fred and George weren't bad to her, but they weren't acting as friendly as before. They were impressed about her skill with spells, but they also avoided her in public places. She didn't mind, that way she could focus on gaining more points.

Someone was definitely not avoiding her though, now that she'd helped Slytherin to go back on its first place. As a matter of fact, he seemed excited about their friendship now more than ever.

"Morning, Miss," Erick sat next to her during the morning break, "how's life going when you're one of the most hated people at school?"

"Could be worse," She said shortly, "Harry's miserable as well as Hermione and Neville. I'm not. I owe nothing to the rest of the students."

"Slytherin is beyond happy right now," He replied gleefully, "particularly Malfoy. If it wasn't for your major faux pas they'd be terribly mad at him, but he keeps saying it was thanks to him that you lost all those points... It isn't true is it?"

"He got caught before he could actually find us," Mel replied with annoyance, "Could you leave? If you're only here to brag about Slytherin's victory you can do that another time, I'm not in the mood."

"Calm down, I'm just teasing," He rolled his eyes.

"You never talk to me, but now suddenly you're so talkative," She snarled, "Sorry if I confused your friendly teasing with being an idiot."

"Well yes, you're forgiven," He chuckled. When he noticed Mel wasn't amused, he added, "I'm just seizing the opportunity to openly talk to a friend, it'll go away as soon as you save five kittens from the whomping willow or some bizarre adventure of sorts. I know you have a luck for that."

"Well I wish I had the luck to be left alone when I want to," She replied, "just go away!"

He stood up, as he started to walk away he added:

"I'll stop talking to you until things get better. Or I'll just stop talking to you altogether, who knows?" Erick said it carelessly, but his fists were clenched.

Mel didn't answer, she didn't know what she wanted.

Through the course of a month, Mel won thirty points for Gryffindor. It wasn't enough but she was doing her part, she would keep on working at least until they reached the third place.

Quirrell had given up and Snape was one step closer to get what he wanted. She had promised she wouldn't mingle in foreign matters, she needed to win more points for her house. So she decided to stay out of it.

Harry thought the same, he forced himself to forget about the subject and kept on studying. The only person that seemed disappointed was Ron, who couldn't wait to have another adventure.

Harry, Mel, Hermione, and Neville got a note during breakfast:

'Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight.

Meet Mr Filch in the Entrance Hall.

Prof. M. McGonagall'

"Brilliant," Mel groaned, angrily biting her turkey sandwich.

"Follow me," said Filch once they were gathered outside, "I bet you'll think twice about breaking a school rule again, won't you, eh? Oh yes ... hard work and pain are the best teachers if you ask me ... It's just a pity they let the old punishments die out ... hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days, I've got the chains still in my office, keep 'em well oiled in case they're ever needed ... Right, off we go, and don't think of running off, now, it'll be worse for you if you do."

Mel had a lot of opinions about all that, but she decided to keep it to herself, she was already drowning in troubles.

Their detention consisted of something easy: Hagrid would take them to the forbidden forest, yet she didn't have any idea as to why. Malfoy tried to refuse, it was fun to see his little cold eyes filled with horror.

"Look there," said Hagrid, "see that stuff shinin' on the ground? Silvery stuff? That's unicorn blood. There's a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We're gonna try an' find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery."

"And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" said Malfoy.

"There's nothin' that lives in the Forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang," said Hagrid. "An' keep ter the path. Right, now, we're gonna split inter two parties an' follow the trail in diff'rent directions. There's blood all over the place, it must've bin staggerin' around since last night at least."

"I want Fang," squeaked Malfoy.

"All right, but I warn yeh, he's a coward," said Hagrid. "So me, Harry an' Hermione'll go one way an' Draco, Neville, Mel an' Fang'll go the other. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we'll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an' practise now – that's it – an' if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an' we'll all come an' find yeh – so, be careful – let's go."

The groups parted ways, Neville firmly holding Mel's sleeve as they walked through the narrow trees.

"I shouldn't be here," Malfoy spat, "I should've shown them the letter and I'd be out of trouble-"

"You don't have the letter anymore. Even if you did, it would look like you made it up to get out of your punishment," Mel replied calmly, "stop whining"

"I suppose you must feel quite at home surrounded by beasts"

"Yes, and a rat like you must be terrified, you could be attacked at any moment," She rolled her eyes, "shut up, you'll attract the werewolves you love so dearly..."

Malfoy for the first time ever listened to her and stayed quiet. Neville was starting to hurt her arm, she gently asked him to stop and stepped away, shivering.

They had been walking for about fifteen minutes when Malfoy decided to scare Neville, sneaking up and jumping on his back. Neville got so scared that he shot red sparks into the air.

"You should've seen your face!" Draco cackled.

"Stupid!" Mel clenched her fists, "Hagrid is gonna get mad! We shouldn't be causing fuss while we're doing this, we won't find anything this way!"

"Who said I wanted to find it?" He frowned, "That's not my job, he's taking advantage of us"

"The same way you take advantage of Crabbe and Goyle cause they're big and can protect you," Mel snapped.

Malfoy barely reacted, shrugging.

"They're too stupid to make it through school on their own."

Mel was too angry to reply, she spent the next five minutes calming Neville and once Hagrid found them he was indeed upset about Malfoy's behavior, he changed the groups for Neville's sake.

Now Harry was coming with them. The blond kid remained quiet now, probably tired or pissed about was wasting his time. Harry and Mel didn't talk much either, they didn't want to disturb the creatures.

The unicorn's blood guided them to a clearing: The creature laid dead shining under the moonlight, one could imagine it was sleeping if it wasn't for the pool of blood surrounding its body.

Mel and Harry approached when a cloaked figure appeared crawling over to the animal, drinking the blood from its wound.

Malfoy let out a high, terrified scream as he ran away with Fang beside him, Mel and Harry stood there, terrified. Harry yelped in pain, a hand on his forehead.

He stumbled back and fell to his knees, only then Mel found herself capable to move, kneeling next to the boy and trying to uncover his face.

"What's wrong?" She yelled, hands cold as ice when she touched him.

The sound of hooves approaching and a tall figure jumping above them distracted her... a centaur. Mel watched as he scared the creature away, protecting them from whatever it was that thing.

"Harry," She stammered, looking back at the boy, "l-let me see!"

Harry looked up as the centaur got closer, helping them to their feet.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes – thank you – what was that?"

The centaur was staring at Harry's scar, she would've said something if he hadn't just saved their lives.

"You are the Potter boy," he said. "You had better get back to Hagrid. The Forest is not safe at this time – especially for you. Can you ride? It will be quicker this way," Then he looked over to Mel, icy blue eyes reading her carefully, "You vibrate. What's your name?"

It was a really odd thing to say, but Mel assumed centaurs were strange like that.

"Mel Dumbledore," She stretched out her hand, but the centaur didn't take it.

He nodded, "My name is Firenze."

He kneeled so they could climb over on his back.

Once they were seated, galloping echoed through the trees and soon enough two more centaurs appeared in front of them.

"Firenze!" One thundered. "What are you doing? You have humans on your back! Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?"

"Do you realise who these are?" said Firenze. "This is the Potter boy. The girl is Dumbledore's descendant. The quicker they leave this Forest, the better"

"What have you been telling him? Remember, Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?"

"I'm sure Firenze thought he was acting for the best," The second centaur spoke up.

"For the best! What is that to do with us? Centaurs are concerned with what has been foretold! It is not our business to run around like donkeys after stray humans in our Forest!"

Firenze reared on to his hind legs, Mel had to hold onto Harry's waist and he grabbed Firenze's shoulders.

"Do you not see that unicorn? Do you not understand why it was killed? Or have the planets not let you in on that secret? I set myself against what is lurking in this Forest, Bane, yes, with humans alongside me if I must."

Firenze then galloped away.

"Why's Bane so angry?" Harry asked. "What was that thing you saved me from, anyway?"

Firenze did not answer, he kept going and spoke only to make sure Harry and Mel kept their heads low to avoid hanging branches. Her mind was starting to divert when he spoke up.

"Do you know what unicorn blood is used for?"

"No," said Harry, "We've only used the horn and tail-hair in Potions."

"That is because it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn. Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips."

"But who'd be that desperate? If you're going to be cursed forever, death's better, isn't it?"

"It is unless all you need is to stay alive long enough to drink something else – something that will bring you back to full strength and power – something that will mean you can never die. Do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?"

"The Philosopher's Stone! Of course – the Elixir of Life! But I don't understand who –"

"Can you think of nobody who has waited many years to return to power, who has clung to life, awaiting their chance?"

Mel didn't have to think, there was only one man who was capable of such horrors.

"Voldemort," She said in certainty.

"Harry! Mel! Are you all right?"

Hermione was running towards them down the path, Hagrid puffing along behind her.

"We're fine," said Harry, with a dry voice, "The unicorn's dead, Hagrid, it's in that clearing back there."

"This is where I leave you," Firenze murmured as Hagrid hurried off to examine the unicorn. "You are safe now."

Harry and Mel slid off his back.

"Thank you," Mel replied, "I hope we didn't get you in trouble for this"

"Don't worry about me, young Dumbledore. Worry about the dangers that might reach you," Without explaining, he turned to Harry, "Good luck, Harry Potter. The planets have been read wrongly before now, even by centaurs. I hope this is one of those times."

Harry was very agitated when they returned to the common room, he paced up and down as he told Ron and Hermione what happened in the forest, -with few interventions from Mel- he was sure he'd figured things out.

"Snape wants the stone for Voldemort ... and Voldemort's waiting in the Forest ... and all this time we thought Snape just wanted to get rich ..."

"Stop saying the name!" said Ron in a whisper.

But Harry was in his own head.

"Firenze saved us, but he shouldn't have done ... Bane was furious ... he was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen ... They must show that Voldemort's coming back ... Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me ... I suppose that's written in the stars as well."

"Will you stop saying the name!" Ron hissed.

"Not saying the name it's silly," Mel countered, sitting still in her place.

"-So all I've got to wait for now is Snape to steal the Stone, then Voldemort will be able to come and finish me off ... Well, I suppose Bane'll be happy."

"Don't say that!" This time, it was Mel who reacted to what Harry said, "You won't die, think about a second where you're standing."

"Harry, everyone says Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of," Hermione agreed, "With Dumbledore around, You-Know-Who won't touch you. Anyway, who says the centaurs are right? It sounds like fortune-telling to me, and Professor McGonagall says that's a very imprecise branch of magic."

"Maybe with humans it is," Mel shifted uncomfortably on her place, "but we don't know how it works with other creatures, who knows, they might perceive things differently."

"What do you mean?" Asked Harry uneasy.

Mel stood up and put a hand on his shoulder, it was the first time in weeks that didn't feel awkward to have contact with him.

"It means we know nothing... but we'll figure it out."

Next Chapter —>

Taglist.

@tiphareth2018 @vampiregirl1797 @siriuslysirius1107 @celestialhayi @omiwashere

#twoidiots writing #harry potter fanfiction #Harry Potter #harry potter xoc #harry potter x y/n #harry potter x reader #hermione granger #rubeus hagrid #ron weasley #minerva mcgonagall #draco malfoy #neville longbottom #WITT fic

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iamhereforthesmut · 5 years

Text

Valentine Day (SMUT)

Oh look! Another smutty fic with our baby boy Eugene Porter! Fluffy, awkwardly cheesy, just like our favorite cowardly weirdo.

Warning for my bad english skills, lot of old school cheesy romance, oral sex, breeding kink and NSFW

Happy Valentine Day!

Today was Valentine’s Day and Eugene invited you for diner. You were already going out together for a few months and you knew he would never ask you to marry him because ‘he doesn’t need God to prove he loves you’, but you could sense something was making him nervous.

At nightfall, you knock on the door of the house he shared with Carol, Tara, Rosita and Daryl. You knew Tara and Rosita were gone to Hilltop for the week and Daryl left a few days ago with Carol on a run, so that meant you got the whole house all for yourself. You could swear Eugene convinced his friends to let him have the home alone for Valentine Day and you are actually impressed by his persuasions skills. Tara loves you like crazy, but Rosita and Daryl still thinks you are not sincerely in love with Eugene. Screw them. You love this man to death.

Eugene opens the door for you. He was dressed up nicely, ditching the cargo short for regular pants for once. You like his cargo shorts, but for a romantic dinner? Not so much.

“Hello sweety.”

“Hello Y/N. You look wonderful.” He says before kissing you.

He was a little tense, feeling nervous. You put your hand on his shirt to help him relax; it feels so soft.

“Oh wow! I like your shirt, it’s my favorite color!”

He smiles a little, proud of himself.

“I know. That’s why I choose this shirt.” He fidgets nervously with his hands a moment before adding: “It’s actually the first time I get a Valentine on Valentine’s Day, so I hope I’m not going to disappoint you…”

The way he says it break your heart a little. How can he disappoint you? He’s always so nice and gentle with you. Of course, he lacks socials skills, but he was so adorkable you couldn’t be mad at him even if things were sometimes awkward.

“You never disappoint me sweetheart; I love you so much…” You pull him into another kiss and felt him relax in your arms.

He broke the kiss and leads you to the dining room, holding your hand. There were candles everywhere, it was beautiful. On the round table in the middle of the dining room were a few more candles, two plates of lasagna, a bottle of artisanal red wine and two glasses. It looked like a romantic movie, like a dream in this living nightmare full of walkers and life and death situations.

“This is so... old school”

Eugene looks at you worried.

“You don't like it?”

You turn to look at him with a beaming smile and stars in your eyes.

“What? No, I love it! Nobody ever did that for me”

He smiles back, reassured.

“Then let me introduce you to candle light dinner.”

He pulls the chair for you, then sit in front of you.

“Carol’s back?”

Carol usually cooks for you, but you thought she was out on a run with Daryl.

“No. I did it myself.”

You never saw Eugene cook before and didn’t knew he could do something else than stew, but it smell delicious and you were hella hungry. At first bite, you felt in love.

“This is so delicious! I didn’t know you were such a good cook!”

“Thanks. I actually took cooking class with Carol. She’s a great teacher.”

You were really impress he made that lasagna all by himself.

“We are lucky Tara and Rosita found cows: you don’t know how much I missed cheese.”

You agree with him, but you still wonder how long it would last. The cows are at Hilltop and your relations with Maggie weren’t that great after Rick lets Negan live instead of killing him.

Once you finish your lasagna, Eugene stand up and took your plate.

“I’ll be back in a jiffy.” he says, heading to the kitchen.

He came back with two little white ramekin.

“Don’t tell me this is what I think this is?”

He made crème brûlée for dessert and looked damn proud of himself.

“My favorite part was burning the top.

Eugene looks at his empty cup and you know he wanted another cup, but he wait until you were finish to ask:

“Do you want another one? Carol’s recipe gives six portions.”

You smile at him and pull out your tongue to lick your lips playfully.

“Then, that make three each?”

He gets up to bring back the rest of the ramekins, two for you and two for him.

“So much sugar… we won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

“Sleeping? You really want to sleep on Valentine’s day?” you says with a wink and he blushes, shaking his head.

You ate the crème brûlée in silence for a moment. It was so good; you got a bit jealous of his cooking skills. All you can do was spaghetti, macaroni with tomato sauce and cheese omelette. You feel like you are failing as a girlfriend for being so bad at cooking. Maybe you should take cooking class with Carol too?

“I have an important question for you.” Eugene says suddenly.

Your heart misses a beat. He can’t possibly ask you to marry him, does he? He starts to rambles in his drawl and you almost miss half of what he was saying.

“I’m sure you are well aware of how blessed we are to have Dr. Siddiq in Alexandria and with Enid as his pupil. In term of surviving the apocalypse, we are doing pretty well in the medical field and I’m utterly certain we can count on Daryl, Carol, Rosita, Tara and Rick to find any medical material we might require in the future. I also have to mention: this community is unquestionably safe in term of defense against the walkers, with our fortifications and all the people protecting it, taking turns and…”

“Get to the point, I thought you had something to ask?” you says between two bites.

He looks at you with his cute puppy face, almost afraid to tell you what he had in mind.

“I’m just wondering if you… if you could consider… you know…”

His stutter was so adorable, but at this point you were just curious about what’s making him so nervous. You place your hand on his.

“I’m getting worried now. Is something wrong? Are you sick?”

He shook his head and took a deep breath.

