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dumplingequivalent · 3 months

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hey I think I know why old people are insincere assholes the essay

Yknow when you're trying to connect to someone from an older generation, and they gloss over your attempts at genuine connection?

Like when a family member got you a gift that really meant something to you, but when you try to express your genuine gratitude, it seems like they don't really give a shit?

Or maybe you open up and share something personal with an older coworker or family friend along with some advice on a concern that you've been actively worrying about for them, but they don't acknowledge it or even act like they heard you at all?

Something clicked for me today, and now I think it's bigger than Poppop's Just An Asshole Sometimes.

I think there's been a huge shift in western culture around authenticity and genuine expression in the past two decades or so - the way we as a society and culture view it, express it, present it, and respond to it - that's causing minor intergenerational conflicts in our personal lives, but more importantly, major conflicts in our shared public spaces.

Hear me out.

1. Authenticity Then VS Now

2. Authenticity Becomes A Privilege And No One Tells The Boomers

3. Boomer-Meta and Why It Matters

1. Authenticity Then Vs Now

If you're on tumblr you probably understand nuance -

- so I think the concept of "authenticity" meaning something different to Boomers than it does to Millennials or Gen Z isn't baffling to you. it probably feels really familiar.

If you went to a US school in the 2000's, you probably remember the DARE program and anti-smoking and anti-drug ads on TV. And if you don't, you probably already have an idea of what I'm talking about. Things made by adults that felt embarrassingly out of touch to the children they were designed for.

As we all know, these all flopped immediately yet lasted the whole decade. (flopped except for the anti-smoking ads which I'll come back to) In retrospect, these marketing attempts says a lot more about the generation of adults responsible for them.

Things like the DARE program were, pretty transparently, designed to resemble what boomers remembered was "cool and interesting" from their own childhoods. My favorite example is Yello Dino and his video on "Tricky People" that's a painfully obvious homage to Fonzie from Happy Days crossed with Barney that's just as painful to watch.

youtube

Watch from 8:03-15:30 or so to see Yello Dino appear and sing a stranger danger song with the Local Kids™.

It's easy to look at this kind of thing and the DARE program and say "of course kids didn't fall for any of this, it's so poorly made; blatantly trying to sell an idea;" etc. But I think the core issue is authenticity.

Remember the anti-smoking ads? Those worked in the end because they featured people who looked like people we knew in person, with real problems from actions they really regretted. And that stuck.

But the Boomer "How Do You Do Fellow Kids" bullshit was never grounded in reality.

The approach they were trying to replicate only worked back in the boomers childhoods because everyone was seen as being genuine by default.

People in real life told the truth unless proven otherwise. Comedians on TV said things to make the audience present laugh. Singers appeared on TV so you could see them as well as hear them. People in ads were selling you a product.

Actors acted like their characters to portray that character "genuinely".

Why would they lie? Their job is to be that character. If they say they like Big Coffee Brand™, you might laugh as it's obviously an ad,

but you also then believed that to be true.

No, really. The section on Fonzie's wiki page bout Henry Winkler's involvement in social issues, titled "Civic Involvement," reads like a social commentary in a dystopian horror. There's little to no distinction between the character and the actor. Henry Winkler is Fonzie, and Fonzie is Henry Winkler.

So if you wanna be like Fonzie, you wanna be like Henry Winkler. You wanna smoke and drink and say what Henry Winkler does, because that's what Fonzie does.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Now, flash forward to the 2000's.

The police officers doing DARE were (mostly) never thrilled to be there. The anti-weed ads were so exaggerated that they seemed cartoony. Hell, some of them were cartoons, just unfunny ones. And most importantly, we were taught from a very young age that everyone is always lying.

"Never reveal personal information about yourself to strangers or online to protect yourself" turns into "Everyone is lying to you to get something from you" really, really fast.

People in real life aren't to be believed until they can prove what they say is true. Comedians on TV say things to keep themselves relevant and in the rumor mill. Singers appear on TV to sell concert tickets and promote albums. Ads use social issues that affect real people as marketing. Actors are people who are pretty and pretend to be other people in a way that's never convincing, but sometimes if they're feeling generous they'll let you know what they really think and feel.

So, why would anyone tell the truth?

Why should you?

2) Authenticity Becomes A Privilege And No One Tells Boomers

(Thank you for reading this far and I promise I'm don't with the edgy "everything sucks" poetry now)

So now we've all grown up into jaded adults who've been taught to not trust but to strive to "be your unique self" and that creates some weird social dichotomies.

If you want to be truly happy, you must accept yourself and do what you want to do.

....but then you risk being seen as a cringey fuck that gets laughed at on Facebook by your highschool classmates and all of your previous bosses.

All jokes aside, modern society prioritizes a readied public face now more than ever, and that's really exemplified in the Internet celebrity experience. Taking a mild stance on anything generates tabloids attention, and doing something the public frowns upon can ruin a person's career permanently. you're on tumblr, this isn't news to you. you get what I mean.

This consequently makes moments of genuine emotion and expression from these celebrities inherently risky - and thus, a much more rare occurrence. Moments of streamers getting scared by spiders or cockroaches blow up constantly because, I mean yeah sure it's funny, but it's also really REALLY difficult to stage a believable reaction to something like that. And that carnal reaction draws out the desire for connection in all of us. That moment of unfiltered response feels special - a brief glimpse behind the curtain.

And celebrities online know it too. Apology videos, let's plays, streaming - all of this media has a built in sense of authenticity that is vital to making it work. Authenticity is a premium social currency in this space, and that bleeds into our everyday lives as well.

If the most badass and brave thing your idols can do is to be sincere, then eventually, you'll probably feel that way too. It makes sense - sincerity is vulnerable. Choosing to be deliberately honest and emotional when you have no expectation to be is a powerful thing. At least, to most of us it is.

While this is all happening, there's an entire generation of people who are still experiencing the world like when happy days was airing.

Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray.......whatever other bullshit they put on TV, all of it begins to make more sense when you focus on their target audience - the middle aged and elderly.

Yes, really. Think of who you know in real life who absolutely loved The Big Bang Theory.

I mean, come on. This image makes me sad, dude.

Humor me for a moment. let's just run with my theory and say middle-aged and older people are all walking around as if everyone is always telling the truth to them.

Is it really that surprising that Dr. Oz was/is?? as successful as he was? As it turns out, believing everything to be true until proven otherwise is incredibly dangerous when applied to medical practice!

While we were growing up, the middle aged and elderly were spending their time being constantly self-absorbed and, just, unapologetically themselves. Which doesn't sound bad in theory, but it's really not as straightforward as it sounds.

3. Boomer-Meta And Why It Matters

So boomers are gullible. the sky is blue. why should you care

The point to all this is that authenticity is very important to modern society, and the difference of what authenticity means and how it's expressed matter drastically when understanding each other is vital.

Boomers were raised to always be genuine. If one believes themself to always be truthful, that lends to forming a bias in their own favor. And breaking the mentality down further, "I always say what I mean and I mean what I say" implies that what was said is what is true. And further, someone changing their "story" is an indicator of deception.

I've met plenty of older generation people who act like sharing their opinion is a gift in and of itself i.e. unwarranted comments on cooking or food, interjected advice about the conversation subject. Similarly, questions about the validity of a statement seem to often be taken as questioning ones morals.

This personal bias is very apparent in interpersonal situations. An attempt to be more genuine with someone who thinks this way would come across as staged and more insincere, and conversely, speaking with a clear bias appears superficial and ignorant.

But the real conflict is how this affects our news and politics. A core misunderstanding of what sincerity is and what it looks like, from either side, is dooms any conversation before it ever begins.

The lack of literacy in each other's values adds so much unnecessary conflict into already divisive matters. The stagnation in the legal progress of important social issues is probably worsened with so many of the US lawmakers being elderly themselves.

I don't have a great way to end this thing, but thanks for reading my weird essay.

The slow realization that a misunderstanding could be at the center of most major political conflict in the US consumed me for like 12 hours today and I appreciate you taking time to read my ramblings.

#i wrote a fucking essay and for what #ugh #i hope this was worth...anything to someone #i have NO idea how to tag this bro #long #generational conflict #baby boomers #millennials #gen z #zillenial #idk #Youtube

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steamishot · 8 months

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3 year anniversary 😵‍💫

i had totally forgotten until today, but it had just passed my 3 year anniversary of living in NYC on 9/11. that's crazy. this is now 3/4 of the time i spent in college lol. i guess i'm a junior now.

we (mostly i) drove to boston last thursday. it was about a 5.5-6 hour drive due to the traffic. my laptop was on in the backseat with the mouse jiggler on. matt had just got off 9 days of working straight and was ded. the first night, we had AYCE shabu which was recommended by matt's coworker. it was just OK and our stomachs didn't feel too well the day after. we checked into the hyatt in cambridge (thanks chase points again), and was very close to MIT. there was a sign welcoming MIT parents because it was the back to school era. the hotel was situated across from the charles river, and we got to creepily watch smart looking people run along this river from our room. we opted to park our car 0.8 miles away in a different lot to save money ($40 vs $95 for two nights).

on friday, we met my reddit friend K in her condo in cambridge. i remember her to be meek and softspoken when she was in NYC for a short period, but she was quite the opposite in cambridge. now i understood it as her being overwhelmed in nyc because of all the stimulation, which caused her to shut down a little. anyway, her voice was a little louder than i remember haha, and her presence was a bit intense that i became quite shy. i got to meet her two cats and her bf M, who ended up hanging out with us for the majority of the time.

because K and M are both very intellectual (hello cambridge), matt really enjoyed conversing with them. M kind of embodies an altruistic jewish man with SF tech culture. M has an open library project, is anti-consumerist, and often wears a purple shirt with his name and QR code to his website. he keeps a public spreadsheet of his goals since 2015 and told us he's done 80K pushups. we walked around cambridge, went to an ice cream shop, linen shop, and a tea shop. then we chilled a bit at her condo where he made us some tea. got yummy udon at the nearby lesley university, and then went to a brewery afterwards. it was a long hangout, lol!

right after this hangout, i felt really self-conscious. i was the least accomplished one and honestly felt like the dumbest one in the group. they're (more so her) quick on their feet, decisive/opinionated, and can churn out thoughtful intelligent responses in seconds. her condo had a tiny TV, but many books and board games. she texted me after the hangout saying it was so nice meeting us and she appreciates me for going to visit her. i was dealing with my own feelings of unworthiness, and feeling like i don't quite fit in. i also usually don't see the intellectual side of matt often because he's totally drained from work and doesn't want to do more thinking outside of work. he had more of the spotlight because they were interested in his career. i felt like i didn't have much to share.

i felt self-conscious for a whole day afterwards, and felt weird responding to her texts, even though we chat so often (over text, reddit, and IG). i kinda wondered if we would even be friends organically if we didn't already have such deep chats via the internet. i finally got over that mental hump of not being worthy enough, and began chatting with her like normal again. instead of feeling unworthy, i tried to shift my perspective to feel lucky and inspired to have such intelligent company who i can learn things from.

matt and i also got to stay in the machimoodus getaway cabin in connecticut for the first time for two nights. i'm keeping a google sheet of the number of countries and states i've been to. so far, it's 18 countries and 18 US states. i didn't count the ones that were just layovers/pass throughs. we got into a frustrating argument in the car ride there, which i understand is all based on emotions. he's pretty much ded after the longer work week + one whole day of socializing with new people, which made him highly anxious and easily stressed because he had not had any alone/quiet time for a while. so, he gets highly anxious when i'm driving (stop!, slow down!) and i in turn get upset and react negatively to his anxiety because it triggers my anxiety. i get super annoyed at back-seat driving, especially when i'm the better (and more conscious) driver between the two of us.

i know that this was something that was discussed in my therapy session, where i don't have to fix his anxieties, and at the very least, don't need to take it personally. it's a work in progress for the both of us.

the getaway: it's the most secluded glamping site that we've been to. it's semi-luxurious, and not nearly as luxurious as autocamp. autocamp provides very nice dinnerware, a hairdryer, a TV, fast internet, etc. both autocamp and undercanvas had a community area where you can purchase food/drinks and hangout. getaway was much more isolated, and their store is self-service. no hairdryer and the dinnerware is a little cheap. the cabin is actually very tiny and thoughtfully designed (to stow away luggages and shoes). i really enjoyed the giant glass window and the windows throughout the cabin to feel at one with nature. since we had a 4 night package and also wanted to go glamping during the fall foliage season, we booked another two nights in october. K&M may join us (but not sure, as M does not like to spend money).

CT: so beautiful and lush, went to the nearby cat cafe where we were the only asians and they displayed an "antiracism" sign on the door (which i'm guessing that means that racism is prevalent in that area), checked out boho farms and got a pumpkin spice candle, went to the local grocery market twice, and did a short hike at machimoodus state park.

work: my new boss (director) officially announced my promotion yesterday in an email and included what duties will be shifted to my previous manager and my colleague. it's definitely weird to give my old manager work to do? so i'm trying to do as much as i can. there's a lot on my plate right now as i'm taking over compliance management and resolving previous payroll issues, all while still doing majority of the work for the VCP and housestaff populations. i do feel happier though, like that i'm actually looking forward to doing this type of work. it's very introverted and a bit more challenging so i'm excited to give a good impression in my first few months.

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santiagoswagger · 4 years

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i've never fallen from quite this high

Amy's birthday falls one month into her very new relationship with Jake, and he promises her he has plans to blow her mind.

Set sometime after “The Funeral.”

In all the years Amy’s known Jake, she’s been witness to the downfall of most of his relationships, and she knows they all tend to follow a similar pattern.

He was disorganized and completely consumed by his work throughout most of them, perpetually forgetting to show up for dinners or drinks because a case always took precedence. He could be selfish, unfiltered with his words and competitive to a fault. Most of the women he dated never seemed to last very long, and if they did, Jake usually found a reason to end things. There were a few exceptions, just as there are with any rule, but Jake was nothing if not consistent. He was a lone wolf, even in his personal life.

But the Jake Peralta that Amy finds herself dating now might as well be a stranger.

In the month since they decided to screw being light and breezy, she’s observed several small changes in him that often have her questioning if he’s the same man who once took her on a date designed for maximum humiliation.

When they make plans, he immediately adds them to the calendar on his phone so he won’t forget. He shares his snacks with her at the movies, even if he rolls his eyes while passing her the popcorn bucket. He takes the time to compliment her whether she’s dressed up for a date night out or wearing her ratty sweats on the couch at home, and genuinely means it either way. He’s still overly competitive, but that only makes her like him more.

She catches herself staring at him from across their adjoined desks, in awe of the person he was and the person he’s becoming. She can’t believe she’s actually falling for her goofy, infuriating partner. It’s scary, just as any big change is for a control freak like Amy, but she’s starting to believe that anything worthwhile begins with a little fear.

Much to Amy’s chagrin, Jake catches her mid-stare and smirks.

“Amy, I know you think I look extremely handsome in my new flannel, but this is a workplace. What would the Captain say?” he asks smugly, keeping his voice quiet enough so their coworkers can’t overhear. It’s something they’ve both perfected over the last month.

She rolls her eyes but can’t stop a traitorous grin from materializing on her face.

“Jake, we both know you took that flannel from the lost and found last week. And I wasn’t doing anything,” she says unconvincingly, burying her head in the open file next to her keyboard. “I was thinking. About my case. Because I’m a detective.”

Jake leans back in his chair and crosses his arms behind his head. “Does this ‘thinking’ have anything to do with a major life event happening this weekend?”

Amy cocks her head to the side. “’Major life event?’ What are you talking about?”

Jake lets out a loud, triumphant laugh, startling Hitchcock and Scully from their afternoon naps a few feet away.

“Amy, please tell me you didn’t forget your own birthday. No, wait, please tell me you did so I can make fun of you.”

Her jaw drops in horror. Amy Santiago, queen of organization, forgot her own birthday. Work had been so crazy the last few weeks and nights spent analyzing her planner were few and far between now that she had someone to go home with after work so something was bound to fall through the cracks. But she would rather let Charles cook dinner for her than let Jake know that.

“Shut up,” she says indignantly. “Just because I don’t obsess over my birthday like some people doesn’t mean I forgot it.”

Jake leans forward with a softer smile than before. It’s fond, almost. “You did, but that’s okay. I’ve got a few things up my sleeve for Saturday.”

“You do?” she says, surprised.

“Mmm-hmm,” he nods, grinning. “Prepare to have your mind blown.”

She laughs. “Okay, I’ll hold you to it.”

As they pack up their desks to leave for the night, Amy allows herself to wonder what Jake could possibly have planned. It’s their first birthday or holiday as a couple, and it’s so early. Their relationship is still so new and exciting, but a birthday is a big commitment. They haven’t even discussed where they see things going or if there’s a future for them. She doesn’t want this birthday to be the thing that scares him away before the relationship really gets off the ground. She’s pretty sure it could be something great if they let it.

Amy wakes up Saturday morning to the smell of fresh coffee wafting into her bedroom. It’s a shock for two reasons: she’s fairly certain she ran out of coffee grounds earlier this week and she knew Jake was scheduled to work an overtime shift today. The rumpled sheets next to her confirm his absence, but they’re still slightly warm to the touch; he must have just brewed her a pot before stumbling out the door.

She takes the time to brush her hair and teeth, and wash and moisturize her face – she refuses to let her morning routine slip, even if it’s her birthday – before walking out into the kitchen. It’s where she finds a full pot of coffee, complete with a new bag of beans from her favorite neighborhood café. It’s annoyingly expensive hipster coffee, and she can’t believe Jake shelled out the cash for it.

She also finds a note written in Jake’s awful chicken scratch on some stationery he must have grabbed from her office. Lucky for him, Amy’s been forced to decipher a few hundred of his case files over the years and can read his appalling handwriting without a problem.

Ames,

Happy Birthday, weirdo! I’m sorry I have to work on the day of your birth but I promise to make it up to you later ;) See you at 5.

Jake

She smiles as she finishes reading before pouring herself a large cup of steaming coffee and taking a long sip. She sighs, and she’s fairly sure it’s not just the coffee warming her from the inside out.

Truthfully, a day to herself is the best birthday present she could have asked for. She spends the day fielding calls and texts from her family and Kylie while also managing to organize her binders alphabetically and catch up on her very full DVR.

But by the time 5 o’clock rolls around, Jake is nowhere to be found and Amy can’t help but be a little disheartened. He had been making much more of an effort to be punctual lately, especially once he discovered what that earned him from Amy, but she supposes he hasn’t completely let his old habits die. She does her best to shrug it off. He probably just got caught up finishing a case, she thinks.

By 5:30, Amy is concerned. By 6, she’s spiraling.

He’s never been this late to meet her before, and never this late without sending an emoji-filled apology text. She, more than most, knows things can get out of hand at the precinct within an instant, but a shadow of a doubt still manages to nestle its way into Amy’s brain as the minutes tick by without word from her boyfriend.

She pours herself a glass of wine and takes a huge gulp. She knows from past observations that a month is usually Jake’s tipping point in a relationship. It’s entirely possible that he’s starting to have second thoughts about turning their friendship into something more. The thought rips through her like lightning.

It’s then that her front door opens and an exhausted looking Jake practically stumbles into the living room carrying two stuffed takeaway bags. His hair is a mess and his flannel is even more rumpled than usual. Her previously racing thoughts are immediately quelled when she sees him.

“Ames, I’m so sorry but I couldn’t find the restaurant and then the order was wrong and then I had to go to a different place and it was a whole thing,” he says in a breathless jumble. She can barely make out individual words.

