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wonderrdies · 4 years

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if love be rough with you - part 2

In which you and Harry are professors at a prestigious Art and Language university and the animosity of part one is discussed. Also, you fuck.

disclaimer: just a huge thank you to everyone who said nice things about part one, especially @for-fucks-sake-h. I hope y’all enjoy this one!

warnings: it has sex, folks. I’m not that good at writing it, but it’s in there. also, use condoms; these intellectuals are very fictional and also horny dumbasses.

word-count: about 6,000 words

part 1

As the car rolled to a stop, lighting tore across the sky.

“Come upstairs,” you said. Obnoxiously loud thunder boomed, providing much needed context for your invitation. You didn’t like the idea of him in your space, your privacy and vulnerability out in the open where he could pick them apart. The alternative was worse, though. Finding him annoying wasn’t the same as wanting him dead in a ditch.

“No need,” Harry said calmly, the way he did everything else.

“Look, just come upstairs and leave once the rain stops. You owe me, remember?”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly not expecting you to fight him on this. His coat was still draped over your shoulders and you had spent the last fifteen minutes in his comfortable leather seats, sipping on a water bottle he got you at a gas station. There was also a milk chocolate bar on your lap, the kind you used to eat during movie nights in university. You knew what he was thinking: if he had owed you, that didn’t look to be the case anymore. But half an hour of kindness didn’t erase the sound of his condescending darling making you feel small and embarrassed, especially when you were the one trying to help him.

“I’m not going to say please, Harry. Let’s go.”

So you walked out into the pouring rain, barely keeping from slipping and falling on your ass. His coat precariously covered your hair as you fumbled for your keys and finally got into the building.

Harry was right behind you, not saying a word as you climbed the stairs. The apartment looked so much smaller with him in it. You refused to feel embarrassed, but you could see him examining every corner from his spot next to the door as you dropped your purse and keys onto the counter that separated the kitchen and your bed.

"I—" you stopped yourself before telling him I know it's small. Having a home of your own, no matter how small, was not something you would apologize for. "Do you want something to drink or eat?"

You proceeded to take off your shoes, tie your hair back in a ponytail and brush your teeth, all while Harry stood, stiff, in the same spot without giving you an answer.

"Styles, what the hell?"

"Huh," was his brilliant response.

"Huh what?"

"You just look a little different, 's all."

"Must be the gin," you said. "Speaking of which, do you want water or wine?"

"Water's good," smiling to himself, he said: "Thank you."

"What's so amusing?"

His smile faded and you instantly regretted asking. While you poured his glass of water to the sound of heavy rain, Harry leaned on your door as if ready to run away at any second. It was a little hurtful, if you were being honest.

“You can have a seat, you know,” you handed him the glass, hoping to sound breezy and relaxed, or whatever. It didn’t come naturally. “The rain’s not going anywhere for awhile.”

Harry nodded and sitted on one of the two kitchen stools. The fact that he was so quiet almost made you miss his usual outspokenness.

As he drank his water, you sorted through the drawers of your dresser in the awkward silence, pushing aside turtlenecks and pencil skirts so you could get dry and actually comfortable clothes. Two t-shirts, two boxer shorts.

“I’ll change into something dry, you should probably do it too,” you pointed to the clothes you just dropped onto the bed, his eyes on you the whole time. “I figure these might fit you.” And before you could talk yourself out of it, you said: “You can also practice saying words while I’m in there.”

The bathroom door clicked as it closed between the two of you. Taking a deep breath, you undressed while listening for any sign that he had moved from the kitchen stool. A sign that he was mirroring your every move, peeling off wet clothing while trying to picture the other side of the door. It was foolish to project your filthy thoughts into Harry, but you couldn’t help it. You just wanted so badly to believe that he was out there wanting you too, that he didn’t bring up that night so often just to humiliate you.

The soft cotton of the old university t-shirt you wore to bed looked like something out of a time machine under the bright bathroom lights with him standing outside. How many nights had you worn that same thing and smiled at him from across whatever room, beating yourself up for not being able to just say hello? Maybe more than hello.

All of it seemed to have happened many lives ago.

“Can I come out? Are you decent?” you asked, barely recognizing your own voice. It sounded too casual.

“Decent, me?” his answer came muffled. “Never, darling.”

You walked out, only to find yourself in a scene straight out of a porno. Harry was leaning on your kitchen counter, amusement in his eyes, dressed in your shakespeare is my boyfriend extra large t-shirt and way-too-tight boxers. His lilac pants and cream sweater laid in a pile on your bed looking like an afterthought and, even though he looked so different from his usual posh self, his pearl necklace was still decorating his absolutely maddening neck. He looked so much bigger. Maybe it was the way your clothes clung to his biceps and thighs, or the fact you hadn’t been this close to him without heels in years. Maybe your apartment was just too small.

“Am I wearing some other guy’s underwear?” Harry asked, suddenly serious.

“Huh?”

He looked down, pointing to his restricted and very prominent bulge, and your face was suddenly on fire. This certainly couldn’t be considered an appropriate move for a co-worker, right?

“It’s mine, Styles. I wear them to bed,” you cleared your throat, looking up again. Tugging at your own, admittedly much looser, shorts, you said: “See?”

“Yeah,” his voice was rough, barely more than a whisper. You could feel his eyes all over you, like they were fingertips threatening to touch you but never quite doing so. A shiver, like the one in the pub, ran through you, and you were suddenly aware that your nipples were very much visible and poking through thin cotton. “I see it.”

You stood still as he spoke again, trying to keep your eyes above his chin. But then again, those lips and eyes were not that much better than his cock straining against your clothes.

“Sorry about the weirdness earlier,” he continued. “I was just trying to get used to all this.”

“What’s all this?”

“You, so careless, in your natural habitat. It’s like the inside of this place is an alternate universe.”

An alternate universe, indeed. The hours of uninterrupted storming had eventually tired both of you out; you couldn’t let him stand in a corner or sit in a stiff stool all night. As it became clearer and clearer that he’d spend the night, you suggested watching a movie, even though it was obvious the two of you were exhausted. The whole thing was a poor attempt at avoiding the fact that there was no place for him to sleep but your bed. You certainly could handle smirks, teasing looks, sexually charged remarks, even handle his thighs and the outline of his cock in your clothes, or the vanilla smell he would definitely leave on your nerdy t-shirt. Would sitting in bed together and watching a movie be hard? Absolutely. But falling asleep next to him crossed some terrifying line; it had happened before, and the slightest possibility of having it happen again only so he’d use it against you later was just too much.

So now you were on your bed, backs resting against the headboard as you watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. While his legs stretched out beneath the shared gray comforter, yours were against your chest; if you curled up a little more, you’d probably disappear into thin air. His slightest move could be felt by you just by the shifting of the mattress, and the movie was next to inaudible for the sole reason that you couldn’t help but focus on the sound of him breathing right next to you. On your bed. Every few minutes you’d feel him staring at the side of your face, but your gaze remained stoically on the TV screen until he called your name in a whisper.

“Yeah?” you answered, glassed over eyes still on the movie. The second task of the Triwizard Tournament had just begun.

“I’m sorry.”

That got your attention. “What do you mean?”

“I just—” Now Harry was the one looking away from you. As if talking to the movie, he said: “I know the whole darling shit I say gets to you. And I know it’s gross to keep bringing up that night.”

Your breath got stuck in your throat. The whole thing was just too much; how dare he apologize and catch you off guard like that? Out of everything in this world he could say, that was what you least expected. It was not that you found him to be disgusting and immoral, or that you believed he acted mean because he was a genuinely bad person. You wouldn’t have put up with all the teasing if that had been the case. But you also couldn’t have imagined that he’d be brave or mature enough to apologise.

Maybe that was related to the fact that you, out of pure pride and spite, couldn’t see yourself apologizing to him.

“I think I do it because—”

“Styles,” you finally cut him off. “You don’t have to.”

“No, I want to. I want to tell you I’m sorry that I’m a dick to you only because I’m insecure and kind of a coward, to be honest.”

You scoffed before realizing how rude that was.

“What?” he asked. You could see him tense up, his brows furrowing, and guilt started burning in your cheeks.

“Sorry,” you muttered. “It’s not funny, I just find it hard to believe you do things out of insecurity.”

“Well,” he said, “I find it hard not to be insecure when things happened the way they did.”

Great.

“And how did things happen, huh? What are you even talking about, Harry?”

He sighed. His hand was halfway up to his face before it fell back onto the mattress af if he’d changed his mind about putting something between your eyes and his. Again, braver than you figured he could be.

“Look, I don’t want to fight. I guess I was just trying to make sure you didn’t forget.”

Suddenly there was no clarification needed. You looked at him as he nervously tugged at his pearls after having just admitted whatever happened between you two had meant something to him. At least it had meant enough that he needed you to remember it. How could I ever forget it?, you wanted to ask him. But it was stupid and cheesy, so you settled for wondering it in silence. How could you ever forget the giggles as he shut the bathroom door behind you, or the way you gasped as he fucked you with his fingers against the wall, his warm breath on your neck and his other palm keeping you quiet? There certainly was no forgetting his gaze through the rest of the graduation party, the brush of his hand against his lips like he wanted you to see what he was thinking about.

Once the party was almost over, he had walked over to you and said Please in the softest of voices while taking your hand. How could you ever forget that?

“I didn’t forget,” you told him now.

Harry must have seen something true in your expression, because he didn’t say another word until the movie was over.

“Should I go?” he asked, voice thick after just waking up. He had inevitably fallen asleep during the third quarter of the movie. Also exhausted, you had laid beside him at some point, making sure to put as much space as possible between your bodies. It wasn’t a lot of space.

The room was dark except for the street lights shining dimly through your curtains, so you could barely see him even though you were facing each other. His head was already on your extra pillow, your calves already on the brink of touching. Your comforter already smelled of vanilla. Should he go? Probably. But what would be the use of him leaving? There was more damage to be done if he were to drive on dark and slick roads without enough sleep.

“No,” you murmured back. “Stay.”

“That’s what I told you,” he said, sleepiness nearly gone from his voice. “Back then.”

The shadow of a smile settled on your lips. “Yeah. I was so fucking awkward about the whole thing, wasn’t I?”

“No, I thought you looked cute in my kitchen.”

You chuckled and looked at his shoulder, because it seemed close enough to his face that he wouldn’t notice you couldn’t look him in the eye anymore. The nervous edge to your laughter seemed to echo in the room.

“And then you laughed, just like that, when I told you to come back to bed.”

“I was embarrassed, Harry.”

“I could tell,” he said. Harry shifted a little; you could feel his leg leaning on yours as he got closer. “You kept tugging at my t-shirt like you wanted to hide your thighs from me.”

“Kind of pointless,” you said. He stayed quiet for a second too long as one of his legs found its way between yours. Your breath hitched in your throat even though there was no pressure; his thigh was just there, and if you moved just a tiny bit—

“Yeah, but I sort of appreciated it,” his hand touched your chin so lightly you could have imagined it. So much for looking away. Staring you in the eye, as stern as you’d ever seen him, he said: “I enjoyed watching you squirm.”

Fuck him. That’s not what insecure men sounded like. You turned away from him, your core rubbing against his thigh in the process of disentangling your legs. Hopefully the gasp leaving your lips had been made quieter by the sound of the covers moving and your body hitting the mattress. With Harry’s breath on the back of your neck, you anxiously moved, trying to find a comfortable position in which you could forget, for even a split of a second, that he was right there behind you.