“I would like to have a family with you… I mean… a child… or two, or three, as much as you like… If you agree, of course!”

You put down your empty ramekin and your spoon, looking at his little putty face. He looks so nervous you just want to hug him and kiss him.

“Are you serious?”

“Serious as sepsis.”

“You mean instead of... pulling out, you...”

Your cheeks get warm at the idea of him coming inside you. He nods shyly; he seems to like that idea too. Imagining Eugene as a father almost makes you faint: Eugene with a baby in his arms! DAMN YES!

“I would love to!”

Your answer make him burst with joy, you could see it in his face.

“I hope he get your hair, my eyes, your smile...”

“My cooking skills...” you add.

Eugene looks up at you anxiously.

“You didn’t like my dinner?”

You laugh.

“Of course I do, but if he cook like you, our child would be too perfect.” you says with a wink. “He needs flaws too.”

He stands up to hug you tightly in his big arms, kissing you lovingly.

“What about we make a baby tonight? It’s the perfect day for that. Our baby will be born on November, just before Christmas.”

“I fully agree with that.”

Eugene took you hand and lead you to his bedroom. The whole house was dark and quiet, except for a faint light coming from the bedroom. Inside the bedroom, a few candles were lit on Eugene’s desk and roses’ petals were scattered on the bed and the floor.

You heard Eugene close the door behind you and turn on some music. It was your favorite love song. Everything was so perfect; you felt your eyes fills with tears of joy. It was so cheesy, but it was exactly the kind of romance you expected from a guy like Eugene and you felt so lucky to have him all for you, just for you…

Eugene looks at you, confused:

“Is everything fine?” he drawls anxiously.

You wipe your tears and smile.

“Yes… yes, this is so perfect. No one ever did that for me before…”

He pulls you in his arms and kisses you lovingly.

“I just wanted to show you how much I love you, and Rick always says actions means more than words, so… You deserve only the best, and I really try every day to be the best boyfriend I can be.”

His words left you speechless, so you return the kiss with all your heart to show him exactly how much you love him. He gently pushes you on the bed to rest on your back. He kneels on top of you, kissing your neck softly, occasionally licking and nibbling on your sensitive skin, before slowly going down to your breast.

Eugene was always gentle with you: his touches, his kisses, sweet but passionate, sometimes a bit eager but never rushed. Quick sex on the corner of a table between breakfast and work was never an option for him.

He was always eager at first, tugging on your clothes to undress you as fast as possible, impatient to feel your soft skin against his. Then, he became almost hesitant, gently caressing your back and your sides, feeling the soft skin inside your thighs. He likes to shower you with love and watch you cum while fingering you, relinquish in your moans and hear you beg for his cock. Today was no exception, but instead of pulling out, he will give you everything you want: his seed, his life, his future… your baby: half him, half you, together forever.

He took your nipple in his mouth, playing with it with his tongue while his other hand cups your left breast, his thumb rubbing your hard bud. You gasp and moan his name in impatience.

“God, Eugene… please…”

You grind your hips up against his, delighted to feel him already hard for you. A small groan leaves his throat.

“Not yet…”

His right hand travels down to your hips to rubs against your cunt, two fingers slowly entering you. He curves them inside to nudge against your soft spot. Your legs were trembling, hands gripping at his shirt. You love it when he keeps his shirt on and he didn’t care much about you ruining it in the heat of the moment, pulling so hard it rips a bit. When he removes it, the claws’ marks you leave on his back always make you feel guilty the day after.

His mouth and tongue traces a wet trail on your ribcage, down to your soft stomach, and you knew exactly where he was going. You hook your legs over his broad shoulders and pet his hair. His fingers were still rubbing that mind blowing spot inside of you when he starts liking your clit.

You run your fingers on his scalp, encouraging him to continue. His hot plush mouth devours you like the tastiest treat, greedily lapping at your juice and his tongue playing with your sensitive bud. You buck up your hips when he latched on your clit, gently sucking and his fingers making a ‘come here’ motion against your G-spot. You pull on his hair, crying in pleasure.

“Good lord Eugene, I’m about to cum!”

He moans in delight as he feels you clench around his fingers. You know how much he loves it when you buck your cunt against his pouty mouth, lapping at you while you dirty his face with your juice.

Once you were done, he watches you trying to catch your breath, eyes clouded with desire.

“I love you so much, you have no idea…” he brawls before kissing you.

You could taste yourself on his lips and you feel him rock hard between your legs, gently pushing against your entrance. He slowly pushes the head of his swollen cock inside your drenched cunt, both moaning at the feeling.

He stops a moment, eyes closed and mouth open.

“Are you alright?”

He nods.

“Yea… yea… I thought it wouldn’t be much different without condom, but it is. I can feel you… wet and velvety soft… so warm…”

You agree with him. Condoms are cold and feel weird, almost like latex gloves. Raw sex is much better. Eugene leans down to kiss you and starts moving, slowly at first but quickly pick up pace. He didn’t have to worry about the condom falling off anymore. You could hear how wet you were, the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin filling the room. His hand reach down to rub your clit with his thumb, his other hand gripping at your hips to keep you steady.

His length inside you was gently rubbing your sweet spot, stretching you like crazy as his cock became harder and bigger as he came closer to his orgasm. The anticipation of feeling him pulse inside you as he fills you with his warm cum make you shivers in pleasure. He moans in the kiss, feeling you clench around him.

“Wait for me… I’m almost there…” he begs breathlessly, wanting to come with you.

You pull on his shirt to keep him close to you, legs trembling around his waist as he mercilessly pound into your G-spot. You wanted to tell him you couldn’t hold it anymore, but you couldn’t form a word and you were seeing stars, feeling like coming but at the same time, the waves of orgasm didn’t crush you yet. You were right over the edge. His groans were increasing and you encourage him in a whisper:

“Come inside me, come for me, fill me… I want your baby so much…”

A few more hard trusts later, he lets out a little squeal and you felt him pulse inside you, warm gooey seed fill you, sending you over the edge. You clamp around him, milking everything last drops he has to offer. You feel Eugene shivers on top of you, still shaking from the intensity of his orgasm and trying to catch his breath. He stayed inside you and kisses you lovingly, muttering sweet words to you. You felt so warm and loved inside, this is the best Valentine day you could wish for. Eugene’s going to be the best dad ever, because he’s already the best boyfriend ever.

@eugenessix @mortifilia @lucybellrocks @orchiddingme

#eugene porter #eugene x reader #twd fluff #twd fic #the walking dead

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talabib · 3 years

Text

Become A Master Of Your Chosen Pursuit.

In a world constantly offering us quick fixes and easy, step-by-step programs to achieve goals in no time with little effort, it can be easy to forget that to become not just good, but truly great at something takes time. This is where the concept of mastery becomes especially relevant.

True mastery isn’t just about reaching goals; it’s just as much about internalizing a philosophy that will keep you learning even after you’ve reached your goals. In short, true mastery is a lifelong journey.

But what constitutes true mastery? How can you find it in yourself and what can you do to make sure you stay on your path, even when the going gets tough?

Most of the time, we take on new activities with a singular aim – to master them. Be it tennis, chess or a new job, new pursuits can go from exciting to frustrating once we reach the point where our lack of talent seems to be staring us in the face. It’s tempting to give up, but you shouldn’t; you might still have a shot at mastery if you change the way you think.

The first step here is to rethink your motivations for learning a new skill. Many of us are seeking simple recognition from others and the gratification that comes with it. But if you practice tennis until you can do a handful of impressive shots, beat a few of your friends and be congratulated by spectators, you’ll only have the motivation to improve up to a point.

Once you’ve reached a level of skill that’s sufficient to earn you a bit of recognition, you’ll find yourself stuck in your comfort zone. Attempting new shots or competing against more challenging opponents becomes daunting, as you fear you won’t look as good while playing. A true master develops her talents by pushing forward for the sake of it, rather than chasing praise and encouragement.

Another key to mastery is your approach to learning itself, namely by cultivating a certain respect for the process. If you want to master tennis, you’ve got to accept that it’ll take time, patience and perseverance to perfect your forehand. Learning isn’t something you do for a while until you’re good enough – it’s an ongoing journey.

By shifting your mindset, you’ll find that you’re capable of mastering whatever you set your mind to. After all, you were a baby once! Babies enter the world incredibly vulnerable, with very few of the skills adults need to survive.

And yet, they learn at their own pace to crawl, walk, communicate, understand and think for themselves. Some infants learn to walk between nine and ten months of age, while others don’t master it until much later. Children are capable of learning motor skills despite their lack of physique and often slow learning speed.

In this way, learning isn’t about how fast you acquire new skills or how talented or fit you are when you start out; rather, it has much more to do with the journey you take along the way. So, the student who shows the most promise during the first few tennis lessons might not be the one who excels, while an initially clumsier player with a mastery mindset is far more likely to go on to be a pro.

But while a mastery mindset offers us a clear path to excellence, our society seems to reject it at every turn.

American society, like most Western societies, seems to be waging war upon mindful mastery. We’re bombarded with slogans like “Get fit in two weeks!” or “Hit the jackpot!” as advertisers try to convince us that buying their products will allow us to “master” something instantly. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Mastery is built on long periods of practice without tangible results, which lead to bursts of improvement, which then give way to steady, deliberate practice once again. The journey toward mastery isn’t shaped like a steep incline, but rather a series of plateaus punctuated by spurts of progress. Learning to love these plateaus is essential to achieving mastery.

For example, George decided to attend Aikido school. He soon began to enjoy the ritual of classes and the seemingly endless repetition of exercises. While his classmates dropped out, he stuck around through the plateaus and worked his way toward mastery.

Why do many of us find these plateaus so hard to bear? Well, typically because we’re one of three personality types that struggle with mastery – dabblers, obsessives and hackers. Which one are you?

Dabblers tend to approach new hobbies with a lot of enthusiasm. They might pick up an expensive tennis racket, dress like their favorite pro and pat themselves on the back after their first improvements. But they aren’t able to handle the plateaus and end up dropping out, justifying their decision with excuses along the lines of “It just wasn’t the right sport for me . . .”

The obsessive is determined to master his forehand in just one tennis lesson. The learning journey doesn’t matter to him, it’s results that matter. Most of the time, the plateaus after the first small spurts of progress will discourage obsessives enough for them to quit.

Finally, hackers are perfectly comfortable spending the rest of their time in the plateau. They’re happy just to hit the tennis ball over the net a few times when playing against a superior opponent, and aren’t particularly motivated to push themselves to improve any further.

If, to your dismay, you’ve identified yourself as a dabbler, obsessive or hacker, don’t fret! Recognizing the behaviors that prevent you from mastering the skills you’ve always wanted to have is the first step to overcoming them. So what’s the next step?

Of course, there are many skills you can teach yourself without too much help. But on the road to mastery, finding great instruction is a must. Instruction can come in many forms, from video tutorials, computer programs, real-life experiences or even a good old-fashioned book. They’re all valid, but social contact is particularly crucial to great learning experiences. For this reason, one-on-one or group instruction is definitely worth pursuing.

But how can you know if your instructor is worth sticking with? The best way is to observe how they treat their students. Take UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, otherwise known as the “Wizard of Westwood” and one of the best basketball mentors in history.

Wooden’s respect for his players is what made his coaching stand out, as did his balanced focus on the team’s strengths and weaknesses. He would split training sessions fifty-fifty between correcting problems and reinforcing what the team already did well.

Practice, like instruction, is vital in your journey to mastery – but not practice as you know it. While most of us think of practice as repeating a task until we’re good at it, mastery requires us to think of practice as more than a simple action. Instead, think of practice as a noun, as a synonym for “path” or “journey.”

To illustrate this, consider why a martial arts master would continue to train even after receiving his black belt, the highest qualification. The answer is simple: the black belt is just another milestone along the journey, and a license to continue practicing for as long as you wish. Here, the black belt doesn’t represent practice as the act of repetition, but the notion of practice as a noun that captures the joy of ongoing learning.

Now that we’ve explored the roles of instruction and practice in mastery, let’s explore three more key elements that’ll help you on your way to excellence: surrender, intentionality and edge control. These terms are a little less familiar than instruction and practice, so let’s take a closer look.

What does surrender have to do with mastery? Well, it refers to the need to surrender to your teacher and the demands of your discipline. Sometimes this means sacrificing your pride, too.

Say your top-notch tennis instructor, who you respect and trust, asks you to stand on one foot and hold the other foot against your back with one hand, while your other hand rotates in the air above your head. You’ll have to do this for five minutes at the start of every class for your entire first month.

You could, of course, refuse and complain that you’d look ridiculous. But by doing so, you’ll miss out on what the exercise teaches you – improved balance, for instance. Though your instructor might sometimes ask you to do things that you don’t understand, if you trust their wisdom and want to benefit from it, you’ll need to put your pride aside and surrender to them.

Let’s turn now to intentionality. This element focuses on the power of the mind in mastery. Intentionality is the ability to visualize yourself succeeding, and is a technique that golf professionals, for example, rely on heavily. Take international golf legend Jack Nicklaus; he believes that a successful shot consists of 50 percent visualization, 40 percent set-up and just 10 percent swing!

Finally, edges are those moments when you’re confronted with a challenge and, therefore, the opportunity to exceed your own expectations. Masters recognize an edge as a chance to grow, and they’ll concentrate their efforts to make sure they make the most of it.

How do you know when you’re facing an edge? It’s a pretty familiar feeling. For dabblers, the plateau is an edge. For the obsessive, it’s their inability to understand their own limits, while hackers rarely stay on a path long enough to reach an edge in the first place.

The next time you feel you’re facing a task that you simply can’t complete, you’ll need to choose between giving up or focusing hard to overcoming the obstacle. The master will always choose the latter.

Say you decide to follow the path of the master. You’ve told your friends, have gotten into the rhythm of practice and feel great. But then, all of a sudden, it happens: a backslide.

Let’s imagine, for instance, that you’ve decided to run five kilometers every morning as part of your practice routine. But after a little while, beyond the first successful mornings, breathing becomes difficult and your heart races like never before.

This is your body sending you a clear signal – you’ve pushed yourself too far out of your regular state and your body can no longer keep homeostasis going. Homeostasis is a process by which organisms regulate their internal systems, ensuring they function in balanced conditions and avoid drastic changes.

Despite all the well-intentioned resolutions you made, your body wins and interrupts your practice. This will happen for almost anyone learning a new physical skill. So how can you prevent your resolutions from falling apart?

Well, there are three steps you can take.

The first is to surround yourself with people who have already made it through the same challenges you are currently facing. They’ll understand exactly what’s going on when you push up against your body’s natural limits, and can offer advice on how to overcome these limits in your practice sessions.

The next step to take is to ensure you have the right approach to your goals. Remember how our desire for instant success and recognition is counterproductive to mastery? The master finds joy in practice itself, and that should be your focus too. In other words, if you reach the top of the mountain, keep on climbing!

Finally, work hard to stay consistent in your practice and learning. You can even make routines more engaging by turning them into rituals that give you time to reflect on the task at hand. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi observed that this is what master surgeons do when they wash their hands the exact same way prior to every operation – they create a ritual for themselves to focus their minds more deeply.

The last thing you’ll need to ensure a successful journey toward mastery is energy to sustain yourself. Humans are considered to be like machines, full of energy. Unfortunately, troublesome behavior and social mores prevent us from using this energy to its full potential.

This inhibition of natural human energy begins when we’re kids. Think of how curious young children are – they won’t rest until they’ve explored and experienced everything for themselves. But parents, keen to ensure their children’s safety, quickly limit this exploration with rules; from “Don’t touch that!” to “Be quiet!” to “Not until you eat your vegetables”, we grow up listening to negative commands that curtail our natural curiosity and drain our energy.

Luckily, we’re all capable of reclaiming this childlike energy through a few simple practices.

One of these is maintaining physical fitness. By making sure we walk or cycle instead of driving, for instance, we can remind ourselves of the strength our bodies possess and put it to good use.

Another step is to set your priorities well. Focusing our energy toward one main goal means we may have to let go of other goals, but this is by no means a disadvantage; rather, prioritization gives us a better understanding of our energy levels and helps us learn to work within our limits. And priorities can always be shifted according to how you perceive your needs.