“Are you mad?” he asks as he catches his breath. He looks genuinely gutted at the mere possibility he’s disappointed her.

She puts her wine glass down on the coffee table and moves to wrap him up in a firm hug. She can feel the tension leave his body at her touch.

“No, I’m not mad,” she mumbles into his shoulder. “But I wish you had texted me so I knew you were alright.”

“Phone died,” he says sheepishly. She pulls away slightly and gently swats his arm.

“I thought I bought you a charger for your desk!”

“I may or may not have been playing Kwazy Cupcakes all day and it totally drained my battery,” he laughs. “The precinct was so boring today, Ames.”

She smirks. “Did you miss me, Peralta?”

“Pshh, no,” he says, eyes darting around the room.

“You did,” she says smugly and he rolls his eyes, visibly grinning. “Now, tell me about this food.”

She pulls away from him to rummage through the plastic bags he’d placed on her dining table when he came home. It smells unbelievably familiar.

“I, um,” he stutters. “Remember when you told me about your favorite birthday parties as a kid? When all of your extended family would come over and it was just a giant party with games and the best Cuban food?”

“Yeah, I do,” she says softly. It had been such a throwaway conversation, late night memories shared while cuddling on his couch in front of the TV after a long shift. She’s genuinely touched that it stayed with him.

“Well, I found a place in Park Slope that sells those cheesy guava pastries your mom used to make you every year on your birthday,” he says, rubbing his arm uncomfortably. “But they messed up the order and I had to drive around to a bunch of Cuban restaurants to find them. That’s why I was so late.”

Maybe it’s the nostalgic smell of the pasteles de queso y guayaba bringing back her childhood, or maybe it’s the look of pure vulnerability on Jake’s face, but Amy can feel the warmth from this morning’s coffee returning tenfold. A lump begins to grow in her throat and she swallows hard to tamp it down.

“I can’t believe you did this,” she says, astonished. “I haven’t had one of these in forever.”

He’s rubbing his arm again, a nervous tick. “I hope they’re right. The woman at the last place I tried didn’t speak English so it was a lot of charades and pointing.”

She laughs. “They’re definitely right. They smell just like I remember.”

She puts the bag down and walks quickly over to where he’s standing in her kitchen doorway. She kisses him delicately, bringing her hand up to cup his cheek, thumb sweeping his jaw as she pulls away. His eyes are half-mast but they’re shining brightly.

“Happy birthday, Amy,” he whispers, moving to gently grab her hand as it pulls away from his face.

She scrunches her nose and smiles. “Thank you. Now, are you ready to try some cheese and guava pastries?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Ugh, no, thank you,” he says vehemently, backing out of her embrace.

She walks closer. “Please? For my birthday? You did say you would make it up to me after working all day.”

He groans. “Fine. But this is the last time I do anything nice for you.”

She smiles. “Deal.”

#b99 #brooklyn nine nine #b99 fic #b99 fanfiction #peraltiago #this is what quarantine has done to me

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yastaghr · 4 years

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Projects (Fresh’s DDFL Oneshot)

Pairing: Kedgeup

Characters: Underfell Papyrus, Undertale Sans

Warnings: None (this is fluff)

Summary: Classic is working on a project in a snowstorm. Edge takes care of him. For @freshouttaparsnips

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23029627

A skeleton walked through the blowing, cold wind of the mountain winter. His boots were tall and red. His pants were tight and black, riding low on his pelvis. His uncharacteristic sweater was thick and warm, a cashmere wool number in a light orange borrowed from a friend. His teeth were sharp and three lines bisected his left eye socket.

Edge stepped into the basement. He closed the door and knocked the snow off his caked boots, then tramped down the stairs as loudly as he could so he wouldn’t startle his datemate. When he got to the bottom of the stairs he sighed. Classic was still hunched over his project. Edge had no idea what it was. At the moment it looked a bit like a steampunk teapot, but earlier today it had looked like a projector box, so that didn’t mean much. Edge didn’t really care what it was. All he knew was that his datemate was absorbed in fiddling with it to the point of being totally unaware of such paltry details as what time it was and whether he should eat. So Edge had decided to fill that role himself.

The tall skeleton slipped a plate of food into the space between Classic and his project. It held a hummus and tomato sandwich with baba ganoush and tzatziki sauce on it, just the way Classic liked it. There was also a piece of baklava off to one side.

Classic made a startled noise when the food inserted itself into his world. He turned to see who had brought it. Edge took the opportunity to steal a kiss from his datemate.

“IT’S TIME TO EAT, MY LOVE. YOU’VE BEEN WORKING AT THIS FOR FOUR HOURS NOW. YOU NEED TO TAKE A BREAK AND FUEL YOUR BODY AND MIND BEFORE THEY GIVE OUT ON YOU. PLEASE, TAKE THIS.”

Classic reluctantly grabbed a triangle of the sandwich and peered at it. “hummus and tomato?”

“ALONG WITH YOUR SECOND AND THIRD FAVORITE CONDIMENTS. A NICE, HEALTHY MEAL,” Edge confirmed quietly.

Classic let out a startled moan when he bit into the sandwich. He stared at it with wide eye lights before turning his brilliant smile on Edge. “thanks, edge. i really appreciate it,” he added with a genuine twinkle in his eye, “especially the baklava. you know a good piece of that sweet honey goodness makes me go absolutely nuts.”

Edge put on his best disapproving face to hide the startled laughter in his soul. He secretly loved his datemate’s puns, but he knew Classic absolutely loved it when he played the straight man to his comedian.

“I DON’T SEE YOU BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS JUST YET. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM DOING SO. I’M NOT SURE THE CORKBOARD COULD HANDLE IT.”

Classic chuckled. “sure thing, babe. but seriously, thanks for the food. i must be starving if i’ve been working that long. it has to be…” He pulled out his phone and checked the time, “...5 o’clock? sheesh, that’s late. how was your shift?”

Edge smiled mysteriously. “OH, YOU KNOW. A BIT OF THIS AND THAT. THE ELEPHANT CERTAINLY WAS ENTERTAINING.”

Classic narrowed his eye sockets. “what elephant? i thought you worked in an antique shop.”

Edge’s smile widened into a grin. “YOU WOULD BE CORRECT. AN OLD HUMAN LADY WITH PINK HAIR BROUGHT IN A NOVELTY LAMP THAT HER NEPHEW HAD BOUGHT HER. IT WAS ONE OF THOSE VINTAGE ART DECO DEALS. YOU WOULD HAVE LIKED IT.”

“i bet,” Classic said around a mouthful of food. Edge knew he only did it to get his goat, but it worked. Edge glared into the smiling face of the monster he loved.

He sighed. “JUST EAT YOUR SANDWICH. I’LL COME BACK FOR THE PLATE LATER.”

Classic waved to him as he left the basement. “bye! don’t stomp too hard on the stairs. you might break through!”

Edge’s only response was to slam the door on the way out.

=====

An hour later Edge returned to the basement to fetch the plate. Classic had set it off to his left and had cleared it. Edge smiled. He was always happy when Classic loved his food. He might not be a professional chef, but he still took pride in his cooking. It was eclectic and simple. Classic seemed to love it.

Speaking of Classic, he was bent over his project with a pair of tweezers and a bunch of wires. The project now looked like one of those rides you see at fairs that have a bunch of chairs suspended by wires that spin around and out at an angle. Edge had no idea what it was.

“HELLO, LOVE. HOW IS YOUR PROJECT GOING?” Edge asked quietly, not wanting to startle Classic and mess something up.

Classic set down the tweezers and swiveled in his chair to face Edge. He had a smile on his face, and his eyes were twinkling. “well, wire you asking? tweeze projects of mine don’t usually interest you this much.”

Edge scoffed, secretly impressed that Classic had managed to come up with two puns that fast. It never ceased to amaze him how gifted his datemate was in the pun department. Edge could appreciate a good pun when he heard one, but he was absolute garbage at coming up with them himself. His coworkers at the antique shop seemed to send them flying back and forth all day long, but Edge’s best attempts always fell flat. He’d given up on coming up with any, leaving that to those who had the skill, like Classic. His puns were better than their puns, anyway. Edge wasn’t biased. Not at all.

“JUST CURIOUS. IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE YOU’VE BEEN THIS DEDICATED TO A PROJECT. NORMALLY YOU’RE BETTER AT REMEMBERING TO EAT AND TAKE BREAKS. I KNOW IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE YOU ACTED LIKE THIS.”

Classic grinned. “aw, edgelord, that’s sweet. too bad i can’t tell you. it’s going to be a surprise~!”

Edge narrowed his eye sockets at his datemate. That was such a typical Sans move. Well, two could play at that game. “WELL, THAT’S GOOD. I HAPPEN TO HAVE A SURPRISE OF MY OWN WAITING FOR YOU UPSTAIRS, SO DON’T STAY DOWN HERE TOO LONG.”

With that, Edge grabbed the plate and sashayed his way up the stairs and back out into the deepening snow.

=====

It was late at night when Classic trudged up the stairs and through the snowstorm to the main house. He still wasn’t entirely convinced that he should be stopping. The interdimensional phone didn’t have nearly the clarity of tone that he wanted, but he really couldn’t fiddle with it any longer. When he was younger, maybe, but now his eyes gave out much sooner than they used to. It was better to take a break and sleep off the shivers than to push himself.

He felt absolutely caked in snow by the time he opened the front door. He couldn’t even see through the snow plastered to his face. Knowing that his brother was likely staying over with his datemate, Classic immediately started stripping off his ice-cold layers before he got chilled to the bone and soaked through.

It wasn’t until Classic was down to his t-shirt and shorts, after he had used a clear patch of his hoodie to wipe off his face, that he could see the room in front of him. It was… not what he had been expecting. If he’d been expecting anything, it was that the room would look as it usually did; the new couch that they had gotten when they reached the Surface, the old tv that worked better than it used to thanks to a little tinkering on Classic’s part, the joke/quantum physics book on the table in the corner, and the pet rock on the dining table. Most of those things were probably still there. Probably. It was hard to see them around the giant blanket nest that took up the majority of the room. Edge must have put in every blanket, pillow, and cushion in the house!

Classic grinned and crawled over the mounds of fuzzy fleece and warm wool that grew into a giant mountain of comfort. Sitting on top of (and slightly within) the pile was Edge. He had a self-satisfied expression on his face, like a dog with a big stick or a cat with a “dead” string. He had a large bowl of popcorn in one hand and the tv’s remote controller in the other.

“SO. DO YOU LIKE MY SURPRISE?” Edge asked his datemate.

Classic chuckled. “it certainly is surp-rising. how long did it take you to build this thing? i can see you used the pool noodles to maintain the pile’s structural integrity without sacrificing softness.”

Edge preened under the compliment to his engineering even as he glared at the pun. Classic knew he would. Edge loved it when his datemate praised him, and he was especially proud of his skills as a puzzle engineer. This might not be a puzzle, but the same principles applied.

“IT IS A RATHER INGENIOUS IDEA, ONE TRULY WORTHY OF THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE EDGE,” his datemate said as he set down the remote, freeing up one hand to help Classic over the last few feet of pillows and into the little divot in the covers that Edge was sitting in. “I HAD THOUGHT OF USING THE THROW PILLOWS, BUT THEY DID NOT HAVE THE LENGTH I NEEDED FOR THIS WORK. THE POOL NOODLES SEEMED AN OBVIOUS NEXT CHOICE.”

Classic smiled. “you don’t give yourself enough credit. i know i never would have thought to use them. i probably would have given up on the mountain-like design and just made a pillow fort.”

“OH,” Edge blinked, stunned. “THAT WOULD CERTAINLY HAVE BEEN EASIER THAN STICKING WITH MY ORIGINAL DESIGN. THE IDEA OF A PILLOW FORT NEVER OCCURRED TO ME.”

Classic chuckled as he settled into the curve of his datemate’s arms. He loved how nicely he seemed to fit in the other’s grasp, like both of them were designed perfectly to fit one another. His legs could curl up right next to Edge’s while his skull rested on the other’s ribs, and when he did so Edge could rest his skull comfortably on top of Classic’s. His brother had called it perfectly, sickeningly sweet, like eating a whole bag of pure sugar. He’d meant it in a good way, though.

“that’s okay, edge. if we all thought the same way then the world would be a really boring place, no bones about it. now, what did your insightful brain come up with for us to watch?”

Edge’s face went from a small frown at the pun that didn’t reach his eye lights to a brilliant smile. “WELL, I WAS THINKING OF STARTING UP…”

=====

Edge had no idea what time it was when the credits started rolling. It was dark outside still, but with the way the snow was falling it could be high noon and still be dark out. He didn’t have his watch available to check. That wasn’t because he didn’t have it on. No, he couldn’t check the time because Classic had fallen asleep while wrapped around that arm like a little koala bear. It was absolutely adorable.

Edge set aside the empty popcorn bowl and grabbed the remote controller with his free hand. He switched off the tv and relaxed into the mound of pillows, content to lay here with his datemate forever.

The sound of the snow hitting the windows and the lullaby of Classic’s snores quickly lulled Edge into a doze. His eyelids drooped. He fought the sleep, wanting to stay awake, but it was a futile effort. He gently drifted into sleep while curled happily around his datemate in a mound of blankets while a snowstorm raged outside.

#kedgeup #Underfell Papyrus #undertale sans #fluff #oneshot #yastaghr

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saltyfilmmajor · 4 years

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Questions

My mother barely holds back her tears as she delivers the eulogy for my father. The church is silent, with only the tears of the congregation to break it. There’s a beautiful glass-stained window behind her, at the top of the altar, illuminated by the mid-morning sun.

“My husband was a loving man, he worked hard for me and my daughter…” my mind begins to wander, not that it was really all there to begin with. It all feels like a bad dream, all muddle up with scary emotions and surreal imagery. You know, like the ones where your teeth fall out in front of everyone. I just want to get away from this place. Full of mourning people who knew my father in different ways. Coworkers, church members, family. And then there’s me. I step outside, no longer wanting to sit idly by as my mother begins to cry, the mascara staining her face.

I stand outside the church wrapped up in my winter coat. It’s been years since I’ve seen some of these people. Cousins and aunts and uncles. People who watched me grow up. It’s funny how time drifted us all apart, we all used to be so close. Was it time or was it me? Mm, perhaps we both share the blame. The cold air nips at my skin keeping me from collapsing from exhaustion. The tiredness of grief I suppose. Still, my eyes begin to droop as I reminisce the last time the family was together about three years ago. They are fond memories, but they all start to blur after a while so I can’t differentiate them. I can hear myself talking.

The syllables roll around like marbles in mouth. My tongue emphasizes the wrong accents, my r’s and double l’s mispronounced like a beginner. I mix up el and la constantly only to be corrected by my father immediately after. Both in our home and amongst family my voice speaks a broken Spanish. I am an outsider to them. The Spanish that rolls off the tongue of my relatives is quick and fluid, like a well-oiled machine. They never need to second guess themselves. They speak with confidence while I speak with shame. Still, I smile and nod.

When my family gets together, we are all crammed in a small apartment. Small children run around, screaming and laughing. Sounds that come with the carelessness of childhood. The smell of food wafts from the kitchen at the other end of the apartment. My aunt and cousins are preparing dinner fussing over pots and pans on a hot stove, making sure that there will be enough for the 30 of us.

Because the apartment is so small, the heat from the kitchen reaches the living and dining rooms. The adults sit around in the living room, with a tv that is somehow too loud and too quiet. They all speak animatedly about sports and work, and old memories of their youth. The children make trouble and I am sitting in the corner observing.

My cousins are older than me, married with young children. They are vulgar but also full of warmth. We joke like teenagers, but I am the youngest of them at 19.

“Prima, what are you going to school for?”

My eyes shift to my father, he is talking to one of my cousins’ wives. He is beaming and joking. I can’t help but think that I am a burden on him. I smile politely and tell them I haven’t decided what I want to major in. That placates them for now.

After a few minutes, dinner is finally served on cheap paper plates and plastic cutlery. The food, however, is made with love and care and I readily devour it in seconds. I sit next to my father; he is already eating his third tamale. I’m glad he is able to enjoy himself. My mother laughs and says, “Remember when my daughter would eat like that?” The comparisons begin again, like at every family gathering. I don’t mind them much. My father and I are alike in temperament and in appetite. However, I suddenly excuse myself from the table and hide in the bathroom. I feel as though I’m failing my father. In a room full of uneducated people, they have their lives set in order. They work, they live, they take care of their families. They aren’t tied down to expectations like I am. I’ve worked my whole life to get into a good school, and now that I’m actually there, I don’t know what to do. This is the first time I realize I was raised with a survivalist mentality. The memory fades back as I remain standing by the entrance of the church.

“Did you get to enjoy your life?” I ask out loud, wondering if he was able to live and enjoy the fruits of his labor. I walk back inside; someone is bound to notice my absence. I’d rather not have gossip run around the walls of the church. Heathens they are, grabbing onto anything that’s unseemly and passing their judgments, even at the funeral of one of their own well-respected members. I feel their eyes stare on at me waiting for me to slip up. Once school began I stopped congregating here. I couldn’t stand their hollow smiles. Sincerity among the church is not a common trait. It is hypocritical of me to judge them, but it’s not like I’d tell them directly how I feel. They won’t know.

I drive home with my mother after my father’s burial. An American grave, against his own wishes. But he’s dead now I don’t think he’d mind. How much is an American grave worth, compared to one from Guatemala? Does it mean the possibility of a better status in the afterlife?

I don’t say that out loud, I don’t think my mother would appreciate it. I can’t help but be flippant otherwise I have to think about my feelings. Reminders that despite my best efforts, I am still a vulnerable human. Grief can cloud your perception, and as horrid as it sounds I’d rather be in my mother’s shoes.

My father’s death leaves questions in its wake I’d rather not contemplate. I’m an over-thinker by trade. I think humanities majors are required by law to be. My mother has fallen asleep and I try to drive carefully. She hasn’t slept in about three days, spending them crying and

eating. While I sleep and have lost my appetite. I wish I could do more for her. The love of her life is gone, and it destroys me inside. But all I can do is drive her home and heat up the leftovers in the fridge. My thoughts go back to my father, even if they never really left him.

He wanted to be buried near his father back home in rural Guatemala. The gravesites painted with colorful hues of purple, pink, and orange, contrasting with the vibrant green of the landscape. Death, at least in the aesthetics, is much more of a celebration in his homeland. Given the incredibly intense Protestant culture that is embedded in the country, I understand why. Death is never the end, twenty years of Sunday morning sermons drilled it into me. Yet now, I find myself questioning it. An American gravesite, making his corpse part of the land that rejected him and his kind. Still, he had managed to find work. Work, work, work. That’s all my dad did. Even in death, all I can think about is how he worked. Worked for our house, our food, my schooling, everything. He took pride in being a breadwinner and being able to be the man of the house. He didn’t have much growing up, so he learned to survive.

As a survivalist you must use the tools available to you. It didn’t matter that I was his daughter and not his son. Gender roles mean little when you aspire for your only offspring to thrive.

I helped him around the house, I helped with the yard work, the heavy lifting, learning how to work on cars and handle money. Along with cooking and cleaning. My status as an only child meant I become much more well-rounded than I otherwise would have been.

My father valued education above all else. Perhaps because it was not available to him. At the tender age of eight, he began to work the land and by thirteen he left school altogether.