“Hey,” he said, amused. “I know I just said I like it when you squirm but maybe you should—”

A careless shift of your hips and your ass was suddenly right against his cock.

“—stop.”

And he was hard. Now still, with your back to his front, you called his name.

“Harry?” It wasn’t supposed to sound like a question, but your voice trembled at the last second.

“Sorry,” but he didn’t sound apologetic at all. “We were just talking about you in my shirt and all of that, so…”

“God, Styles.”

Harry laughed, and you felt it in the spot right under your ear. You pressed your thighs together since your frustration with his shamelessness wasn’t able to end the urge of grinding back against him. Just a little bit more, and then maybe you could fall asleep and wait until he was gone to masturbate and pretend this all had been a fever dream.

His hand grabbed your waist harshly as you moved your ass again.

“Are you sure you want this?”

You didn’t answer him, or ask what exactly this was, but you did push against him once more. Some stupid part of you hoped he would play along and let things go unspoken, but Harry just used the hand on your hip to keep you still as he spoke again.

“Say you’re sure,” he murmured. His mouth was closer now, and you could feel every word on his lips against your neck. The hand that rested on your waist fell to your stomach, pulling you into him. “And I’ll help you."

"Styles," you breathed out, looking down as he lifted your t-shirt just enough so his fingertips would brush the skin above the waistband of your shorts. "I don't—"

"What?" his chuckle echoed through your entire body. There wasn't an inch of space between the two of you. "Are you going to say you don't know what I'm talking about?"

You choked on a whimper.

"All you have to do is ask," a light kiss under your ear. That was the first time he kissed you in years, and it almost broke you. But that wasn't what did it. Harry broke you by whispering, so quietly you could have imagined it: "I won't hold it against you, love."

The realisation that you believed him was enough to make you say a soft okay.

There was no hesitation; his hand slid down the front of your boxers, the heat of his palm right between your legs. Your thighs closed around him, a moan caught in your throat as two of his fingers rubbed your clit through your panties. You were a mess, it was true, but Harry didn't seem much better. His heavy breath sounded obscene against your neck, his cock twitching at the small of your back.

"Spread your legs," he said, struggling to touch you in such a tight space. It sounded like an order.

"Don't tell me what to do," you said, barely disguising your lust behind annoyance. Then you spread your legs, letting Harry move his fingers in small circles that got you dripping without ever being enough. You tried shifting your hips to get more friction, but he kept rubbing you slowly as you soaked through your panties, seemingly entertained by your desperation. "Harry," you called, breathless.

"Yeah?"

The hand that wasn't under your clothes came to tug on your hair, and you burned. Your scalp, your skin, your pussy. He set it all on fire. One of your hands gripped his thigh, a soft moan leaving your lips as he responded to your touch by tightening the hold on your makeshift ponytail.

"Touch me."

He didn't try pretending to not understand what you meant, which you were thankful for. Then he fucked that up by muttering, ever so fucking smug, "Don't tell me what to do."

"Asshole," you hissed at the same time he moved the fabric of your underwear aside to tease your entrance with the fingers that had been touching your clit.

"Don't be mean, love," he started fingering you, slow but firm, the filthy sound of your wetness echoing in the room as his fingers curled inside you. "I know how you really feel."

There was no way you could muster up an answer; eyes hazy and jaw slack with arousal, you let him fuck you for what felt like ages without being able to form a single word. Sometimes he'd brush his thumb against you clit just so you'd clench around his hand, whining quietly as he muffled his own sounds on the crook of your neck. Once or twice he appeared to think you were gone enough to not notice as he tried to get his cock away from your body in a futile attempt of self-restraint, but each time you pulled him back by the thigh, grinding into him and getting fucked deeper as a result. Harry punished you for that by pulling harder on your hair, delighting himself in the fact that it only made you wetter, your movements more eager.

As your hips stuttered at another soft touch to your clit, Harry whispered, "Does it feel good?"

What a prick. He wanted you praising him, didn't he? Wanted you admitting how hot this all was, how you would have let him do anything to you. Harry wanted you to tell him how good he was at pushing your every button, clearing every thought on your head until him filling you was all that was left.

"What do you think?" you said between gritted teeth. Sweat dripped down the back of your neck as his fingers shifted in your cunt and he hit that particular spot inside you. Your glassy eyes fell shut at the sound of his voice.

"I think I missed this pussy," he said. You moaned as a third finger slid easily beside the others and the hand on your ponytail went down to your throat, over the chain of your necklace. "I think you can tell I did."

You could feel his hand hesitate on your neck, so you squeezed his thigh to assure him it was alright. Within a fraction of a second, the pressure on your throat tightened. If you could look down, you'd see your golden cross gleaming right below the hand he was choking you with. It was too much. You were going to cum and he could feel it.

"You feel incredible," Harry confessed. "I missed you."

You convulsed, a silent scream shaping your mouth as you rode out your orgasm, his three fingers still stuck between your legs. As the aftershocks stopped, you could faintly hear Harry whispering your name, the tenderness in his voice bringing tears to your eyes. But then again, maybe that was the intense orgasm.

“Are you okay?”

His easygoing voice, usually so grating, sounded quite comforting now. You relaxed your thighs, and the sound of his fingers leaving you was just a little louder than the sigh you couldn’t hold back. You mumbled an agreement to his question, and you could feel his smile at the back of your neck as he said, “Just sensitive, then.”

A beat of heavy silence, and then: “Can I touch you?”

He didn’t answer right away, even though you could still feel him hard behind you, and it killed you a little bit inside. You were about to roll away from him, already forming an excuse about cleaning up, when he spoke.

“You don’t have to,” he didn’t sound like he was smiling anymore. You wanted to turn and check, to look into his green eyes and try to find out what he was thinking, but you were scared. If his hesitation meant that you had been vulnerable for him when he couldn’t do the same for you— “I don’t want you to think that's why I apologized."

You rolled your eyes at his chivalry, but were relieved by it all the same.

“Styles,” you said. “I’m trusting you here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you finally rolled on the mattress so you could meet his eye. “Now take off your shorts.”

He smirked as you shoved the comforter off of both of your bodies, taking a second too long to admire the dimly lit outline of his body. “Y’think you’re gonna boss me around now, huh?”

“I think you’re gonna let me, if it gets you off,” you shrug.

Harry opens his mouth to argue, but stays silent once he sees you reaching for the hem of your t-shirt. You throw it to the ground and hope he doesn’t notice your expression as you make a mental note to pick it up later, but that’s obviously unnecessary since he’s staring at your chest, the glinting of the cross between your boobs and your hard nipples monopolizing his attention. His right hand, still messy with your juices, reaches out to touch you, but you lean back and make him watch as you lower your shorts and underwear in one go before kneeling back on the bed.

“So?”

He shook his head, unbelieving, and took one final look at your naked body before meeting your eyes. “You love this, don’t you?”

Harry undressed like you’d done; t-shirt, then shorts, then kneeling back on the bed. You wanted to look down at his cock, see the proof of how much you got to him, but couldn’t leave his gaze. There you both stood on your knees, silently staring at each other’s mere silhouettes. Like the gold of your chain, the pearls on his neck were more visible than the rest of him. “You love talking like we’re at some game you can win,” he clarified, smiling.

“Are you saying you don’t do the same?” skepticism dripped down your words.

“I’m saying you can’t win.”

The way he could go from earnest to cocky in the blink of an eye was sort of giving you whiplash. It did make things interesting, though. He threw whatever he felt like saying your way, apparently without thinking twice; for the second time that night, you surprised yourself by thinking of him as brave.

His clean hand came to touch your face, his thumb brushing your cheek in the most romantic gesture you had witnessed since he’d held your hand all the way back to his place when you were graduating university. Harry called your name like a prayer.

“Can I kiss you?”

It was such a weird question, considering you’d just cum all over his hand. But it felt so fitting, so right. Being attracted to him and having teasing banter were not questionable, that was just how you operated. It had been taken to an extreme, sure, but it wasn’t new. This was new. You nodded anyway.

He met you halfway, his lips tasting yours as your bare bodies touched for the first time in years. You whimpered into each other's mouths, Harry's hands tangled in your hair while you held his face like it could break. You could feel his erection between you, twitching every now and again when your tongue dragged against his, some precum getting on your belly.

"H," you moaned between kisses when one of his hands descended to your chest and teased your nipple.

He stopped kissing you for a second too long, leaving your swollen lips tingling as you waited for him to catch his breath. But he didn't kiss you again, just stood there touching your boob and the back of your neck, eyes going over every inch of your face. You could feel yourself blushing at the attention, already at the brink of an awkward giggle, when he said quietly "You haven't called me that in a while," he cupped your face gently, then planted the ghost of a soft kiss to your lips. "I like it."

You smiled and kissed him again, because you were worried about what you would say if you put that kiss into words. Each feverish movement brought you closer until you were practically on top of him, sitting on his thigh. Harry grabbed your ass, urging you to move; you gasped as he pushed you to grind on his leg, no longer able to keep kissing his lips but definitely working on making a mess of his thigh.

"Love," he whispered in your ear. "I really wanna fuck you. Can we do that?"

The nails digging into his back made Harry let out a breathy laugh. You made a move to touch his dick, but his hand grabbed yours right before you could. "I want you to cum on my thigh first."

"But you—"

You sounded broken, legs burning as you rode his thigh frantically.

"I'll have my way with you, don't worry," he said. "So desperate to get on my dick, aren't you?"

The only sound of outrage you could muster was a low growl as you threw your head back, neck exposed for his teeth as your clit pulsed against the muscle of his leg. Harry kept holding onto you, assisting your every move as his lips worked on your neck. The sharp sting of his teeth followed by his tongue as he tended to the bruises he had just created, his soft curls on the side of your face, a tight grip on your ass and your back.

"Are you going to come for me again so I can fuck that pussy like I've been wanting to?"

Your hips stuttered and you came for the second time, whimpering and refusing to let him go as he gently laid you down on your back, still shaking. Harry tried to get up but you wouldn’t let his shoulders go, and he laughed against your lips as your mouth searched for his.

“Y’know,” you said, voice sounding unnaturally raspy, words practically breathed into his mouth. “You can’t talk like that.”

“Yeah? Why is that?”

“It’s not fair, H.”

He didn’t argue with that. You felt him reaching between your bodies, hissing a little when he touched himself. “I’ll make it fair,” he told you. “Like it used to be. Okay?”

Maybe you had been made insane by your post-orgasm haze, because that made perfect sense. You nodded, not a bit of hesitation, as he teased your oversensitive clit with the head of his cock.

“Don’t tease, Styles,” you said, and it sounded so much more like your usual self that it brought a sparkle of defiance to Harry’s eyes. “Don’t even think about it.”

He arched an eyebrow, smirking, but seemed to give in to your command. “You know me too well.”

Then he fucked into you slowly, and you could feel your cunt gripping his every inch as he bit into your neck again, muffling whatever sounds he felt like making. His pearls hung between you as he thrusted, losing all the control he had seconds ago. Harry was doing it fast and hard, a little out of it, until you caught his necklace between your teeth and he moved his hips with such precision that you held back a scream.

"Like that, huh?"