Finally, learning to accept your commitment to a goal, rather than fighting it, can give you an unparalleled energy boost. By diving into a new endeavor wholeheartedly, and by recognizing and welcoming the work that comes along with mastery, you’ll give yourself plenty of fuel for the entire journey.

Mastering a new skill isn’t about the results you achieve, the recognition you get from your peers or even repetitive practice that helps you get there. Instead, mastery is a path that you can follow to ensure your new endeavors are shaped by ongoing learning, passionate and patient practice and a rediscovery of your own human potential.

#mastery

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clarencenicholsonata · 5 years

Text

The Ultimate Guide to Photography Marketing: Everything Photographers Need To Know

There’s more to running a photography business than technical skills.

An integral part of a successful photography business -- whether individual or an agency -- is marketing your services. That might feel like a foreign skillset, and you might be far more comfortable behind the camera than pushing yourself into the spotlight.

Luckily, today, digital marketing tools have made it easier than ever to showcase your talent, attract customers and promote your business, without doing any cringe-worthy sales pitches.

At Wishpond, we’ve helped photographers establish and run their online for years. We’ve collected our hard-earned wisdom and summarized it into one ultimate photography marketing post. Here, we’ll cover marketing strategies in multiple forms: how to showcase your photography business online, how to attract customers and how to keep them engaged.

Your Website

Working today, you’ll know the importance of having an online presence.

Your website is a key part of the impression you’ll make online, and it’s a brilliant opportunity to show potential clients your personality -- and your skill -- through every element of your design.

To help walk you through the different aspects of photography marketing, we’ll use this customized example of Jonathan and Drew.

This would be Jonathan and Drew’s website homepage.

It’s clean, striking, highly emphasizes visuals (absolutely essential in established credibility for a photographer’s website), the call to actions are clear and it’s mobile responsive.

Note how quickly, as a user, you understand what the website is about, and how all the elements work together. Without moving beyond the fold of the homepage, you can get a feel for the personality of the business (these photographers are probably more traditionalists than quirky, avant-garde photographers) and you know at the outset they specialize in weddings.

From a technical standpoint, the site works equally well on mobile and desktop. Keeping the layout impactful and appealing on mobile is more important than you think. With the majority of users navigating the web on their smartphones, your website should be designed to guide them through the experience on a small screen.

Although you might be designing on a desktop, it’s crucial to be working with a service that has mobile-responsive templates, or design a mobile-responsive version of your site.

Ensure your test your site before launch and view it on different types of mobile devices and screen sizes (if possible).

Landing Pages

Another important conversion point is landing pages. There’s an important distinction between your landing page and your website that people get confused: they aren’t the same thing.

Marketing pro tip: Although people often confuse the two, a landing page and a website aren't the same thing.

Click to Tweet

Your landing page shouldn’t be a stand-in for your website. Your landing page is where people come after a specific offer you’ve made, from a blog post or a Google Ad, for example.

A previous article stated that visitors should be able to glean what your landing page is about and what it’s offering them within 7 seconds of arriving on your page.

That may sound like a tall order, but it’s fairly simple to do if you follow a few guidelines. Let’s revisit Jonathan and Drew.

One of their landing pages might look like this:

Tip one: Don’t crowd your page with copy. Make it about your offer. They can find out more about your business, your past work, your favorite color on your website.

Tip two: Make your central image closely tied to your business and your copy.

Tip three: Give your users one call to action. Don’t offer a newsletter sign up on a landing page for a 50% off coupon.

Tip four: Make it easy to covert! This is where details matter. Do what you can to increase your loading speeds and reduce friction. This means bigger buttons and shorter forms.

Take a look at this simple example:

Remember: just because your landing page isn’t as comprehensive as your website, doesn’t mean they require less thought.

Further reading:

30 Amazing Social Contest Ideas and Examples

Running a Contest on Facebook

Running a Contest on Instagram

Email Marketing

You may not have considered email marketing, but even a simple workflow: a welcome email, a coupon, a newsletter (if you’re into writing)-- any of these can make a huge difference to your business.

Email marketing’s ROI is the highest of any marketing method. In a noisy marketing landscape, messages that land right in your subscribers' inboxes feel more personal and are much more likely to make an impression.

As a photographer, a lot of the value you may find in email marketing is in keeping in touch with former clients.

Retention, Referrals, References

Satisfied former clients are your business’ best friend. They are more likely to purchase again and can act as referrals. Email marketing is a great, non-intrusive way to keep in touch with them.

Additionally, customers trust reviews from customers more than almost anything else. They don’t just want to see your photos: they want to know you’re easy to work with, trustworthy, that you’ll understand the importance of their event or their photo set.

Getting in touch with former clients to ask for reviews is okay, if you have a solid customer relationship established and you know they were happy with your service!

Pop-ups

We may gripe about pop-ups, but they are also a highly effective lead generation tool. A well designed pop-up, on a page not cluttered with other ads, can feel more like an opportunity than an intrusion.

Offering coupons, subscriptions to your newsletter, ebooks -- anything that can benefit your audience -- is a great use of the space.

Be sure to place your pop-up somewhere that makes sense. I.e. placing an offer for a 50% discount coupon on a landing page for another offer that makes users ineligible to use the 50% discount coupon? Not a great idea.

Placing a subscription offer to sign up for your newsletter if you’ve written an article or blog post the user has been scrolling through? That makes much more sense!

Summary

We know this has been a lot to digest, but if you take it step by step, you’ll have a robust (and masterful!) online photography marketing strategy in no time -- without even realizing it!

As a recap, here are the five areas photographers can focus on in digital marketing to amplify their message and build their business.

Website: Keep it highly visual and mobile responsive. It should be an extension of your personality. If you are a quirky, offbeat freelancer who prefers bright colors and experimentation, for example, don’t go for a minimalist, classic website that will attract an entirely different clientele.

Landing Pages: Not the same as your website, a landing page is nonetheless an important conversion point. These are where readers go after clicking on a specific link for an offer, e.g. to download an ebook or sign up for a coupon. While not as hefty as websites in terms of content, it’s nonetheless important to put thought into their design.

Social Media: Show off your creativity and use it as another channel to reach your audience with paid ads.

Email Marketing: Leverage it for retention, referrals, and references.

Pop-Ups: Ensure they are well designed, offer value, and place them somewhere that makes sense for your user.

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#IFTTT #RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801

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ellipsesarefun · 7 years

Text

you pour it out for everyone to see

(Sorry if it’s late :(( )

Otayuri Week 2017 Day 2: Social Media/Celebrations (FaceTime, Skype, Youtube, Instagram)

A/N: Sequel to “now i gotta wash my mouth out with soap”~! Also featuring an Original Female Character.

His mind is a cosmic chaos of emotions. Not even skating himself to the death is helping him.

As the past six months ran by, his communication with his labeled “bestie” remained ambiguously normal. They talk on Skype as they usually do, always ranging from their skating routines to their daily nonsense (cats, weather, etc.). And it was perfectly normal. They barely engaged a conversation on love, Mila, or… the Accident (because it totally was; come on, he wasn’t thinking straight.) and that is totally normal in their imaginary rule book. Even before said fiasco, they never really took the time to indulge on that topic, merely in passing (“who was your first kiss”, “who was the worst partner”, “the most embarrassing moment when you dated”). So yea. Totally mundane and ordinary.

Except it wasn’t okay. It took all his strength not to broach on any topic. It would be weird and awkward. Awkweird. It was not the line friends cross and while he did cross the line by an inch, he was just pushed back to his side of the line where he initially belonged. Beka, being casual and everything, did not initiate nor push him about it. He merely kept his usual composure, just how the way things were.

And it only fueled his turmoil. It doesn’t help that his relationship with Mila grew fragile. A few days after he left, she had this.. look. There was no smile this time but there was something on her expression that she knew something.. that somehow it was his fault that he fucked up their relationship.

Through this chaos, anger at himself became his drive in training. But it wasn’t only anger, there was a whole icing of anguish spread on top. He stretched his limits, to the brink of his own sanity, almost tearing his body from limb to limb. To those who noticed said nothing, merely watching from afar and only intervening when he came close to passing out.

And said intervention came to the rescue. She was a friend of his from overseas who lived with katsudon and old man. Her parents and Katstudon’s parents go way back and decided to ship her here in Russia for a mini vacation.

***

Tine [20:30] Yo asshole!

[20:45] tf do u want bitch? why are you still up? katsudon would’ve put you to bed by now..

Tine [20:47] Ahem. I’m a fucking 20-year-old adult. I make the rules.

[20:48] 20-year-old adult in a fifteen-year-old body :p

Tine [20:49] HEY! Watch it, kid, regardless of our two-year gap, I’m still older than you.

[20:50] yea. but i LOOK older than you :p even old man thinks ur my little sis

Tine [20:59] ...point taken.

Tine [21:00] Anyways. How’s it going?

[21:01] cut the crap

Tine [21:03] YOU cut the crap, Mr. “I’m angry with the world and everything that’s teen angst”

[21:06] ur lame af

Tine [21:04] And you’re stalling... haven’t heard from you much.. what’s really up..? how’s he doing?

[21:06] same old same old.. the usual.. nothing changed really..

Tine [21:07] ....After all that?

Tine [21:08] That fucking sucks.

[21:13] tell me about it

[21:15] what makes it worse is mila hasn’t really talked to me..

[21:17] and i’m too distracted in coming up with any ideas for my theme and song music..

[21:18] and beka’s.. Beka’s okay. We’re cool. We talk the usual shit.

Tine [21:19] but you’re not okay.

[21:20] ...is that all you got? putting out the obv?

Tine [21:21] Hm.

[21:22] spill it woman, i don’t have all night for this

Tine [21:23] What say you and I do a little music jam? Make a Youtube account?

[21:24] whut

Tine [21:25] For a stress reliever, dumbass. You can sing. I can sing. We both can play the guitar and we can put it up on Youtube.. Plus we can search for some music you might like that’s beyond classical. It’s a win-win for everyone.

[21:28] what do u get out of this?

Tine [21:30] To do something for shits and giggles. Something nice for my spare time.

Tine [21:31] What say you?

[21:34] sure i guess

Tine [21:25] Such enthusiasm.

[21:26] hey ur asking a lot from me here.

***

True to heart, they went music scavenging as planned on the days he finished his training. That meant his time with his friend from overseas overlapped with his Skyping time with Otabek. He introduced the two one evening and it went slightly awkward, seeing as they barely have anything in common except for maybe some literature, but that was only in passing. She and Yuri decided to keep the music project a secret, with the viable excuse of her being there was to be watched over (”Hey, I’m older than you, you know” “You don’t act like it”). Otabek didn’t mind of course. They still kept their conversations as mundane as they make it while Tine sat beside him mostly in silence, sometimes listening, sometimes reading some shit (”Seriously, just pretend I don’t exist; i don’t usually wanna talk” she laughed). It was an upgraded routine for all of them and no one seemed to mind one bit.

He wasn’t exactly sure how she managed to rope him into this. While yes they both have the skills to do so, he was hesitant in trying her songs. Most of them were dark, creepy and downright strange. She also had a wide variety of options. There was an equal proportion of hip hop, grunge, metal, acoustic, with a few jazz and blues combined. Beka helped as well, seeing he is a DJ and has encountered most of the music she presented. However, he never truly found out what Yuri needed for, only for some new music to skate for.

(Sometimes, he can feel his best friend has an inkling of what they were up to, but that’s just paranoia).

Fortunately, it only took two weeks for them to find a song they both liked.

***

yuri-plisetsky

Soap Cover - Melanie Martinez

[one minute sneak peak video]

“I feel it coming out my throat Guess I better wash my mouth out with soap God, I wish I never spoke Now I gotta wash my mouth out with soap”

[link to Youtube]

#melaniemartinez #cover #soap

Tagged: @chriscapss

6,321 views

View all 763 comments

BestYuriAngels OMFG HE CAN ACTUALLY SING!!!

christophe-gc Such accent!!! <3 Love his voice

Yurisonlylover Who’s she? His surrogate sister or something?

BestYuriAngels @Yurisonlylover I think so.. I saw a picture of them once. [link]

phichit+chu Damn that voice~

v-nikiforov Wow! Amazing, Yurio! @yuri-plisetsky @chriscapss

chriscapps Damn.. so many views per day.. You’re good for this music business @yuri-plisetsky.

***

They only posted one video yet they were already famous. His phone exploded with notifications filled with likes, dislikes and comments. Yakov didn’t seem care, as long as he kept on practicing his usual routines. Mila started talking to him again, with the help of Tin. He introduced them three days after he uploaded their video. One look from Mila and she was already adored by the older skater (”YURI SHE’S SO ADORABLE!!!”). They now go out for coffee breaks.

And Otabek.. Beka was impressed. Still is. After he found out the video, they finally found another topic that piqued their interest: music.

***

Beka [17:00] Hey. Nice cover. When did you learn how to sing like that?

[17:02] a couple of years back, tine’s first visit in russia. We had a couple of gigs together, but this is the first time we ever posted a song that we actually like.

Beka [17:03] You had a lot of disagreements before?

[17:04] pfft, more like full-blown arguments. her song choices can be a little creepy

Beka [17:05] I noticed...

***

Since then, there conversations prolonged and gradually, contentment filled his emotions more than his own anguish over unrequited affections. This upgraded their routine and level of closeness further and while it was not what his other part of himself had hoped, it was enough for him to have that familiar comfort of talking to him again.

This music project isn’t so bad after all.

***

yuri-plisetsky

Carousel Cover - Melanie Martinez

[one minute sneak peak]

“And it's all fun and games, 'Til somebody falls in love, But you've already bought a ticket, And there's no turning back now”

[link to Youtube]

#melaniemartinez #cover #thissongrocks

Tagged: @chriscapss

8,453 views

View all 532 comments

YuriPisMyJam God, that voice.. I live for that voice

Plisexyness Another Melanie?? Is he a CryBaby fan?

chriscapss @Plisexyness I am the huge fan. He just happened to like some of her songs.

Y-Angels56 @chriscapss OMFG, can you do a cover on Cry Baby? Training Wheels? Are you guys gonna cover the whole album.

chriscapss @Y-Angels56 Nah haha. Maybe?

yuri-plisetsy @chriscapss no..

***

Tine [19:00] Any ideas for your music theme?

[20:15] none yet..

Tine [20:25] You doin’ ayt?

[20:30] more or less.. fucking tired though. almost collapsed when i couldn’t nail that jump right...

Tine [20:31] Ah

[20:33] beka and i are doing okay if that’s what you’re asking... am weirded out by mila though.

Tine [20:36] Why?

[20:40] she seems to be talking to me now.. beka hasn’t mentioned about her at all. not like we talk about dating so seriously..

Tine [20:41] Seems okay.. What’s the problem though..

[20:43] nothing i guess..

Tine [20:45] Hm..

[20:47] wanna jam something tom? i think.. i may have a few ideas for my program..

Tine [20:48] Same artist?

[20:49] omfg ur killing me u know...

Tine [20:50] So you do like all of her songs now?

[20:51] not all, okay.. a couple... but she grew on me.. i’ll admit that..

Tine [20:55] YAY! So what say we pick another poison from her album?

***

yuri-plisetsky

Cake Cover - Melanie Martinez

[one minute preview video]

“I feel like I'm just missing Something whenever you leave We've got all the ingredients Except you needing me”

[link to Youtube]

#melaniemartinez #thisonetookthecake #freakinggenius

Tagged: @chriscapss

7,345 views

View all 4556 comments

YuriPisMyJam Okay, third time’s the charm. wtf is going on here?

BestYuriAngels This is just their third song, but they’re all the same artists..

Y-Angels56 That’s just the third video.. nothing much to discern over anything yet..

YuriPisMyJam @Y-Angels yea but.. come on, the chosen lyrics? the chosen songs? there’s something going on...

leodglesia woah @yuri-plisetsky never knew you were a fan.. we should put up some gigs sometime.

***

The internet is now speculating on said posts. It had only been three covers of the same artist and people are already assuming that therein lies a deeper intentions that the said skater was hiding. Even the people around him were starting to wonder, with the stupid pig and stupid old man barraging him with hugs, questioning his mental well-being or if he was moping for someone. Mila even singled him out once or twice over the week, not-so-subtley prying for answer. Otabek was speculative (his best friend is too smart for his own good) but only mentioned in passing. Yuri could only keep up with the excuse to their covers as Tine being an avid fan.

And that was true.