He had no childhood. No room to enjoy being a dumb teenager. He passed that on to me, every time I brought home a test grade or a report card. I’d come home and run up the stairs happy to show him the ninety-two I got on my algebra exam, a subject I had struggled in.

“Ok good, but next time you get a one hundred.” He was satisfied, but that was it. No beaming pride, no congratulations. My smile faltered and I’d show my mother, telling her what my father said. We’d laugh about it, but deep down it hurt. He tried to teach me to do better but what he taught me instead was dissatisfaction. It wasn’t good enough. I had to get straight A’s, to get into a good school, to get a good job, to become successful.

I graduate soon at the end of the semester. Four long, hard years capping off a chapter I’ve spent almost my entire life working towards. But now after working so hard for a degree he spent my entire life telling me to aspire towards, he’s just gone. Dead, never to rise again.

All these years of pressure to get a piece of paper that says I went to college and he has the audacity to die.

“Are you proud of me? Were you ever proud of me?”

The question stirs in me and I am frightened by the fact that I truly don’t know the answer. Understanding my father’s motives does not bring me closure and asking questions just makes me angry. He taught me everything he could, but I still feel unprepared. What do I do without him here, telling me to aspire for more? All he ever wanted was to do was survive but he wanted me to want to live. Grammar nerds would say those words mean the same, but linguists would beg to differ. Although I side with the linguists I’d rather not argue about the semantics in my head, especially not while my mother is still fast asleep.

The sun has since set and the front of our house is cold and uninviting. My father’s car is in the driveway, so I park in the street. Even in something so innocuous my father is still

influencing my decisions. The more pertinent decision to make is will I choose to live or merely survive? Will I be like my father or will I become his expectations of me?

Maybe I’ll take the third option and just stop asking.

#my writing #Advanced Creative Fiction Workshop #Finally getting around to posting this #writing #supergeekytoon

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samstiels-deactivated20201212 · 5 years

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The Entire Article Under The Cut

Game of Thrones, in its eighth and final season, is as big as television gets these days. More than 17 million people watched the season’s opening. Judging by the fan and critic reaction though, it seems that a substantial portion of those millions are loathing the season. Indeed, most of the reviews and fan discussions seem to be pondering where the acclaimed series went wrong, with many theories on exactly why it went downhill.

The show did indeed take a turn for the worse, but the reasons for that downturn go way deeper than the usual suspects that have been identified (new and inferior writers, shortened season, too many plot holes). It’s not that these are incorrect, but they’re just superficial shifts. In fact, the souring of Game of Thrones exposes a fundamental shortcoming of our storytelling culture in general: we don’t really know how to tell sociological stories.

At its best, GOT was a beast as rare as a friendly dragon in King’s Landing: it was sociological and institutional storytelling in a medium dominated by the psychological and the individual. This structural storytelling era of the show lasted through the seasons when it was based on the novels by George R. R. Martin, who seemed to specialize in having characters evolve in response to the broader institutional settings, incentives and norms that surround them.

After the show ran ahead of the novels, however, it was taken over by powerful Hollywood showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. Some fans and critics have been assuming that the duo changed the narrative to fit Hollywood tropes or to speed things up, but that’s unlikely. In fact, they probably stuck to the narrative points that were given to them, if only in outline form, by the original author. What they did is something different, but in many ways more fundamental: Benioff and Weiss steer the narrative lane away from the sociological and shifted to the psychological. That’s the main, and often only, way Hollywood and most television writers tell stories.

This is an important shift to dissect because whether we tell our stories primarily from a sociological or psychological point of view has great consequences for how we deal with our world and the problems we encounter.

I encounter this shortcoming a lot in my own area of writing—technology and society. Our inability to understand and tell sociological stories is one of the key reasons we’re struggling with how to respond to the historic technological transition we’re currently experiencing with digital technology and machine intelligence—but more on all that later. Let’s first go over what happened to Game of Thrones.

WHAT STORYTELLING IT WAS AND WHAT IT BECAME IN GOT

It’s easy to miss this fundamental narrative lane change and blame the series’ downturn on plain old bad writing by Benioff and Weiss—partly because they are genuinely bad at it. They didn’t just switch the explanatory dynamics of the story, they did a terrible job in the new lane as well.

One could, for example, easily focus on the abundance of plot holes. The dragons, for example seem to switch between comic-book indestructible to vulnerable from one episode to another. And it was hard to keep a straight face when Jaime Lannister ended up on a tiny cove along a vast, vast shoreline at the exact moment the villain Euron Greyjoy swam to that very point from his sinking ship to confront him. How convenient!

Similarly, character arcs meticulously drawn over many seasons seem to have been abandoned on a whim, turning the players into caricatures instead of personalities. Brienne of Tarth seems to exist for no reason, for example; Tyrion Lannister is all of a sudden turned into a murderous snitch while also losing all his intellectual gifts (he hasn’t made a single correct decision the entire season). And who knows what on earth is up with Bran Stark, except that he seems to be kept on as some sort of extra Stark?

But all that is surface stuff. Even if the new season had managed to minimize plot holes and avoid clunky coincidences and a clumsy Arya ex machina as a storytelling device, they couldn’t persist in the narrative lane of the past seasons. For Benioff and Weiss, trying to continue what Game of Thrones had set out to do, tell a compelling sociological story, would be like trying to eat melting ice cream with a fork. Hollywood mostly knows how to tell psychological, individualized stories. They do not have the right tools for sociological stories, nor do they even seem to understand the job.

To understand the narrative lane shift, let’s go back to a key question: Why did so many love Game of Thrones in the first place? What makes it stand out from so many other shows during an era critics call the Second Golden Age of Television because there are so many high-quality productions out there?

The initial fan interest and ensuing loyalty wasn’t just about the brilliant acting and superb cinematography, sound, editing and directing. None of those are that unique to GOT, and all of them remain excellent through this otherwise terrible last season.

One clue is clearly the show’s willingness to kill off major characters, early and often, without losing the thread of the story. TV shows that travel in the psychological lane rarely do that because they depend on viewers identifying with the characters and becoming invested in them to carry the story, rather than looking at the bigger picture of the society, institutions and norms that we interact with and which shape us. They can’t just kill major characters because those are the key tools with which they’re building the story and using as hooks to hold viewers.

In contrast, Game of Thrones killed Ned Stark abruptly at the end of the first season, after building the whole season and, by implication, the entire series around him. The second season developed a replacement Stark heir, which appeared like a more traditional continuation of the narrative. The third season, however, had him and his pregnant wife murdered in a particularly bloody way. And so it went. The story moved on; many characters did not.

The appeal of a show that routinely kills major characters signals a different kind of storytelling, where a single charismatic and/or powerful individual, along with his or her internal dynamics, doesn’t carry the whole narrative and explanatory burden. Given the dearth of such narratives in fiction and in TV, this approach clearly resonated with a large fan base that latched on to the show.

In sociological storytelling, the characters have personal stories and agency, of course, but those are also greatly shaped by institutions and events around them. The incentives for characters’ behavior come noticeably from these external forces, too, and even strongly influence their inner life.

People then fit their internal narrative to align with their incentives, justifying and rationalizing their behavior along the way. (Thus the famous Upton Sinclair quip: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”)

The overly personal mode of storytelling or analysis leaves us bereft of deeper comprehension of events and history. Understanding Hitler’s personality alone will not tell us much about rise of fascism, for example. Not that it didn’t matter, but a different demagogue would probably have appeared to take his place in Germany in between the two bloody world wars in the 20th century. Hence, the answer to “would you kill baby Hitler?,” sometimes presented as an ethical time-travel challenge, should be “no,” because it would very likely not matter much. It is not a true dilemma.

We also have a bias for the individual as the locus of agency in interpreting our own everyday life and the behavior of others. We tend to seek internal, psychological explanations for the behavior of those around us while making situational excuses for our own. This is such a common way of looking at the world that social psychologists have a word for it: the fundamental attribution error.

When someone wrongs us, we tend to think they are evil, misguided or selfish: a personalized explanation. But when we misbehave, we are better at recognizing the external pressures on us that shape our actions: a situational understanding. If you snap at a coworker, for example, you may rationalize your behavior by remembering that you had difficulty sleeping last night and had financial struggles this month. You’re not evil, just stressed! The coworker who snaps at you, however, is more likely to be interpreted as a jerk, without going through the same kind of rationalization. This is convenient for our peace of mind, and fits with our domain of knowledge, too. We know what pressures us, but not necessarily others.

That tension between internal stories and desires, psychology and external pressures, institutions, norms and events was exactly what Game of Thrones showed us for many of its characters, creating rich tapestries of psychology but also behavior that was neither saintly nor fully evil at any one point. It was something more than that: you could understand why even the characters undertaking evil acts were doing what they did, how their good intentions got subverted, and how incentives structured behavior. The complexity made it much richer than a simplistic morality tale, where unadulterated good fights with evil.

The hallmark of sociological storytelling is if it can encourage us to put ourselves in the place of any character, not just the main hero/heroine, and imagine ourselves making similar choices. “Yeah, I can see myself doing that under such circumstances” is a way into a broader, deeper understanding. It’s not just empathy: we of course empathize with victims and good people, not with evildoers.

But if we can better understand how and why characters make their choices, we can also think about how to structure our world that encourages better choices for everyone. The alternative is an often futile appeal to the better angels of our nature. It’s not that they don’t exist, but they exist along with baser and lesser motives. The question isn’t to identify the few angels but to make it easier for everyone to make the choices that, collectively, would lead us all to a better place.

Another example of sociological TV drama with a similarly enthusiastic fan following is David Simon’s The Wire, which followed the trajectory of a variety of actors in Baltimore, ranging from African-Americans in the impoverished and neglected inner city trying to survive, to police officers to journalists to unionized dock workers to city officials and teachers. That show, too, killed off its main characters regularly, without losing its audience. Interestingly, the star of each season was an institution more than a person. The second season, for example, focused on the demise of the unionized working class in the U.S.; the fourth highlighted schools; and the final season focused on the role of journalism and mass media.

Luckily for The Wire, creative control never shifted to the standard Hollywood narrative writers who would have given us individuals to root for or hate without being able to fully understand the circumstances that shape them. One thing that’s striking about The Wire is how one could understand all the characters, not just the good ones (and in fact, none of them were just good or bad). When that’s the case, you know you’re watching a sociological story.

WHY GOT PAUSED KILLING MAJOR CHARACTERS

Tellingly, season eight shocked many viewers by … not initially killing off the main characters. It was the first big indicator of their shift—that they were putting the weight of the story on the individual and abandoning the sociological. In that vein, they had fan-favorite characters pull off stunts we could root and cheer for, like Arya Stark killing the Night King in a somewhat improbable fashion.

For seven seasons, the show had focused on the sociology of what an external, otherized threat—such as the Night King, the Army of the Undead and the Winter to Come—would do to competing rivalries within the opposing camp. Having killed one of the main sociological tensions that had animated the whole series with one well-placed knife-stab, Benioff and Weiss then turned to ruining the other sociological tension: the story of the corruption of power.

This corruption of power was crucially illustrated in Cersei Lannister’s rise and evolution from victim (if a selfish one) to evil actor, and this was clearly meant also to be the story of her main challenger, Daenerys Targaryen. Dany had started out wanting to be the breaker of chains, with moral choices weighing heavily on her, and season by season, we have witnessed her, however reluctantly, being shaped by the tools that were available to her and that she embraced: war, dragons, fire.

Done right, it would have been a fascinating and dynamic story: rivals transforming into each other as they seek absolute power with murderous tools, one starting from a selfish perspective (her desire to have her children rule) and the other from an altruistic one (her desire to free slaves and captive people, of which she was once one).

The corruption of power is one of the most important psychosocial dynamics behind many important turning points in history, and in how the ills of society arise. In response, we have created elections, checks and balances, and laws and mechanisms that constrain the executive.

Destructive historical figures often believe that they must stay in power because it is they, and only they, who can lead the people—and that any alternative would be calamitous. Leaders tend to get isolated, become surrounded by sycophants and succumb easily to the human tendency to self-rationalize. There are several examples in history of a leader who starts in opposition with the best of intentions, like Dany, and ends up acting brutally and turning into a tyrant if they take power.

Told sociologically, Dany’s descent into a cruel mass-murderer would have been a strong and riveting story. Yet in the hands of two writers who do not understand how to advance the narrative in that lane, it became ridiculous. She attacks King’s Landing with Drogon, her dragon, and wins, with the bells of the city ringing in surrender. Then, suddenly, she goes on a rampage because, somehow, her tyrannical genes turn on.

Varys, the advisor who will die for trying to stop Dany, says to Tyrion that “every time a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.” That is straight-up and simplistic genetic determinism, rather than what we had been witnessing for the past seven seasons. Again, sociological stories don’t discount the personal, psychological and even the genetic, but the key point is that they are more than “coin tosses”—they are complex interactions with emergent consequences: the way the world actually works.

In interviews after that episode, Benioff and Weiss confess that they turned it into a spontaneous moment. Weiss says, “ I don’t think she decided ahead of time that she was going to do what she did. And then she sees the Red Keep, which is, to her, the home that her family built when they first came over to this country 300 years ago. It’s in that moment, on the walls of King’s Landing, when she’s looking at that symbol of everything that was taken from her, when she makes the decision to make this personal.”

Benioff and Weiss were almost certainly given the “Mad Queen” ending to Game of Thrones by the original writer, George R. R. Martin. For them, however, this was the eating-ice-cream-with-a-fork problem I mentioned above. They could keep the story, but not the storytelling method. They could only make it into a momentary turn that is part spontaneous psychology and part deterministic genetics.

WHY SOCIOLOGICAL STORYTELLING MATTERS

Whether done well or badly, the psychological/internal genre leaves us unable to understand and react to social change. Arguably, the dominance of the psychological and hero/antihero narrative is also the reason we are having such a difficult time dealing with the current historic technology transition. So this essay is more than about one TV show with dragons.

In my own area of research and writing, the impact of digital technology and machine intelligence on society, I encounter this obstacle all the time. There are a significant number of stories, books, narratives and journalistic accounts that focus on the personalities of key players such as Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Jack Dorsey and Jeff Bezos. Of course, their personalities matter, but only in the context of business models, technological advances, the political environment, (lack of) meaningful regulation, the existing economic and political forces that fuel wealth inequality and lack of accountability for powerful actors, geopolitical dynamics, societal characteristics and more.

It’s reasonable, for example, for a corporation to ponder who would be the best CEO or COO, but it’s not reasonable for us to expect that we could take any one of those actors and replace them with another person and get dramatically different results without changing the structures, incentives and forces that shape how they and their companies act in this world.

The preference for the individual and psychological narrative is understandable: the story is easier to tell as we gravitate toward identifying with the hero or hating the antihero, at the personal level. We are, after all, also persons!

In German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s classic play, Life of Galileo, Andrea, a former pupil of Galileo, visits him after he recants his seminal findings under pressure from the Catholic Church. Galileo gives Andrea his notebooks, asking him to spread the knowledge they contain. Andrea celebrates this, saying “unhappy is the land that breeds no hero.” Galileo corrects him: “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”

Well-run societies don’t need heroes, and the way to keep terrible impulses in check isn’t to dethrone antiheros and replace them with good people. Unfortunately, most of our storytelling—in fiction and also in mass media nonfiction—remains stuck in the hero/antihero narrative. It’s a pity Game of Thrones did not manage to conclude its last season in its original vein. In a historic moment that requires a lot of institution building and incentive changing (technological challenges, climate change, inequality and accountability) we need all the sociological imagination we can get, and fantasy dragons or not, it was nice to have a show that encouraged just that while it lasted.

#got #wank for ts #sort of #SOMEONE PUT IT INTO WORDS

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super-cerulean · 6 years

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Beautiful Liar

Part One/Part Two

I hope you guys enjoy this story because it's a fun change of pace from what I normally write. This idea gets more positive later on, I promise 😂

Summary: An expensive taste and a knack for stealing hearts led you to a gala full of Gotham’s richest socialites. Your next target would be the Wayne family, but you weren’t sure just which one to go for. If you pulled it off, it had the potential to be your biggest score yet. All you had to do was play your cards right.

Warnings: Language, kind of dark, major themes of manipulation

Contrary to what most people assumed, your romantic partners weren't your only source of income. They certainly helped keep your wardrobe up to date, but you didn't rely on them for paying bills or anything too important. It was a hobby after all. Your actual job paid well and allowed you to move cities at your own discretion. You had a knack for fashion, especially when it came to your own closet, so it only made sense that you were an amazing stylist. It was hard at first getting your name out there, but eventually you were able to get jobs working on plenty of photoshoots, tv shows and even a few indie movies. Being someone who worked behind the scenes, your name and face weren't well known unless someone was in need of your services. That made your "hobby" a lot easier. Normally, you kept your work life and your private life completely independent of one another, even going as far as to lie about where you worked to keep your anyone you were talking to from interfering. The day Jason Todd showed up at your job was the day you realized that this scheme would be different than the others, for better or for worse.

It had to have been around a week after you met him at the gala. For the time being you busied yourself with work around Gotham and getting to know the city. The rumors that the city was dangerous held true as in that one week you'd seen and heard about more crime than you'd seen in the past five years. It rarely happened near you but goddamn that city was crazy. Thankfully, you mads quick friends with some of your coworkers and they taught you a lot about surviving the insane amounts of crime. You might never get used to living there but at least you knew which places to avoid like the plague.

Jason showed up without warning one day after work. For the time being you worked at a photography company where models and other Gotham celebrities came to do photoshoots. You were heading out, done working for the day and deciding where you would go for dinner when the receptionist stopped you.

"Just a moment! There was someone who requested to speak with you when you were done." You stopped, turning around with a surprised expression. The receptionist pointed you towards the lobby and you nodded, heading in that direction. It was a little early for you to have your own clients requesting your services, so you honestly had no idea who it could be. When you saw Jason Todd standing there in a dress shirt black slacks, you almost dropped everything you were carrying.

"Hey?" you said cautiously when you reached the lobby. He looked up from his phone at the sound of your voice and smiled. There were a lot of chairs in the room for clients to sit and wait and he was sat in one of them near the center. He stood when he saw you and met you halfway.

"What are you doing here?"

"This is kind of embarrassing," he mumbled, looking at you with sheepish eyes. "I have this thing I need to go to that I need a date for and you're the only person I could think of."

You tilted your head in confusion, watching him shift under your gaze. Of course, this was a goddamn blessing for you, but you knew better than to not ask any questions. Nobody asked for something like this without hidden motives; you knew that better than anyone.

"Why me? You don't have any other friends you could ask?"

"Well yeah, but at the place I'm going...I have a job to do and I don't want anyone coming up to me. When we hung out at the party, nobody tried flirting with me so I was hoping you'd do the same thing again."

There it was. "Oh so you need like a fake girlfriend," you clarified. Jason flinched at your wording but nodded.

"It sounds pathetic when you say it like that," he replied. "But yeah. I wanted someone kind of out of my circle so it wouldn’t be as confusing and weird."

Watching him, a feeling settled into the back of your mind. By the way he carefully chose his words and how he seemed to react when you asked questions, you knew there was more to the story. Still, his request was simple enough and it was an opportunity to get closer to him. How could you refuse?

"Sounds simple enough. When's the occasion?"

"Right now," Jason responded. You couldn't help dropping your jaw a little when he said that.

"That's a little short notice," you gasped. "I'm not even dressed for anything right now."

"I know, I'm sorry. This whole thing was sudden. We can stop on the way and get you something to wear. There are plenty of stores around here."