He grabbed one of your thighs and lifted it just enough to get the same angle everytime he moved into you. Your wetness made a mess of his crotch and the insides of your thighs, your eyes rolled behind your now closed eyelids, you drooled all over his pearls. Harry called your name, desperate, when you pulled his hair with enough strength to leave his scalp sore.

"I can't," he mumbled into your ruined neck, holding your thigh so hard it would be sure to bruise as he used his other arm as leverage to fuck you, fist tight on the comforter. "Sorry, love."

He moved as if he'd pull out, and you held him closer, letting his necklace fall from your lips. "No, H," you said. "It's ok."

His brows furrowed as he hesitated, torn between listening to your words or his own head, that knew better than to cum inside you. Not wearing a condom had been reckless enough, and he wasn’t a stupid kid anymore.

“I’m on the pill,” you told him. A particularly sharp thrust followed your statement, and you turned your face away from him, staring at the arm supporting his body so Harry wouldn’t see the entirely fucked-out look on your face. You kissed his bicep softly, just a drag of your panting lips against his skin. “Just give it to me.”

That was enough for him to cum with a low drawn out groan followed by a quiet whimper of your name, body shaking over your own. Barely any time had passed when he pulled out of you, spilling onto your sheets and your thighs. You shivered, feeling his cum staining your skin as he mumbled nonsense into your throat.

Apparently the nonsense meant he still wasn’t done with you, because Harry started kissing down your side as soon as his legs could move enough to get him up the bed and kneeling on the ground. “Styles,” you said urgently, sitting up. “You don’t—”

“Shut up,” he said against the crook of your hip.

“Don’t be a dick—”

He interrupted you by licking a stripe from your entrance, still dripping in his cum, to your neglected clit. You cried out, too sensitive, as he licked, sucked, and kissed your swollen flesh until he had you coming for a third time, his chin glistening with the mess you made together as your lifeless body fell back on the bed.

Harry stood up, still shaking a little, and pulled the comforter over you before falling onto the bed himself.

“Next time we do this,” he said, breathless, while you were still twitching from your last orgasm, and you found that very presumptuous of him. “I’ll bring over that old t-shirt so you can wear it.”

You turned slowly onto your side so you could face him, letting him see your puzzled expression. Then you remembered what he was talking about. That morning, with you in his kitchen, you had been wearing his but daddy, I love him t-shirt. You laughed, incredulous.

“Want me to call you daddy, H?” you joked.

His cock twitched against your thigh. “Oh my God,” you cried out, cheeks hurting a little because you couldn’t help the widest smile. “I can’t believe you!”

The echo of his laughter followed you to sleep.

Harry woke up to silence and an empty bed. From where you sat at the kitchen counter, you could see him anxiously looking around as if he’d find at any second that you had panicked and left, abandoning him in your own apartment. The moments he spent searching for you made guilt tug at your heart; he knew you could, at any second, decide to pretend last night hadn’t happened.

But the fact that you could didn’t mean that you would do it, so when he finally turned on the bed and met your eyes, you smiled softly.

“Good morning, Styles,” you said. “How do you feel about tea?”

You lifted your own mug in a sort of awkward toast. Harry didn’t seem to mind, though. He just smiled and nodded, hoping that would suffice as an answer.

“Your clothes are in the dresser, but you can just take mine if they’re more comfortable.”

Harry dressed in silence, his cream sweater over your boxer shorts, as you poured his tea. You laid his mug beside your own, watching him. His hair was adorably disheveled, eyes a little swollen with sleep, and his thighs looked just as amazing as last night in your clothes. He also looked very cozy in his sweater, and the realisation that you wanted to hug him didn’t scare you as much as it would have yesterday.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, rubbing at his eyes with one hand and grabbing his tea from the counter with the other. He looked at you, fresh out of the shower and wearing a cardigan over a sundress, like Markham and your kitchenette had collided to form an outfit. “You look good.”

You shrugged but smiled, a relatively comfortable silence falling over the both of you.

“We should talk—”

“Do you want to—”

Harry put his mug to his lips to let you know you could speak first. You cleared your throat, at a loss for words.

"Last night was nice."

What a poet. Harry smirked, but didn't interrupt you.

"And I—” you took a deep breath, shifting your gaze to his hands so you wouldn't have to look him in the eye. He had very nice hands. "I'm sorry for the past couple years, too. I felt like you were trying to make my life harder just for a laugh, using whatever good thing had happened between us to hurt me. It made a little bitter."

He arched an eyebrow.

"Very bitter."

"And I was very childish," he said. "I was upset that you treated me like a stranger when I got to Markham, and I became a little shit about the whole thing."

"I just—I wanted to make something out of myself here. And then you showed up and I couldn't be that person around you. It drove me mad," you finally looked up at him. "You drive me mad."

Harry carefully put his mug on the counter, then took yours from you and did the same. With warm hands, he held your face while planting the sweetest kiss on your mouth.

"We'll do better," he whispered against your lips. "Won't we?"

"Yeah," you whispered back. "We will."

But first, payback. Harry Styles could fuck you to the moon and back, or whatever it was he'd spent the last weekend doing, but he would not get away with last week's little stunt, or with robbing you of precious room 103. Your beige heels clicked on the creaking floors of the disgusting classroom where you taught on Mondays as you talked your students through next week’s lesson plan. Was it a little beyond your qualifications as someone with a master's on Literature? Yes. Would that stop you? Absolutely not. They seemed excited about the whole ordeal, and that was enough to convince you that you weren't being a bad teacher, exactly. Good teachers were fun, right?

Maybe Harry had been a good teacher all along. Having that nice, kind thought cleared your conscience entirely as you proceeded with your plan.

The teasing between you two wasn’t entirely gone throughout the week, but it did lose most of its mean edge. Calling him a fucking hippie, or whatever was something that could apparently be accomplished in a much more tender tone, the one you also used to say “Fuck off, H,” when he jokingly called you Professor Umbridge. Every day of the week he had driven you home after class, bought dinner that you ate together on your bed, and kissed your neck in very particular spots. Talking to him was surprisingly easy, and you could entertain each other for hours only by telling weird anecdotes both from university and Markham, friends and professors and colleagues and students all becoming the background to the life you had lived together even though you were apart. There was also so much you still had to learn about one another, childhood and teenage years and post-grad, and the time for all of it would eventually come. Now was the time for retribution.

It was the next Monday, and both of your classes had started a few minutes ago. Well, his had. Your students were all standing around the corridor on the first floor, silently waiting in costume for their cue.

The fact that Harry was so soft spoken made it pretty hard for you to pick an appropriately disturbing time to get the plan going, but at some point you could hear a few of his students’ voices. Assuming that meant a discussion was taking place, you nodded towards Richard, your Romeo, and he stepped forward.

Some of the other Drama students followed suit, prop torches in hand as the scene indicated, and together they burst into room 103 as Richard, with the poise of a Shakespearean character, recited loudly: “What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?”

Khalil, head held high, walked in right after and spoke as Benvolio.

As the student playing Mercutio was saying something about gentle Romeo, you walked up the classroom door.

Harry was standing behind his desk, your golden cross shining beneath his pearls; you had put the necklace on him as a joke during your Saturday dinner and he hadn’t taken it off since. His brows were furrowed and his mouth gaping as if he had forgotten to close it, while his students appeared to be mildly amused. Your kids without speaking parts were pacing between rows of desks on their way to a nonexistent ball as Mercutio, standing right before Harry, called to the Romeo at the back of the room.

“You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings and soar with them above a common bound.”

Harry smiled, and the part of you seeking silly revenge took the backseat for the slightest moment. He seemed to get over the initial shock of the disruption and watched them with a delighted curiosity.

“Is love a tender thing?” Richard asked his classmate, but he could’ve been talking to the music professor. “Is it too rough , too rude, too boist’rous, and it pricks like thorn.”

Green eyes searched for you and found you leaning on the wooden door, ankles crossed nonchalantly and a triumphant smile on your face.

“If love be rough with you,” Mercutio told Romeo,”be rough with love. Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.”

But Harry was not watching them anymore as you mouthed “Got you, Styles”, the scene unfolding behind the two of you as you won.

#harry styles #harry styles fic #harry styles smut #mine #writing #if love be rough with you #enemies to lovers

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serpentsapple · 4 years

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(This post includes major spoilers for The Grisha Trilogy and the Shades of Magic series.)

@dykeblight replied to our introductory post with the following:

alright bud since u decided to put this in the main tags of the books ur critiquing ur ready to hear my take on this. first of all the wording in this post is pretentious as hell and it bothered me all thru out reading it. second of all, let’s lay some shit down: the only books ive read discussed in this post are adsom and tgt, and while i agree that tgt isn’t the most radically feminist book series out there, i have to ask: why are u focused on women writing this? why is this post generalizing

horrible male authors but name dropping female ones? alinas journey was largely about her realizing that she could make her own choices. about her not needing to be queen or supreme ruler or some shit. about how she could literally settle down with the worlds most boring dude and still be happy. anyways, beyond that: adsom. first of all, whenever someone pulls the “not like other girls” card for lila, i have to pull the “she’s genderfluid” card. it wasn’t Explicitly stated in the series, and v

has expressed regret for that, so it’s probably going to be more obvious in the next series. also, adsom is very much a period piece. you couldn’t be a woman in the early nineteenth century doing what lila did without like, yknow, *not being a woman.* the threat she got on that first ship— a period piece! if it was a male author, then that’s gross. but it’s not, a woman wrote it! lila also proceeded to burn the whole goddamn ship down. sometimes authors don’t want to write traditionally feminine

characters!!! sometimes women want to write about what THEY can relate to! and ve schwab, as a queer woman, probably did that. so now we come back to the question of WHY are you calling out only female authors for this? you could have accomplished the same goal by just including books and authors that you deemed Respectable. not to be that bitch, but there was literally no reason for you to post this lmfao. i think we should first tackle the issue that is men having access to keyboards, and

maybe then we can broaden our horizons by critiquing everything women do thats decidedly not perfect.

We created this blog to discuss these topics, so we welcome other opinions and interpretations!

To reiterate our goal and perhaps clarify... male authors already receive enough publicity and analysis - to the point they eclipse, at times, their female peers, even when it comes to writing female characters. How wonderful of them to treat fictional women as fellow human beings! (How shameless of others to treat them as their personal sexual fantasy!) Yet we would like to hear what women have to say about themselves. It is why we focus exclusively on their works.

Furthermore, we believe these works as worthy of analysis as any text written by a man. And it is precisely because of this conviction - their books potentially as grandiose, as mediocre as any man’s - that we will not refrain from criticising them. To treat them differently would be implicitly agreeing with the notion they aren’t as intellectually engaging as men’s writings.

Moreover, we are not advocating for “feminist” books from women. In fact, we dislike this qualifier: too often misattributed, rarely useful, always commercial. We desire convincing female characters, as talented as they are flawed, as just as they can be immoral. Thus, while we have grown tired of uncreative, unnecessary sexism in fantasy, we are not expecting perfect little militants in every story. We expect to be moved and stunned, to be left inspired or reflecting on what we read.

I hope this has cleared up our intent with the blog. Now, for the specific series discussed...