Only, this was an outlet; a healthy outlet to convey his raging emotions. Little did he care that Otabek was oblivious to their purpose now. In a way, it’s pouring his intentions in guise of a singer’s spontaneity (because of this, he was glad that he had Tine singing with him; she’s a really good use for an excuse).

He admittedly grew an appreciation for the artist, how much skill and talent was shown through the way she writes them, and the way she sang each of her songs.

To that extent, it was already giving him ideas for his music and theme for the upcoming competition.

God, he is such a sap.

***

Tine [21:00] Ready for tom?

[21:34] yep.

***

yuri-plisetsky

Training Wheels Cover - Melanie Martinez

[one minute preview video]

“You've been riding two-wheelers all your life It's not like I'm asking to be your wife I wanna make you mine, but that's hard to say Is this coming off in a cheesy way?”

[link to Youtube]

#melaniemartinez #awesomesong

Tagged: @chriscapss

9,234 views

View all 5,656 comments

YuriPisMyJam omfg something else is going on... I just know it..

Y-Angels So maybe there is...

leodglesia Awesome cover, guys!!! Sick guitar plucking @chriscapss

saymyname what is with the Crybaby themes??? Could it be..?

Y-Angels Pining? Unrequited love??? they’re quite apparent...

saymyname maybe it’s just a coincidence.. who knows..

****

Beka [23:30] Hey. Great cover today *thumbs up emoji*

[00:01] thnx..

A/N: Credits to Melanie Martinez and her awesome album track!!

#otayuri week 2017 #day 2 #otayuri #otabek #yurio #mila babicheva #original female character #social media #songfic?#ellipsesarefun writes

12 notes · View notes

rustedsteele · 7 years

Text

The Full Overhaul (2017)

// The new history is under the cut. I’ll be putting it up on the info page too.

“No child left behind.” “Children are our future!” “Think of the children!” “How could you do that to a child?”

How indeed?

Love, nurture, guidance and attention; These are the things parents offer their children in hopes that they might grow up to love and be loved, to give to others and to make their ways in life. A true parent would give anything for their child, anything to keep them safe and happy. But what of untrue parents? Of people who put themselves before their children? What sort of person do they create?

Kyle Wilson Steele was born into such a family. Cast from birth into the turgid waters of an already uncertain marriage, Kyle was the final attempt by John and Emily Steele to save their crumbling marriage. While his arrival overjoyed his mother it did very little to calm the swaying seas of rage within John. The gap in the Toronto couple’s marriage had been largely attributed to such a rage and though Emily saw no signs of it subsiding with the new bundle of joy in the home, she hoped he might temper himself in the presence of the small boy.

From the time he could understand the concept of pride in a human being, Kyle wanted nothing more than to make his father proud. He would wander through the house, tailing his father in every possible endeavor. Despite repeated rejections from the older man, Kyle was determine to win him over, his childish naivety holding out hope that one day John might crack. Instead he proved only that John had very selective hearing and more often than not preferred to ignore his son rather than spend time with him. When John did notice him the attention was far from loving, but rather more physically violent. Though his mother was aware of the violence she felt there was very little she could do. Unwilling to leave her husband for fear of social ridicule and ending up on the streets, she stood by her man. Shelters in Canada were a reasonably new concept and it was frowned upon to go to one. She comforted Kyle in the aftermath, bandaging his wounds and taking the beatings wherever possible.

As Kyle began to develop into a walking, talking six year old his mother began to grow a backbone. In the starting days of his sixth year on the planet, Kyle saw his mother stand up for him for the first time. She pushed back against John’s rage, eventually managing to wear the man down enough to have him leave to cool off. Though this was a small victory for both Kyle and his mother, it also brought new and much worse consequences. After that day, Kyle was introduced to a whole new level of hell.

The following night, John stow into Kyle’s room long after his mother had drifted to sleep. Kyle himself had also been asleep, but certainly not for long. He awoke to an overwhelming feeling of dread and concern to find his father looming over him, pants already lowered in preparation. Kyle only had time to process some muttered words before his innocence was stolen in many ways. “You think you’re safe with that bitch?”

Kyle experienced this form of torture for five years. At the age of eleven, his mother had taken ill from a bad head cold and his father had used the opportunity to remind her who was in charge. With the need to take power missing, John had no reason to continue his ‘late night visits’ at that time. The beatings returned at the tender age of Eleven, Kyle’s mind already damaged from his Father’s acts of ‘love’.

Despite the beatings and other unpleasentries, Kyle grew more and more determined to make his father proud. In his youthful mind when this goal was achieved his father’s temper would be appeased. He believed very strongly that what he received in place of love was largely his fault. Were he able to be the son his father wanted, his father would have no reason to be unhappy with him. He wished this as much for himself as his mother, who he saw as a victim in a storm he created. With his adolescence fast approaching he began to realize he was going to have to change his tactics to fit the mold his father wished for him to fall into.

At the age of twelve he began to accompany his father to the dealership and automotive shop his father owned and operated. From the first day he walked in the door he made sure to take a strong interest in the workings of the dealership as well as the technical side of the repairs. He accompanied the head mechanic frequently, learning the twists and turns of an engine. He hoped that proving to his father that he could be trusted to run the shop later in life might bring that pride he burned for out of the older man. Much like his younger days he tailed his father throughout the shop and studied movements silently, only pausing to ask the most important of questions.

A year of this tactic did see a decline in the frequency of the abuse. John seemed to take some interest in Kyle as the young man twisted to fit his idea of a son. Every day brought a new challenge, a new bit of the family business that Kyle would need to learn to impress his father. The constant fear of falling out of the man’s good grace kept him actively hunting for information on cars and the things that surrounded them. By the time he entered his thirteenth year John could have safely handed over the dealership with no concerns. Though Kyle was very proud of himself, he still stood at the receiving end of John’s temper whenever it should flair. As he had grown older he had moved to take the full force of said anger, protecting his mother and unborn sibling. Still believing the rage was his own fault he elected not to allow anything to happen to them.

Just before he turned fourteen, Kyle welcomed a baby sister into his life. Lilian Jane Steele was the most precious thing he had ever set sights on and he vowed from the moment he was allowed to hold her, John’s wrath and wandering hands would never find her. He would do everything in his power to protect her, even if it cost him his life. He aided his mother wherever possible to look after Lily. He put her to sleep in the afternoon, fed her in the morning, changed her in the middle of the night when she night cry. He was a model big brother.

Three months after her birth, her cry broke out in the middle of the night. It was the third time she had cried that evening and though Kyle was quick to raise from his bed to venture to her room, John was quicker. Holding her firmly out of the crib, John looked furious. With a slow swallow Kyle chanced a few steps forward, suggesting to his father that perhaps he should give Lily to him. John did not reply and instead tensed his arms as though he intended to shake the crying infant. Again Kyle tried, pleading with him and explaining that he could make her stop crying. He told his father that if he could not make Lily stop crying, he would take her for a walk so that John might sleep. Somewhat reluctantly he handed Kyle his baby sister and with a few soothing motions she was sleeping in the young man’s arms. John had long stormed off to bed. s

After that night Lily was moved into Kyle’s room and it became very rare that John was disturbed by the baby. During the day Kyle still spent time at the dealership and school. School had become less of a priority, taking a back seat to avoiding John’s anger and his protective duties. His grades began to suffer and more and more through his first year of high school he began to feel empty. His responsibilities began to weight on his heavily, his movements and thought process becoming slowed and effort filled. Kyle was unknowingly sinking into depression. He grasped for some solution and made every effort to make friends whom he might be able to confide in. He found only one such individual.

Jay was a year ahead of Kyle. The two met at the end of Kyle’s first year of High School. Spending the summer together gave Kyle a much needed escape from time to time. He found that the more he got to know Jay, the happier he was able to make himself. Jay introduced him to new people, making Kyle feel included for once. He also introduced him to Rock and Roll. Coming from a non-musical house hold, Kyle had never heard Rock Music. He was introduced in 1971 to David Bowie and the Rolling Stones and without any hesitation he was hooked on the sound. Immediately he took interest in being able to play the guitar and Jay was more than happy to teach. He was after all the best guitarist in their area.

In the early days of his second year of High School Jay had already managed to teach Kyle how to play basic chords and riffs. He expressed to Kyle that he might have a natural talent for music and this more than pleased the young man. He latched onto the concept of becoming a great guitarist so much he began to take time out of his shop visits to play. This would prove to be a mistake. As his time in the shop became less frequent his father’s rage toward him began to climb once more. Unable to give up music, Kyle began to take the beatings he had received as a child once more, still protecting Lily and his mother. The sexual abuse also dialed right back up and Kyle began receiving bi-nightly visits from his father once more.

As soon as John realized why Kyle would slip off so often he banned Kyle from spending time with Jay and his friends outside of school. He also forbid Kyle to play guitar or to listen to Rock and Roll. With frustration mounting between the two Kyle disobeyed his orders, choosing to skip class to play and listen whenever Jay had spare time. He saved up his allowance, buying himself his first guitar in the summer of 1972. He stored it at Jay’s home, bringing it home only when he was certain his father was out of the house and stashing it under his bed. He had become very skilled with it and had no intention of giving up because his father could not see his talent as a good thing.

In the spring of 1973 his father unearthed his guitar, erupting into a fit of rage at the thought that his son had ‘wasted’ hard earned money on such a useless object. Despite Kyle’s pleas for its release, the guitar was burnt in the family fire pit. It was the first time Kyle ever stood up to his father and the first time he ever dared to swing back at the man. He received the single worst beating of his life for the trouble. He was warned that if he ever went behind his father’s back that way again he would not survive it. Kyle believed him.

He spent the majority of that summer with his father, working in the shop once more and ignoring Jay even when his father wasn’t around. The sexual abuse had shifted gears to happening not only at home, but in the office of the dealership as well. Though Jay suspected Kyle might be from an abusive home, John was a well-respected figure in the community and his parents found it unlikely that John could be capable of any such thing. They suspected Kyle had simply moved on from the Rock and Roll phase faster than Jay had and that he was unsure how to tell him as much. Jay did not believe them.

Upon the release of Queen’s debut album, Jay became completely infatuated with the music. Knowing there was no chance Kyle would be able to resist the music he collected his 8 track and player and waited just down the block from the Chevrotte-Oldsmobile-Cadillac dealership John owned, waiting for Kyle to walk home. As the other passed by him he played the music as loudly as he could, walking right next to him with a hopeful smile. When they were out of sight of the dealership, Kyle paused to listen, instantly rekindling his love of Rock Music. He vowed then that he would play, no matter what it took.

Borrowing Jay’s guitar whenever he was able he slowly rebuilt his lost skills. In the summer of 1974 Jay secured tickets to see Queen play live in New York City. Upon request Kyle declined the offer to go, knowing his father would harm him if he were to go. As luck would have it, Kyle’s father planned on attending a conference with GMC for the weekend Queen would be playing. With great effort he managed to get a message to Jay, letting him know that he would be attending. With Jay ready to pick him up and take him across the border. Telling his mother he would be staying the night at a friend’s home in Mississauga to study, he was on his way to New York.

Seeing Queen live brought Kyle’s ambitious to play music for a living straight to the surface. Watching Brian May play guitar inspired him to pursue his dreams of becoming a Rock Star. When he returned home he would continue to play and when he graduated from High School he would inform his father of his plans to return to school for music and not business. Curiously, during the concert, he felt no fear of how his father might react. He would tell him when the time was right and he had become very good at playing the part of loyal son.

Another curious thing happened that evening. While he watched Freddie Mercury own the stage, a feeling struck him which had never done so before. A feeling of attraction. Kyle had long believed he was simply not cut out for a relationship, never feeling any sort of strong attraction to a woman, despite the attention his reasonably good looks afforded him. Freddie, on the other hand, brought a bubbling feeling of wanting straight into his chest. He realized that night that perhaps he was what he had been warned about from a young age. Perhaps he was gay.

Returning home from the concert found him in more trouble than he bargained for. His father had returned home from his conference early and scolded his mother for allowing Kyle to leave home. His father had seen through his lie and upon discovering that it was Jay he had slipped away to be around, John lost his patience. The decision that his son needed to be put in his place was made. He would see to it that Kyle earned a proper respect for his authority.

John pulled Kyle out of school, hiring a private teacher to finish his lessons. He was confined to his room when not in ‘class’ and his meals were highly restricted, all despite Emily’s protests. As an excuse for not feeding him, his father would open his door and gaze in. With a disapproving look he would scoff and tell his son that no one was going to want to date him. He was much too fat for that and in private he would tell him how ‘lucky’ he was that John would even touch him. That he was lucky his father loved him so much. He would allow Kyle scraps every now and then but by the third month of hearing how terrible he looked, Kyle could barely eat. It was during these months that Kyle started to lose all hope for the future.

Around the time he stopped eating, Kyle started to attempt to take his own life. Starting with an attempt to cut through the underside of his arm to get to his axillary artery, he was discovered when his father made sudden entrance. Because the cut hadn’t yet been made too deep, Emily bandaged it and everything sharp was removed from Kyle’s room. The next came when he stole a bottle of acetaminophen, which he is allergic too, and swallowed half of the bottle. He was taken to the hospital and it was quietly explained away for him. A closer eye was kept on him and no other attempts could be made.

He finished his classes in the winter of 1975. Even the private teacher had to admit that he was a bright student. Throughout his punishment Kyle had found ways to communicate with Jay, dropping letters from his window into the yard where Jay would go to get them late at night. Return communications came by way of thrown rock in the small hours of the morning. The final reply Kyle received before he stopped seeing Jay was one that explained the other was moving on to University. He had given Kyle an address to write him if he ever got a chance. A place in England Kyle knew very little about. Jay also mentioned that when he decided to leave that place, Kyle should call around his parents’ home and pick up Jay’s guitar. He’d left it there for him to take.

In the summer of 1976, after a particularly bad example of ‘Fatherly Love’, Kyle picked the lock on the door to his room with a bag packed to leave. He slipped into Lily’s room, saying goodbye to the toddler, silently wishing he could take her too. He was thankful that as she grew John’s wrath seemed to miss her. She was his little ray of sunshine and though Kyle could not help but feel jealousy bubbling in his chest, he loved his sister too much to hold it against her. Leaving a note on the take explaining that he was leaving, Kyle set off into the night.

For six months he roamed the streets of Toronto, careful to avoid any cars that looked like his father’s or any places his father might spend time. He collected funds by playing outside of bars and theaters, his most common home being just outside of the Royal Alexandria theatre. Though he was unable to save money, he was able to feed himself well enough to stay alive. Eventually news of his talent reached some bar owners who invited him to play for them. He collected more money on those evenings than any other. He would use that money to pay for hotels, sleeping and showering and doing his laundry.

One evening, just shortly after finishing a show, he took a chance on buying himself something to drink. Though he had never had much of a chance to drink, he knew what he liked. Ordering a Scotch on the rocks, he was greeted to a friendly chuckle from beside him. The man explained that he rarely met people who ordered scotch in Toronto, and that he himself was from England where it was far more common. Introducing himself as Ellis Simpkins he asked Kyle for his story, listening intently to the things the slightly older boy had gone through. Though Kyle refused to talk about the abuse as anything more than the occasional beating, Ellis could already tell there was much more. As Kyle packed his money form the gig into his guitar case, Ellis asked if he could treat him to dinner sometime. Kyle agreed to meet him the following weekend at a small restaurant down the road.

Over the course of the months Kyle remained out on the street, he was subjected to many different tortures. The weather alone was enough to break a man’s spirit but combined with the fact that he was still only nineteen, he found himself in a lot of trouble. Attention from older men became a serious issue, especially when he was unable to find an escape. Beatings from both fellow homeless people and anti-homeless attackers became a constant threat as well as the ability to find the smallest amounts of food to sustain himself. He spent the majority of his time in hiding, trying to keep himself safe.

The next time that Kyle met Ellis, Ellis explained that he was a student from England. He had come to Toronto to study acting with the intention of returning to England to finish his education later. He was from a somewhat aristocratic family and thus had enough money to buy Kyle whatever food he wanted. He was shocked to see how little the other ordered.

The trend of meeting Ellis for dinner continued every weekend until the two became very good friends. In the early summer of 1976 Ellis intended to return to England for the summer to see his family. He offered to take Kyle with him, free of charge, if the other wished it. With no hesitation Kyle agreed. Getting out of Toronto seemed like the perfect way to begin his recovery from the things his father had done. Two days later they were on a plane, arriving in London seven hours later to be driven to a very lovely looking country estate.