A new outfit? Now you were really sold. You retained your apprehension outwardly though, not wanting Jason to know you were sold purely on the premise that he would buy you something. Still, you had to ask to be sure.

"Hm...do I get to keep the outfit?"

"Yeah, for sure. Think of it as compensation for agreeing to going with me," he added quickly.

"I guess that's fair," you said finally. "I don’t have any other plans tonight, so I might as well"

"Thanks, you're a lifesaver!" Jason quickly took your hand, tugging you towards the entrance to the building. Your mind was still reeling at the fact that he not only sought you out, but that he he was already asking you out on a date. Granted, it was a fake date, you still counted it as a win in your book.

"I have a car waiting. Do you need to drop anything off at yours?" You looked up at his question, pulling yourself from your thoughts. His hand still hung loosely in yours as you walked with him into the parking structure but you elected not to say anything about it.

"No, I uber to work. It costs less than the parking in this building," you explained. Jason nodded, returning his attention to looking for his car.

"Okay, I'll take you home afterwards then." You let him lead you to where his car was parked and he opened the door for you and let you in. After you were fully in the vehicle, he closed the door and rounded the car to enter the driver’s seat.

“Here, you can put your bag in the back,” he said, eyes landing on your backpack. You nodded, reaching back to rest your bag on the floor beneath the back seats while Jason started the car. He was pulling out of the parking space before you were even back to sitting in your seat. You were a bit shocked at the sudden movement and hurriedly put your seatbelt on.

“By the way, how did you find out where I worked?” You asked after you were out of the parking structure. You remembered he also knew your name at the gala when you hadn’t even told him. For a split second, you wondered if this was maybe a bad idea. You really didn’t know him at all and you just hopped into his car without asking that many questions. It would be just your luck that you got kidnapped and murdered trying to finesse more money into your bank account.

“You dropped your business card at the gala,” he said simply. You recalled offering some of them to a few people at the party so it wouldn’t be impossible for you to have dropped one of them. The only problem was that you hadn’t had time to make them for your new job yet. They still listed your old place of employment and if Jason had called any of your contact numbers you would have known about it.

“I haven’t made any with my current job, though. Those are outdated.”

“Yeah, but your name isn’t. It’s not hard to find people, especially in Gotham. We love to gossip,” he explained. He was right about that. Finding information on people was way too easy with the internet, especially when they were well known. Someone doing research on you, however, was something you hadn’t experienced before. The thought of him finding out what you’d done in the past made you second guess your entire plan. But would he have really invited you out if he knew the truth?

Shaking the thought out of your mind, you decided to focus on the present. Jason was parking the car a long a long strip of neon illuminated stores. There were all types of stores settled nearby that created a kind of strip mall in the middle of the city. You still hadn’t gone shopping much since you’d moved to the city so all of the stores were new to you. It took every ounce of willpower you could muster not to look like a kid in a candy store.

“We’re kind of short on time, so tell me your size and we can split up to pick something out,” he said when you entered the first store. You eyed him with a glare when he said this so he quickly spoke up again. “I promise I won’t judge whatever number you tell me.”

Sighing, you told him what size to look for and he set off on to the other side of the shop. The store was small, but it seemed like a high end type of store. The kind where the most expensive outfit on the shelves whispers sweet nothings into your ear, coercing you into finding a way to own it in any way possible.The kind that made your heart turn to stone.

Considering this was the first time Jason offered to buy you something, you forced yourself to stay on a short leash. Nothing too expensive. You limited your search to things that were simple, fighting the lingering gaze on what you saw that was extravagant. Those would have to wait for another time. Right now, you needed to stay focused on keeping up an image.

Jason approached you not too long after you started looking. Truthfully, you’d only found a few things that caught your eye with the limits you were placing on yourself. Jason however, came through with his arms absolutely suffocated in hangars and fabric. “Hey, you ready to try some stuff on?”

“Jesus, did you take out a whole shelf?” You said, aghast. You took some of the outfits out of his arms, eyes darting across them. You prayed to god he didn’t see the way your face lit up when he brought all of those clothes over because this time, you just couldn’t help it.

“I just grabbed what I thought might look good on you. Come on, I’ll get you a changing room.” You nodded, following his long strides across the store. There were a few things that you had been looking at earlier in the pile and seeing them made your heart flutter a little. The fact that he just haphazardly picked up whatever he saw made it so much harder for you to not take advantage of him too much. But if he cared about how much he spent he would have looked at the price tag.

Still hesitant to go all out, you tried on everything that he gave you. You saved some of the things you were drawn to for last, knowing that if you tried them on and liked how they looked it would take a miracle for you to politely decline. He was pushing your self control to the limits. When you finally moved passed all of the cheaper outfits you both picked out and jason declined them, you were left with the more expensive clothing. The first few were nice, but it wasn’t until the fourth one you tried on that Jason responded positively.

“That,” he said, eyes combing over you as you exited the dressing room. “That’s it.” Your heart was racing. Not because he was looking at you, but because the outfit was to-fucking-die for. It was too much though. You had to say something.

“This is really expensive...Maybe we should try another store,” you said sheepishly. Jason shaking his head almost made you scream.

“No time,” he responded simply. "It's fine, I'll put it on Bruce's tab. This is like a penny to him." You didn't argue. Warning him once was enough and if he didnt care about using Bruce Wayne's money to buy you something, who are you to stop him? Instead, you stayed silent, nodding as he gathered your things. You followed him to the cashier and they were able to check you out without you having to change into your clothes again. And just like that, Jason swiped a card and the outfit was yours . Suddenly, you remembered why you were so addicted to this. The rush of euphoria that followed walking out of the store made whatever Jason had in store for you completely worth it and any hesitation you had about going with him vanished. It was pretty fucked up; you knew that, but at some point you just stopped caring.

#jason todd x reader #jason todd #jason todd imagine #red hood x reader #red hood #red hood imagine #idk what to tag this tbh #manipulation

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theamazingsallyhogan · 5 years

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The show did indeed take a turn for the worse, but the reasons for that downturn goes way deeper than the usual suspects that have been identified (new and inferior writers, shortened season, too many plot holes). It’s not that these are incorrect, but they’re just superficial shifts. In fact, the souring of Game of Thrones exposes a fundamental shortcoming of our storytelling culture in general: we don’t really know how to tell sociological stories.

WHAT STORYTELLING IT WAS AND WHAT IT BECAME IN GOT

WHY GOT PAUSED KILLING MAJOR CHARACTERS

WHY SOCIOLOGICAL STORYTELLING MATTERS

In German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s classic play, Life of Galileo,Andrea, a former pupil of Galileo, visits him after he recants his seminal findings under pressure from the Catholic Church. Galileo gives Andrea his notebooks, asking him to spread the knowledge they contain. Andrea celebrates this, saying “unhappy is the land that breeds no hero.” Galileo corrects him: “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

#game of thrones #game of thrones spoilers #got spoilers #got #spoilers #scientific american #long post

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minyoongijjangjjangmanboongboong · 5 years

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Penumbra: An Interactive BTS Horror Story Part VI

Premise: Seven friends return to their old high school for one last night of mayhem before the building is condemned. But everything is not as it seems… What will the group do when they find themselves trapped in a warped hellscape with no means of escaping?

That…is up to you.

The Rules: To participate in this story, all you need to do is vote. At the end of each chapter, you will have five hours to make a decision via the poll provided. Do this or do that: you decide. Whichever option receives the majority of the votes is the path we will all follow together so please…choose wisely.

Your first unanimous choice. Very interesting. Yoongi follows Hoseok.

Now what will the boys do? Vote here. Want to know more about the characters before you vote? Read this.

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

Masterlist

WARNING: This story contains material that some readers may find frightening, disturbing, or unsettling. If you are sensitive to graphic imagery or dark situations, proceed with caution. Please read at your own risk.

Yoongi watches Hoseok’s back retreat and rushes after him. Over his shoulder, he shouts, “Please be careful! I’ll bring him back!”

Jimin and Jungkook watch him go with wide eyes, still standing in the doorway. All Yoongi can do is have a little faith in them. Surely, they’re much more capable than he thinks they are. They can take care of themselves…

Right?

Yoongi shakes his head and follows Hoseok’s trail. He rounds the corner Hoseok had taken and finds a winding hallway he doesn’t recognize. He has no time to ponder it, forced to sprint at top speed after his friend whose silhouette is becoming smaller and smaller. This new hallway shoots off in a million directions, dark corridors leading into places Yoongi will never know. The wallpaper is peeling in the corners and the ground is marred with missing boards.

Yoongi continues his mad dash down the hall, but pauses in his tracks when he hears distinct, chesty sniffling. He whips his head around and turns to see a stairwell, lit only with a flickering fluorescent bulb coming from several stories up. The sniffling is quiet, but it’s not coming from this floor either. With a sigh, Yoongi takes the stairs and slowly ascends to the first landing. He glances around the dark cement slab and finds nothing, but the sound of crying is growing louder. He hops up the next flight of stairs and finds a figure huddled in the corner, hunched over. Briefly, Yoongi panics wondering if this is truly his friend or simply another trick of this hellish building. But as he watches the darkened figure’s shoulders rise and fall with a quiver, he knows his fears are unwarranted. Carefully, he approaches and slides to the ground beside Hoseok. The boy says nothing as Yoongi’s arrival, simply shifts slightly away, further into his corner.

“That was a very stupid thing to do,” says Yoongi, but his tone isn’t scolding like he expected. It’s simply…tired.

Hoseok lifts his gaze and looks at Yoongi. His eyes are bloodshot and his skin looks pale, sickly. He’s probably getting hungry and exhausted, just like the rest of them. Yoongi sighs and places a hand on Hoseok’s knee, patting it a few times. Hoseok is edgy as he receives the gesture with wide eyes.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Yoongi says.

Hoseok sniffles and wipes beneath his nose. “Why’d you come?” he asks through his tears.

Yoongi shrugs and examines his cuticles. “You shouldn’t be alone in here. It’s dangerous.”

“You came for me last time too,” Hoseok says carefully, as if he can’t trust Yoongi.

He glances away and watches the floor, the third-floor hallway stretching out through the open doorway. “Like I said,” he begins, pouting slightly, “it’s dangerous.”

“Doesn’t seem like something you’d do,” Hoseok says. “Let alone twice.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes. “Are you really gonna make me say it, Hoseok?” he asks, turning his dark eyes to his friend.

Hoseok seems startled and leans away, frightened. “Say what?”

Yoongi sighs. “I care about you,” he says quietly. “All of you guys.” He digs the toe of his sneaker into the floor, disrupting the fine layer of dust sitting there.

“You do?”

“Did you really not know?”

Hoseok shakes his head. “I thought you only hung around us because of Jin.”

Yoongi’s eyes go wide. “You really thought that?” he asks.

Hoseok shrugs, still visibly wary. “Yeah.”

Yoongi can’t deny that Hoseok’s words hurt him. They sting as they strike his chest. He shakes his head and runs his hands through his hair. Back when they first woke up, Taehyung had mentioned something similar. That Yoongi didn’t care. Yoongi’s stomach feels cold. His best friends…do they really think so lowly of him?

And could he really blame them?

“I love you guys,” he says quietly, unable to look Hoseok in the eyes. “You know my relationship with my parents is…rough.”

Patiently, Yoongi awaits Hoseok’s response. But it doesn’t come for a while. “Yeah…,” is all he says.

Yoongi rubs his nose and shrugs. “For a while, you guys have been like…like my family. My parents, they hated that I wanted to pursue producing. You remember how it was,” he says with a sigh. “They’re so stubborn and emotionless. They don’t wanna listen to anyone and they’re way too cautious,” he says, then pauses and breathes out a wry laugh. “Now that I think about it, the things I hate most about them are the things I hate most about myself.”

Hoseok is quiet for a long moment before, gently, he reaches out and takes Yoongi’s rough hand in his soft one. “I’m sorry I doubted you,” he says in a whisper.

Yoongi shrugs. “I don’t tell you guys enough how much you mean to me,” he says, then shakes his head with a grunt. “It’s hard for me…you know, to…talk about that kinda stuff.”

Hoseok nods and gives Yoongi’s hand a squeeze. “I understand,” he says. “I should have known. You don’t say how you feel, but you show it.” Hoseok’s voice carries a smile. “Like when Yujin broke up with me and you came all the way to my apartment with like two boxes of ramen and your pirated copy of Train to Busan.” Hoseok pauses to laugh.

Yoongi remembers that night, and can’t help but laugh too. He’d arrived at midnight at Hoseok’s apartment and pounded on the door until he opened up, eyes puffy and cheeks red from crying. Wordlessly, Yoongi had pushed his way inside and set his items down on Hoseok’s crooked dining table, removing the ramen from its boxes and slamming bottles of soju on the tabletop. Hoseok, stunned, had followed after him in the messy apartment, picking up his strewn about clothes and folding them, tossing them into the darkness of his bedroom before Yoongi could see them.

Yoongi saw them anyway.

“What are you doing here?” asked Hoseok with wide eyes, practically swimming in his massive sweatshirt.

Yoongi shrugged and pulled his laptop from his backpack. He tossed a look over his shoulder at Hoseok. “I downloaded Train to Busan and I wanted to watch it. I figured you’d be free.”

Hoseok blinked at him, scanning his small living room for a moment before turning back to Yoongi. “I…I mean, isn’t Jin home?”

Yoongi shook his head. “Nope. Working.”

Hoseok scratched his head and pursed his lips. “What about the other guys?”

“Do you wanna watch it or not?” asked Yoongi, turning with a hand on his hip.

Hoseok’s eyes went wide and he nodded. “Y-yeah! For sure. I’ve heard it’s really good,” he said.

Yoongi nodded and removed his jacket, sitting in front of the TV and fiddling with the cables. “I’m gonna plug in my laptop. Start on the ramen and open some soju for me, will you?”

Hoseok startled and nodded. “Yes, Sir!” he called with a laugh.

Yoongi was so relieved when he laughed like that. All day he’d been worried about him. Ever since Jimin texted him about it, asking him to be a bit gentle towards their broken-hearted friend, Yoongi hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. He’d stared at his monitor at the studio for hours, unable to find even one punch of inspiration. His coworkers had teased him for being so air headed all day, but all he could think of was Hoseok, crying alone in his apartment, too sad to even reach out for help.

Hoseok chuckles now and shakes his head. “I texted Jin during the movie to ask how work was going and he said he was at home,” he says. “I shouldn’t have been so suspicious of you.”

Yoongi shrugs and picks at a loose thread on his shirt. “It’s this place. It’s getting to your head,” he says.

Hoseok inhales slowly and nods. “You’re right.”

“Let’s head back,” says Yoongi. His chest feels tight, like he might cry. He never knew that Hoseok had found him out. Being understood by someone, being cared for by them…the feeling of it almost overwhelms Yoongi.

Yoongi stands first and offers Hoseok his hand to help him to his feet. Hoseok dusts off his pants and offers Yoongi a very soft, faint smile. He holds on to his hand for a moment. “I think you’re really brave,” says Hoseok, staring at the ground. “To be able to do what you love even though your family disapproves…I think you’ve got a lot of courage.”

Yoongi blushes and his back stiffens. “What?”

Hoseok shrugs and retracts his hand. “I dunno. Coming after me, thinking of what’s best for the group even if it makes people mad, running around this place by yourself,” he says. “I think you’re probably the bravest one of us.”

Yoongi clears his throat and rubs his neck. All this time, he’s thought of himself as a horribly cautious, safe person. Perhaps this place has brought something out of him that he didn’t know was there. Yoongi takes a bracing breath and remembers his family. He’s always been too afraid to talk to them honestly about everything that happened, about them telling him he was a disappointment, about him telling them he hated them…he’s always wanted to break the silence. But he’s been frightened. Frightened that opening up meant opening a door that can’t be shut.

But now, the thought of never seeing them again, never having the opportunity to tell them he loves them, being forgotten…

“Say,” he says with a cough as Hoseok smiles beside him. “If we make it outta here, I’m gonna visit my parents.”

Hoseok grins. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Hoseok hooks an arm around Yoongi’s neck and laughs loudly in his ear. “That’s a great idea!”

Yoongi swats him away and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Let’s just get back down to the boys.”

Hoseok chuckles and follows behind him. But as Yoongi turns to descend the stairs, what is waiting at the landing below them makes his blood run cold and his heart kick up like a train engine.

“I wonder if they’re okay…,” says Jungkook, peering across the classroom toward Jimin.

Jimin sits with his back against a few upturned desks, watching the ground. His heart is hammering. Four hours now he’s been trying to force himself to be brave, to be strong, to be tough. But now that he has someone depending on him, he can’t seem to shake his own persistent fear. Jungkook looks to him like a little brother, eyes round like saucers and face flushed with worry. Jimin is worried too, but he’s backed himself into a corner. He can’t express his own concerns for fear of worsening Jungkook’s. His resolve is shaking with every passing minute without the older boys. He’s not cut out for this. He’s not cut out for being in charge, for protecting people. He’s cut out for comforting people after the bad thing happens, not preventing the bad thing. But Jungkook is looking at him with such a neediness, an indescribable wishfulness. There’s something in his eyes that’s pleading with Jimin. And Jimin feels the full weight of his friend’s pleas on his shoulders.

He clears his throat and nods, staring at the floor once more. “I’m sure they’re fine. It’s only been a minute.”

“What about the others? Tae and Jin and Namjoon?” asks Jungkook.

Jimin doesn’t know what to say. Empty platitudes? Promises that they’re fine when he can’t even convince himself of it? He simply presses his lips thin and sucks in his breath. The classroom is cold now that the others are gone, and distantly Jimin can hear faint groaning, like the building itself is stretching. He’s unnerved, and his senses are alight with adrenaline. He’s the first line of defense now. He’s the oldest.

And now Jungkook needs him.

How long has Jimin spent needing other people?

He swallows and forces a smile. “Don’t worry too much. We’ll reconnect soon, okay?” he says gently, scooting towards Jungkook and wrapping an arm around his broad shoulders.

Jungkook looks at him with knitted brows. He hasn’t been the same since they all arrived in this place. None of them have. Something about this building seems to pry a person open and reveal the true thing underneath. Jimin can remember all the fun times they all had together, the nights that felt like they’d never end, the moments he wished would last forever. The everyday worries and doubts that shook his world seem to him now so trivial, so small. He longs for the days when his biggest troubles were if his dance was good enough or if he would pass an audition. Now, those fears seem so far away. Like they belong to someone else, like they never belonged to him at all.

“I keep thinking about what that girl said,” Jungkook whispers, leaning into Jimin’s side. ��About being Taeyong’s sister.”

Jimin stiffens and swallows his fear. He nods his head. “Yeah?”

“What if…what if when you die here…nobody remembers you? What if you’re just…erased?” he asks.

Jimin shivers, but tries to keep Jungkook from feeling it by leaning slightly back. “Let’s not think about that.”

Jungkook shakes his head. “It’s all I can think about.”

“Instead of that, try thinking about all the things you’re gonna do when you get out,” says Jimin with a nod. “For me, I’m gonna go to Seoul and watch the sunset on Achasan. Taehyung says it was really pretty when he went a few years ago. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”

Jungkook nods. “Can I come with?”

“Sure,” says Jimin, then hums. “You know what else I’m gonna do?”

“What?”

He smiles. “I’m gonna take singing lessons.”

Jungkook chuckles. “You sing fine.”

“But I’ve always wanted to.”

Jungkook nods. “I’m gonna sleep on the beach, even if it’s illegal,” he says.