While I could see this be Bardugo’s aim for Alina’s journey, I disagree with it being well executed. Narratively speaking, I do not think Alina was treated fairly and was able to make true choices. Throughout all three books, Alina remained unobservant and somewhat self-centered, never challenging the affirmations of others and instead regarding them as truth. Let’s take the example of the Darkling: she accepts his supposed initial good intentions and views him, to the very end, as some kind of lost and anguished “boy”. Yet that isn’t what the text shows - on the contrary, the Darkling is a hollow character that spent centuries sitting on his behind, doing nothing for his fellow Grisha. Alina is never given the chance to realise this and reevalute what happened to her.

Beyond this, I feel like Alina’s journey was contrived from the start. Bardugo does not allow her to see beyond the words of others, nor does she allow her to actually grow. Alina’s crush on Mal and her fixation on remaining with him - despite him disliking what she is! - stems from a child’s anxiety and solitude. Instead of becoming her own woman, making her own choices and yes, having to face losing relationships, Alina regresses to the safety of her childhood, powerless and normal, just like Mal. Let us remember that, to remain with him, she sealed her powers within herself, endangering her health! So symbolically, it is a slap in the face: just when she embraced her powers - meaning letting go of her fears, of Mal -, she loses it all and go back to square one.

This is why I don’t find Alina’s journey satisfying. Even if it hurts, I wish to see female characters confronted to their fears and their flaws, and grow from them*. That is not what we witnessed with Alina. And: why is it that female characters must be “depowered”? Why does the Darkling (and Ilya Morozova) get to keep his immense powers, must live with his guilt, yet Alina loses every and any scrap of magic? Why is she punished for her greed so much, when she hardly is the greediest? (This echoes also Genya’s “punishment”, so heavily tied to her being a beautiful woman and beauty being, in Bardugo’s world, a key quality for women. Nikolai’s monstruous transformation is cruel but never specifically targeted at his sex.)

Why is it female characters only whose “happy” ending involve going back to their boyfriend’s house, complete with potential children? In a fantasy world, is it the best we can offer to these characters? Why does “making her own choice” usually involve them being unambitious and - I am barely caricaturing - happy housewives? Where are the female characters being greedy, powerful to the point of madness, and fascinatingly ruthless? Where are the genius, the good but scheming inventors and princesses? Where are the female Darklings and the female Nikolais?

Yes, it may not be Alina’s story and that’s alright. But reading the story she received, I could not help wondering: is it truly her story, or is it her story in a narrative unfair to women?

As for Lila... what Schwab stated confusingly in interviews or twitter threads cannot be used to analyse the text itself, though it may help. In this case, it holds a very different perspective from what she may affirm outside of it, so let’s keep close to what she wrote.

I disagree that it is a period piece. Her series is firmly set in a fantasy version of our world, with four alternate but equally real Londons, and with interactions between them that differentiate her England from ours. She chose to keep this England similar to ours, so the departure from it could be obvious; she chose, again, to have Lila threatened with rape by sailors even in Red London, her full invention. She chose, still, to never mention the miserable reality of lots of poor women like Lila in our England - namely, prostitution. She picked what suited her, as authors do, yet could not come up with any other plot than sexual assault. That she is a woman does not excuse her utter lack of imagination on that front! I find the notion that female characters are condemned to sexual threats depressing, on top of insulting towards authors who still strive to be creative.

And this is all ignoring what Schwab forced her other female characters to endure, which is sexual slavery, somewhat coerced pregnancies and social isolation, plus being sexist caricatures and butchered so men could be sad about it. In that context, what is Schwab exactly saying about women, if even her heroine is misogynistic and desperately trying to escape this reality? If Lila isn’t a woman - which she is in the text, she never denies being one, she only affirms being different, meaning a full human being! -, does that mean women’s place is in caricature and distress and death? If she is, then must they reject their womanhood and deride other women to be in the spotlight?

And this is all, again, ignoring that Schwab who, yes, admitted wanting to write a female character she wished to see in fiction, that resembled her... had Lila’s whole development derailed in favour of male characters. Lila’s ambition and excessiveness vanished in a third book dedicated to temptation! Lila’s anger and recklessness receded in front of Holland, all so we could learn about his sad backstory. Which involved, as salt to the wound, the stereotypes of a greedy girlfriend and the ever failing mother Schwab is so fond of.

Our post never suggested that women should not write non traditionally feminine women. Rather, that would be quite refreshing! I would love to read about these women that we hardly see.

Is it what Schwab wrote, though? Lila indeed crossdresses and appears androgynous enough to sometimes pass as a man (not always, in a manner that is most convenient to the author). Yet: she constantly mocks other women for being vapid, gossiping, feminine, in a word weak. Yet: Schwab has her, in the second book, attend a ball dressed femininely and feeling insecure about it, all to state she is - quoting! - “not most girls” and have Kell, her love interest, compliments her. She has the happy tomboy reaffirmed as able to be feminine and beautiful that way! How is that not depressing for every woman and girl who never want to be feminine? Why did Schwab choose to have her in a dress instead of a suit, like Lila would probably have preferred? Why did Schwab choose to strictly divide women and men into two categories, dress-wearing and not-dress-wearing? Why is Lila alone in her plight as an androgynous woman? Why didn’t this fantasy world have women and men dressed in a way they felt comfortable with?

This isn’t a period piece. Schwab was free to make that choice... and she did not. I would add, too, that women in real life have always struggled and fought against misogyny. They were women and they were still complex human beings and they still tried to live as comfortably as they could. Sometimes they failed, yes, because society wouldn’t want them to. But women like Lila have existed, and behaved like her, and dressed like her, and dreamed as big as her. Why should not we expect as much of fiction, then?

Sidenote: I am especially critical of that awful “tomboy turns into a lady” trope that fandom will seize it and run. It is disheartening to see countless edits and fanarts of Lila depicting her as feminine instead of androgynous as she was written, and often in feminine clothing at that. So if even the narrative later ends up confirming it...

*Or perhaps spiral down, willingfully blind. Alina’s story isn’t supposed to be a tragedy, however, so this does not apply here.

(If you don’t mind, I would like to hear why you found the post’s wording pretentious?)

#reply #shades of magic #the grisha trilogy #our posts #mod V

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jaegerbroshoe · 4 years

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nope,as much as i love eren his plan still doesn't sit right with me. from what I've read so far, he's also a hypocrite. he seems to believe that the rumbling is predestined & can't think of any other plan. his is fucked up. idk wtf is going on inside his head, what he actually feels,how's the state of his conscience. also fuck people, they litrally don't want peace. we still haven't seen all of his pov so im still gonna wait. side q: if this happened irl do u still want to support mass murder?

...

You’re contradicting yourself too and don’t even realize it 💀. At least Eren and I know we’re hypocrites on some level because we realize thinking in duality is unrealistic (since society runs on this conceptual model, you’ll always contradict yourself when you start looking at special cases). Meanwhile, you’re already judging him but then you say you’re gonna wait for the rest of his POV 🤨. You talk about conscience but then you say fuck people because they don’t want peace 🧐 (but congrats! you do understand one thing about humanity!).

Secondly, I don’t think you understand the situation right if you’re saying he didn’t try any other plan 😂. He didn’t blame this on “fate” either 🤦🏻‍♀️. Go back and reread.

Lastly, as I’ve said before, yes, if this same exact situation was happening in real life, I would still support the Rumbling, assuming I was still viewing the situation “objectively” and had ALL the information (regarding their true history). If I was born a Marleyan, I’d probably think differently. But as an outsider simply hearing about this situation and knowing what I know about the history of the conflict, I say the Rumbling is justified (i.e. there’s a legitimate reason for its occurrence) in this case.

That doesn’t mean I don’t recognize that not everyone who’s on the recieving end deserves it or that I’m rejoicing in the gore. I’m also aware that this solution isn’t perfect because such a thing does not exist. It won’t permanently stop future problems from arising. I’m just looking at the situation as a whole and out of all the options, this would theoretically have the best long term effects and is the most fair to the ones who were the most oppressed.

So I guess call me what you want for still wanting to support mass murder in real life 🤷🏻‍♀️. I think it’s a gross oversimplication of the conflict but if you want to reduce it to this, all I can say is that you still have a very childish outlook on life.

P.S. I’d like to see your opinion on real world issues. Do you think all WWII nazis should have been executed? Do you think all “Islamic” terrorists should die? Do you think the US was justified in bombing Japan? How about the Chinese government and everyone complicit in their current acts against the Uyghurs? These are all people who committed/are committing immoral acts. Well guess what, you’d still be supporting mass murder. Also, shitting on Eren’s plan without coming up with a realistic alternative in their situation equates to you supporting mass murder too—just that of the Paradisians and SoY 😊.

#asks #ik I’m being condescending but your tone is also 🤢#I wasn’t gonna answer this because you’re clearly a social justice warrior #but I’ll wait to see if you bother me again #it’s a block next time #I’m curious to know why you’re on anon if you’re so much more superior for thinking ‘right’#eren’s plan #the rumbling #snk themes #snk politics #eren #snk fandom #rant #my opinion

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otomeshistarlight-blog · 5 years

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Rant incoming

I was scrolling through the JoJo tag when I saw this post and I just ... I’m really tired y’all.

First of all, according to a google search it looks like the age of consent in Italy is 14 (if I’m wrong, please correct me) so Narancia is very legal, as is Giorno. America’s laws are not universal. The world is not so UScentric that whatever we as a country deem inappropriate is likewise considered to be inappropriate in other countries. There are varying standards throughout different societies and one is not necessarily more correct than the next. Whether or not I think real life fourteen year olds should be having sex is irrelevant- because even if I don’t agree with it, it’s gonna happen anyway - but Narancia is not a real fourteen year old so whatever the law dictates in America OR Italy is irrelevant.

What this boils down to is that there is no victim here. Narancia cannot be taken advantage of. Narancia cannot be sexually assaulted and face the physical/emotional consequences of such trauma. There is nothing inherently wrong with shipping him in ANY pairing, regardless of the ages involved. If I want to write about him getting wrecked by Bruno I will damn well do it because not a single person is being hurt by me doing so. If this is something that triggers you and causes you distress then don’t 👏🏻 fucking 👏🏻 look 👏🏻 at 👏🏻 it. 👏🏻

Fighting for the rights of fictional characters solves nothing. It helps no one. It doesn’t benefit real victims and it sure as hell does not stop real people from being victimized in the first place. This is a nonissue that people are taking up arms over for no reason other than a perceived moral superiority that makes them feel more in control of the world around them. It stems from feeling helpless and lost in a society that doesn’t bend to their every whim. Fandom space is the only place they feel like they have any power so they take on the role of morality police, try to dictate what people can and cannot like, and then accuse anyone who won’t do what they say of heinous crimes. It’s extremely toxic and harmful, not to mention it lessens the severity of sincere pedophile/abuse finger pointing so the chances of a real predator getting away with it are greatly heightened, and I’m just done with it at this point.

Let’s say I’m looking through the porn tags as I am won’t to do and I come across a post that features blatant child porn. Real child porn. The 3D kind that, yknow, actually features real children being exploited and assaulted for realsies. I’m understandably appalled so I file a report with tumblr and they don’t even look at it because they’ve been bombarded for the last year with false harm to minors reports and the user is never penalized for actually doing something inherently wrong and immoral. Y’all have heard about the girl who cried wolf right? Like, y’all know how that story ends don’t you?

But no. Instead of directing your efforts towards anything worthwhile, you’re going to keep going after shippers. And for what? Because oh no, the fictional seventeen year old who could just as likely be nineteen is being paired with a fictional twenty-five year old. The horror. What is the world coming to? Think of the children!