Upon arrival at the estate, Ellis introduced Kyle to his parents, Adam and Lizzy Simpkins. In an instant he was accepted into their family. Kyle did not trust Adam when he arrived, too afraid he would turn out to be like his father, but after the first month he found that Adam’s constant joy at life won him over. Lizzy was just as optimistic and supportive. They loved Ellis and they seemed to love Kyle like their own which was an odd concept to Kyle. After three months they offered to adopt him to give him dual citizenship, allowing him to stay with them whenever he wanted. He agreed, semi-officially becoming a Simpkins.

Ellis and Kyle spent almost a full year in London, becoming very close friends, almost brothers. Over their time there Kyle discovered that on top of being a brilliant actor, Ellis was an amazing singer as well. With his octave range and the young Canadian’s guitar ability, there were murmurs of a band being formed upon arrival back in Toronto. Moving back into the small apartment Ellis had been living in for his previous adventure in school, he offered the second room to Kyle free of charge. The older man readily accepted and the two began to write songs together. It took very little time for the two to decide the band might just be the way to go.

Kyle met their drummer, Roy McCormik while wandering the suburbs one evening. The quiet taping against a hollowed bucket drew his attention and the handsome red-head did the rest. It would turn out that Roy had been playing the drums for years, starting out in Cadets as a marching drummer. Kyle inquired if he might join the band and after the three men got to know each other, a drummer was added. Roy could be a hot head, quick on the draw but Kyle found him enduring. They two had an up and down relationship but there was no denying his drumming ability. He was exactly what they needed.

Andre Hilsing, the bassist, would come a few months after Roy. Ellis often found himself attending open mic nights at local pubs, while Kyle would stay home and play his guitar. Kyle had decided to continue practice and only try for paying shows while the band was in formation. He continued to write songs, hoping that when the band was complete they might have a chance at becoming famous. While attending one of these open mic events, a young and energetic bassist took the stage, managing to rally the crowd with no accompaniment. Intrigued, Ellis approached him after the show and invited him to join himself and the rest of his budding band. Andre readily accepted and the raven-haired man was added to the band.

While out on his own, Kyle took it upon himself to start the exploration of his sexuality. He began to hear whispers of ‘Gay Bars’ in the area. Late in the evening when Ellis was either busy studying or asleep, Kyle would slip out and visit these bars, meeting up with several others exploring their sexuality. One of those men was Gregory LeClair. Greg was a one night stand, originally. Kyle made the mistake of spending the night in the abandoned house they had slept together in and by morning, spent another hour or two with Greg. The decision to stay in contact and become friends with benefits was made.

It was 1978 when the band began playing shows locally. Kyle’s former local reputation had given them an in at the pubs in the area. It took a little over a year for the small group to be noticed but when they were, there was no doubt they were going to be big. While scouting for new talent for Capitol EMI records a man by the name of Murray Smith heard the band play together. After the show he asked for their contact deals and if they might be interested in coming out to New York to be seen by an executive. They readily agreed. Murray informed then the Band would need an official title and it was decided that evening the band would go under the name All Hail.

After meeting with record officials in New York City the band was signed and locked into recording agreement. The set straight to work on their first album straight away, generating interest in the musical community through Murray’s efforts to hype the band. With Kyle as the front runner heading the band, songs were well on their way to being recorded and the band seemed to mesh perfectly.

In the midst of the band’s possible success, Kyle made the choice to change his name from the birth name he was given. In January of 1979 he changed his name from Kyle Wilson Steele to Sephyr Lukas Steele. Choosing Sephyr because he liked the sound, Lukas after his great grandfather on his mother’s side, and retaining his surname in honor of his mother, he settled on his name, pleased to no longer be Kyle. He continued to see Gregory on the side, who approved very much of his new and exotic name.

In the spring of 1979 All Hail released their first album. With nine track totalling just under a half an hour of music, ‘The Trouble with Love’ rose very quickly to being a very popular album over Canadian radio stations. The band was well on their way to being famous. With their first major injection of money, all four members began to realize what they might have there. By the winter of 1980 they had released their second album, ‘Inspire’. Their song ‘Late Night Instinct’ knocked the rolling stones from the top of the Canadian charts for three weeks solid, making them the most popular rock band of 1980. With their new found fame came the need for a tour. A tour bus was purchased and the crew was well on their way to what would amount to being a roughly twelve year long career.

Though the band stayed close together through their time on the road, an internal struggle began to war inside of Sephyr. Coming out to the band was not an option in his mind. To him, the homophobia that he had grown up with in his youth was the view of the majority and risking it was certainly not in his interest. In the early 80’s it was very rare for any celebrity to be ‘out’ and Sephyr had no intention of starting the trend. With his only option to hide, he began to seek relationships outside of the lime light. One night stands with men and a few short-term relationships began, always in secret. Nothing ever seemed to last. Either Sephyr was away too much of the other arty was interested in telling people. Sephyr spent most of the tours hoping from person to person while avoiding looking to suspicious by escorting a few women to hotel rooms now and then. He would pay for them to sit with him before exiting the scene, never letting on to the band. He continued to see Greg, but he had made it clear from the start that he had no interest in a long term relationship.

As the tours pressed on and new albums were released, Sephyr found the depression from his youth creeping back into his life. The constant stress of hiding himself began to take a toll, as well as the very demanding schedule of being a Rock Star. Memories of the things his father did began to surface where he thought he might have pushed them out, causing painful flashbacks and cases of crippling fear. By 1983 Sephyr was so far into his own mentality he began to drift away from his band members. Even Ellis, who he still regarded much like a brother, became something of a threat to him. He began to reach out for any coping mechanism while keeping his band mates at arm’s length. Drinking became a norm for him, and after a party in the summer of that year, so did drugs.

Heroin had been offered to him and though he knew the dangers of such drugs, it was expressed that it may help him deal with his serious depression. After his first hit he was sold. The drugs took away his ability to stress over his issues, helping him to forget the memories of his father and his abuse. The affection for the feeling soon turned into an addiction which quickly turned into a fact of his life. He would keep himself high as much as possible, lowering his dosage only for shows and interviews. His band had become aware of the problem, but despite their attempts to convince him to stop the problem raged on along with his alcohol abuse.

For the next six years Sephyr would struggle to maintain relationships even more than he had before. Having lost contact with Greg due to a heroin induced black out. He lost all of the contacts he kept in his book, unable to remember Greg’s current address or phone number. By the time he remembered where he had been, Greg had already moved on. Becoming the master of the secret one night stand, he began seeking out men more than he had before. Any attempt at a relationship was set aside and while Roy found a wife and Ellis carried a string of girlfriends, Sephyr would never speak of his relations. He continued to remain in the closet with no intention of ever outing himself. The loss of Greg plagued him, as he was finding himself very fond of the other.

In very early 1988, Sephyr’s suicide attempts reared their ugly head once more. He began to try to swallow pills, cut under his arms and even once attempted to hang himself. One evening out of fear for his adoptive brother’s life, Ellis was forced to call the local police and inform them of Sephyr’s intention of self-murder. He was taken into custody and held for three days, during which the Heroin in his system was discovered. He was sent to rehabilitation, but checked out only two days in. He warned Ellis that if he ever chose to go behind his back in that way again, Sephyr would never speak to him again.

In 1989, Andre returned to the tour bus with the intention of gathering some drinks for an after party. When he arrived there he found Sephyr in serious trouble. He had overdosed slightly on his drug of choice, becoming lethargic and very, very ill. Without hesitation he dropped his drinks, curling up on the bed with his friend, holding him through the night until Sephyr was stable in the morning. Before the rest of the band arrived Sephyr ended up kissing Andre and the two began a quiet relationship without Ellis or Roy knowing. They were more than happy together, but as most things in Sephyr’s life it was not meant to be.

In 1990 Ellis returned early from a party, intending to sleep. What he found was Andre and Sephyr in bed together. Mortified, Sephyr stormed from the tour bus, hiding out for several days in a hotel. When he returned he made the Band swear to secrecy. He made it very clear that he did not want to be outed and that if anyone were to out him it would be the end of their friendship. Each member agreed to keep his secret and the band carried on as before. Sephyr broke it off with Andre, explaining that though he certainly had feelings for him, it would not do the band any good for it to carry on.

The following year, the members of the All Hail attended a party hosted by Aerosmith. Steve Tyler had become very good friends with Sephyr over the years and the members of both bands did get along fairly well. While the eight men sat around a table drinking, an already impaired Ellis let slide the secret he had been holding onto for a year. Outing Sephyr lost the man most of his friends (With the exception of the band and Steve) and very nearly went public. Thanks to some very carefully place phone calls the news was kept private and Sephyr was free to address Ellis directly.

Sephyr told Ellis that as of that day he no longer wanted to see him. He informed the other members of the band that he would be leaving and that if they wished to they could replace him with another guitarist. He took the next flight back to Toronto, buying a small living space downtown while he had a house built for himself. He bought a large plot of land a good distance from the city itself, commissioning a 26 Million dollar mansion to be built for himself to live in. During the two year wait for it to be build he released a solo album with guest voice artist and contacted Andre again. The two started their relationship anew and moved into the house together upon its completion in 1993.

Even with Andre’s love, Sephyr could feel his depression consuming him. His drug addiction had become worse than ever despite all of Andre’s attempted help to get him back on track. Memories from his time at home and the months he spent on the street had consumed him and driven him away from Andre. Though they still spent time together, Andre’s constant worry about Sephyr’s eating habits and drug use kept them at arm’s length. Their love for each other would keep them together for close to six years before Sephyr would be left alone once more.

On a stormy evening in October of 1999, a fight broke out between the two lovers. Sephyr had taken too much of his chosen substitute drug, Oxycodone and had nearly overdosed. Upon his sobering up Andre argued with him which eventually lead Sephyr to storm out of the house and disappear into the night. Fearing that his lover might do serious damage to himself, Andre went after him. In the rain the roads were hard to see and when a dip in the road caused pooling, Andre found himself hydroplaning. Without the ability to regain control the car was pitched from the road and totaled. Andre was killed on impact.

Upon his arrival to the mansion, Sephyr was greeted by a young police constable by the name of Isaac McQue. He informed Sephyr of Andre’s death and a funeral was planned. The entire band and most of their friend attended with Ellis attempting to offer consolation. Sephyr offered his apology to each member of the band, including Ellis before returning to his mansion where he locked himself away for nearly eight months.

In the late summer of 2000 Sephyr once again emerged from his hiding place. He returned to his social settings, making frequent appearances at parties and social events to which he was invited. He even put out his final solo album dedicated to Andre. He began to find men to spend time with, rotating between a number of them and labelling them as ‘friends with benefits’. His drug addiction remained at the same level, his depression only worsening without Andre. In the winter of that year he began to self-harm as he had when he was a teen, cutting lines in his ribs. In his mind he considered it to be his punishment. If he could not kill himself, the pain of moving with slashed skin against bone would be enough.

These activities continued until 2005 when Sephyr awoke from a drunken night on the town in his own bed. At the age of 48 Sephyr was certainly starting to feel the effects of his no food, all drink all drugs lifestyle. Trying to get himself out of bed was a chore, even with the added motivation of the need for a fix. As he tried to sit up he barely noticed the door opening and when the new figure in his life appeared, it was a very confusing moment. In his doorway stood a man in a suit with a tray of coffee and biscuits, as the butler in the Simpkins house had for Adam every morning.

Baxter Abbott was a young Englishman Sephyr had apparently hired while drunk. Though he could not remember doing so his signature was on the man’s contract. Sephyr protested that he did not been a butler, and was swiftly corrected. Baxter was a Valet. He did not serve a household like a butler, but rather a single person. Jut Sephyr. Again Sephyr protested but Baxter insisted he was told that Sephyr would say these things. Black coffee in hand Sephyr stepped out into the mansion to see that it was spotless. He elected to let the young man stay, if only for now.

For the most part during the start of their time together Sephyr would be out of the mansion. When he was home he was, if nothing else, Aloof. He would hardly say a word to Baxter. They exchanged minor conversation when Baxter would bring him food. It was very rare that Sephyr would touch it, though not for lack of enjoyment. Less rare would be the outburst of anger or sadness Baxter was subject to. The drugs and drink made Sephyr temperamental and the mounting depression of having lost everything had certainly taken a toll. Baxter was fortunate enough to stop two suicide attempts, but was unable to escape some threats and thrown objects in fits of rage. When he was struck in the face with a plate nine months into his employ, he vowed that this was not the job for him. He drafted resignation papers to be handed to Sephyr the next time he was sober.

Before Baxter had the chance a visitor to the mansion took his mind from it. A somewhat frequent visitor, Baxter had never gotten along with Sephyr’s drug dealer Alan. The man was much taller than Baxter and being that the Valet was so new to Sephyr’s employ he felt as though it would not be his place to question things. When the man threatened violence against him were he not to go as told and fetch things for him, Baxter believed he might just get away with it. On this occasion, however, with the intention of resigning, Baxter refused.

The man became violent, threatening Baxter’s life without realizing that Sephyr was standing on the stairs. With speed Baxter had never assumed Sephyr might have the Rock Star moved in, grabbing the dealers arm and twisting it around. He informed the man he would no longer be a customer and that if he saw him on his land again he would kill him. He escorted him out the door and made certain Baxter was alright. He returned to his room with no further mention of the situation. Baxter tore up the resignation and has since become the Head of Staff in the house. He considers Sephyr a close friend although he would never admit it. The same is true of Sephyr.

Over the course of their time together Sephyr discovered that Baxter held a Lordship. His father held the title, but Baxter was next in line to take it. Baxter had come to Canada on a visa and found that it was running out. Only a year and a half into his employment Baxter was being forced to go home. Unwilling to allow his Valet to go back to a family the other expressed to be abusive, Sephyr began to work his networking magic. Calling in every shady and underhanded favor he could and subjecting himself to several high prices along the way, he had Baxter disappear from the British record books. He was given a fake Canadian passport and a fake citizenship. And was allowed to stay in the country. This had cost Sephyr much.

The Rock Star had been forced to sign a contract with his drug dealer that he would continue to use until such a time as his debt was paid. He was also subjected to the act of becoming a ‘Strawberry’ for said dealer, spending much of his time with the man on his knees. Sephyr had become accustomed to this sort of abuse in his youth, so considered it a small price for the friendship Baxter offered to him. He never spoke to Baxter about the cost of keeping him in the country, but he never regretted it either.

The Rock Star now spends more time at home which is either a good or bad thing depending on the day. He still attends social gatherings and when he feels up to it he even goes out for walks and things to that effect, but the drug issues, drinking issues and serious depression are still problems in his life. He has yet to form another relationship and continues to meet his ‘friends’ for ‘company’.

#History #about #about sephyr #Sephyr Steele #update

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spanglerscribbles · 7 years

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Sticky Notes on My Face.

Considering what is going on in the world at this point, I thought I’d share I bit of my personal history regarding a certain psychological battle (albeit still ongoing) that I’m sure many of you will relate to. No politics here. This will be a safe space. Plus, I need to write this out and get it off my chest. I figured those who read this will get a better understanding of the human being behind the screen and/or find out more about themselves after reading my story.

I want you to pay close attention to this next paragraph.

I’m the first born child in my little family, and soon became an older sister to my baby brother after 3 years of waddling on planet earth. As I grew up, I was homeschooled. Despite the social stigma regarding this private system, it’s made me who I am today. I would go back and do it all over again. I was raised by my mom and dad, my mom being a highly esteemed worship leader at our local church, and my dad being on staff at said church as the kid’s ministry pastor. I would have been around 10 when they got these positions. I followed after my mom’s footsteps and joined our youth group’s worship team as a singer. Later, I began to discover a more creative side of myself. I’m an artist, in the general term. To narrow it down, I am in the visual arts, dappling in graphite and digital mediums. But to be even MORE specific, as I grew older I became a conceptual developer, character designer, digital illustrator, graphic designer, animator, screen writer, and creative director, to name a few. I am now a graduate of Kalamazoo Valley Community college, with a degree in animation with honors. Currently, I am nearing the end of production for my first collaborative, animated short film that will release in the coming months.