Jimin laughs. “What else?”

Jungkook’s voice becomes stronger and he leans away from Jimin’s side with a small smile. “I’m gonna burn my old college textbooks. They bum me out.”

Jimin can’t help but laugh. The kid is talented in many ways, but his grades were always pretty poor. He’s always been more interested in sports and anime and video games. “That’s a good idea,” says Jimin.

“And I’m gonna travel to Europe.”

“Europe?” asks Jimin with a grin. What a grand plan.

Jungkook nods, resolute. “Yeah. I wanna see the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben and Alhambra.”

Jimin laughs. “Those are really amazing places.”

“I wanna take pictures,” says Jungkook, glancing around the room. “Even a place like this can be beautiful if you photograph it right.” He smiles slightly and points to the corner of the room. “Look at the light there.”

Jimin looks, but all he sees is a shaft of gloomy, flickering light. “Yeah?”

Jungkook nods. “The light is capturing the dust particles,” says Jungkook, inching closer to it. “Like they’re suspended. And the yellow juxtaposed against the grey walls and tables…it looks kinda hopeful.”

Jimin halts and reposes, taking another look. Now that he sees through Jungkook’s eyes, the scene is a lot prettier than it was upon first glance. The light is a gentle, hazy yellow, dimming and brightening, a patch of brightness in a dark room.

“Jungkook, why haven’t you ever told me about wanting to take pictures?” asks Jimin, brows furrowed.

Jungkook shrugs and continues staring at the light, transfixed. “I was scared,” he says. “I was scared that saying it out loud meant I’d have to really do it. And if I really did it…,” he pauses to sigh. “If I really did it I might fail.”

Jimin scans his friend’s young features. He’d seen him as a child, all energy and smiles and carefree innocence. He seems older now, wiser. His brow is low and his lips are parted, but his eyes are hard as stone and resilient. There’s something more to him now. And Jimin’s shattered nerves settle a little.

The door beside them opens with a slam and the two boys scramble to their feet, ramming into one another as they rush to the side of the classroom, away from the door. Jimin’s heart is thundering and he can’t hear anything over his pulse. The other boys know the knocking code. They’d never just throw the door open like that, especially since it was locked.

Whoever opened it is incredibly strong…

Jimin peels his eyes apart and stares at the doorway. But it’s empty.

Except for the palpable chill that’s seeping through.

Jungkook’s eyes are blown out wide and Jimin can’t feel his hands. Nonetheless, something in Jimin overrules his fear and he takes a step in front of Jungkook, reaching an arm out to keep him from rushing forward. That weathered determination in Jungkook’s eyes…Jimin wants to protect it. His arms are shaking as he extends them out to either side, making sure Jungkook is pressed with his back against the wall.

“Jimin! What are you doing?” he asks in a tense whisper.

Jimin shakes his head. “Stay behind me,” he says.

Jungkook swallows hard and reluctantly nods his head. “Okay,” he says quietly.

Loud footsteps boom down the hall, and they only get louder as they approach. Jimin’s heart races, but he steels himself and sets his jaw. Isn’t there a quote like that? That courage is not the absence of fear, but the overcoming of it? Jimin can’t remember, but as he hears the sound of something hard and metallic dragging on the floor, he isn’t so sure this is a fear he can overcome after all. He pressed his back to Jungkook and the two stand shaking, awaiting whatever fate is approaching them.

It almost doesn’t surprise Jimin when he sees the silhouette standing in the doorway, its smokey outline distinct against the dark hallway. There’s nothing to his face but the suggestion of lightly glowing eyes and a nose that just barely extends. His body is broad and his large hand grips the handle of an old, bloody axe beside him. He stares into the classroom and Jimin knows there’s nothing he can do to hide. Jungkook jumps as the man swings his axe, breaking the door off its hinges, and where its mouth should be there emerges an eerie hint of a sadistic smile. In his surprise, Jungkook lets something clatter to the ground. His knife.

Fight or flight, isn’t it?

Without a second thought, Jimin hurls himself onto the floor and grabs the knife, but the man’s axe is quickly upon him, slicing into the ground just an inch away from his head. Jimin screams and jumps to his feet, holding the knife so hard his knuckles are white and his skin is straining. The man cocks his head to the side and slowly sidles up to Jimin, coiling back and swinging once more. Luckily for Jimin, he’s fast. He lurches out of the way in time to sustain a minor scrape to his arm. It stings and his skin is wet with blood, but Jimin is grateful at least that it isn’t worse. The man seems agitated as he closes on on Jimin once more, this time aiming for his head. Jimin ducks as the heavy axe whirls around.

This won’t do. This dance of dodging and attacking has only one possible outcome, and it’s not favorable for Jimin. He’s gotta do something quick or both he and Jungkook could be looking at their demise.

Quickly, an inkling of a plan takes form in Jimin’s mind and he jumps back to his feet and rushes toward the wall, cornering himself. “Jimin!” screams Jungkook, but Jimin silences him with a glare.

The man approaches him and draws his arm back. Jimin can only hope he can predict what this man will do next. The man laughs. “Got…,” he begins, as if even the act of speaking is a labor, “You…”

Jimin swallows and takes a steadying breath. The man swings again, and once again aims for Jimin’s head. Relief floods through Jimin’s veins and he ducks just like before, only this time he rushes out around the man’s side. With his immense force, the man has lodged his axe momentarily in the wall. Just like he had with the floor. He struggles briefly to pull it out, and in that moment Jimin seizes upon him, jamming the knife into the man’s neck. He pulls it out as the man cries out in what Jimin hopes is pain, and he notices that a black liquid is oozing out of where the wound would be. Again, Jimin lunges and forces the knife into the man’s side, then his shoulder, then his back. Anywhere Jimin can reach, he stabs. And everywhere Jimin attacks, the man seems to bleed.

With a frustrated grunt, the man yanks his axe out of the wall and his elbow clocks Jimin on the side of the head. Dizzy, Jimin falls to the ground. The room is spinning. Is this it then? The end? All the man has to do it swing once more. Jimin is incapacitated. His head is throbbing and his body is stunned from the force. He can feel a bruise beginning to form. He’s an easy, vulnerable target.

But to his surprise, the man, clutching his side and dragging his axe, rushes from the room, leaving a trail of black liquid behind him. Jimin pants as he lays on the floor, sitting halfway upright as he stares after the man. He’s moving fast now, but he’s grunting as if he’s angry. Perhaps Jimin made a mistake.

But he is certain about one thing.

He is not as vulnerable as that man thought.

“Jimin!” Jungkook cries as he slides on his knees to help Jimin up onto his bottom. Jimin groans, holding his head with his free hand and dropping the knife. “Jesus! I thought you were gonna die,” he says, hugging him tightly.

Jimin strains against him and squints from the pain in his head. “I’m fine,” he says. And, for the first time in a long time…he really believes it. “What are we gonna do now?” he asks, turning to Jungkook.

He swallows hard. “I…I don’t know.”

“I don’t know if we should stay here,” Jimin worries aloud.

Jungkook nods. “But…if we leave, what if we can’t find the others? Aren’t they gonna come here to find us?”

Jimin glances out into the hallway, into the unknown, and rubs his forehead tenderly. “But if we stay here…we might be sitting ducks. I don’t think he’ll let his guard down again.”

“He was injured,” says Jungkook with his lips agape.

Jimin nods. “It seems like things aren’t as hopeless as we thought…”

Jungkook sets his lips thin and looks at the floor. “I don’t know what the right move is.”

Neither does Jimin. But something in his gut is telling him which option is best. And maybe it’s the adrenaline, but he wants to listen to it.

#bts #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts horror au #bts horror #bts horror story #bts ot7 #bts imagines #bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts angst #bts au #bts au fanfic

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holdontohopelove · 6 years

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Devastated.

Wow, I've written more personal stuff on this site in two days than I have in 7.5 years.

I feel like I need to get this out because I don't want to carry this around forever and I also don't want it to be apparent to my family, friends, and coworkers how absolutely messed up I am by a fictional TV show. This is a haul so read at your own risk.

I started watching The Closer in 2007, so this is my 10 year anniversary with this franchise. I inhaled it the summer before I went away to college and continued to hang on tight to it as I grew up, got a degree, graduated, got a Master's, and started working as a full-blown professional. The Closer, and then Major Crimes, was safe. It was home. Brenda was and will always be my "person" in this series, but Sharon was a close second. Sharon was what Brenda wasn't and if I had to pick, I hope to blend the best of both in my personal and professional lives. These women defined strong women on television. They gave young college students and young professionals like me something to believe in.

As I went on to work in the field of victims services, I applauded Major Crimes for how they told stories about sexual abuse and rape. As much as his storylines sometimes annoyed me, I loved everything Rusty Beck stood for. If the kids I work with are able to overcome adversity half as well as Rusty, it would be a success. Rusty is the outcome I pray for for my kids. Sharon was the foster parent I pray for for my kids. To see it on screen was beautiful and heartbreaking...and that kept me hooked and committed week in and week out. Plus Sharon and Andy? Love after heartbreak? Finding that kind of love in your later years? God what a message. How does that NOT give you hope?

I always knew that losing this show would be hard. I also knew instinctively that it would mark the major shift in my life between kid and adult, no matter how many years I have logged in my career, degrees on my wall, numbers in my bank account, or capabilities I had to handle my own life. This was truly going to be the moment of leaving something that I started in my late teens - as I was transitioning into the adult world- behind. I just didn't expect that losing it would come at the cost of losing a character that I love, adore, and admire.

My job is not easy. My life is not easy. No one's is. That's why I watch television and movies. That's why we ALL watch television and movies - to be entertained and to escape, for a little while, to a better world. Fiction doesn't have to mean sunshine and rainbows, but I also don't appreciate when it causes unnecessary angst. That's not what I came here for. I remember when The Mentalist ended in 2015. They were given a surprise final season and made no secret about how the final season was about "giving the fans what they want." They did justice to the characters and the stories while ultimately leaving everyone happy. They could have orchestrated a huge, dramatic, emotional final mess in which people died and Jane continued to suffer, but they didn't. They chose the fans. They chose the characters. They gave them the happy endings we long for in real life, but don't always get.

I've spent time reading the interviews from Mary and James about the decision to kill Sharon off. "It's a metaphor for the end of the show." "It was a way to release Mary from the show so she could pursue other work because we were inevitably getting cancelled." "It was a powerful moment." "I supported this." It goes on and on with the justification. For me, there is no justification for this and for what the viewers were put through. This was senseless, needless tragedy, and a rare tragedy at that, as in "most people die with cardiomyopathy, not from it". I'd even go as far as to say a "manufactured" tragedy...we've all discussed how Sharon basically set up her own demise and chose her own destiny, resulting in her loved ones losing her sooner than was necessary and not having any time to process or say goodbye. That is not the selfless, family-centered, faithful woman I know from this series. The choices that Sharon made do her character and the entire series a complete disservice. Not to mention it put loyal fans who devoted themselves to this show for years and years through absolute hell.

I wanted to be able to look back on this franchise fondly. I wanted to be able to say...this show meant so much to me and guided me through some of the toughest transitions and hardest moments of my life. I wanted to be able to say...this show is over, just as my childhood and "baby adult" years are, but it's a part of me. It made me who I am. But I struggle to say that now. I struggle because I don't want to remember the pain that I now associate with this show after the last 24 hours. I slept for 3 hours last night. I have been nauseous since I woke up this morning. My anxiety, never stellar to start with, is off the charts. I look like a raccoon on acid. This show used to build me up and make me feel like I could own the world and kick ass and overcome adversity. Now it's just reinforcing the depressingly real world idea that all good things can be taken away and terrible things can happen to good people. That a kid who finally gained a good mother could lose her when he's barely an adult. That a man who literally waited his whole life for a love like theirs could lose his wife within weeks of their wedding. That her other kids never had a chance to say goodbye and process how dire the situation with their mom actually was. That a room full of people could watch a loved one literally up and die in front of them and not be able to save her. Don't get me wrong...I KNOW this shit happens every day. I work with this shit every day. I specialize in trauma, for Christ's sake. I didn't need to see it dramatized on my television with people that I've literally spent ten years watching each week.

I cannot fathom why someone would choose this path to walk knowing that this was likely the final season of the show. Most of us LIKE open-ended finales even if there's no chance of anyone renewing the series or carrying it to another platform. It lives on in our hearts. In our headcanon. In our fanfiction. In our memories. We can think back and believe that there was a happy ending, a long life, a sense of contentment. You don't need to kill off our beloved main character to reinforce the idea that "the show is dead" and that "it's never coming back to life." We get it. But couldn't it have lived on for us, for your loyal fans? It's like, not only did my favorite show end, but every good feeling, daydream, storyline, or wish I'd have for those characters and that world is dead, too. This is the whole TLJ "Let the past die, kill it if you have to" thinking on an entirely insane fucking level. I am not here for this. I did not spend 10 years here for this.

I'm really struggling right now. It's five days before Christmas and life should be grand, but I feel like a part of me has died. I feel like I'm grieving something I can't put into words with the people who are physically in my life because it's going to sound insane. I get that writers want their audiences to feel something, but literally all I feel is dead inside and that nothing in these next four episodes will ever make this better. I feel like I spent ten years on something I considered precious only to have it smashed before my eyes. My memories are tainted. My heart is so heavy. This show broke me in the worst possible way with no conceivable benefit. There is nothing about Sharon Raydor's death that added to this series and nothing that can happen in the final episodes that will fix this or make me feel better about this. All it did was remind me, once again, though off the clock this time, that the world is often shitty, good people can suffer terrible fates, and love does not conquer all. This is the legacy that was left for us. This is what I got out of the TV show that I had used to keep my faith when sometimes my own world was dark.

I didn’t need this final season to be fluffy bullshit with all kisses and no strife, but I needed this final season to be the light in darkness. I needed this final season to help me feel ready to move on. I needed this season to emphasize that these characters matter, that the fans matter, that the last 13 years of this franchise matter. I needed this final season to prove that good can triumph, love can move mountains, and that even those who struggle can have a bright future ahead.

I think that’s all I can say without repeating myself further. Now, we have to take of ourselves and each other as we all struggle through this. There’s no way to make sense of this. You can’t make sense of insanity or find logic in grief and tragedy. But putting this out there helped me a little bit, so if you took time to read this, thank you. That’s all for now.

#Major Crimes #Major Crimes TNT #majorcrimes #sharon raydor #mary mcdonnell #The closer #brenda leigh johnson #kyra sedgwick #james duff

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justsomebucky · 7 years

Text

The Only Exception (Part 7)

Summary: AU. Reader is given the task of running a popular love advice internet show when her coworker is fired. Her cynical attitude toward love makes her offer some harsh advice, and more than a few hearts are caught in the aftermath. Will hers be one of them?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Word Count: 4,190 (sorry)

Warnings: language, mentions of injury, mentions of trauma, some confrontations, Sam being precious, reader self-reflection, mentions of threats, creepy emails

A/N: Guess who’s back…back again…Reader decides to take control of her life and do what she thinks is best. I really liked this part. That’s probably why I went a little crazy.

Part - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10

You kept your eyes focused on the young woman across from you, though she wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

Today was the first day you were allowed to sit in on a group therapy session, so you started with Dr. Coulson. He was a very serious man, which you learned quickly after making a Dr. Phil joke that didn’t go over so well.

Anyways.

You had just finished your trauma certifications last week, and you decided to start your shadowing sessions with something you weren’t familiar with: work-related injuries and trauma.

Dr. Coulson was employed part-time at the Red Wing community center, using his knowledge as a medical professional to help those with major injuries or extensive medical work cope with the changes to their bodies and minds.

It was an interesting choice, but you realized about five minutes into the session how essential it was to hear from someone who understood the injuries to answer questions honestly, instead of someone who just wanted to make them feel better about them.

The young woman across from you, an Army veteran who was medically discharged, was just one of seven that were circled around you and Dr. Coulson. Each person had a visible wound that contributed to their emotional pain, and you found yourself unable to think of ways to comfort or help them.

Seriously, you were drawing a blank. The empathy was there, but you had no clue how to help.

Thank goodness you were here to learn.

“Mara.”

She looked up and met Dr. Coulson’s eyes at the sound of his voice.

“You can talk about it here, Mara. I’m here to help, and Y/N is here to learn to help. The rest of your session-mates are here for help, just like you. No one is here to judge you.”

Mara’s eyes skimmed the faces around her, finally landing on yours. You kept your face neutral, though you felt so deeply for this woman that you wanted to cry.

But, that would be unprofessional, and you were no longer an overemotional, unprofessional person.

Her eyes flitted back to Coulson’s. “I have pain sometimes,” she admitted. “Where my leg used to be. Isn’t that weird? I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with searing pain in a leg I don’t have anymore.”

Dr. Coulson nodded. “It’s called Phantom Limb Pain, and approximately eighty percent of all amputees experience it.”

“Why?”

“Well…” Coulson shifted a little in his seat, clasping his hands together in front of him. That little motion was like that of a parent talking to a scared child, though it bore no condescension. “Most experts think it’s caused by mixed signals from your brain to your spine, and vice versa. It could be damage to nerve endings nearby, causing neurological misfires. In other words, it’s not ‘all in your head,’ Mara.”

Mara nodded, looking down again.

Your eyes followed her line of sight to her left leg, which was amputated just below the knee. Your heart ached for her, but even more than that, you admired her courage and perseverance.

“What can I do to stop the pains? Can I- will therapy help?”

“I think therapy, along with keeping track of what triggers your pain, could help immensely,” Coulson replied, his voice still gentle. “If you notice patterns, keep track of them. For instance, if you sleep on one side more than the other, and you still have pains at night, then write it down. If cold bothers it, write it down. The more information you can take to your primary care physician, the more they will be able to narrow down why this is happening and help you treat it.”

“Thank you, Dr. Coulson,” she murmured. “That’s all I had.”

“Okay. I think that’s just about all our time for today. Thank you for being here and for sharing. We can all benefit from knowing and caring for each other. I’ll see you next week, same time.”

A chorus of agreement sounded around the room, and you stood and waited to the side while everyone else shuffled out the door.

Dr. Coulson turned to you with a polite, curious smile. “What did you think, Y/N?”

“I think you and everyone at this center do some amazing things,” you answered honestly. “I’m glad to be a part of it, and to try to make a difference in someone’s life.”

“Good.” He nodded. “I don’t expect that you’ll be specializing in injury-related therapy, but I think you have a knack for it, a real empathy that the world is lacking these days.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Please, call me Phil. Just not Dr. Phil.”

You chuckled, turning to follow him out the door into the main hallway. Phil said a hurried goodbye, trying to get back to the hospital for his shift, while you sort of meandered around until your next session.

The next group that you would be in was a session with Sam, and it was going to be more of your kind of expertise. The participants were of victims of trauma that wasn’t caused by work, but was often triggered by it. You hoped to have a session of your own with them someday, because you were good at finding a root cause to reactions and behaviors. At least, you liked to think so.

You waited patiently outside the darkened room, leaning back against the wall. Your mind was racing with all the things you’d heard and learned today.

A familiar voice ended your reverie.

Sam was speaking, but that wasn’t the voice that did it.

You were almost afraid to look, but you did anyways. Bucky Barnes was strolling down the hallway beside Sam. They hadn’t noticed you yet, but to get to the exit, they had to walk past you.

You felt your stomach do a little flip when Bucky’s eyes met yours. He faltered a bit in whatever he was saying to Sam, who naturally picked up on it right away. Damn him for being so observant.