Except ... these supposed children don’t exist. How can you victimize a piece of paper? The same argument applies to loli/shotacon too mind you, and there is no crime in looking at drawings regardless of their perceived age, especially when the topic is anime where you can have a character who looks like a five year old girl and she is in fact a 400 year old vampire. Like?? There is absolutely no logic you can apply to this that has any internal consistency let alone actually makes sense.

Me: these fictional minors don’t even look like sixteen year olds, where have you seen a real teenager who looks like this?

Antis: they look like teens you pedo!! And ageing them up is still pedophilia because they are canonly sixteen so you’re still thinking about teenagers in a roundabout, highly contrived way

Me: *shows you a 300 year old loli vampire* okay so I can definitely fuck this one right? She’s unrealistically old!

Antis: no!!!! You’re just using her canon age as an excuse to be a freak who preys on children! She might be 300 years old but she still has the body of a child!!

Me: okay so I’ll just age myself down to self ship, no biggie.

Antis: absolutely not!! You’re still an adult and ageing yourself down doesn’t make it okay!! I’m reporting you to the authorities right now!

Me: but ... who am I supposed to imagine fucking then?

Antis: one of the few adults you find in anime, except this one because he’s an abuser, or this one because he tortured a little girl and not the serial killer either because wow problematic

Me: so what you’re telling me ... is that I’m only allowed to thirst after your preapproved, precious cinnamon roll faves even though my tastes or needs in a relationship might vary greatly from yours?

Antis: yes, exactly. I’m so glad you’re finally on my level of intelligence and moral superiority. : ^)

Me: oh, I see now. So what this boils down to is that you just don’t want people to enjoy something you don’t personally agree with. Got it.

Antis: absolutely not!! I’m thinking about the betterment of society by telling you what you can and cannot enjoy! You liking these questionable things is harmful against the greater good! Won’t you think of the children!?

Me: soooooo we’re just gonna ignore how much that sounds like a fascist/communist society or ...?

Antis: : ^)

Y’all should absolutely read 1984. It would do you some good. Because having an attraction to a fucking anime character is not a slippery slope, but this puritanical shit? It sure as hell is.

Let me pose this query: what is stopping an anti from going on a book burning campaign or fighting to get certain books banned? Lolita? Flowers in the Attic? All of the works by Marquis de Sade (a personal hero of mine)? Alternatively who are the only people who actually engage in book burning/banning?

Overzealous religious nuts. Everything about the anti movement is the same “our children shouldn’t be exposed to such filth” battle cry that religious sects - specifically the western ones - have screamed for decades now except with a cute little sjw hat on top. No rock n’ roll music. It’s Satan’s music. No porn. It’s tainting America’s youth. No alcohol. It’s leading our country down the path of sin. No violent video games or movies. They’re turning people into mass shooters. No problematic themes in fictional works because it’s turning people into pedophiles/abusers.

And that is just ... factually incorrect. There is absolutely no correlation between Lolita being published and an uptick in children being sexually assaulted. There is no correlation between lolicon or shotacon breeding more pedophiles. Because that’s literally not how it works. Period. I’m not going to accidentally stumble on a loli doujin and think “huh yknow what? This sounds fun!” I could even read loli doujins at length and that’s still not going to convince me that actually engaging in sexual situations with toddlers is okay. Like ... I don’t know why these people think we’re so stupid that we don’t know the difference between right and wrong but this is just insane. The only people who look at loli or shota and then go on to commit crimes against real children are the ones who were already having those kinds of thoughts in the first place. The only people who play Grand Theft Auto and then go shoot up a church are the ones who were already having violent thoughts to begin with. These thoughts are not magically implanted into our brains regardless of what media we consume and that’s just a goddamn fact.

Yes, media impacts reality but not the way you think it does. Even all those sources antis link to about the supposed correlation between the two are twisted to meet their own rhetoric. It’s called marketing and anyone with half a brain cell knows that it exists. It’s meant to encourage us into thinking we need some product so we spend money on junk and keep capitalism going strong. it works more often than not. However no amount of marketing is going to convince a mentally sound person that shooting up a mall is a valid life choice to make. It just doesn’t work like that and you could scream until your blue in the face that fucking kids is the bees knees and I still wouldn’t touch a real child because that’s gross. Period. And since I can’t touch Bakugou Katsuki or Narancia because they’re just figments of someone’s imagination and pen and paper ... then where lies the problem?? What is the issue with writing or drawing fictional characters, regardless of age or moral compass, in sexual situations?

I’m a CSA survivor that has been on the internet for a LONG time. I’ve seen some shit I sorely wish I could forget. Everything from real life gore, real life death, bestiality, necrophilia and yes even real life child porn. I don’t think there’s a single problematic thing I haven’t accidentally stumbled on and it’s horrific. It’s disgusting. I know all too well how awful these things are and I know even better how it feels to be a victim of rape and sexual assault and pedophilia and grooming. Like. That was my life growing up. I know what these things look like and I can assure you without a shadow of a doubt that whatever is going on in fandom space isn’t even comparable. Please. Draw your OC fucking a dragon mascot character instead of fucking a real animal. Please write about a fictional father fucking his fictional son instead of fucking a real child or a real sibling. Do whatever you want with your imagination - and I do mean WHATEVER. If you want to think about eating your favorite characters shit then by all means. Enjoy. It doesn’t effect reality in any way besides maybe giving someone a cathartic coping outlet and there’s nothing wrong with it.

There’s nothing wrong with ANY topic being explored in fiction.

The only problem is when someone commits a crime in reality. When someone hurts another living being. And consuming this so called problematic fiction does not lead someone to real life crimes. Period.

Finding myself on that stupid gore site when I was 14, BestGore I think it’s called? Did not make me want to try killing someone. I’ve never even seriously contemplated doing it because death is awful in every regard, I wouldn’t seriously wish that on anyone let alone convince myself that it’s okay. But according to antis me being exposed to that sort of content means I’m more likely to go out and commit murder?

Literally what crack are you smoking?

Get the fuck out of here and do something worthwhile with your time if you honestly find these topics so disturbing. If not then shut up, sit down and let people enjoy their fandom experience however they see fit. Because this right here? This treating fictional characters like they matter, like they’re real people? It’s not fucking cute. And as someone who was raped from the time I was eleven until I was eighteen by a family member I can safely say that you aren’t doing shit to help anyone with this holier than thou, I know better than you crusade.

And that is the goddamn truth whether you like it or not.

#discourse #anti #shipping

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its-love-u-asshole · 6 years

Text

Twelve Hours [Ch. 1]

Pairings: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei

Summary: Kuroo Tetsurou has dealt with a lot since he was eighteen, each year bringing the same depressing challenges on the same depressing night. He expects this time to be no different, but the universe is trying desperately to prove him wrong in the most bizarre ways imaginable. So screw it, Kuroo’s only choice is to buckle in and hope he doesn’t die. Easy enough. And hey, with some new allies at his side, maybe he has a chance. Who knows? At least Kuroo is sure of one thing in life when it comes to March 15th, and he stands by this unwritten law, no matter what happens:

If you try to kill pizza delivery boys on Purge Night, you’re irrevocably a bitch.

Rating: T

Tags: Purge AU, mentions of violence but nothing graphic or too bad, no character deaths here okay, this is borderline crack and idk what I was thinking, first meetings, other characters, shenanigans and just...a lot of fun (it seems angsty but its not)

Note: I said I had a new weird au and I do not lie. This au....is so fun to write lmao I got the inspiration from a writing prompts blog (they always work wonders, I swear) and I'm so glad I actually sat down and produced this, no matter how crackish it is lol. I hope everyone enjoys! I already have 2 more chapters written so 'm going to try and be frequent with the updates (as much as I can anyways), so expect those every other week ^^ Thanks to @emeraldwaves for reading this over!

AO3

Sec. 175. In accordance with national law and employment regulations, no government corporations, hospitals, schools, or select businesses are to remain open on the night of the annual Purge. Should a private chain or entity choose to conduct themselves, all labor codes must be adhered to, and employees are to be compensated with a wage fifty times the normal hourly rate, as well as provided with basic equipment needed for protection. Any businesses found to be neglectful of such policies will be examined and penalized.

March 15, 2020

1:00 PM

6 hours until the Purge

"Shit."

A shrill, joyless tune rang through Kuroo's room, and his eyes snapped open. His first mistake of many.

The sound of his alarm and his general grogginess had him rolling right out of bed and onto the floor in his piss poor attempt to reach for the snooze button (for real, how had he fucked that up?). His limbs acted like hooks, bringing his bundle of blankets and pillows down with him.

It wasn't that different from a regular morning, in truth. The only difference was that this time, he was ashamed by how late he'd managed to sleep in.

Kuroo prided himself on being an early riser. He had his good name to defend. At this rate, even Bokuto would be up and about (or in the midst of his first nap), that log.

"Dammit," Kuroo muttered, reaching up to silence his phone. The end of the stupid ringtone didn't end Kuroo's suffering. The sun shone through his window, making him squint, and that, along with his mind beginning to power on, reeling with dates and to-do-lists, became far too much stimulation for the morning.

Er...afternoon.

Kuroo sprang up, unaware he'd collapsed the previous night in such exhaustion he hadn't been able to pull his jeans all the way off his legs.

The result? He fell face first onto his unvacuumed carpet once again, and okay, out of all the days of the year, this was not the day for him to be so clumsy. It probably hadn't been a good idea to work a double shift the day before at the pizza parlor, but there was a gaming console he really wanted (not to mention his strong desire to keep his savings growing), and he was so close to being able to afford it.

And make no mistake, Kuroo didn't like stealing, sanctioned crime or no sanctioned crime.

So he was saving up, like a high schooler or something. Oh well, it beat the alternative...

On autopilot, Kuroo fumbled for his remote, groaning as his hand touched something mushy.

Oh god. Gross. Gross and weird, what the fuck--

Clearly, some spring cleaning would be in order for tomorrow. The world ‘tomorrow’ made his heart stop for a second in fear of the unknown, but he got over himself quickly. He had to. Today he just had to.

After some deep breathing, he managed to pry his eyes open enough to find what he was looking for: the remote. Switching on the television, because that's what he did on a normal day, he couldn't help but groan at his mistake.

Routines could be his downfall at times, especially when his television automatically turned onto the news station. He should really know better by now…

This was the one day where he preferred to not watch the news while he got ready. Kuroo would've much preferred some B movies, or even better, a documentary on how to make soap.

Not caring enough to switch the set off, he threw the remote to his bed, and waited for the coverage to begin. No point avoiding it now. In the meantime, he figured he really needed a quick rinse, and a good brush through his hair (it wouldn't look any better afterwards, but it was the thought that counted).

Kuroo had to return to work by five anyways, as was policy. Even though the pizza place he worked at wouldn't start accepting orders until the start of the Purge, they had to be there to lockdown, take inventory, prepare their cars, and get their gear on.

So basically, Kuroo would have to get gas, organize his artillery, and make lunch all before then.

I want ramen...no...fried chicken.

Fuck it, he was getting paid fifty times his usual wage tonight, he could afford to treat himself to both.

The news logo flashed onto the television, gaudy and bright. On screen, two anchors sat, the countdown clock framed innocently in the upper right-hand corner.

"Good afternoon and thank you for joining us on the eve of our nation's 7th annual Purge! I sure hope everyone is excited. What should we be expecting from tonight Kudobera-san?"