Wonderful. Now that I’ve talked about myself, I want you to do something for me. Count all of the titles I have stated in the segment above. Adding the obviously worded statements plus the one’s loosely mentioned… that’s 17.

17 titles mentioned about myself. Out all those 17, which stood out to you the most? Which sounded more appealing to you? Were they intriguing? Relatable? Likable?

Whether we like it or not, we are all labeled. There will always be some aspect of us that people identify with as soon as our name is mentioned, and it will always have a name.

I want you to think up a list of all the titles and labels others have given you or that you’ve given to yourself. Think up as many as you can. A contractor, Pastor’s kid, singer, university student, doctor, engineer, couch potato, foodie, pretty, ugly, football player, band geek, hyper, emo, conservative, liberal…

It could be a small list or an extensive list. Think of all of yours? Great.

Who would you be if they all just went away?

Photo by Kelsey Wilson

Are These Labels What Really Define Me?

I want you to go back to the list of my own titles. There were plenty to choose from such as homeschooler, worship leader’s kid, pastor’s kid and artist. Those were the labels I was known for growing up.

When my family moved to Michigan and started going to our awesome local church, I had to start my life over. I was a fresh face, a newbie. I had to start making new friends, but I didn’t know how. I grew up with friends already by my side back in Indiana. Meeting new people and befriending them was a foreign concept to me at the time.

But soon, kids and adults alike began to address me as Karen’s kid or Brad’s kid… since my parent’s faces were quickly becoming well known in the community. Which, for some reason, made me popular. I befriended other PKs (pastor’s kids) while my dad was on staff. I remember two or three kids in particular I gravitated towards during those first few years in the mitten state. We would often stay in church all day on Sunday because of our parent’s pastoral obligations, so we would run up and down the office space and just be goofy kids.

I was homeschooled from 1st grade onward, which was another label I was recognized for as I went into middle school. I never went to co-op, or went to many outside classes with others in the homeschool community, so all of my friendships were cultivated in our church’s youth group. Everyone knows once you go into middle school, things start to change… everywhere. Kids start to judge things they don’t understand a little more harshly than before. So a lot of the kids I tried to be friends with picked on me for having that label. So for a long time, I tried to suppress that and make my PK status more prominent.

But I was in middle school now and my dad wasn’t overseeing these grades. So that title was only visible to a select group of kids along with the adults in my life who respected my parents. With my credibility gradually declining, I had to find another title that would help maintain what social status I had. So I started bringing my sketchbook to youth group with me.

Kids were drawn to me like a moth to a flame. It was like I had these sticky notes on my face that listed all the titles I had in my possession that molded me into this appealing museum piece. I was shocked to see so many kids I’ve never met just walk up to me and gawk at my drawings. I did’t even need to initiate anymore… I just had to create interesting things to gain the interest of others. Almost every week I would come in early, sit down on the couch, just draw whatever come to mind, and let people come my way. From then on, I was known as the artist. I would post art on Facebook, I would create more drawings on my off time to show off on social media and in person. This went on, and it worked. Until life decided to not go my way.

Photo by Gregg Lawson

Loss of Self.

It was the summer of my last year in middle school. I remember my family sitting down at the dinner table and my dad telling us the news that he was leaving his position as the children’s pastor. Soon after that, my mom stepped down from the worship team after singing in every morning service for nearly 5 years. Just like that, 2 prominent titles that the world identified me with were gone. I wasn’t the pastor’s kid anymore. I wasn’t the worship leader’s kid anymore.

I panicked. I literally had anxiety attacks over this for months. I had no idea how this would affect me and my friendships and other people’s perceptions down the road. It got worse once I transitioned into high school.

I was friends with all lower classmen, besides a few guys I hung out with in my same grade. But they changed drastically in short span of time, and seemed as though they did’t want anything to do with me. I was in the midst of an identity crisis, and I had to figure out someway to make myself appealing to these new, older, taller group of students with the only positive label I had to my name.

I worked my butt off to be known as the creative artist.

I didn’t bring my sketchpad with me as often as I used to, but I drew almost every day. I honed my skills, and got better. I posted more online, I made more friends over seas because of my art. I had a batch of “online friends” to brag about to people. I wrote stories to draw more characters about. I did everything to make myself look as impressive as a freshmen could with the talent that I had.

Come sophomore year, I gradually found my people. I clung to these new friends every weekend, because they were the only ones that accepted me. I drew for them. I made art for them. I tried to appeal myself to them as often as I could. In hindsight, the smothering of creative adulation was farfetched and unnecessary, but back then that was the only thing I knew to do to maintain a relationship.

So I got better. I drew more and more. I wrote creative stories, and built magical worlds with my visual talent. I made all of my work known to people. Creating art began to transform into an obligation than a pleasant pastime. Once I graduated high school and my friends parted ways, it crashed on top of me like a dump truck. The friends I thought I had weren’t intentional about keeping in touch. They found new labels, and were drawn to those of the same name. I was left alone, on my own path. All the work I poured into art was squandered. It meant nothing. Even in the midst of working towards my animation degree, I had no passion for it. Not only did I lose my love for creativity, I lost my identity.

Photo by Chris Holt

Who Are You, Really?

Freshman year of college was a rough time for me. In the midst of change, I had to take a few steps back to rediscover myself. My whole perception of love and friendship came out of the mindset that I had to perform. I felt I needed to create more content, to live up to my artistic title in order to get the admiration I wanted from the people around me. Because that was what I was known for. That was who I was.

But was it really?

It was’t until a year later I went to a conference with dozens of like-minded creatives, passionate about their craft as well as their calling that I began to understand. I had conversations with people that were twice as old as me who had been dealing with these same issues. There were professionals in the industry who talked about these things. It was then I knew I wasn’t alone on this journey of self discovery… but it doesn’t have to be as complicated as one might think.

So what if all my labels disappeared? I was no longer an artist. I could’t sing. I have no talent to speak of. I was’t pretty, but I was’t ugly. Not athletic or smart. No notable works to be mentioned. I have done nothing to entertain the masses or add to society. Who would I be then?

To my surprise, I’m more than all of those labels combined. I went back to my roots. The foundational truths of God’s Word that I was raised on. It’s amazing how we can go throughout life and sometimes forget or completely disregard what the Bible says about God’s love and promises.

In Romans 8 it describes us as heirs to God, adopted into His family through faith in Jesus. Going on it mentions we have a purpose in His plan as His children.

I am a new creation. 1 Corinthians 5:17

I have not a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

I was bought with a price. 1 Corinthians 6:20

I am a light. Matthew 5:14

I am blessed. Ephesians 1:3

I am an overcomer. 1 John 5:4

I am more than a conqueror. Romans 8:37

I am loved. Romans 5:8

The list can go on and on. There are so many places in the Bible that state God’s opinions about me. The kicker is that he thought of these things before I was even conceived. Before my heart started beating, before my eyes saw the world, He loved me. I didn’t have to do anything to earn it. He loves me, because He loves me, because He loves me… just because.

I didn’t do anything.

Do you know how much relief I felt when I was reminded of that? There was NOTHING I could do that would make Him love me any more or any less than He does right now. He’s always been in my corner, I was just too blind by my own warped mindset to perform and succeed to gain admiration from others. In reality, it was far simpler than what I imagined.

Photo by Luke Spangler

The Love that Defines You.

I didn’t need to put sticky notes listing my accomplishments and my titles all over me. Those are just things I happen to be called or that I happen to do. Those can come and go. Life has a habit of shifting your perspective that way. But what I know for sure, where my foundation lies and what I am grounded in is the fact that I’m loved by the Creator of the Universe.

You may be reading this with one or two or fifteen labels spinning in your mind that you’re known for. You may feel the pressure to uphold those titles because you feel that if those sticky notes fall away, you would be left with an empty canvas that no one would love or admire.

But know that in the very heart of it all, the treasure of your being is the unconditional love that burns inside you. The Love that wants you to prosper in life. The Love that had a plan and a purpose for you before you were born. The Love that loves your abnormally large nose, the one dimple on your left cheek, your bushy eyebrows and frizzy hair. The Love, that no matter how screwed up you are, or what awful things you may have done, or how many people you’ve hurt, He is there by your side, willing to walk life out with you as you rediscover yourself in Him again.

No matter how others see you, know without a shadow of a doubt, you will always be loved by the One who wanted you here in the first place, just because you’re His creation.

Cheers,

Hannah Spangler

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aaspiringhero · 5 years

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Untitled Story- Chapter 1

A/N: This story will be a slow burn (which will be a different kind of story than I usually write) so a challenge for me. I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback. The chapters will also be long. La Center, Oregon is a real place, about 22-ish miles, outside of Portland. However, I did make-up the coffee shop and bookstore. Thank you for taking the time to read. The chapter will be under the cut.

Chapter One

The spring breeze blew gently as a young woman in her mid-twenties began her walk down the sidewalk adjacent to her home in the small town of La Center about thirty minutes outside of Portland, Oregon. She was dressed simply in a pair of skinny jeans, a light sweater, and her favorite pair of boots, “That were made for walking. Thank you very much!” She would exclaim whenever her mother would express concern over her daughter’s feet. The young woman continued to walk at a brisk pace until she reached the small coffee shop that she would often frequent.

The small bell rang over the door when she pushed it open, bringing with her a gust of spring air. It was an unseasonably warm and dry day for spring in this part of the U.S. The little coffee shop, aptly named The Reading Nook, was, what some would call, a hole-in-the-wall with bookshelves lining every wall filled to capacity with books of all genres. There was a stooped woman, at least in her seventies but maybe older, behind the counter who looked up slowly when the bell sounded. She began to smile when she registered who had just entered, “Elinora, would you like your regular, dear?” She asked with a smirk that suggested foresight or knowledge.

The young woman smiled and began to make her way to her normal seat in the small café, “Yes, please,” as the older woman began to shuffle away from the counter she added, “and, Ms. Farrah, how often have I asked you to call me Eli?” This was asked with a smirk and humor that only came with familiarity. Ms. Farrah simply answered with a scoff before she retreated to make Eli’s coffee. Eli made her way to her regular table and made herself comfortable, dropping her bag by her chair and pulling out the book that she had been reading for the past week. There was only one other person in the café, which was not unusual for a Saturday in spring and it also provided some relief to Eli. She found it much easier to be around as few people as possible. While she had been dealing with being an empath her whole life, and she had been able to obtain some skill in controlling how the emotions of others affected her, being around fewer people was simply more comfortable.

As Eli skimmed her hand over the cover of the book she intended to read Ms. Farrah finished up the coffee Eli order every time she visited the café, a vanilla macchiato. Ms. Farrah smiled at Eli as she remembered how she met the auburn-haired woman roughly two years ago. Elinora Carlisle had been twenty-two years old the first time she had entered The Reading Nook and Ms. Farrah had instantly taken a liking to the young woman. She was quiet and had recently moved to the outskirts of Portland to escape the noise of the city while still being close to her mother who lived about thirty minutes away in the heart of Portland. Eli had been resistant when talking about herself when she first met the charming, older woman. However, it did not take long, about six months or maybe closer to a year depending on whom you asked, for Eli to begin to open up about herself.

Eli had been born and raised in Portland and had even attended college at Concordia University. She was an only child to Beth Carlisle and had never known her father. Beth had always been concerned for her daughter because she had been a very fussy baby and struggled to socialize as a young child. Eli had been subjected to countless doctor’s visits before the age of two and the doctor’s finally deemed her a “difficult child.” However, Beth was determined to treat her daughter as any normal child. It was only when Eli was around four and began to verbally express why she had a difficult time around others did her mother begin to listen and take steps to make Eli more comfortable. Beth worked with the local elementary school to place Eli in a restricted classroom with fewer children. This was the arrangement until Eli began sixth grade and was finally able to move to a regular classroom. Eli went on to major in Psychology and English at Concordia University.

When Eli had finally divulged this information to Ms. Farrah, with some exclusion, of course, the older woman was extremely impressed but also confused. Eli had finished her Bachelor’s degree only to stop her schooling and move to the suburbs and work in a bookstore. Ms. Farrah sighed gently before moving to the front of the counter, “Elinora, coffee.”

Eli sighed before dramatically rolling her eyes at Ms. Farrah’s insistence at calling her by her full name, “Thank you, Ms. Farrah,” she said gratefully.

The grandmotherly figure smiled and squeezed Eli’s arm before she went back to her table in the back corner of the café. Eli looked back at Ms. Farrah with a hint of confusion as she had felt curiosity and longing exuding in waves from the older woman. For a moment after she sat down and took a sip of the warm coffee Eli allowed herself to feel the others in the shop. Ms. Farrah’s emotions had settled now that she was resting behind the counter. Eli had learned very early on that people have a baseline when it comes to emotions. For instance, Beth, Eli’s mother, had a baseline that bordered on worried or content and Ms. Farrah’s baseline was more observant, watchful. Eli’s attention shifted to the stranger across the café and was happy to discover that his current emotional state was unremarkable. Eli sighed and took one more sip of her coffee before settling in to read as much as possible before her shift at the bookstore.

Eli’s shift at the bookstore, Infinite Possibilities, began at three that particular Saturday and she had always taken enjoyment in the later shifts. These shifts were usually quiet and gave her the opportunity to read on her own or call to check on her mother. After working in the bookstore, a large store on the corner of the block, for roughly two years Eli had worked over the past couple of years to create a good working relationship with both the owner of the store and the other employees. The owner was an older, Mexican man named James who lived above the store with his partner, Oscar. James and Oscar had become surrogate brothers to Eli and had often invited her to dinner throughout her employment. Eli found comfort in both James and Oscar’s baselines and their protective projections when she spent time with them. There were only three other employees that worked in the shop, James would work some shifts and fill-in if someone got sick or needed a vacation day, and Eli found a specific relationship with each one of them.

The employee that Eli found the most kinship with was a sixteen-year-old girl who often worked evenings, after school, and the mornings on weekends. Her name was Shelby Wright and she had only begun working at the shop six months before, on her sixteenth birthday. Shelby was a beautiful girl with caramel skin, the darkest eyes that Eli had ever seen, and curly black hair that was often found spilling out of a messy bun or in a halo around her head. Shelby and Eli were similar in that both young women were raised by single mothers and were outcasts within society around them that sought to create their own paths. However, Eli had been drawn to Shelby because the first time they met the emotions exuding from the young girl were overwhelmingly refreshing. Shelby had been wearing her glasses and carrying a pile of books but she was so happy. It was innocent happiness, she was just happy because she just was…there did not have to be a justification for this girl to be happy, content.

Eli was smiling as she caught Shelby’s messy hair through one of the windows of the shop as she approached for her shift. When the bell above the door rang from Eli’s entrance Shelby’s head popped out from one of the shelves, “Oh, hey, Eli,” she smiled and looked to the clock, eyebrows drawn, “It’s three already?”

Eli nodded and chuckled, “Yep, Shel, has it been that busy today?”

Shelby huffed and moved the books in her arms to the cart sitting beside the shelves, “We had a couple boxes of donations come in this morning so I have been working on putting them away.” Eli could see and feel the exhaustion emanating from Shelby in waves.

Eli put her bag down behind the counter and moved toward the cart, “Well, you’re officially free. I got this, you go get some rest,” Eli said this with some authority and gently nudged Shelby toward the counter to clock out and grab her stuff.

Shelby smiled, “Thanks, Eli, you’re my savior.” She quickly grabbed her bag and put in her time, “I hope it’s quiet for you,” this was said with a hint of teasing. It was a running joke among the employees since every day in La Center was quiet.

Eli smiled and waved as Shelby made her way out. She sighed and quickly evaluated what needed to done before getting to work. One thing that Eli liked about working at Infinite Possibilities was being able to work by herself the majority of the time. She rarely saw the other two employees, Jack, another high school student, and Ruby, a woman in her early thirties who only worked part-time because she had three children and her husband worked a full-time job in Portland. Eli had met Jack and Ruby early on working at Infinite Possibilities and found that Jack was similar to Shelby. He was just a young, happy person. He was simply working at the shop to earn some spending money for weekends in Portland with friends.

Ruby was a completely different story. Eli found that it was difficult to spend an extended period of time with Ruby because she exuded depressed, hopeless emotions. The only time Eli felt any relief from the young mother was when she discussed her children or spent time with them. One Saturday Ruby brought her children into the store to pick out some new books and that was the first time that Eli sensed a true sense of content from her. There was relaxing of the constant pressure around her heart that Eli often felt around Ruby. After Ruby left that Saturday Eli had time to process those emotions and began to think of ways she could become closer to the young mother in order to help her.