“Y/N,” he called out, walking over to you, with Bucky lagging behind him a little. “All ready for the next group?”

“Waiting patiently,” you replied, forcing a small smile to your face.

“I was just finishing up with Mr. Barnes here. He tells me that he knows you personally?”

Your smile fell. Why would he mention that to Sam? In fact, what was he doing here?

As if Sam knew what you were thinking, he explained himself. “I ask permission from all the session participants before I have someone new sit in for training. Barnes has been coming to this center for years. When I said your name, he mentioned that he knew you, and I thought maybe that was a conflict of interest. I didn’t want him to feel awkward, so I had his session one-on-one today.”

“Ah.” You felt like an ass now. There’d been no reason to jump to conclusions like you did. Bucky had a life, had personal stuff to deal with outside of you.

You had to stop reacting badly to things where he was concerned. It wasn’t like he’d carried out his intentions, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t tried to make amends. Someone like Sam wouldn’t put up with a bad man.

Bucky wasn’t a bad man.

“How are you, Y/N?” he piped up quietly, moving out from behind Sam. His blue eyes didn’t reveal any emotion, though they were a little red-rimmed.

Your heart ached again, remembering that the restaurant burned down recently. He must have been talking about it in his session. “I’m all right. How are you?”

“Fine,” he answered. “I’m sure…you probably saw the news.”

“I did. I am really sorry, Bucky.”

“Let me just interrupt for a second,” Sam interjected. “I have to go see Sharon about something. Please excuse me. Good to see you again, Bucky.”

“You too, Sam. Thanks for accommodating me today.”

Sam nodded, then turned and left the two of you alone.

“I’m really sorry,” you repeated. “I saw you on TV that night. You saved her life.”

“I couldn’t live with myself if I ever hesitated to try to save someone, family or not.” Bucky looked away toward the door, and you knew he was longing to escape this conversation. “Anyways, the chief confirmed that it was a grease fire. It was just an unfortunate accident.”

You shifted on your feet awkwardly. “Do you think the Foundation could help her?”

“No.” He still wouldn’t meet your eyes. “What I mean is, I’ve taken care of it. She’s staying with me while the insurance sorts things out. She might not have a restaurant anymore, but at least she’s got a comfortable apartment.”

“That’s good. I’m glad she has you.” There was a brief pause, but you couldn’t stand silence right now. “Have you been coming here a long time?”

“I have, ever since it opened here in Brooklyn. Partly for how close it was to work, but mostly because they deal with first responders.”

“I work here now.”

“Yeah, Sam told me. Listen, Y/N, before this gets any more awkward, I wanted to apologize again. I haven’t been myself in weeks. Between my ex, my anger, the idiotic plan, the even more idiotic declaration of love…Natasha meant well, but I don’t think I was ready for that either.”

You watched as he ran a hand through his hair, his eyes finally flickering back to yours. So, Natasha had been the one to coax him to call in and say something. That figured.

“I know what you’re thinking, and no, she didn’t tell me to say that. She just told me that a grand expression of my feelings might help. I panicked and blurted that out. I don’t know how to grandly express myself these days without screwing everything up, it seems.”

You brows furrowed a little. “Emotions aren’t things to mess with. I learned that the hard way at work.”

“I know that,” he agreed readily. “I know. I’m not excusing what I did by any means. I learned the hard way, too, through losing you.”

Your stomach did a couple of those crazy flips again. “By the time you called in, I was already on the Embarrassment Train to Unemployment. I said some crazy shit on the show, too, and messed with peoples’ lives. Natasha helped me realize that I wasn’t treating people well, either. We both have some growing up to do.”

“I, um…” He paused again, looking down at his shoes, his face somber. “Do you remember what I told you before? I thought being a firefighter would be a way to cope with my sister’s death, but it turned out to be a trigger, sometimes.”

“That isn’t uncommon,” you offered, trying to sound helpful like Dr. Coulson.

He nodded, but kept his gaze on anything but you. “So anyways, I started therapy at a private practice first, then I switched to Sam’s group. I sort of slacked off for a while, thinking I was better, but lately I’ve realized that I still need to work through some stuff.”

“Therapy is good for everyone, I think.” He was trusting you with this revelation, something that both amazed and encouraged you. Maybe you should have a one-on-one with someone, too, for your own issues.

“It is,” he agreed. “Sam and all the people here have been so incredible, so helpful. I just…I can’t seem to stop adding to my list of problems, though.”

You could relate. “I’m sorry for disturbing your session. I’m shadowing the group leaders for a couple of weeks so that I can learn how things are done around here.”

Bucky looked back at you. “Don’t apologize for that, you didn’t know.”

“No, but…”

His eyes softened, and his body language seemed to relax, too. “But nothing. It’s great that you’re finally able to use your degree for something you always wanted to do. I’m really proud of you, Y/N.”

Well, you weren’t expecting that at all. “Thanks, Bucky.”

“I’m gonna head out. Good luck on the rest of your training here.”

You merely nodded, watching as he turned to leave. You knew he was just doing what you wanted by leaving you alone. A strange anxiety filled you, and you found yourself unable to stop yourself from calling out to him.

“Bucky!”

He paused halfway to the exit, then looked over his shoulder in question.

Shit. You should have thought this through.

You didn’t even know what you wanted to say, and now Bucky was staring at you with those big blue eyes.

You decided to just go for it. “Do you, maybe, want to start over? As friends?” Your heart was racing, and Sam’s advice about chances came back to you as you stared at him, awaiting an answer.

Right now, all you wanted was to make everything right in your life, and you’d already started by quitting your job. Now it was time to make peace with people.

He turned his whole frame to face you this time, a small smile appearing on his handsome face. “I’d like that very much.”

You made sure not to walk past the ruins of the restaurant on your way home this time. Part of Sam’s encouragement was to not let the past have such a tight grip on you, and there was no way you were going to disregard such sound advice.

Sam was so different from May. He was more like a friend and mentor than a boss, because all he wanted to do was help. He genuinely wanted you to succeed in your career. He was your Mr. Miyagi, and you hoped to never let him down as long as you were employed at the Red Wing Foundation.

The sound of your phone ringing made you jump a little, even though you were on a busy Brooklyn street. The name on the caller ID made you smile. “Hello?”

“Y/N! I’m standing outside of your apartment! Where are you?”

“How the hell did you get into my building without me, Natasha?”

“I pressed every single button. Someone buzzed me in. That’s how completely secure this place isn’t, Y/N. Anyways, how far away are you?”

“I thought we agreed to keep our distance because of the gag ord-“

“How far are you?” she interrupted. “I really need to see you!”

You turned the corner and your building came into view. “I’m almost there. Why, Natasha, is something wrong?”

“You could say that. Just get here, okay?”

She ended the call, and you shoved your phone back into your bag with a frown. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

Once you made it to your floor, you spotted Natasha sitting against your door, her arms wrapped around her knees as she hugged them to her body. She looked really upset.

The second she saw you, she stood up and motioned at the door. “Turns out, I can’t pick locks.”

“Good,” you scoffed in a joking tone. “Can’t have you inviting yourself over all the time. What if I have a gentleman caller?” You opened the door and let her move inside first, before turning to lock it behind you.

Nat’s eyes widened as she turned back to you. “Have you been dating?”

“On and off. I haven’t really hit it off with anyone.”

This was sort of true. You’d had one date since the blowup with Bucky, with a guy you met on a dating site. He was polite, but boring as hell, and you hadn’t accepted his offer for a second date. You just couldn’t see a future with him. Old habits die hard, you supposed.

But Natasha didn’t need to know that. “Make yourself comfortable. Did you eat yet?” You wandered into the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water.

“I’m not even remotely hungry. I came here to talk to you about work.”

Suddenly wine sounded more appealing than water. “Red or white?”

“Red,” she replied without missing a beat. “I know we said we couldn’t talk about it, but Y/N, I have to tell someone.”

“Go ahead. What’s another legal issue?” you joked, pouring the red wine carefully into two glasses, then taking one of them over to Nat.

She accepted it gratefully, taking a small sip. “I don’t have to go into the logistics of the case. This is all new, all stuff that happened in the last two days.”

“Go on.” You walked back over to grab your own glass and the bottle, then brought them both to the coffee table, sitting beside her and giving her your full attention. “What’s been happening?”

“May hasn’t found anyone she likes for your replacement yet,” she informed you. “No one has the background, though she’s certainly made her rounds to try to make someone stick.”

“No way! Who has she forced into filming so far?”

“Me, Maria, Lillian from accounting…she even tried to get Scott to do it, citing his divorce as relatable.”

“Poor Scott.” You shook your head in disbelief. May was bananas. “Do you have to do it again?”

“That’s the worst part. Out of all of us, she said I gave the best advice. She wants to force me into the role next.”

“But with the creepy emailer still on the loose, what then?”

“That’s what I came to talk to you about. I haven’t told May or Scott or the legal department yet, but I’ve already gotten two email threats.”

You felt your eyes bug out. “What did they say?”

Nat made a face at you. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“The first one said - and this is just me paraphrasing here, because I don’t speak crazy – ‘You’re even less qualified than the last bitch, you should quit now.’”

“Oh my god, Natasha, you have to tell someone!” You shook your head. “You can’t just let this keep happening!”

Her hands wrung together tightly as she stared at you. “The second one said, ‘Once I’m done with the Love Therapist, you’re next.”

You felt a real fear again. This was a direct threat against you; it had been so long since the crazy stalker had mentioned you, that you thought you were in the clear. “Whoever is doing this should have been happy I quit, and leave me be.”

“Apparently they aren’t satisfied. It probably doesn’t help that May keeps bringing you up in comparison.”

“Oh god,” you breathed out, a realization hitting you. “It’s got to be someone who works at September Media. It has to be!”

“What?” She sat up, eyes wide. “You think?”

“What else makes sense? The security clearance to get past firewalls, emailing us personally, inside information like knowing about what happened to Leah? It has to be someone on the inside, Nat.”

She nodded slowly. “You’re right, that makes sense. Who the hell would be so involved with something as stupid as a love advice YouTube show that they’d stoop to this level, though? Who at work would be this crazy?”

You leaned back against the couch cushion, trying to go through the directory in your mind. “I don’t think it’s Scott. And I don’t think it’s May. She’s far too involved in the money end.”

“Maybe she’s doing it to stir up controversy for viewership and media interest?”

“She’s got so much to lose, though.”

“Hmm…I think we should keep her on the list of suspects.”

You nodded. “She is sort of delaying the investigation, isn’t she?”

“That could be because she doesn’t want the show to shut down or get bad press.”

“All press is good press to her, though. Ugh! Who else?”

“Leah?”

“Maybe.” You had to admit, that was your first thought when this all started. “Or maybe one of her many contacts, those clients of Tony Stark’s that were trying to wine and dine with her?”

“I can find out who they were,” she offered with confidence. “No problem. One of them already tried to hit me up for some fun.”

“I didn’t get anyone asking me out. Not fair!”

“Did you really want one of those greasy old dudes to hit on you and use you like Leah? Come on.”

“No, definitely not.” You shuddered at the thought. “Anyone else?”

Natasha tapped her chin gently. “What about a viewer? Do you think one of your pieces of advice led to someone wanting to hurt you? Besides emotionally, I mean.”

Your mind went to Bucky, and his original plan to break your heart. It felt like such a long time ago, now that so many things had happened. “I wouldn’t put it past someone, but to actually keep it up this long shows that this person is a bit more damaged than anything we’ve seen before.”

“So are you over that, then?” Leave it to Natasha to read between the lines.

You thought about it for a moment. “Not exactly. It was a bad thing to do. But he’s working on it, you know? He’s trying to be a better, less emotionally reactive person. He’s been going to therapy.”

“How do you know?”

“Long story. Anyways, I decided to take the lead on things. I’m in control of what happens to me now, and I decided we should try to start over as friends.”

“You don’t have to start over with him at all, Y/N. You don’t owe him anything. Not after everything that happened.”

“I wanted to. I think…I think he’s a good person, Natasha. Love, or someone’s idea or impression of love, especially when they’ve been through so much, can cause someone to do some stupid things. It’s certainly not an excuse, but it is an explanation.”

“Ah yes, doing stupid things for love. I can relate.” She let out a big sigh. “Like me fighting with my best friend when she needed me most, just because I wanted to keep seeing a hot fireman?”

You nudged her arm with yours. “Exactly. Or what about me? I let my terrible luck with romance get in the way, and tried to derail the happiness of complete strangers.”

Natasha didn’t say anything, but she watched you carefully, waiting for you to arrive to your conclusion.

You shrugged, unsure of what else to say on the matter. “He lost his sister, then his fiancée. He almost lost his surrogate mother in a fire recently. I could see why he would become desperate to keep people.”

She nodded, still not saying a word.

“But, he backed off when I asked him to,” you continued, reasoning it out more for yourself than for her. “The fact that he is working through it in a healthy way this time shows he’s making progress. I don’t know…I believe what he told me, and I give him credit for telling me the truth before my feelings got wrapped up with him.”

“Well, you should know better than anyone since you’re a therapist. You’ve tried to analyze me many times.”

“And failed,” you added jokingly.

“Seriously, though, Y/N. That’s great to hear. Even if you can’t be more than friends, at least there’s nothing toxic hanging between you two anymore.”

“Exactly. I don’t need that burden any more than the next person.”

Natasha stretched out her limbs. “What were we talking about again?”

“We were coming up with possible suspects.”

“Well, speculating all night won’t get us any closer to the truth, I’m afraid. We’re going to have to dig a little deeper. What do you say we have an investigation of our own?”

“How?” You gave her a knowing look. “You’re going to go snooping, aren’t you?”

“Maaaaybe. Meanwhile, I think you should compile our suspects and motivations lists. We can take it to the legal department once we have a solid lead.”

“I will try. If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself, right?”

‘Right. Can’t wait for May to come around.” Natasha stood up, draining the little bit of wine left in her glass. “I’ll call you tomorrow with some details. Maybe I can get the emails on a flash drive so we can have someone else review them.”

You followed her to the door, opening it then leaning on it. “If you see anything even remotely suspicious, you call for help, okay? And I don’t mean Steve, or Scott, or me. I mean the police.”

“You, too. I’m actually going to meet Steve at the firehouse tonight, so I should be good. Are you going to be okay?”

You shrugged. “I might have a little trouble sleeping, but other than that I’ll be fine.”

Natasha pulled you in for another hug, then gave you a smile before she turned and walked down the hall.

You shut the door, locking it and putting the chain across for good measure. Then you went around to every window, making sure they were shut and locked, with the blinds closed.

That unwelcome feeling of vulnerability returned as you climbed into bed and pulled the covers up. You decided to leave the light on while you slept, just in case.

It was going to be a long night.

Part - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10

PERMA TAGS (closed for now): @sprinkleofhappinessuniverse @alurea-actually @smkunz613 @marvel-fanfiction @bluebrrn @simplyme8308 @cleanslates @ailynalonso15 @jaydenval @imnoaingeal @miss-jessi29 @kittthekat @crownie-sr @indominusregina @wonder-carolina @captain-ros3ann3 @amrita31199 @tatortot2701 @melissalovesmusicyay @kcsavege4134 @lilasiannerd @hardcorehippos @buckyswinterchildren @hello-sweetie-get-the-salt @cosmic-avenger @mirkwood—princess @neverbeforgotten @minervaem @givemethatgold @assbutt-son-of-a-bitch @decemberftw @widowvinter @nolaimagines @notsoprettykitty @dracsgirl @hollycornish @feelmyroarrrr @ancchor @seeyainanotherlifebrotha @aenna-4 @kithlin @heytherepartner @polkadottedpillowcase @johnmurphys-sass @aeillo @winterboobaer @kaaatniss @whyisbuckyso @super-daryl-dixon @wishingtobelost @capdanrogers @gallifreyansass @rockintensse @minaphobia @vaisabu @rchlnwtn @imamoose @ria132love @sofiadiaz04 @actual-bucky-barnes-trash @dolthiac

Story Tags (Closed): @mcusebstan @youpocketwitch @universal-glitch @thewinterdorito @aqueenwithoutherkingx @ani808 @themistsofmyavalon @logan8546 @the-renaissance @lostinspace33 @mcsmashdesigns @stormin-thru-glitter @cantchoosejustonefandom @vivianbabz @sociallyimpairedme @pinkleopardss @stomachfilledwithbutterflies @frnkensteingrl @wunnywho @buckys-fossil @mytrueself @tigers-have-teeth @kenobi-and-barnes @with-a-hint-of-pesto-aioli @grumpybeyonce @zxcorra @themanwiththemetalarm @marvelgoateecollection @blueeyedboobear @comicariadne @blue1928 @pixierox101 @wildestdreamsrps @buckybarnesbestbabe @vindictivegrace

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes reader insert #bucky barnes drabble #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes au #AU!buckybarnes #au!bucky #firefighter bucky barnes au #fireman!bucky #firefighter!bucky #bucky barnes fireman au #bucky barnes x you #jsd only exception

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skittles-pixie · 7 years

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85 statements

R U L E S : you must answer these eighty five statements and tag twenty people

I was tagged by the always wonderful @essentiallychaotic

I would like to tag: dude idk if I know 20 people to tag but ill try... if I tag you and you don't want me to please tell me @iridescentautistic @mybloodyplacemats @wanderer-and-muse @standswithpotatos @alaskanomad @melodychanges @happydance416 uuuuuuh idk that's 7? lol @everyone that works right?

Part 1: the last:

drink: Twist up its a lemon lime soda... idk I asked my boy for a drink and that's what he brought me

phone call: My mother she woke me up two days ago

text message: to me- my mother.... from me- my coworker

song you listened to: Brittany spears toxic started playing on the radio when I got home from work

time you cried: Last night... combination of hormones and touchy feely movie... hormones suck...

Part 2: Ever:

dated someone twice: uh ive been on more than one date with my boy... otherwise my dating history is a little unclear... several guys who acted like we were dating and then refused to actually call it a date... so yeah idk...

kissed someone and regretted it: ooooooooh yeah..... alcohol is bad for you kids......

been cheated on: nope... ive only been in the one relationship and I have a very loyal boy

lost someone special: yes... both in passing away and by loosing touch....

been depressed: been? as in passed tense... lol try still depressed... ive learned how to handle it though, and it helps to have an outlet that's not controlled by my mother, and people who care about me. and to not be told how terrible I am every 5 minutes.

gotten drunk and thrown up: I had a crazy 21st birthday.... after that I try not to get that drunk... but it happens on occasion... lol

Part 3: Favourite colours: ALL OF THEM!!! I really like colors.. though green, blue, and blood red are prolly my top colors...

Part 4: In the last year have you:

made new friends: yes.... more like my boy made friends and introduced me, but yeah I always meet new people

fallen out of love: Naw I love my boy too much

laughed until you cried: yeeeeah.... I laugh a lot lol....

found out someone was talking about you: yeah apparently people talk about me a lot “oh yeah I know who you are” is a phrase I hear a lot when meeting people... also I guess my boy talks about me? but from what I hear people usually say good things

met someone who changed you: yeah ive spent some time getting to know myself better

found out who your friends are: yeah.... and in the process ive lost almost all of them, but I'm done trying too hard to get people to like me. I want to be invited out not just kinda sorta included but only if somebody else takes me. So yeah... long story short I found out that my friends are simply not....lol... I do still have the good ones though....

kissed someone on your facebook list: don't have facebook.... if I did it would prolly be yes though lol....