Before closing the bathroom door, Kuroo glanced back, catching the far too cheery smiles of the news anchors giving their annual spiel.

"Well Takigawa-san, we expect a much higher turnout than last year. However, reports show that a lot of businesses have upgraded to new top of the line security systems. It'll be interesting to see how these changes will affect the crime rates tonight.

"But in celebrity news, idol Fuwa Reiko's Purge bash is said to have a guest list of over fifty people this year, and prizes will include..."

Kuroo rolled his eyes, grabbing the nearest bath towel, and shutting the door.

The Purge began when Kuroo was eighteen years old, and it was truly a terrifying and horrific time and blah, blah, blah, blah...

Yeesh.

Look. Kuroo could go on and on about the corruption and politics surrounding the Purge and how it came into being. He could then spend another few hours about how it ended up impacting him personally. His newly formed anxiety, his suppressed fears, the fact that many people he knew and met sometimes didn't survive the year.

Very grim stuff. No fun.

Tonight wasn't about any of that, and Kuroo wasn't going to waste time on detailing the Purge and all the blood-chilling and fucked up things which happened during it.

No one had time for that.

And yeah, one day Kuroo dreamed he'd be rich enough to move away from this cursed nation, safe and healthy with all his friends without the Purge looming over him every month until March rolled around.

But, it was not the time for escape quite yet, so Kuroo refused to dwell on the subjects of blood and gore. No time to reminisce over his childhood, no reason to recount his tragic backstories or feelings on the matter.

Not tonight. Maybe next year.

Tonight, he had a twelve-hour shift, and he was expecting to be paid well.

The point of all this? (Aside from the gaming anyways...) Simple. In order to one day achieve his dream, and keep himself alive until then, he needed money. Purge night, as shitty and immoral as it could be, let him earn enough money to cover three months’ worth of rent. That was without tips too.

That was his only focus.

So in short, in order to keep himself sane, Kuroo worked hard, and had no problem with diverting his internal angst into jokes at any given moment.

Liiiiike now.

Kuroo kicked open the door to Bokuto's bedroom, where he was still cuddling Akaashi against his chest. One of their infamous afternoon naps. How cute.

They were sickening. "Hello naughty children, it's murder time!"

The couple jolted awake, and while he might deny it later, Bokuto totally screamed. Kuroo smirked as Bokuto flailed on the floor, reaching for a nearby water gun to defend himself.

Given that Kuroo knew Bokuto was quite skilled with actual guns, it was a sight to see.

Akaashi glared at Kuroo from the bed, eyes full of pure, empty disgust, like Kuroo was a dead bug on the windshield of Akaashi’s life. Kuroo's joy was not deterred, and in a sudden moment of bluntness, Akaashi uttered his first sentence of the day: "Kuroo-san, I hate you."

"Is that any way to treat your best friend who woke you guys up in time for your flight?" Kuroo wiped his fake tears, gesturing to the bundle of suitcases Akaashi had packed dutifully two nights prior.

"I had an alarm set--"

"And your best friend, who made you guys lunch and drives you to the airport every year," Kuroo continued, not willing to wilt under Akaashi's piercing stare. Bokuto stayed on the floor, rubbing the sleepiness out of his eyes.

Kuroo could defend himself alright? Being a cunt was a defense mechanism he used so he wouldn’t just start fucking crying all over how much he loved his friends on the worst day of the year, so he was sticking with it. They knew of course, but maybe they didn’t say anything for Kuroo’s sake, and he loved them for it.

Akaashi sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he channeled his inner anger management guru. Kuroo liked to poke fun at the fact that maybe Akaashi needed to purge more than anyone, but they all knew the raven abhorred violence.

Well, most of the time.

Without another word, Akaashi chucked a pillow directly at Kuroo's face (with impressive force he might add), and Bokuto became aware enough to tackle Kuroo to the ground two seconds later.

And though Kuroo whined and complained, eventually crying his surrender after Bokuto had him pinned down long enough, he couldn't help but smile at how much he cherished these moments.

Bokuto and Akaashi would only be gone for a week, but he would miss them. They always picked the time of the Purge to take their yearly vacation.

It was...better that way.

They could afford it too, being players for the national team. Bokuto got nervous and overly protective whenever the Purge rolled around, and though Akaashi wouldn't admit it, they were both scared of ever being remotely close to a situation in which they might lose each other.

So, they decided to travel to a different country every time the heinous event rolled around, one where the Purge had no weight or influence.

As Kuroo made them their pancakes and helped them with their bags, he couldn't help but doubt himself, like he did each year.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us Kuroo, we can still get you a ticket, we can figure something out!" Bokuto's concerned look almost had Kuroo giving in. He slammed the trunk, putting Bokuto's suitcase down next to him.

The airport was never that crowded on Purge night. Guess people trust their security systems enough to not leave the county.

The couple never failed to offer Kuroo a ticket. They cared about him, didn't like the thought of him not being safe. Kuroo agreed. That's why he'd begged his family to move out of the country years ago, why he encouraged Bokuto and Akaashi to leave around this time as well.

But Kuroo...Kuroo was stubborn.

He hadn't finished school yet, and his savings weren't where he wanted them to be. When he moved, he wanted to be secure. Plus...Kuroo could be kind of dumb about these things. He got a twisted sense of pride when he survived Murder Night™ every year, even more so now that he chose to work during the event.

Yeah...that was a whole different story.

Kuroo shook his head, smiling easily. "We've been over this man, you don't have to worry about me. I refuse to die."

Akaashi curled his hand around Bokuto's before the other could begin to protest. Akaashi disagreed with Kuroo's decisions too, but he knew arguing got them nowhere. "You are like a roach."

Kuroo stumbled back, as if punched. "Ouch. I'll try to take that as a compliment."

"It wasn't."

"Akaashi."

They all laughed, and as the clock struck four, he watched them disappear into the airport, after a painful, drawn out embrace, waving at him one last time.

He smiled through his misty eyes, and couldn't help but feel relief knowing they'd be far away by 7 PM.

Now generally, it was pretty agreed by all that during the Purge, people shouldn't target delivery boys. Out of all the people to kill, you're gonna go after Papa John? Get fucked.

Who the hell was shitty enough to murder some sad minimum wage worker?

Well, a lot of people actually. People were cruel during the Purge, that was sorta the point. But, in Kuroo's experience, the freaks with knives and masks would often overlook him and his crappy pizza delivery uniform.

Some things were worse than death, they probably thought.

Kuroo wouldn't complain. The less trouble for him the better. While he did occasionally have to fire warning shots and rev his car at people who were a bit bolder and more bloodthirsty, he stayed fairly safe.

Or as safe as one could be, surrounded by crazed people wielding machetes. He was more than fine with ignoring the screams and explosions by turning up his stereo to inhuman levels, bottling up his inner hero.

Because in reality, Kuroo had never managed to shake his core beliefs, no matter how fucked up the system was. He was honest, valued good work ethic, respected his elders, all that jazz.

Yes, Kuroo Tetsurou was the guy who helped old ladies cross the street. Definitely not someone who should be working during the Purge. But, well, his mother always told him people would underestimate him if given the chance.

Kuroo's natural instinct was to defend, to protect. However, during the Purge, it simply wasn't practical, and he was forced to hate himself for it later.

At least he had Matsukawa and Semi to keep him company.

"Happy Murder Night, would you like to hear about our specials?" Matsukawa deadpanned as Kuroo walked through the front door of the parlor. The blast shields were already up, and the shop was technically closed. The only occupants of the booths were his fellow coworkers, the other people insane enough to be working that night.

Semi rolled his eyes, greeting Kuroo without a polite nod. He assumed Kyoutani was in the back, making breadsticks. Again, normal day, if he didn't count the various rifles and bulletproof vests spread out on the counter. Backup measures, in case somehow, the titanium doors were broken down.

Kuroo laughed, walking over to where Matsukawa sat perched behind the register, and picked up the vest with his nametag on it.

So much to do, so little time.

He clipped the vest on securely, holstering two of the guns and a knife.

"I don't know how this place stays in business," Semi muttered from where he polished the counter. "Why would people order pizza on the most dangerous night of the year?"

"You say that as if we don't get at least ten or so orders every year," Matsukawa reminded.

"Robbing and plundering does work up an appetite," Kuroo agreed.

"Like you'd know," Semi said with a snort, throwing the dirty dish rag at Kuroo's face. All this disrespect today.

"Hey, I'll have you know, I once stole a bag of chocolate coins from the discount store." Kuroo crossed his arms, his grin wide and triumphant.

Matsukawa squinted, tapping his hands on the bright red countertop. "It was an accident, wasn't it?"

"..."

"Did you cry afterwards?"

Fuck.

Kuroo said nothing, and Semi looked two seconds away from laughing his ass off. Wankers. All of them. Nothing but wankers.

"I'll take that as a yes," Matsukawa said, ducking just in time to avoid Kuroo's headlock.

It was at that moment Kyoutani made himself known, asking if Kuroo had ever done jail time for a crime so heinous.

"You've got jokes now? What's the world coming to?" Kuroo cried, falling to his knees.

"Given what day it is, should you really be asking that?" Semi said, and man, too far.

They all stared at each other, letting the dark foreboding and realization settle over them. The thoughts sprang up like they always did, violent and despair-riddled, before Kuroo defiantly squished them down.

Then, they all broke out into laughter, the kind which brought tears to the eyes.

Yeah, the Purge was fucked up, but it brought them closer together.

And honestly, grease stains or not, Kuroo was glad to wait out the Purge in the company of these assholes.

After all, it was the best he was gonna get for now.

Kuroo's car was geared up and ready to go.

The delivery vehicle given to them for Purge night only opened from the driver's side. The rest of the car was plated with a lightweight metal, armor essentially. The front behaved more like a battering ram than a hood, in case of extreme circumstances, like having to get through a crowd of attackers. The mirrors were shatter resistant, and the tires were as slash and puncture resistant as possible. Still, the car came equipped with a set of spares just in case.

They kept the car in a special fortified garage which was only accessible through the parlor. The garage door into the parlor locked every time it was closed, a security measure for if someone tried to break in while Kuroo was leaving for a delivery.

All in all, Kuroo felt safe at his workplace. Outside though...he didn't trust anything, and for good reason. Better safe than sorry.

After helping with food prep, checking the car's interior, and filling up the tank, hours had gone by. Looking at his clock, Kuroo's heart skipped a beat.

6:50 PM. Ten minutes until the Purge.

Dread coiled in his gut for a moment before it was gone. Kuroo never got used to this, but he knew what to expect now after seven years.

"Kuroo c'mon, time to get inside," Semi said, poking his head through the garage door. Kuroo was technically safe in the garage but...they just liked to all be together during the opening broadcasts.

Taking a deep breath, Kuroo followed after him, just in time to catch the start. The large flat screen in the dining area which usually played sports games and cheesy commercials lit up blue, the emergency broadcast text slowly beginning to scroll up the screen.

"This is not a test. This is your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of the Annual Purge sanctioned by your government. Weapons of class 4 and lower have been authorized for use during the Purge. All other weapons are restricted. Government officials of ranking 10 have been granted immunity from the Purge and shall not be harmed. Commencing at the siren, any and all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 continuous hours. Police, fire, and emergency medical services will be unavailable until tomorrow morning at 7 a.m., when The Purge concludes. May God be with you all."