Eli was jolted out of her thoughts by a knock on a shelf behind her. She jolted into a standing position and was immediately overwhelmed by a mischievous and amused presence, “James!” This came out as a scoff, or a startled shout, it was hard to tell over James’ chuckling.

Eli turned and found James leaning against the shelves, looking utterly relaxed, “How do you do that?” He asked, crossing his arms and looking a little disappointed.

She smirked and mimicked his position on the opposite shelving unit, “I have eyes in the back of my head…and you are the only one who ever even tries to scare me.”

Eli cocked an eyebrow when he laughed, “Well, it is ever so fun, Ellie.”

She groaned and rolled her green eyes, “I hate it when you call me that.” She turned and continued with the task that James had interrupted.

James moved around so that he was across from her, looking at her through the shelves, “I know, why do you think I continue to do it?” He smirked before he moved to a chair in a front corner of the store; “Oscar and I are having a date night tonight,” Eli smiled as the wave of love and passion came from the lanky figure in the corner, “Would you mind locking up tonight?” He asked this with a tilt of the head meant to extract sympathy.

Eli smiled a soft smile that she usually reserved for those that she truly cared about, “Of course, you two lovebirds have fun.”

James grinned widely before bouncing out of the chair to kiss Eli on the head lightly, “Thank you, Ellie, best employee ever…just don’t tell the others.”

That statement pulled a bark of a laugh out of Eli, “Never, you know me, the town recluse.” At that, she felt a small, but noticeable, wave of sadness, and maybe disappointment, roll through James.

He sighed before beginning to follow Eli’s movements, putting books on shelves, “You know, you should come out more, Oscar and I are planning a weekend in Portland with some friends soon. You should come.”

Eli knew that the offer was genuine but was not prepared to commit to a whole weekend in the big city, with bars, clubs, and busy movie theaters. She sighed and looked up at James’ anticipatory face, “I’ll think about it,” she mumbled into the books in her hands.

That answer was enough for James to smile and an undercurrent of satisfaction to enter his emotions, “Perfect, that is all I ask.” For as long as James had known Eli she had only ventured into Portland a handful of times, maybe five tops. Her mother often came out to La Center to visit her daughter.

Eli and James finished that shelf of books together before James took his leave to prepare for his date that night. While Eli cared deeply for James his enthusiasm could be a little exhausting. She was relieved to be alone again and continued on her task for another hour or so before she noted the passing of time without any customers. Times like these made her grateful to live in such a quiet town. La Center, Oregon is a very small town, with a population of just over three thousand people, that allowed for a type of quiet that Eli craved to find peace in her own emotions.

The rest of the evening was quiet. Eli was able to finish organizing the new donations and eat her dinner. It was only after six in the evening that any customers through the door. There were only two and they were regulars who knew every employee by name. Working in a bookstore was an ideal situation for Eli because bookstores, by design, were quiet, peaceful places. Infinite Possibilities was even more so because the layout was meant to be a sanctuary. There were multiple comfortable chairs, some big beanbags on a loft in the back of the store, and so quiet that it almost felt like a crime to speak louder than a whisper at times.

At nine o’clock Eli slowly began locking up the shop and making her way home. Since she moved to La Center two years earlier she had been living in a small duplex about half a mile from downtown La Center. This was perfect because she was able to walk to and from work and anything else she may need with relative ease. Walking home at night never bothered her but it concerned her mother to no end. Beth often insisted that Eli call while she walked or carry a Taser but Eli insisted that there was nothing to be afraid of in La Center. This was a true statement in that the crime rate is incredibly low. However, Eli also seemed to hold the belief that nothing interesting or extraordinary ever happens in La Center. As she settled down to go to sleep that night she had no idea that over the coming months that belief would be proven wrong over and over again.

#original work #not supernatural

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helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog · 7 years

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'Dancing With the Stars' Season 24 Preview: Best Team Names, Elimination Predictions and More!

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Dancing With the Stars fans, are you ready for an all-new season?

Ahead of Monday's premiere, airing at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, ET's filling you in on everything you need to know about what to expect from season 24. From what's been happening in rehearsals to who has the best team names, we've got you covered.

WATCH: 'Dancing With the Stars' First Dances Revealed -- Here's How Each Contestant Feels About Them!

So from the time the dance pros find out which celebrity they're paired with to actual show day, what exactly happens? ET caught up with Witney Carson last Friday, who broke it all down for us!

"We'll actually start rehearsing about three weeks prior to the premiere date, and that is usually a little sporadic," she explained. "Usually [the stars] are still traveling and trying to get their schedules cleared so they can be available. But for the most part, we practice every day for 4-5 hours, and a lot of that is getting to know each other, finding their music, learning their likes and dislikes, getting to know their personality and what they're OK to do, finding their strengths and weaknesses."

"A LOT goes into these practices because we really need to gauge, as choreographers, what we can do to make them look the best, and what we need to stay away from," she continued. "It's a lot of test and trial, and a lot of just teaching them basic techniques so they're ready for when we go into the season, [when] we only have four days to teach them the routine. It's really important for us to get the groundwork started beforehand. So, those three weeks are really crucial for us. I don't know how we would do [it] if we didn't have those weeks."

BREAKING DOWN THE HOT PAIRS

Fans of the show have known for a while now whose competing with who for the coveted mirror ball trophy, but what are the stars really like in rehearsals when the cameras aren't rolling? Well, we got the scoop!

Mr. T & Kym Herjavec

The nostalgia factor will be way turned up when Mr. T and two-time mirror ball champion Kym Cha Cha to the theme from The A-Team on Monday night. But the real reason the retired professional wrestler has already won our hearts is his enthusiasm for the show. Mr. T has tweeted about his DWTS journey 35 times (and counting!) since the cast was announced earlier this month, gushing about the other contestants and thanking the fans for their support. Here are some of our favorites:

Fun fact: Mr. T is this season's oldest male contestant. His 65th birthday is on Tuesday, just one day after the season premiere.

Bonner Bolton & Sharna Burgess

The professional bull rider and red-headed beauty are going country for week No. 1! Although choosing their team name, DenimNDiamonds, was fairly easy (Sharna told ET last week that it was Bonner who came up with the name), selecting a country tune proved to be a bit more challenging.

Sharna said she actually reached out to her season 20 partner, Noah Galloway, for song suggestions via text. In the end, the team chose "Move" by Luke Bryan, which they'll Cha Cha to. "I love country ballads because I think they’re some of the most incredible romantic songs in the world, [but] rock 'n' roll country, I've never done a Cha Cha to in my life," Sharna explained, teasing the choreography will be sexy. "There's probably going to be a twelve-pack in there somewhere."

Fun fact: Bonner, 29, has always been a real cowboy. He was raised on a ranch in West Texas, and his father was a rodeo cowboy for nearly 20 years. Like Sharna's partner last season, James Hinchcliffe, Bonner also suffered a near-fatal injury after being bucked off the back of a bull in January 2016.

Heather Morris & Maksim Chmerkovskiy

With no elimination during the first week of the competition, this talented pair is already looking ahead to week No. 2 and Heather's most feared dance, the jive.

"I know it's supposed to be fun, but I'm nervous about it," the former Glee star admitted to ET when we visited the pair during rehearsals last week. "I'm going to work my [butt] off to get it done, but it's going to be hard."

For their first piece of choreography, Heather and Maks are taking on the Viennese Waltz, which the pro dancer describes as a "safe choice" to ease them into the competition. Because Heather already has prior dance experience (she's performed with Beyoncé!), they've been focusing their rehearsals on turning her into a ballroom dancer by breaking old jazz habits that don't pertain to this style.

Fun fact: Heather and Maks are both parents. Heather shares two kids, Elijah, 3, and Owen, 1, with husband Taylor Hubbel, and Maks just welcomed his first child, son Shai, with fellow pro dancer Peta Murgatoryd two months ago.

Chris Kattan & Witney Carson

According to Witney, the Saturday Night Live veteran is up for anything -- including the sparkles! "He's pretty fearless," the blond beauty told ET. "There's nothing he's really said 'no' to."

Witney also revealed that Chris has been a longtime fan of DWTS, explaining just how hard he's been working to get ready for their Cha Cha to Haddaway's "What Is Love." But even Witney was surprised by how far the A Night at the Roxbury star's enthusiasm for the show goes.

"I put him in this just plain suit this week -- it's really normal," she said. "And I thought he'd be happy, but he was kind of a little disappointed. He wanted more of the bling, and a little more pizzazz. I was like, 'Wow, I don't think I've ever had a guy celebrity tell me that before.' It's very rare. He's ready to go full-force with it all."

Fun fact: Chris was super pumped when he found out he was paired with Witney. He's been cheering her on for a long time, and even talked to her about watching her season 19 journey, in which she took home the mirror ball trophy with Alfonso Ribeiro.

Charo & Keo Motsepe

At 66 years old, Charo is this season's oldest competitor, but you wouldn't know that from her dance moves. The famous international actress and flamenco guitarist has everyone doing her signature "cuchi-cuchi" dance, including fellow competitor Erika Jayne.

For week No. 1, the actress and comedian will take on the salsa to Mambo Compañeros' "Cuban Pete" with Keo. It's pretty safe to say, we can expect some spice!

Fun fact: This is only Keo's fifth time dancing as a pro. Could this be the season he takes home a mirror ball trophy?

Rashad Jennings & Emma Slater

Spray tans and barely-there costumes are a way of life on DWTS, so it's no surprise that staying fit is part of the job. The NFL pro and his partner have already been keeping us entertained with their workout videos, which they post at the end of each rehearsal. The pair will be performing to Bruno Mars' "24K Magic," and we have our fingers crossed in hopes of getting a glimpse of Rashad's abs:

For further proof of just how in sync this team is, just look at their handshake:

Fun fact: Back when Rashad was in high school in his hometown of Forest, Virginia, he described himself as a "270 lb. chubby kid with asthma and glasses." It wasn't until the very last game of his junior year that he got any playing time on the football field.

Nancy Kerrigan & Artem Chigvintsev

The 47-year-old former Olympic figure skater is trading in her ice skates for dancing shoes, and couldn't be more "excited." Although she says she's "having fun," she's also "nervous" about making her ballroom debut on Monday.

Fun fact: Figure skaters have an impressive track record on DWTS. Meryl Davis and Kristi Yamaguchi both won their seasons, while Evan Lysacek placed second and Charlie White came in fifth when they competed. If Nancy and Artem look as good on the dance floor as they do on the ice, they should be in the competition for quite a long time!

David Ross & Lindsay Arnold

David certainly knows how to go out with a bang -- he retired from professional baseball after 15 seasons and became the oldest player in MLB history to hit a home run as the Chicago Cubs won their historic World Series title in 2016. But will his skills translate to the dance floor? He and Lindsay have the notoriously difficult quickstep for their first dance, to Steve Goodman's "Go Cubs Go."

Fun fact: David is the first professional baseball player to ever compete on the show. Does he have what it takes to make history again, by bringing home a DWTS win?

Nick Viall and Peta Murgatoryd

Peta's got her groove back, and we're psyched! After taking some time off and giving birth two months ago, the two-time champion is returning to the ballroom with Nick to defend her season 22 title, which she won with Nyle DiMarco.

Her fiancé, Maksim, gushed to ET last week about how much this competition means to his lady, saying, "her making this comeback is a big deal."

Fun fact: During rehearsals last week, the pair -- who will be dancing the Cha Cha to "Let Me Love You" by DJ Snake and Tiesto featuring Justin Bieber -- received a visit from Nick's fiancé, Vanessa Grimaldi, and baby Chmerkovskiy for the cutest social media moment of the season so far.

Erika Jayne & Gleb Savchenko

Erika & Gleb already have one guaranteed fan! Earlier this month, DWTS co-host Erin Andrews told ET that she's a huge fan of the reality star, and is really excited to see her on the dance floor. Additionally, Sharna said the pair "have a really fun chemistry between them." That comment had us wondering -- is it possible we could get another iconic choreography moment from Gleb? After all, who could forget that steamy shower routine he performed with Jana Kramer last season?

Fun Fact: Erika and Glen are dancing a salsa version of the reality star's own single, "XXPEN$IVE," on Monday. We can only hope the piece will feature some of the same sexy moves she performs in the track's official music video.

Normani Kordei & Val Chmerkovskiy

Reigning champ Val is hitting the road for the second season in a row! The pro dancer will be following his partner, Normani, and her Fifth Harmony bandmates all over the world as they continue their 7/27 tour. The tour, which began last year, is heading to Asia next and will wrap up in May.

Like Lindsay and David, the pair's first dance is the quickstep.

Fun fact: In case you missed it, Normani taught Val the moves to 5H's "Work From Home" dance during a break from rehearsals. Perhaps he'll make a surprise appearance onstage during one of their tour shows?

Simone Biles & Sasha Farber

You know what they say, "Be careful what you wish for."

When rumors swirled last year that the Olympic gymnast may be joining the show's 23rd season, Simone told ET that she would love to be paired with Sasha. Now officially cast in the season 24 competition with Sasha, things appear to be going well.

The pair have been dancing, laughing and flipping together while training for their tango to "Untouchable" by Tritonal and Cash Cash in Texas.

Fun fact: If the duo makes it to the finals, this will be Sasha's first appearance in the top group. With Simone's winning track record (the girl's got five Olympic medals!), we feel pretty safe about putting our bets on this pair.

OFFICIAL TEAM NAMES, RANKED

From season to season, the team names keep getting better. We've organized all of the pair's official social media hashtags, in order from most to least creative:

1. #TeamBabyGotBach

Peta just gave birth to her first child, son Shai and Nick just competed on The Bachelor. This team name is pure genius!

2. #TeamDenimNDiamonds

We couldn't think of a better possible name for glam goddess Sharna and casual cowboy Bonner.

3. #TeamGoldenGiggles

No explanation needed - this name is just as cute as Simone and Sasha!

4. #TeamPrettyXxpensive

We see what you did there, Erika and Gleb! For DWTS fans who may not be familiar with the reality star-turned-pop diva, "XXPEN$IVE" is the name of her sassy new single.

5. #TeamMangoTango

One of Chris' most iconic characters from his Saturday Night Live skits was the brightly dressed, exotic male dancer, Mango. And, we can only hope that hilarious accent comes out, too, when Chris takes the stage to dance with Witney.

6. #TeamLadyAndTheGramp

Lindsay, the blond beauty. David, now a retired Chicago Cubs player nicknamed "Grandpa Rossy." Makes total sense, and we love it!

7. #TeamMaksimumHeat

Who doesn't love some fun wordplay? Maksimum = Maks, Heat = Heather. It's not incredibly creative, but it does stand out.

8. #TeamDancingFools

If you don't understand the epic "fools" reference here, it's time to do some research on Mr. T before he and Kym show America what they've got!

9. #TeamShadSquad

"I've been inspired by how much Rashad likes to give back to the kids in the community," Emma said of the inspiration behind her and Rashad's name. "He has an amazing foundation, and the [volunteers] from that foundation call themselves the Shad Squad."

10. #TeamValMani

Val and Normani were originally going with "Booty and the Beast," but changed it last minute when Val's former partner, Zendaya, suggested a name tweak. "I luh you sis @zendaya," the Fifth Harmony starlet tweeted. "Thanks for convincing me that Booty&TheBeast wasn't it lmao."

11. #TeamCuchiCuchi

Although this is a perfect fit for Charo and Keo, we're ranking this low on the list because it was exactly what we expected from the pair.

11. #TeamBladesofGlory

Nancy and Artem are only last on our list because they literally just came up with their team name at the last minute. We're still rooting for you though!

ET PREDICTIONS!

Frontrunners

We have yet to officially see any of the stars step foot in the ballroom, but if we had to make predictions on who will be taking home the season 24 mirror ball trophy our guesses would go to Heather and Maks, Normani and Val, or Simone and Sasha.

Vegas Odds

Based on professional picks from the Wynn Las Vegas, Erika and Gleb, Chris and Witney and Charo and Keo are expected to be the bottom three couples, and the first to face elimination.