Part 5: General:

how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: yeah still don't have facebook

do you have any pets: Theyre not really mine, but I live with 2 doggos

do you want to change your name: when I was little I wanted to change my name... I wanted something more pretty like rose or diamond.... but now I'm pretty happy with my name... would only change my last name if the occasion called for it....

what did you do for your last birthday: If I remember right I went to my physics class and then chilled in the empty cabin.... my boys aunt and uncle were visiting from Germany and got me a cake and a couple of presents... but on the actual day of my birthday I was pretty much alone... but birthdays are gross anyway

what time did you wake up: 1 pm lol... I'm too much of a night owl

what were you doing at midnight last night: I was finishing my movie and playing with my phone... I wanted to snap about how the sunlight in Alaska makes fireworks a bummer for the 4th, but I was too lazy lol

name something you can’t wait for: not having schoolwork.... I'm so glad to be done.....

when was the last time you saw your mom: may when she came up for my graduation... it wasn't too bad... she only put me down once....

what are you listening to right now: bobs burgers.... my boys watching it

have you ever talked to a person named Tom: yes.... I have a friend named tom.... we don't talk very often... but hes still my friend....

something that is getting on your nerves: my one coworker.... he pisses me off...

most visited website: tumblr.... or Netflix....

hair colour: blonde... which is kinda an ombre cause I dye it lighter and then let it grow out and then repeat so its always lightest on the bottem lol... though I'm trying to let it grow out for a bit...

do you have a crush on someone: my booooooooooooy (please read that in a super cheasy sappy sarcastic tone)

what do you like about yourself: that's a tough question... lol... But I like my ability to be stubborn... It helps me work hard to get what I want and be a better person.... and I get to prove people wrong which is great because so many people have told me that I would never really succeed because the odds were too stacked against me...

piercings: don't have any... have considered earings.. but nah....

blood type: yeah... no idea

nickname: cece ce Cebu skittles pixie.....

relationship status: dating and hopeful for the future cause this is a very good one...

zodiac: leo

pronouns: She/Her

favourite tv show: Gilmore Girls, buffy, charmed, x files.... idk I watch a lot of shows...

tattoos: I absolutely love them... but my fear of needles and my indecisiveness mean that I don't have any nor any plans to get one... but I love henna...

right or left handed: right handed when it comes to writing... but ambidextrous for just about anything else...

piercing: no.

sport: uuuuh I don't follow any major teams or anything... but I'm always down to watch baseball, basketball, hockey, or soccer... ill gladly play any sport but I'm sorely out of shape lol and I don't always know all the rules... football still confuses me...

vacation: everywhere lol.... but right now Germany, Ireland, las vagas, japan, or just taking time off to travel around Europe in general, are all at the top of my list.....

pair of trainers: ????? idk????

Part 6: more general :

eating: Most food is good... I will prolly die if you ever feed me spicy food tho

. drinking: water, iced tea, hot tea, coffee, some soda but not very much or very often, milk, alcohol...

I’m about to: prolly go to bed so I don't die working the morning shift tomorrow

waiting for: it to be dark at night again lol...

want: my degree, a job that utilizes that degree, my own place.

get married: one day. ive got some time before anything happens... but I found my person....

career: Chemistry.... in Alaska.... man I'm still piecing that one together.... but environmental chemistry is super cool... and id love to work with the Alaskan environment, to keep it safe and clean and to better understand how it works

hugs or kisses: both... but mainly hugs... I'm a very touch oriented person....

lips or eyes: lips... idk why cause I love eyes too... but I'm fascinated with how peoples lips look.... like I never understood those superhero masks that just cover their eyes because I always recognize people by their lips and how they talk

shorter or taller: taller....... when I'm around tall people I feel smaller and that makes me happy... plus like.. they can reach the shit that I cant lol...

older or younger: I'm sooo old...... not really but sometimes I feel like it so idk lol

nice arms or nice stomach: arms... always.... especially shoulders...

hook up or relationship: uh before my current relationship I was totally all for either though I focused mainly on hook ups... but now I'm content with the relationship thing....

troublemaker or hesitant: troublemaker... definitely... but usually its a good thing.... I never much cared for rules...

kissed a stranger: oh yeah... many times...

drank hard liquor: yup... do it a lot... but life in Alaska....

lost glasses or contact lenses: forgot where I put them a few times... but always found them... break glasses a lot tho....

turned someone down: yeeeeah... guys usually don't respond well... I know... big surprise...

sex on the first date: yup... i love sex....

broken someone’s heart: yeah.... it was terrifying... i vaguely knew him through mutual friends and similar activities... he asked to be my valentine when id told him that id never had one before ... valentines was about two weeks away... we saw each other for like a week... he had my entire future planned out for me... and i couldn't get passed the fact that he was 14 years older than me.... when i told him things weren't gonna work he broke down bawling.... and our mutual friends told me how bad he was after the conversation....

had your heart broken: yeah... and then toyed with... it was fuuuuuun.......

been arrested: no I'm an good kid who can do nothing wrong... and anytime ive done anything illegal i was always with people who took all the attention off of me....

cried when someone died: yeah... ive known too many people that have died....

fallen for a friend: yup... it didn't work out

Part 7: do you believe in:

yourself: Its a work in progress lol.

miracles: yes. This world is not always as terrible as the people who inhabit it...

love at first sight: you know... i never used to believe in it... but then i met my boy and i swear to god it was like i saw the puzzle pieces of my life fall into place around me... we were pretty drunk but to this day i still cant explain why i had such a strong urge to meet this man. why i insisted that he had to play pool with us... we already had more than enough people to play... but he had to be there with us.... and from that moment on my life has just gotten better and better....

Santa Claus: I guess... more like i believe that once upon a time he exsisted....

kiss on the first date: yes... again I'm a very touch oriented person....

angels: I think theres a lot of things out there that we do not understand and we are not ment to... so yeah i think angels exist...

Part 8: Other:

current best friend’s name:

Mckenzi is my go to... but Daniel is also my best friend.... I have a few others too like maddi... but if i named everyone then id be naming like all my friends and that would make me sad because I'm too social to have such a small social group lol....

eye colour: blue....

Favourite movie: depends on my mood... but i can never really pick a favorite...

#personal #tagged #oh god this is long #lol #enjoy #long post

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asfeedin · 4 years

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Coronavirus: Survival Guide for Businesses

The coronavirus pandemic has shaken businesses to the core within an alarmingly short space of time. This temporary, newfound reality means that almost one-third of the world’s population is currently in lockdown, dramatically altering people’s daily routines, behavior patterns, and ultimately their consumer needs.

For many small and medium businesses to have the best possible chance of surviving and even thriving under these testing conditions, this requires change and adaptation.

COVID-19 has changed everything. And, let’s be real for a moment… we are ALL still figuring this out — we are in untested waters, and things are somewhat uncertain. It won’t be easy, but it is critical we try to consider the big picture. In particular, think about how your business can help people through this crisis. As a result, you will help your business get through this crisis.

— Adam Connell

We understand just how overwhelming this could be right now. To guide you through this difficult time, we have put together a survival guide that covers not only marketing advice, but also support regarding financing options, as well as managing team and commercial operations.

We have included great tips given during last week’s #SEMrushchat on this topic by our community. We also reached out to several leading marketing influencers for insights, Kevin Indig, Amy Bishop, and Adam Connell.

How to Pivot Your Marketing Strategy During Coronavirus

EMPATHY IS IMPORTANT

Empathy is key during this difficult time, and this should be reflected in the content you create, meaning you should avoid the hard-sale of your services at all costs.

Recognize that nearly everyone’s day-to-day has shifted in a major way. People are trying to acclimate to a new normal, all while feeling anxious about the pandemic, their work, the wellbeing of their friends and family – and potentially their job security and their income. Consumers and businesses are vulnerable, so it is important that advertisers take that into account in messaging.

— Amy Bishop, owner and digital marketing consultant at Cultivative, LLC.

Being empathetic was reiterated in last week’s #SEMrushchat too:

Socially responsible brands right now have empathy and truly understand their marketplace and their customers. Any companies who don’t – or do the opposite – are making a big mistake.

The biggest thing I think actually came from my coworker @Thomas718J Tone matters more than ever right now. Users are people and want to see the human side of your company. Reach out and check on how people are doing, everyone is hurting.

An example of lack of empathy:

I got an email from a restaurant telling me all about how they fired 90% of their workforce. But oh, you can still order takeout. Really turned me off from going there ever again. Yes, hard decisions have to be made, but opening your email with that, ouch.

To ensure your content is appropriate during the crisis, we recommend that you:

Prioritize highlighting the things that will matter most to your customers, such as contactless delivery and safety precautions being taken at your business.

Make sure that scheduled editorial or social media content is not insensitive. For example, a promotional piece that says ‘dresses to die for’ in the title is inappropriate.

Check that scheduled launches are still relevant, given the pandemic.

Remove impertinent call-to-actions. For example, this could be a CTA that encourages customers to ‘visit today’ when your store is now online only. Provide replacements, if possible.

SEO STRATEGIES

Continuing to invest time in SEO during this crisis is worth it, as it can help you identify new ways that your brand can add value and fulfill consumer needs. Here are some tips from our three experts:

Kevin Indig

Perform keyword research for concerns customers have in your industry or around your product and create content around it.

Closely monitor what keywords or categories on your site increase in impressions/search volume and double down on them.

Amy Bishop

“Look at keywords and queries containing ‘near me’ that perform really well. Determine if there is a way that you can still fulfill that need, online or via pickup/shipping/dropoff. Determine if there are new needs that have arisen that your company can fulfill. Then adjust your keyword strategy to capture that search volume.”

Adam Connell

“Develop your online presence – More people are spending time online than ever before, but many brands are pulling back on advertising due to the uncertainty COVID-19 presents. Use this time to create helpful content and build an audience you can market to when the time is right.”

We also suggest closely monitoring Google Trends, which collects data in real-time, so you can determine which topics to focus on for content creation, at a time when search demand and trends are constantly changing.

Three areas to review during the pandemic:

Schema: Ensure Google is showing the most accurate information possible to consumers.

Improve existing on-page copy: Make sure it is still relevant in the current climate.

Fix any technical SEO backlog: Improve page speed and user experience.

PROVIDE AN ESCAPE

People are spending more time watching TV and using their mobile devices. SEMrush found that the biggest streaming services experienced a dramatic rise in searches during March, rising by 87.6% on average.

However, people’s attention spans are under severe strain due to coronavirus-related fears and concerns. Now is the time to engage your audience by providing them with a welcome entertainment break that takes their mind off the situation.

Creating something thoughtful and memorable now could build trust and result in future leads.

GENERATE GOODWILL AND BE A HELPFUL RESOURCE

Use this time to create helpful content and build an audience you can market to when the time is right. Now is the time to focus on helping over-selling. For example, Frank Turner, a musician from the UK, is using Facebook Live to raise money for local music venues who need help to get through this crisis. And Signature Brew is hiring musicians who are out of work to help deliver their products.

— Adam Connell, influencer and founder of Blogging Wizard

Kevin Indig also recommends:

Extending free subscription months or adding free products for customers if financially viable.

Combining your products with high-demand goods such as face masks, wipes, and toilet paper.

Offering Facetime and Facebook Messenger text consultations.

Our community in last week’s chat agreed that the focus should be on providing value, status updates, and helpful information to customers. Here are just a few of the tweets from that discussion:

I think there’s real opportunity if you can provide help during this time. For instance, if you offer financial services, there’s a variety of content you can create to guide people. Boost your SEO, be a thought leader, and help others.

We’ve found growth opportunity in e-comm by simply informing users that orders are still being fulfilled. For lead gen, it’s all about promoting contactless or remote service (when applicable) by producing new, user-friendly content.

We have ramped up our marketing production and even shifted some team members over to the marketing team for additional support. We are producing more blogs and eBooks than ever. We are also actively participating in webinars and hosting one later this month.

My focus has been to help businesses and friends with their digital strategy. Giving helpful advice can help keep their business afloat, which is important for me. Plus, it provides me with a chance to get more leads in the aftermath.

It’s helping us to think even more creatively about adding further value to both the community and our clients.

ADAPT YOUR ADVERTISING

It is commonplace for marketing campaigns to be paused or dropped entirely in an economic downturn, but statistics show companies that continue will get to enjoy lower Cost Per Leads than before. On average, Cost Per Clicks have dropped by over 50%.

This is the first time in as long as I can remember, that inventory demand and costs have declined. If you can afford to be marketing and you are able to be operative &mdash now can be a really great time to push into paid social. There is a really captive audience on social networks right now, and there have been major declines in CPCs, CPMs, and CPVs – leading to major decreases in CPLs (depending upon what you are selling).

— Amy Bishop

VIDEO CONTENT IS KEY

With social distancing measures in force, we have seen an astronomical rise in demand for video, especially video apps and platforms. For video conferencing and webinar platform Zoom, its traffic increased by 67 million site visits in March alone.

The popularity of the social networking app Houseparty has also skyrocketed, with its downloads up by 2902% month-on-month since January 2020. Meanwhile, the social video platform TikTok’s downloads are up by around 96% year-on-year from February 2019.

Consequently, shifting your company’s attention to videos is going to be important in this pandemic. Consider the ways your brand can utilize your assets and turn them into video content, to help build a sense of community.

A lot of people are looking for human connection right now. As a bonus, everybody is at home, even popular talk shows are filming from their home, so the opportunity for some really genuine, authentic video content has never been greater. Even if you film your video with your laptop or your iPhone within your home — that won’t seem out of the ordinary!

— Amy Bishop

Commercial Strategy During Coronavirus

IDENTIFY HOW YOUR BUSINESS CAN MEET NEW CONSUMER DEMANDS

Can your business provide products that consumers need? Can you build trust by helping consumers and first responders?

Businesses everywhere are moving fast and pivoting to assist people through this crisis. For example, in-person events are being moved online, and manufacturers such as Dyson, GAP, Nike, and others are creating products specifically to address COVID-19. For example, Dyson is manufacturing ventilators for the NHS here in the UK. And the likes of GAP and Nike are manufacturing masks & gowns, etc.

— Adam Connell

GET ONLINE

For offline businesses, bring your inventory online, or turning in-person events to online conferences or webinars, is likely needed to survive the crisis.

Converting offline offerings to online offerings works well (e.g., online lessons), engaging the audience providing valuable information to people is the key. Another example is one coworking space in Toronto. They had to close the physical location but now have online co-working hours, productivity challenges, etc. That’s amazing!

Many restaurants worldwide are now online, providing delivery options for menu items and meal kits, and many retail stores now allow you to order items online and provide curbside pick up — get creative. One grocery store lets you print a newly created checklist every day with items that are in stock, and when you get to the store, they go shop for you.

For restaurants without the necessary infrastructure to go online quickly, companies such as food surplus firm Too Good To Go are now allowing local businesses to use their app as a takeaway platform; this comes with an automated payment structure already in place.

CHANGE YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS LISTING

Make sure that you have updated your Google My Business listing if you have physical locations because consumers are relying heavily on the information provided by Google for real-time information.

Your updates should include pivotal information such as your new operating hours and/or pick-up and delivery options.

Team Strategy During Coronavirus

Remote work has now become the norm for many businesses in this public health crisis. Here is our advice on how to maintain productivity and morale:

Internal communication is key: Use online platforms such as Slack, Google Hangouts, and Zoom to help you to do this. Maintaining a dialog is important.

Provide clarity to your team as to how each of these channels will be used to communicate and have different departments can lean on one another for support.

Keep employees updated: Share company policies for the pandemic, and make sure all teams are educated and onboard. Also, share company updates and provide support (working from home is hard for some).

Set clear parameters as to your work expectations from your team. For example, giving plans for the day and designated checking-in times.

Encourage online team building: This could be holding Zoom breakfasts or lunches or having happy hours to keep everyone connected in the pandemic. Help people feel not alone.

What Businesses Should Avoid Doing During Coronavirus

EXPLOIT THE SITUATION

“bove all else, do not exploit a tragedy. Trying to make weak connections just to ride the wave of the current news cycle is a bad idea. Using words like Corona as a promo code is a worse idea. People will remember the way that businesses behave right now. You do not want to damage your brand by leaving a negative impression during a crisis.

— Amy Bishop

This was reiterated in our #SEMrushchat too:

I’ve seen businesses jumping on Covid hashtags, pandemic hashtags that are for pandemic information, not a way to get eyes on an irrelevant social media post. It is not something to be exploiting!

FAILING TO ADAPT

To survive, many companies will need to diversify, expand, or pivot to avoid going out of business altogether. Look at the ways you can re-segment your audience and get creative with your strategy.

Being reactive instead of proactive. Where can you diversify/expand/pivot instead of furlough or layoff? Hiring a good team is hard. Don’t throw that away.

Being rigid or slow to adapt are absolute death blows to businesses right now. Empathy and understanding go a long way – at the current time, profits may have to take a bit of a back seat, at least for a few more months as people continue to struggle.

DROPPING MARKETING EFFORTS

Stopping marketing altogether may cut costs, but it could be at the expense of your business:

Now is time to engage with your audience, this is the time for digital communication, step up your social media and digital strategies, talk to your audience!

Some companies fall into the trap of uncertainty. While demand for online content is higher than ever and advertising is generally cheaper, some do the mistake to cease or slow down their marketing activities.

Examples of Successful Business Responses to Coronavirus

The following businesses have chosen to adapt. Here are some quick examples, and if you have others, please include them in the comments below.

A number of zoos and aquariums have gone online, providing live streams. This includes the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, who tweeted a video of their penguins waddling around the aquarium that has since gone viral.

The adventure continues! This morning, Edward and Annie explored Shedd’s rotunda. They are a bonded pair of rockhopper penguins, which means they are together for nesting season. Springtime is nesting season for penguins at Shedd, and this year is no different! (1/3) pic.twitter.com/VdxN3oQAfe

— Shedd Aquarium (@shedd_aquarium) March 16, 2020

There has been a huge increase in searches for home fitness. The online demand for yoga alone saw an 811% increase.

Workout studios such as the UK based Barry’s Bootcamp are now giving free 20 to 30 minute online workouts on Instagram Live.

Hobs 3D, primarily a 3D printing studio for construction purposes, is using its technology to print thousands of visors to provide PPE equipment for NHS workers in the UK:

Mexican restaurant chain Chipotle has set up ‘Chipotle Together Sessions’, creating virtual community building through lunch hangouts on Zoom. Every session includes celebrity appearances, competitions, and Q&As.

Source: Contagious

Airbnb has started a new global initiative to help house 100,000 healthcare professionals, first responders and relief workers, as well as waiving all their fees during COVID-19.

E-commerce fashion brand Rosie On Fire has turned its attention to selling lockdown-related packages to UK consumers, such as the lockdown birthday kit (containing home workout gear and pamper products) through a dedicated website.

UK experiences firm Secret Cinema started by pivoting to Zoom, hosting a 90s themed party on the platform. This has now transformed into a deal with Häagen-Dazs for an eight-week run of virtual screenings called ‘Secret Sofa’, involving interactive elements related to the film.

London-based childcare startup Koru Kids is helping essential workers to keep working by providing nannies in their homes.

The Scottish craft beer company BrewDog has created ‘online bars’ for every one of its 48 UK bars, as well as for its locations in the US, Germany, and Australia. They have also transformed their distillery to create hand sanitizers.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has radically and suddenly changed how our lives will operate for the foreseeable future, in a way that many businesses could never have anticipated. However, we hope that this guide is a useful resource for you, providing you with advice that can help you improve your marketing and strategies for the foreseeable future.