The classic pause.

The silence.

Kuroo never got why there had to be the brief stall before the alarms began, but he despised it. Everyone in the parlor remained stone-like as the chilling sirens began echoed in the distance. They were ghostly almost, unreal, like a thick fog no one could escape from. Sometimes, Kuroo could hear them in his dreams, and he’d wake up with two pillows pressed against his head, as if trying to block the sound.

Kuroo couldn't help but laugh bitterly to himself.

Guess the walls aren't that thick.

As the sirens began to fade, none of them moved. Yeah, it never stopped being sort of surreal. They waited for the telltale crash of store glass or gunshots in the distance, but for now, things had yet to get into full swing.

Or so they'd thought.

Life was weird and unexpected. That much Kuroo knew. But if someone had told him all the twists and turns he'd go through over the course of the next twelve hours, he would have laughed in their face.

He'd be wrong though.

Now, it wasn't abnormal for them to get orders later in the night, usually from families waiting out the Purge or from rich assholes throwing Purge parties. Kuroo didn't get it, and he didn't appreciate the calls, but it was his job.

But again, the calls normally came later. Like, much later.

So when the phone on the counter started to ring not even two minutes after the sirens stopped, only Kyoutani managed to find his voice through the shock of it.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

#kurotsuki #haikyuu!!#adri writing

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briteboy · 7 years

Photo

WOW I’M FINALLY DOING THESE CHARACTER ASKS I NEVER ANSWERED SORRY

this is literally so long RIP me

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance?

rooney - “So...this is going to sound bad, but during my childhood, I spent my summers in France, and whenever we’d take trips to Paris I had this habit of stealing little knick-knacks from different shops...often little tourist-y things, kind of just a challenge for myself to see if I’d get away with it. I always did, and I kept it up throughout my teen years. I know, it’s bad. I lost most of the stuff, but I still have a lot of it and they’re all special to me even though I got them by very immoral means...gimme a break, I was a kid! Oh, and I also really treasure my grand-mere’s family recipes. And my tea garden, of course.”

gianni - “Truthfully, I don’t tend to value material things...I try to minimize my attachment to personal belongings so that I’d be able to get up and go anywhere with a moment’s notice if I wanted to. That being said, however, I do have quite a hefty collection of books that I’d probably miss if they were to perish in some disaster. I also have an incredibly unorganized collection of personal writings that I’d hate to part with...even though I can’t even begin to sort through them all in the first place.”

santi - “letters...a bong shaped like an elephant...but most of the important things stay in my head.”

39. Tell us about one of the times they got injured?

rooney - “When I was five I climbed an apple tree and fell about 10 feet and landed right on my back. It knocked the wind out of me and then an apple fell on my head and I had a bump on my forehead for a month, much to Audrey’s amusement. I’ve also suffered a lot of twisted ankles due to clumsiness.”

gianni - “I used to do a lot of sports in my youth, so injuries were like second nature to me...I must’ve broken every extremity at least once. They probably never healed right, either, because I was never one for resting.”

santi - “just one? well...i got into a pretty bad car accident once. no wait, okay okay, how about the time i wiped out so bad at the skate park that i broke my toe and the bone was literally sticking out? that was pretty good. or the time i broke my...nah nevermind, no one wants to hear about that. just take my word of advice: be careful in the cowgirl position, folks”

58. Do they ever have nightmares? If so, what about?

rooney - “I used to have a recurring nightmare where I’d be in a car that was driving except there was no driver. Every time I’d panic and take the wheel, except I didn’t know how to drive...I don’t remember anything past that, just that every time it happened, I woke up with my heart racing. I probably stopped having those dreams when I actually learned to drive, haha!”

gianni - “I periodically have dreams where I’m sucked into the couch into an alternate dimension. Some of them have turned into nightmares, but most are just bizarre.”

santi - “ha.”

(lmfao this b*tch)

65. If they knew they were going to die, what would they do/say?

rooney - “Probably just...‘I love you.’ No matter who I’d be saying it to...I’d just like to think the last words that leave my lips would be full of love. Unless, of course, I was brutally murdered by some serial killer. Then it’d probably be ‘Vete a la verga culero.’”

gianni - “’It’s all happening.’”

santi - “‘hey...wanna see a dead body?’”

32. Pet peeves?

FIRST OF ALL I’M SO GLAD YOU SENT THIS FOR BB FIONA OMG ;__; I CRY

anyway fiona’s pet peeves are line cutters, bad liars, commercials, when someone uses up all the peanut butter and forgets to throw the jar away, when people sugarcoat things or skirt around the truth, and when people call her fifi. do not ever call her fifi.

57. What D&D alignment are they?

OOOOOH FUCK YEAH fiona would be...honestly i think she’d be lawful evil lmao. or chaotic neutral. somewhere in between the two.

60. What is something that they’re sure to laugh at?

fart jokes 100%.

4. What is their most embarrassing memory?

santi - getting caught streaking in boarding school and sub-sequentially losing a bet to drako. or spilling coffee beans all over himself in an attempt to impress a cute waitress at the bakery he worked at 🙃

gianni - when he first met rooney’s parents he had just begun learning spanish and tried to say he was embarrassed for spilling a drink on himself in all his nerves but accidentally used the word “embarazada”, thinking it meant embarrassed. so instead of saying “estoy muy avergonzado” (i am very embarrassed) he said “estoy muy embarazada” (i am very pregnant.) rooney’s dad had a good laugh out of that one.

rooney - most of rooney’s embarrassing moments are borne from her clumsiness. one time in middle school she tripped over thin air in front of her crush and rolled all the way down a hill and got a black eye from hitting her face on a rock at the bottom. she’s beauty she’s grace

lou - lou is one of those people who refuses to be embarrassed because she hates showing weakness. so if something embarrassing happens to her she’ll shrug and brush it off even if she’s secretly dying inside. often she’s always one step ahead, so if anything, she’ll be the one to catch you in the act and embarrass you.

7. Which of their relationships have impacted them most positively?

rooney - i think it goes without saying, gianni. audrey and her parents, and maisie and mars as well because she's learning the ropes of parenting through the way audrey interacts with them. her bffs 5ever, eli and cosmic <3 also idiot boy santi because in a way she is a lot like him, though not as lost. they help each other out when they’re in similar mindsets.

gianni - rooney of course, his parents, his bb boy santi ;-; all of his old dorm mates at boarding school, and his little one on the way (same goes for rooney)

santi - gianni, rooney, avey, his family even though he would fake his death in order to avoid them, his old dorm mates, eli and yes-- even miyu, lion-hearted girl, la pelirrojita, and.............fiona, above all. ;_____;

lou - fiona, her mother, audrey (and the rest of the wallace fam, but especially audrey because she works at the bakery with her), and.........orejudo.

20. Fears?

LMFOADSKGJKD 420 PLS I H8 U...i already did 4 so u just get 20 SORRY

santi has...a lot of fears. lmao. in fact, they kind of dictate everything he does, in case you couldn’t tell by his debilitating anxiety. rejection, failure, loneliness, disappointing his loved ones, confirmation that he really is as terrible a person as he thinks he is...and hurting the people he loves. that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

8. What’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever eaten?

rooney - one time her grandmother made her eat tripe. never again. she also used to eat bugs for money and candy when she was a kid.

gianni - he’ll try literally anything at least once, so he’s eaten a lot of weird shit. one time drako dared him to eat haggis. no ragrets

9. Describe the way that they sleep.

rooney - constant cuddler. she attaches herself to gianni’s body and makes it impossible for him to turn in the middle of the night. it’s okay, he doesn’t mind.

gianni - he spreads out and takes up the entire bed and somehow messes up the sheets and the covers in the process. rooney doesn’t need that much space when she’s constantly spooning him anyway tho

10. What is their favorite food/kind of food?

rooney loooooves egyptian food and middle eastern food. she always looked forward to taking trips to morocco when she lived in spain because they had the best food. she also has a weakness for lebanese cookies. and gianni is a big fan of indian food...but his mama’s lasagna has always been his favorite ;-;

19. Are they right or left handed?

both rooney and gianni are right handed! but gianni is trying to teach himself to be ambidextrous...emphasis on trying.

21. Favorite kind of weather?

rooney - sunny, blustery days where you can hear the trees whispering.

gianni - he loves the scorching heat of summer like nothing else.

30. Sunrise or sunset?

rooney - sunset

gianni - sunrise (he’s weird)

31. Are they more messy or more organized?

both rooney and gianni are messy people...that’s why their house is so cluttered. RIP

45. Do they believe in ghosts?

rooney and gianni both believe in supernatural things. rooney’s a lot more into it and will believe superstitions whereas gianni is a bit more practical, although he also accepts that there won’t be answers for everything and some phenomenons are just unexplainable.

51. How do they usually celebrate their birthday?

rooney usually throws a star wars party because her birthday is may 4th. it’s usually her, gianni and santi, but also sometimes eli, miyu and audrey as well. last year they marathonned the OT and played a star wars drinking game (take a shot every time luke whines lmao)

gianni takes his bbys on a camping trip every year for his birthday, as you saw last year hehe

86. Do they like sweet foods?

rooney definitely has a sweet tooth. but she has a unique taste in desserts and likes to try new things, especially from different cultures. and if it’s too sweet, she won’t like it. gianni doesn’t really, but he does make an exception every time he visits the wallace’s bakery.

24. Do they prefer either hot or cold weather more?

santi definitely prefers hot to cold. he tries to preserve summer for as long as he can. it makes him feel like a phoenix starting anew.

36. Least favorite smell?

santi’s least favorite smell is probably the weird smell your pee gets after you eat a lot of asparagus. also artificial candle smells that are so sweet they’re gagworthy.

64. Upon seeing a slice of chocolate cake, what is their first reaction?

he kind of gets grossed out because it reminds him of that scene in matilda where the fat kid eats the entire chocolate cake. but then he’d probably eat it anyway because hey it’s cake!

28. Are they happy where they are currently?

santi - NO lmao. well...it fluctuates. it was good for a while...now he’s stuck again.

lou - she wants to be happy but she won’t let herself be because she feels an impending sense of letdown. she always gets let down.

29. Are they a morning person?

santi - hell fckin no lmao

lou - not if she can help it. both she and fiona hate waking up in the morning to get fi ready for school. but they suffer for the sake of education

30. Sunrise or sunset?

santi- sunset, always sunset (i think i answered that before but whatev)

lou - sunrise. she’s only seen one once in her life, so it’s a pretty special time to her. but referring to the last question, she’s not a morning person, so...

31. Are they more messy or more organized?

santi is messy as fuck. but we knew that. lou tries to stay as organized as possible, but sometimes she just gets overwhelmed and lives in the mess for a little while.

32. Pet peeves?

santi - when you only get like one wonton in your wonton soup, remembering something specific that’s just on the tip of your tongue but never quite getting it, that level of drunk/high where you start to feel yourself coming down and you realize just how lackluster everything is again.

lou - talking in circles, bullshit, repeating herself, family feud episodes that don’t feature steve harvey as the host, dirty dishes and bad reception.

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance?

already answered this for santi aheh

but lou treasures the few baby pictures she has of fiona because she wasn’t able to afford a camera or even a nice phone at the time. ;-;

34. Least favorite food?

santi - lobster. he fucking hates lobster. also those cheap chocolates with the cherry inside, blech. also not a fan of mushrooms.

lou - PEEPS. she ate too many one easter as a kid and now she gags at the sight of them. oh and tomatoes.