Simone & Sasha - 3 to 1 Normani & Val - 9 to 2 Heather & Maks - 5 to 1 Nancy & Artem - 7 to 1 Rashad & Emma - 9 to 1 Bonner & Sharna - 14 to 1 David & Lindsay - 16 to 1 Mr. T & Kym - 20 to 1 Nick & Peta - 22 to 1 Charo & Keo - 25 to 1 Chris & Witney - 35 to 1 Erika & Gleb - 40 to 1

Battle of the Athletes

Having athletes on the show is nothing new, but this season features SIX stars who were all pros in their sports at one point -- Simone, Rashad, Nancy, David, Bonner and Mr. T!

Reality Star Showdown

It's The Bachelor vs. Housewives! Nick and Erika are both stars on two of the most popular reality shows we've ever seen on TV. Now we'll finally get a chance to see them outside of their elements (no roses or drama here!). But who will be the more talented contestant?

Are YOU excited for season 24 of Dancing With the Stars? Which team will you be rooting for? Let us know on Twitter (@desireemurphy_ & @angelique814) or in the comments section on our official Facebook page! And be sure to follow all of our DWTS coverage all season long, right here on ETonline.com.

WATCH: 'Dancing With the Stars' Season 24 -- See the Official Cast Photos!

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ronaldmrashid · 7 years

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Are You Delusional? Let’s Talk Dunning-Krueger

Now that I’ve published my view that blogging is the best business in the world, I’d like to pump the brakes for the most enthusiastic of you who now think freedom from a tyrant boss is just around the corner once you start a website.

Anybody can start a business, but not everybody can generate enough money from their business to live a comfortable lifestyle. Capitalism, ironically, ensures that everyone will not be successful. Capitalism is what causes an uprising, even though our standard of living has never been higher!

I made the case years ago that real entrepreneurs are successful when I defined success as being able to generate at least the median per capita income for your city after three years of full-time effort. Those entrepreneurs who’ve been trying for far longer, while earning far less were clearly agitated by my stance. But everyone knows the more you spin your wheels in the mud, the more trapped you will be until one day the cannibals hear your cries and start hacking off your limbs until you die.

I don’t want you guys to ruin your lives because of an entrepreneurial pipe dream, so let me share with you a warning story of what may become of you if you don’t recognize reality.

Delusional Entrepreneur In Full Effect

I met a guy, let’s call him Roger, three years ago at a financial innovation conference in San Jose. At the age of 35, he was an enthusiastic fellow who started a video website teaching people how to save money. It wasn’t a novel idea, but you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to create a successful business.

Over the course of the two-day conference I kept seeing him speak to female attendees, which was fine, if the ratio was relatively balanced. But these types of financial innovation conferences are never balanced. Women made up around 20% of the crowd.

During lunch break the next day, he asked if he could join my table. The table consisted of three guys and an attractive woman. I told him sure and he proceeded to gleefully show me all the cards he picked up from the women he was talking to.

“Sam, meeting people, especially women as a founder is awesome. I’m having so much fun!” Roger whispered in my ear, careful not to let the woman to my left hear. Clearly, she was his next target.

Although Roger was a relatively normal looking guy, he was extremely geeky and socially awkward. He’s the type of scatterbrained person who speaks 90% of the time in a conversation and then wonders why the other side hasn’t listened to a word he said. There are many, many people like Roger at these conferences for some reason.

Roger told me he was dedicated full-time to his business and that he planned to stay with his parents in San Francisco while he worked on his startup. That’s pretty honorable given most guys in their mid-30s would do everything possible to stay away from mom and dad.

When I asked him where he plans to meet up with all the women he so proudly met at the conference, he mentioned, “at a bar or a coffee shop, of course!”

Despite knowing about my site, Roger never asked if I could help him spread the word about his business. I was waiting for the ask, but it never came because he was too excited to think about business at a business conference.

Three Years Later

Fast forward three years later, I was walking down Valencia Street in the Mission when I saw Roger at a coffee shop with a female friend I know who was also at the conference three years ago. Ah hah! So Roger was still at it, grinding away at his startup while trying to find love or excitement as a startup founder in San Francisco. Good for him!

I didn’t want to intrude on their conversation, so I let them be. But I did text my friend later that evening and asked her how her date with Roger went.

“Sam, you should have said hi!” she responded. “Roger is looking to sell his company. Know of anybody interested in buying?”

The first thing I always do when evaluating an online property is look up its traffic figures to get an idea of what type of revenue it could be generating. I’ve got a simple formula I use where I take the number of pageviews a month and multiply it by 1 – 10 cents to get the estimated monthly revenue range.

After three years of working on his business, I was expecting Roger’s site to have at least 100,000 pageviews a month, equivalent to roughly $1,000 – $10,000 a month in revenue. Unfortunately, his traffic figure came out to just 1,200 a month, or only $12 – $120 a month in revenue! Holy crap. What has Roger been doing all this time, hitting on women instead of conducting business?

Before responding to my friend’s question, I asked her what else Roger was up to and she said, “He’s still living at home with his parents in San Francisco. He’s looking for a part-time PR person to help spread the word and has a bunch of free interns out of Asia he’s using in.” She then proceeded to ask, “How much do you think Roger could sell his site for?”

I responded, “Maybe about $3,000 – $6,000.” The figure is based off 2X – 4X annual revenue.

“WHAT?” she responded. “Why am I wasting my time with this guy? He’s never going to be able to afford my PR services. He made it sound like his business was doing well and just wanted to move on to something new.”

“Welcome to the world of smoke and mirrors! :P” I responded.

Related: How Much Can You Really Make Online?

Don’t Be Ridiculous

On the one hand, I understand why Roger can’t let go of his business. It’s his baby, and nobody gives away their baby before adulthood. I’m sure Roger spent many hours building content and marketing his business. Further, his position as startup founder enables him to speak to plenty of women he would never have been able to speak to before.

On the other hand, if you are almost 39 years old, still live at home with your parents, and only generate ~$1,200 a YEAR in revenue from a business you spent three years of your life working on, then you’ve got to face reality that things aren’t happening. Roger deciding he wants to sell his company is a step in the right direction. However, his asking price is not.

“Roger told me he’s looking to sell for $3 – $5 million! ” texted back my friend.

Of course he said that, dear friend. He’s trying to impress you.

Roger believed in his failing business so much that his net worth is probably equivalent to that of a typical college student: zero-to-negative. Unless his parents have money, Roger is going to be in financial misery for the rest of his life because he’s actually been working on his business for five years. When I met him three years ago, he had already left his job two years prior to work on some prototype video content.

If you’ve been out of work for five years in your 30s, it is brutally hard to get back in, especially if you have nothing to show for your time away. It took me five years to find an ideal job as a varsity high school tennis coach after a couple hundred rejections from tech companies, despite having a site that’s doing fairly well.

Given everything is rational in my world, I’m perplexed by Roger’s situation. Perhaps his parents are rich since he did attend a private high school. But my friend says his parents didn’t have money when Roger was growing up. Then I found out what Roger could be suffering from based on the passage below.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

Here’s a passage taken straight from Wikipedia:

“The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive incapacity, on the part of those with low ability, to recognize their ineptitude and evaluate their competence accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: high-ability individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.

Dunning and Kruger have postulated that the effect is the result of internal illusion in those of low ability, and external misperception in those of high ability: ‘The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.’

The phenomenon was first observed in a series of experiments by David Dunning and Justin Kruger of the department of psychology at Cornell University in 1999. The study was inspired by the case of McArthur Wheeler, a man who robbed two banks after covering his face with lemon juice in the mistaken belief that, because lemon juice is usable as invisible ink, it would prevent his face from being recorded on surveillance cameras. The authors noted that earlier studies suggested that ignorance of standards of performance lies behind a great deal of incorrect self-assessment of competence.

This pattern of over-estimating competence was seen in studies of skills as diverse as reading comprehension, practicing medicine, operating a motor vehicle, and playing games such as chess or tennis. Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:

fail to recognize their own lack of skill

fail to recognize the extent of their inadequacy

fail to accurately gauge skill in others

recognize and acknowledge their own lack of skill only after they are exposed to training for that skill

Dunning has since drawn an analogy – ‘the anosognosia of everyday life’ – with a condition in which a person who experiences a physical disability because of brain injury seems unaware of, or denies the existence of, the disability, even for dramatic impairments such as blindness or paralysis: ‘If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent.… The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.‘”

Holy crap! This is exactly it! Roger fails to recognize that no matter how hard he tries, not enough people are coming to his site to provide him a livable income stream. Yet, he refuses to give up after five years and get a job. If the women he keeps tricking to go out with him would simply tell him the truth about his failing business, he might have not ruined his financial situation. But once again, confrontation is hard, even for parents who are housing a 39 year old man child.

My Own Delusions

I know some of you think I’m being too harsh on Roger, but it’s important to realize that because nobody cared enough for Roger, nobody was willing to tell him the truth!

I just don’t want any of you to turn out like Roger, delusional, and wondering why you’ve got nothing in your bank account in the second half of your life due to some fantasy. Given there’s no rewind button, we must speak with absolute truth.

Here are a couple of my Dunning-Krueger issues:

1) I believe all outcomes are correlated with effort, which is a failure in accurately gauging the skills of others. Often, my simply mental response to people who are struggling is, just try harder. I sometimes get frustrated when someone I care about doesn’t understand something or do something efficiently just because I can. This is why I pray for patience all the time. I don’t want to be a tiger dad who causes his kid to rebel.

2) I believe everything I write is logical, and therefore should be followed. How can some people disagree if they haven’t also spent hours and hours researching and writing about a subject for the past eight years? But of course, you’ll plenty of different viewpoints in the comments section that also hold true. I’ve tried understanding other viewpoints with posts such as, Explaining Why The Median 401k Is So Low (to counteract my 401k Savings By Age post), and The Only Reasons To Ever Contribute To A Roth IRA (to counteract my anti-Roth IRA post).

Here’s one of the most common Dunning-Kruger effect: Thinking you’re an attractive person, thereby holding out for the perfect attractive someone, only to end up alone. Let’s face it. Most of us are not attractive! The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can recalibrate our expectations of finding the perfect match. Most of us are not witty or funny either. So if we are unattractive, boring, don’t know how to listen, and have an unsuccessful career or business, it’s time to shoot lower.

The Best Way To Get Rid Of Delusion

I used to think the best way to get rid of delusional thinking is to be an entrepreneur or play sports. Scores don’t lie. If you lose 1-6, 0-6 you suck compared to your opponent. If you are only generating $1,200 a year in revenue after three years as an entrepreneur, your business model isn’t working. There’s nowhere to hide.

That said, I continue to see cases like Roger who aren’t willing to face reality all the time. I also continue to see great stories of triumph against all odds. Therefore, there must be a combination of humble realization and stubborn persistence in order to achieve your dreams. If you see a friend suffering from Dunning-Kruger, try to talk some sense before it’s too late.

For those who long to escape full-time employment, I strongly recommend moonlighting on the side while working a full-time job first. Even if you have to work from 7am – 7pm, Monday – Friday, you’re still left with 4am – 6am, 8pm – 4am, and all weekend to work on your side business.

Only after you’ve gained some traction should you consider taking the leap of faith and going out on your own. If you haven’t made at least a livable income stream after three years of working full-time on your business, it’s time to get a job or pivot to something new. After three years, employers begin to shy away.

For everything else, it’s important to find congruency in how you see yourself and how others see you. It’s vital to ask the people closest you to give an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. When there’s a mismatch, do your best to accept and rectify the situation. Otherwise, you might wake up one day wondering where it all went wrong!

Career Advice For Joining A Startup: Sleep With One Eye Open

Why Blogging Is The Best Business In The World

Readers, do you know people suffering from Dunning-Kruger? If so, why don’t you be a pal and tell them the truth so they don’t ruin their lives? What are some of the most common delusions people suffer from? Please tell me some Dunning-Kruger effects I’m suffering from so I can get better. Be totally honest! I can handle the truth, I think.

from http://www.financialsamurai.com/are-you-a-delusional-entrepreneur-lets-talk-dunning-krueger-effect/

#Financial Samurai

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helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog · 7 years

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'Dancing With the Stars' Season 24 Preview: Best Team Names, Elimination Predictions and More!

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Dancing With the Stars fans, are you ready for an all-new season?

WATCH: 'Dancing With the Stars' First Dances Revealed -- Here's How Each Contestant Feels About Them!

So from the time the dance pros find out which celebrity they're paired with to actual show day, what exactly happens? ET caught up with Witney Carson last Friday, who broke it all down for us!

BREAKING DOWN THE HOT PAIRS

Mr. T & Kym Herjavec

Fun fact: Mr. T is this season's oldest male contestant. His 65th birthday is on Tuesday, just one day after the season premiere.

Bonner Bolton & Sharna Burgess

Heather Morris & Maksim Chmerkovskiy

With no elimination during the first week of the competition, this talented pair is already looking ahead to week No. 2 and Heather's most feared dance, the jive.

Chris Kattan & Witney Carson

According to Witney, the Saturday Night Live veteran is up for anything -- including the sparkles! "He's pretty fearless," the blond beauty told ET. "There's nothing he's really said 'no' to."

Charo & Keo Motsepe

For week No. 1, the actress and comedian will take on the salsa to Mambo Compañeros' "Cuban Pete" with Keo. It's pretty safe to say, we can expect some spice!

Fun fact: This is only Keo's fifth time dancing as a pro. Could this be the season he takes home a mirror ball trophy?

Rashad Jennings & Emma Slater

For further proof of just how in sync this team is, just look at their handshake:

Nancy Kerrigan & Artem Chigvintsev

David Ross & Lindsay Arnold

Fun fact: David is the first professional baseball player to ever compete on the show. Does he have what it takes to make history again, by bringing home a DWTS win?

Nick Viall and Peta Murgatoryd

Her fiancé, Maksim, gushed to ET last week about how much this competition means to his lady, saying, "her making this comeback is a big deal."

Erika Jayne & Gleb Savchenko

Normani Kordei & Val Chmerkovskiy

Like Lindsay and David, the pair's first dance is the quickstep.

Simone Biles & Sasha Farber

You know what they say, "Be careful what you wish for."

The pair have been dancing, laughing and flipping together while training for their tango to "Untouchable" by Tritonal and Cash Cash in Texas.

OFFICIAL TEAM NAMES, RANKED

From season to season, the team names keep getting better. We've organized all of the pair's official social media hashtags, in order from most to least creative:

1. #TeamBabyGotBach

Peta just gave birth to her first child, son Shai and Nick just competed on The Bachelor. This team name is pure genius!

2. #TeamDenimNDiamonds

We couldn't think of a better possible name for glam goddess Sharna and casual cowboy Bonner.

3. #TeamGoldenGiggles

No explanation needed - this name is just as cute as Simone and Sasha!

4. #TeamPrettyXxpensive

We see what you did there, Erika and Gleb! For DWTS fans who may not be familiar with the reality star-turned-pop diva, "XXPEN$IVE" is the name of her sassy new single.

5. #TeamMangoTango

6. #TeamLadyAndTheGramp

Lindsay, the blond beauty. David, now a retired Chicago Cubs player nicknamed "Grandpa Rossy." Makes total sense, and we love it!

7. #TeamMaksimumHeat

Who doesn't love some fun wordplay? Maksimum = Maks, Heat = Heather. It's not incredibly creative, but it does stand out.

8. #TeamDancingFools

If you don't understand the epic "fools" reference here, it's time to do some research on Mr. T before he and Kym show America what they've got!

9. #TeamShadSquad

10. #TeamValMani

11. #TeamCuchiCuchi

Although this is a perfect fit for Charo and Keo, we're ranking this low on the list because it was exactly what we expected from the pair.

11. #Team... ???

Nancy and Artem have yet to come up with their official team name, which is why they've landed last on our list. Sorry, guys! We're still rooting for you though…

ET PREDICTIONS!

Frontrunners

Vegas Odds

Based on professional picks from the Wynn Las Vegas, Erika and Gleb, Chris and Witney and Charo and Keo are expected to be the bottom three couples, and the first to face elimination.

Battle of the Athletes

Having athletes on the show is nothing new, but this season features SIX stars who were all pros in their sports at one point -- Simone, Rashad, Nancy, David, Bonner and Mr. T!

Reality Star Showdown

WATCH: 'Dancing With the Stars' Season 24 -- See the Official Cast Photos!

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