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dulma · 6 years

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Once I gave a talk on the quick-’n-dirty psychology of happiness. Here are the Sparknotes.

Once upon a time my friends started a cool TED type weekly event called Stanford Salon. Then some other friends decided to replicate it in San Francisco. Over the years, orbiting this community as I did, I gave a few talks: on mindfulness (which is funny because I both feel like I know a lot about it and nothing about it), on female sexuality (@ me for the juicy notes) and on global aid & poverty (my college major/thesis). I also led one workshop where everyone asked each other 36 questions to fall in love. Mostly this was an excuse for me to be with my friends and talk into a mic, which is scary and exciting for me, but I care deeply about each topic and they are, in some ways, the through-lines of my imaginational life.

For this particular talk I did some loose research and cherry-picked the essentials. In other words, I’d hardly say this is rigorous or conclusive, and most of this research can be found at this terrific blog. But here they are, the fun and particularly notable findings. I’ve also added my witty and superfluous notes to choice bullets for your reading pleasure. You’re welcome.

Happiness must be a habit. We can train ourselves to think positively. The key: remember that bad things are temporary, situational (vs. universal), and not your fault.

Strong social ties are vital, i.e. community. So be a connector: people at periphery are lonelier and have less social support. Social belonging is a huge predictor of health & happiness. Even watching certain TV shows which can be “social surrogates." (I love this idea of surrogates because I’m by nature a total loner and podcasts are my daily lonely pills. And, sometimes, Gilmore Girls.)

Gratitude & doing good for others also help your longevity. But it has to feel not corny—otherwise you won’t do it. (Is the feeling of “corniness” not an indicator, often, of falseness? Some kind of tension between the inner & outer? Better, IMO, to address any suspicion of phoniness or contrivance instead of avoiding it.)

Exercise as a weekly/daily habit. Proven to boost happiness. (SoulCycle justification: check.)

Two things that bring people a disproportionate amount of happiness: going to church & exercising. (No advice on how to mitigate the conflicting distress you feel when faced with ignorance, bigotry, or blind uncritical religiosity that is possible though not inevitable in these contexts... but I’ll keep you posted.)

Be goal-oriented. Nothing is more motivating than progress. (Meh. Overrated! says my defensive inner laziness.)

70% of your happiness comes from your relationships with other people: number of friends, closeness of friends & family, relationships with coworkers & neighbors.

Spend money on experiences and on other people. (Also, time?!)

Many small pleasures > fewer larger ones. Do the things that make you happy more frequently. Small & frequent boosts. (Wear your favorite weird clothes. Eat breakfast for dinner. Indulge your massage addiction. I’m all about this: little things are the big things. Don’t waste away counting the days ‘til your next vacation. Life is happening right now, and we’re zooming towards the finish line.)

Spend more time on projects & with people who energize you. (Implicit: knowing what does/doesn’t energize you is a prerequisite to happiness. This is a deceptively challenging skill.)

Take inventory of how you spend your three most important currencies: your time, your attention, your energy.

What you should make time for each week: 1. Nature. 2. Exercise. 3. Time with friends + family. 4. Gratitude. 5. Meditation. 6. Enough sleep. 7. Challenge. Language, music, etc. 8. Laughter. Humor towards life. Reminiscing. (Reminiscing?) 9. Touch. Sex. (Sigh.) 10. Optimism. (Beware of faking happiness. This is draining & sad-making. Sincerity, I’d guess here, is what works. So train yourself towards sincere positivity but if you’re not there yet learn to tell yourself the truth of what you feel.)

Friends! Few friends predicts all causes of death. (Yikes.) Friends make you happier than pretty much anything else in life. If you can count at least 3 dear friends at the office, you are 96% more likely to be extremely satisfied with life in general. Having a friend you see on most days is the happiness equivalent of an extra $100K a year. (I’m an introvert and occasionally a misanthrope so I’ll take the $100K, thank you. I’m kidding I love people, I’m just scared of them.)

Time with friends = more happiness than with spouse/children. (!! ...due to responsibility differential?)

How to maintain friendships? Do things together. Spend time. Most common friendship fights? About time commitments. (And flaking. Guilty.)

Things that grow friendships: proximity, vulnerability, time.

Share in their happy moments (and sad). Good for friendships and relationships.

In person contact, not online = happiness vs. loneliness. Use Facebook to increase face-to-face interaction.

Stay in touch once every two weeks (15 days) to maintain friendships. (Gotta love the specificity. Google Cal that shiz.)

Shortcut: accept unhappiness to be happy. (For more on this, read A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and have your brain blasted the fuck open. Maybe even your heart.)

Gratitude is proven to help. How to practice: name 3 things that went well and why each night. You’ll see results if you practice not even daily but weekly. (A few friends and I have an ongoing and sporadically maintained Facebook messenger thread where we post 3 gratitudes when we feel like it and it’s kinda cool. Sometimes we even record short selfie videos instead of writing them out, which feels personal and always makes me smile to watch. 10/10 would recommend.)

Self-esteem is not the cure-all. Self-compassion is. Don’t lie to yourself that you’re awesome. Focus on forgiving yourself when you’re not. Self-compassion shown to be more internal than self-esteem, which can be based on external validators. (I love this because self-esteem is hard. This has been a seismic shift for me this year: to practice not “I love me and I’m awesome” but “In these ways I’m awesome & in those ways I’m not and all of that is super okay.”)

Happiest income group: $50-75K. (This is a relief but also shocking. How solid is the evidence that happiness deteriorates after $75K? Because I want nice things.)

Oh, and the fundamentals: Eat good food, sleep, exercise. Duh.

#writings #writing

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ashleyjacksonblog · 7 years

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Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Get Over A Crush?

Hey Doc,

How do I get out of the friend zone, but, like, in the opposite direction that most people are interested in? How do I stop having a crush without going nuclear (especially in a situation where “going nuclear” would seem to imply finding a different job or asking to be scheduled every shift my crush does not have, which seems fairly extreme)?

Okay, so, I work with a girl and am recovering from a serious case of Oneitis regarding her: Great person. Good friend. Positively loves hanging out with me outside of work. Most of the time, I love hanging out with her too. However, no matter how much I tell myself we aren’t going to work as a couple, I’m apparently not quite prepared to see her with anyone else. She brought a date to our coworkers’ wedding recently, and seemed to be way closer than anticipated with her childhood friend who was allegedly her date mainly to keep her ex from creeping on her. I mean, there were kisses on the lips and hands on the butt between these two, which, in a perfect world, I would accept have nothing to do with me, but which were very painful to watch in the moment.

I mean, barring something drastic like finding a new job, I still have to work with this person, and I do honestly want to be her friend, not one of the many guys out there who “accepts” a woman’s offer of friendship while still pretending there’s a chance they’ll bone if they just solve a certain riddle correctly or whatever, but I don’t quite know how to do that, other than the supremely unpleasant experience of giving it time and hanging out with my crush as she dates people other than me until that pain eventually dies down. Is there a less painful way to go about this, in your experience?

So, what’s the least bad approach to trying to find an honest-to-God friendship where a self destructive crush used to live?

Sincerely, The Friend Zone is Never as Bad as When You Actually Want to be Friends

It’s good that you want to genuinely be friends, TFZNB, but I’m not gonna lie: you’re basically going to have to either find some separation or deal with the issue of seeing her with someone else.

The key to getting over a crush – or handling any inconvenient emotions, for that matter – is that the last thing you want to do is try to force yourself to not feel something. Trying to force an emotion like limerence into a teeny little box and pretend it doesn’t exist doesn’t work. All you’ve done is shoved everything into a can marked “contents under pressure” and poked a teeny hole in it. At some point those feelings are going to make themselves known, messily and all over the place.

At the same time, you don’t want to try to, say, force yourself to notice her flaws or convince yourself that she ain’t shit. Not only does that not work unless you already hold her in contempt, but the opposite of a crush isn’t disgust, it’s indifference. All trying to convince yourself that she’s not worth it does is make you angry and upset. So forget that angle too.

Part of the way you handle it without pretending it doesn’t exist or without drowning yourself in the pathos of “WHHHYYYYY WON’T SHE LOVE MEEEEEEEE” is to just… accept it. When you feel those feels come bubbling up, note them, name them and then let them be. Just tell yourself something along the lines of “Welp, there’s my annoying crush on ol Wotzsername (Of the Connecticut Wotzernames)” and then go about your business. “Yup, guess I’m still feeling a bit jealous. Oh well.”

Don’t try to distract yourself, don’t try to pretend it’s not there. Just note it, name it and move on. You’d be amazed at how quickly this can dispel the all-attention-demanding power of a crush… or the pain that comes with unrequited love.

But the other thing you’re going to need is a little distance, for your own emotional self-protection. It’s good that you legitimately want to be friends with her and wish her all the best, but that doesn’t also mean that you need to have “the best” all up in your eyeballs every day. Watching her make out with her new beau – or anyone, really – in the name of “well I have to get over her” is just emotional self-flagellation for no good reason. Now unless she’s bringing her date to work with her, you should be OK. But it may well be worth your time to mute her on social media for a while if she’s in the “schmoopy” stage while you take the time to get over her. You don’t have to completely unfriend her, but making sure that you aren’t having pictures of her sucking face with someone being streamed into your timeline is a good thing. And if circumstances arise that you do have to spend time with her and her squeeze? It’s ok to find reasons to be looking elsewhere (or be elsewhere) if they happen to get affectionate. Hey, look the game’s on that TV on the other side of the room. Hey, what’s going on on Twitter why look #submarining1 is trending I wonder what that’s about.

But whether it’s just your feels in general or being around her in particular… don’t make a production about it. Note it, name it, and just carry on as normal.

And one more thing to keep in mind: date. Seriously. I know there’s a lot of “get over someone by getting under someone else” out there and there is some value to that… but it has far more to do with realizing that there are other women out there who are just as amazing than just “well, I’m going to plow my feelings into plowing someone else.” The more you can get into the abundance mindset, the easier it is to take the sting out of knowing that your crush – your fleeting, ephemeral crush – isn’t returned.

Good luck.

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I have a question about approach anxiety. I have read most of what you write about it but it hasn’t really sunk in I guess. You normally talk about people’s major fear being publicly rejected or having people laugh at them but that doesn’t really apply to me. I have had both of those happen and moved past being afraid of those really since like you said it’s really rare that people are out to humiliate you. I recently though have found that people (not just women) I talk to are finding me extremely forgettable. In a lot of situations when I meet someone and talk to them for a while, by later that day or the next day they won’t even remember ever talking or ever seeing me before.

This has hurt my confidence a lot more than being laughed at since these are normally pretty kind people who aren’t doing this in any malice. I can shake off being laughed at as someone being a jerk but this speaks a lot more to me just not being someone worth remembering. I have seen some of the things you wrote about being more interesting but being in grad school I don’t get out as much as I would like. I do have outside hobbies but I struggle just to maintain those. Now, every time I see someone I might want to talk to I immediately think what’s the point if they won’t remember me 30 minutes after I walk away. I guess my question boils to is there a way to be more memorable and get over the fear I’m just going to bore people if I talk to them?

The Man Who Wasn’t There

I suspect that the problem is that you’re a little too agreeable, TMWWT. One side-effect that can come with trying to overcome approach anxiety is that people try to be too nice or pleasant. After all, if you’re worried about rejection, isn’t it better to avoid coming on too strong or being too divisive, lest you tick them off? Other times, they try to be a little too broadly appealing, casting as wide a net as possible by being as agreeable as possible so that they appeal to as many people as possible.

And therein lies the problem: by being a little too deferential or a little too pleasant or too “well I appeal to everyone”, you don’t stand out. You become the conversational equivalent to a lukewarm bath: not hot, not cold, just kind of there but not terribly remarkable.

This happens a lot in online dating and it happens in person as well. And the solution is more or less the same: you have to quit being so very nice and so very pleasant. You don’t want to be everyone’s cup of tea, you want to be someone’s shot of whiskey. That means being willing to stand out, even be a bit polarizing. And that means you have to do the things that make you more memorable and – importantly, more memorably you.

This may mean cultivating your sartorial style so that you stand out from the pack of non-descript dressers. It may mean developing your wit so that you make people laugh with your jokes and your stories. It may mean learning how to convey your enthusiasm for the things you love, or embracing being charmingly awkward, like a newborn giraffe. It may mean being willing to state your opinions more strongly – not so much that you bowl people over or become a complete dick – but enough that you don’t just go along with whatever everyone else is saying.

Or it may be that you’re barely speaking up at all, lingering like a ghost at the edges of somebody else’s conversations… in which case you need to speak the fuck up.

And incidentally: you may need to just be patient with people. Depending on when and how you met them, they may have had other shit going on. That has nothing to do with you as a person and everything to do with them. One of the reasons why women may not respond to a text from a guy they met at the club the night previous for example, is because she may not remember which dude it was. Those people you’re talking to may be distracted, they may be talking to a lot of other people or they may not have talked with you long enough to really get to know you.

(Or they could be the type who’re bad with faces; it’s more common than you’d think.)

Regardless, you may just have to remind them of who you are. Sometimes you’ll just have to reengage them with something along the lines of “Hey, I don’t know if you remember me, I’m MWWT, we met the other day, here’s some callback humor to spur your memory.”

But over all: the way to be more memorable is to be more strongly yourself. Be willing to be a bit polarizing, to risk putting off the wrong people. In doing so, you’ll be making yourself more desirable – and more memorable – to the right people.

Good luck.

Hey Dr. Nerdlove,

Longtime reader and huge fan of your work. Thank you for everything.

I am 25 years old, never been in a relationship, living at home, working part time and struggling to stay sane. My younger brother works as an engineer and is doing well and successful with his job. My problem is that he won’t let up criticizing me on everything I do. Not only with my life but also just day to day things. My taste in movies, music, my friends, opinions, how I drive, cleanliness and anything you can imagine. He lives 2 hours away but now comes and stays here every weekend. Its ends up being 3 soul crushing days for me.

The week isn’t much easier. My father lost his job a few years back and verbally takes it out on my mom. He calls her names and blames her for everything. My brother then comes on the weekend and criticizes us on everything. I support her as much I can, but my mom doesn’t deserve this kind of emotional abuse.

I have tried to assert myself calmly but it only ends with him escalating or on very few occasions even turning violent with me to regain control of the situation. I’m starting out as an actor and being around him has started to affect my work with my not being able to practice or land roles. My work to him is a joke and when I told him I wanted to pursue acting, he flat out told me “You’ll never have any success”. My father loves this and sometimes even joins in.

The worst part is I became addicted to porn. It was a crutch and has gotten worse as my life just feels uncontrollable sometimes. Its not my brother or father’s fault, being around them hasn’t made it any easier though.

I had a lot of the problems you write about while growing up such as; social awkwardness, creepy behaviors and trouble landing dates in general. But I work on it relentlessly and have made a ton of progress compared to where I was 4 years ago when I started. I got to counseling and support groups. That too is something my brother can’t stand about me and he constantly takes any opportunity to call me ‘gay’ in a deragatory way for not being sexually aggressive and ogling women at every chance I get. He does this in front of my other family members and they almost believe it from what I see. (Nothing against the LGBT community by the way, everyone deserves to be happy with whoever they love)

I like to think I have something good to give this world. But on Sundays when my brother finally leaves I feel worthless. Like I can’t do anything right and haven’t learned any skills over the years. I feel so alone where I am. I’m saving up to move out but it hasn’t been an easy journey and my addiction has started to drain my savings. I’m not a bad guy, and I want to be happy, where do I go from here?

Best,

Trying to Make it

I am so sorry you’re going through this TTMI. Family is supposed to be a refuge against the world, a place of safety and comfort. Unfortunately, all too often, it can be what you need refuge from.

Ultimately, you know what you need to do: you need to get the fuck out of there. Sooner, rather than later, before your brother and your father achieve their ultimate goal of crushing the hope out of you so that you’re as miserable as they are. The fact that your brother has had his achievements doesn’t necessarily mean that he values them – not as anything other than a stick to beat people with. It sounds like they’ve been corroded by bitterness, envy and hate and now you and your mother are the safest targets they can find.

So what you need to do is bend your not-inconsiderable will and inner strength to that goal. Which means that the first thing that needs to happen is that you need to cut out the porn.

Here’s the thing about your porn addiction. The problem ain’t the porn. You’re self-medicating, using what you can to get through the misery of what you’re going through. Porn just happens to be your drug of choice. It could just as easily be booze, weed, sex, shopping or anything else that makes you feel just a smidgen of control, a hint of a time when everything isn’t a giant industrial vat of suck.

I also suspect that there’s an element of self-sabotage in there too; you buy into your brother and father’s “this is why you suck” and don’t believe you deserve happiness or success and so you cut yourself off from your own escape.

But right now you can’t afford the luxury of an addiction, not if you’re going to get the fuck out like you need to. So porn, especially paid porn, has to go. Tell yourself that it’s just for now; as soon as you’re out of there, you can go on a porn binge the likes of which the world has never seen. You will pay all the money to your favorite camgirl or buy the Caligula Would Blush level membership at PornHub… just as soon as you’re in your own place. Remind yourself of how good it’ll feel to jerk it in a place where your brother can’t go.

All the money you’d spend on porn, all the money you’re not spending on immediate needs – has to go to a “get the fuck out” fund. In fact, it’s probably best if your GTFO fund is a savings account, one that you can’t just dip into at will, to help cut down on the “Well just this once,” indulgences that drain your bank account.

Of course, none of this is going to help if you let your self-esteem get ground into dust while you’re making your escape plan. So, like any prisoner about to break out, you need to keep your head down and not make waves. Your brother clearly needs to be in control and wants you to submit. This is part of why he gets violent; he wants you to give in and will try to force you to if he has to. But you can give the appearance of docility while holding onto the core of your ideals. You can roll with the emotional punches and take the sting out of them – “you’re right, I’ll never succeed. I’m probably a faggot, oh well,” in such a way that it takes the satisfaction out of his abuse while still protecting yourself. Call it passive-aggressive resistance. It’s like punching mud; when your blows just… sink in, it absorbs energy but disperses the impact and leaves you exhausted from the effort.

While this is going on, you need to surround yourself with Team You – your friends and family by choice if not by blood. These are the people who have your back, who love you and support you and can help you remember to hope. They’re going to be your lifeline while you finish gathering your resources for your eventual escape. And if some of them can let you couch-surf with them or hook you up with people who you can stay with, so much the better. That’ll get you out of the house that much sooner and you’ll be further on your path to both escape and recovery.

And once you’re out? Stay out. You have the right to set your boundaries wherever you damn well choose and if those boundaries means your asshole brother doesn’t get to be part of your life, then by God so be it. You don’t have to see him ever again if you don’t want. You can set up your own plans to see your mother and the rest of your family can go fuck themselves.

And who knows. Maybe your getting the fuck out will be the sign to your mom that she needs to GTFO too. Because neither of you deserve the abuse that’s being heaped on you.

But like they say on airlines: make sure your own oxygen mask is secure before helping others with theirs. You can’t help her until you’re safe and secure. So trade your porn consumption for the future you need. Find things that will satisfy your soul and give you solace instead while you bend your very being to getting out and making a better life for yourself. Because that life is out there. It’s within reach. You just need to stay strong and hold on to hope. You’ll get there, man. You’re going to be ok.

Be sure to write back, so we know how you’re doing.

All will be well.

Invisible Victims: Men In Abusive Relationships

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