35. Least favorite color?

santi - grey, but not silver. he likes silver.

lou - chartreuse. and most shades of green. she only likes one very specific shade of blue-toned green.

36. Least favorite smell?

already did this for santi ohoho

as for lou, she can’t stand the smell of bacon. it’s too overpowering. it’s fine at first but then it gets to be too much, and she doesn’t even care for bacon anyway. also that garbage smell the periodically wafts through the air in the city, especially when you’re driving through new jersey lmao

37. When was the last time they cried?

santi? who tf knows. he’s always crying. he’s probably crying as we speak. lou, though...she hates crying. it makes her feel vulnerable. if she cries in front of you, it’s the real deal. especially if u make her cry...then wow. ur a monster

38. Were they with anybody the last time they cried?

U ALREADY KNOW THIS ABOUT SANTI. but lou...probably not. she’s kind of a loner, especially when showing that side of herself :{

#nonsims #saviorhide #character stuff #this literally took me.........3 hours #never again #BUT THE DEED IS DONE #GOOD NIGHT #this is so fucking long holy shit omfg #i pray for whoever reads this entire thing #bye

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kendrixtermina · 7 years

Text

My Abuser’s been convicted

He’s not going to jail, though he did get a sentence on probation. But he’ll have to spent years working on a remore Island to pay off the fines & debts. It’s as if he were going to jail.

If weren’t if it was just this, like, he didn’t get convicted for the actual abuse but more a peripheral consequence thereof that came back to bite him.

My emotions are kind of in a twist over this & how this fits into the moving on with my life.

TRIGGER WARNING

The Backstory

He’s not being convicted for abuse - indeed, the best thing I can say about him is that he never broke a law. Never left any bruises, never did outright improper touching, kept me fed & provided with material possesions adequate to our overall living standards... and treated all this like it was something he deserved a badge for, or a horrible undue burden I had imposed on him.

He had so little of a personal connection to him, most of what I know about his life I puzzled together from his few non-horrible relatives and what my mom was told. I never knew he played chess though I took an interest in it in third grade which came to an end over a soul-crushing experience. I didn’t know where he was in the birth order ( Second Born - Which makes some things about how my brother and I were treated and even named very creepy) I only recently found out that his father cheated with & eventually remarried a woman my father’s own age. There’s another thing I can’t disclose for ethical reasons, but, he kept humiliating me in situations related to my mathematics grades till he squeezed all joy out of the subject for me and in the context of what I know it proves that he just never had the slightest shred of empathy for me.

Well, a parent is supposed to protect their children from their own bad experiences. Not recreate them out of sadism and jealousy. Heck, Im pretty sure he only f***d my mother to breed smart children that would perform well academically, never stopping about how his family is all academics, alternating between calling me stupid & inept, a lazy waste of talent or a person who was “smart but heartless”. I’m nothin but an object to him. He has:

Threatened that my mom would kill herself if I don’t do his bidding.

He’s forcibly grabbed me and showed his hand into the cleavage of my dress to supposedly show off to my mother how innapropriate the dress was.

Expected me to hug & comfort him after spats with my mother. What am I his girlfriend?

He’s reacted to me being bullied (and once even coerced into undressing by bullies!) by blaming and mocking me. I can still hear him calling me a clown, an embarassment and a “Make-Me-Laugh-Thing” and going on on how I basically couldn’t expect anything else

He called me a “rotten pile of nazi entrails” at age 11 for being unhappy enough to consider running away

He pushed me toward hobbies he liked & then tried to push the same ones onto one of my sisters, essentially “replacing” me post puberty.

He’s continued to threaten to leave us & replace us with adopted children because we’re supposedly such “ingrates”

. If you cry in front of him, he’d accuse you of “threatre”.

I’ve heard my mother cry about how his eyes would never sparkle as much for anything related to his family as they did for his job, how she knew he didn’t love her, was afraid he’d leave her without money & only valued her as a baby factory. He tried to push her into adoption & terrorized her children to pressure her. I’ve come home to constant arguments and objects being thrown around.

When I graduate from highschool a year ahead, he say there was “nothing to celebrate” because it wasn’t all As & proceeded to humiliate me in front of my siblings.

He would frequently tell lies about me to my family (Sometimes I have nightmares about this)

He’s been known to throw me me into walls as a teenager

Once, while he did that, my head very narrowly missed a hard metal radiator. that night, I crept into bed with my mother at the age of 14 because I was so terrified he’d KILL me. Now I know that he never would have, but he kept going on about how everything was dangerous & filled our heads with fear & how we’d kill our siblings if they as much as bumped into hard objects and he said that exact same thing over and over again, “Careful with hitting your heads”.

I was kept locked & isolated from other children & forbidden from leaving the house or going on school trips/ sllepovers until age 11

Blame me for everything that went wrong in the family (including one time one of my sisters - then a toddler! - gave herself a second degree burn. )

Destroyed my favorite toys to terrorize me, repeatedly threatened to kick me out or destroy my computer with all my writing on it

Never read anything I wrote, called it “satanic” and that it was “all lies” because I “knew nothing about people”. Repeatedly shamed me for my introversion & used it against me

called me ugly, crazy, fat, selfish, inept, stupid, a tool, immoral... anything in the book. After a while he noticed that “inept”, “selfish”, “pointlessly rebellious” and “easy to provoke”, as well as terrorizing my mom & siblings hurt the most & weaponized the shit out of it.

Said I would never get laid & how ugly and unfuckable I am. Yes my own father.

Once I DID get laid, of course... well, he didn’t use the word slut but he basically called me a slut.

Bisexuality is a phase, liberalism is a phase, atheism is a phase... I am a phase, because apparently, he gets to decide what the real me is that he supposedly “loves” despite repeatedly equating queer people with pedophiles atheists with nazis and sex out of wedlock with degeneracy.

Tried to have me institutionalized/removed from the family over bogus claims. They ran all possible tests & didn’t find anything, not that I found this out until years later... years that I basically spent resigned that I was some kind of defective mutant freak incapable of bonding with other humans and basically hating myself from ages 9 to 13. (As to how I survived and what happened at age 13, I’ll just say “Art, Sarah and the Internet” and “Neon Genesis Evangelion”, respectively)

The constant condescension, dismissiveness, mockery, and twisting of my words

Et cetera et cetera; That’s only what I’ve been unable to forget.

Think Humbert Humbert if he liked adult women & had his creepy obsession with procreation instead of youth. The exact same self-serving pretentiousness. That’s him. That’s exactly him. It’s like his throat spits acid instead of words; I used to say that if the happiert person in the room listened to him long enough, they’d end up suicidal. Or, if we go for maximum hipster, this hits the nail on the head:

But very later I have learned

To accept some friends of ridicule

My whole existance is for your amusement

And that is why I’m here with you

To take me with your eyes

Given how tumblr’s full of terrible stories of families where sibling bonds were poisoned & people wound up with depression, anxiety or CPTSD I got off pretty fucking lightly with my damn procrastination/self-motivation problem (by the way a very common result of controlling or stage parents.) that I might be kinda sorta getting a grip on. Helps that I had at least one decent Parent.

20 years I constantly felt like I was totally replaceable. The man definitely wanted his money back on me, or whatever stepford robot daughter he expected to get when he first put his filthy dick into my mom.

Every single frustration is his life (that still ended with him being a wealthy, respected Doctor, mind you) he took out on me and the others. But he hated me the most (Though he was pretty shitty to mom and Isabel, too. The others, he simply neglected. Both sucked in its own ways.)

When I was younger, all I wanted with all the inrresponsibe childish stuff I did at times was just for him to get that he HURT me, not for his sake, but my own, to prove that I EXIST have FEELINGs as more than an object basically.

I never wanted his approval or love (I rather had the opposite problem that I felt gross doing thins he might approve of) in fact I felt uneasy around him early on and my first memories of him are of him treating me capriciously and pushing me to be his mini-me. (By contrast my earliest memory of my mom involves songs and funtime in a garden and her explaining to me what a tulip is), but I guess I thought I had to “win” and prove my reality to him.

I read up on narcissistic abuse on the web, I saw an university councellor who implored me to move out, but the decision was mine, when I ascertaind my theories so to speak. I realized that it was not that I was explaining badly or failing to be stoic enough, but that he was provoking & playing sadistic games with me. I was talking to someone who was going “lalala” and using everything I said or revealed as a weapon against me. I was just exhausting my energy there, and making my feeling catharsis & justified depending on his fucking aknowledgement. Thee’s no convincing someone who’s actively refusing to hear.

When I realized that he would rearrange reality to fit is view of being alwys right, saw in full awareness how uch he bent and warped his story to suit his whims no matter what I said, that my revenge fantasies had value of catharsis without having to be implemented in real life, that they were, in fact, wasted on him, I left.

I realized that he was the only one who treated me as worthless and how much my other relatives loved me. I found out that I am perfectly typical specimen of a somewhat uncommon but not altogether outlandish personality type.

On the occasions that we met, I did my best to ignore and avoid him, and he’d try to force me into interacting with him on the pretense of “politeness” and did the usual “Your bad for not forgiving me” shtick.

After a while, I reached the point where I could mostly forget about him and not spiral into this blood vessel popping rage every time something reminded me of him. It was nice to not be mocked or yelled at or have new things I liked spoiled by him. I actually lost a bunch of weight just from all the frustration-induced-comfort-food-binging and family-dinner-avoiding-late-night-snacking i was no longer doing. Getting rid of him must have added years to my life.I’m sure moving out added years to my life But I didn’t want to give up on the things he already spoiled & posoned with impossible expectations, so I was still living with the consequences of what he did to me every day while he wasn’t.

Sometimes he came up as a logical cause - and nothing will change that not even this new developement - even though I tried & reached a point where im bored of discussing him and just want to forget he exist/ not think about him

So what happened

Well, what happened is really fucking poetic.

You can’t come up with this shit.

Sometimes RL writes the best stories and outdoes all fiction, or perhaps fiction authors understand the human condition well enough.

Tax fraud. He’s in trouble for tax fraud. Exept, he frauded no taxes. He pushes all his paperwork, organization and finances off to his wife and has been doing so for years. Can’t even make a bank transaction, never bothered, never lived on his own. Used to call it “traditional family” and “archieving more as an unit” but what it actually is is, he does his job (which he enjoys way more than wife or children) and mom does everything else, including part of his job - not the actual doctorring, but, he ouht to have paid a secretary for everything she’d do. He’d monopolize her for hours to talk job. We had only one parent, except when he came home, then we had zero parents.

Finances, Parenting, Housekeeping, her own job... all this was done by mom. Lazy bastard never lift a finger, and everyone thinks he’s such a hard worker. He sure does he’d never shut up.

So, my mom’s sister got struck with horrible disease, going from a hard working single mother to complete invalid in a matter of months. Terrible injustice, because she was a really good person. So, at the same time, the financial crisis hits spain - no jobs or future for her daughters. no help from their father cause he was a serial deadbeat. So, what my mom did was, reevacuate them all to Germany. They have their own place now, one of my cousins is now a nurse & earning her own cash for the family, but, at first, his meant having four extra people living in our house one of which was running up huge medical bills, two girls, my aunt and my grandma, all eating, showering, needing everyday commodities...

My mom says in hindsight she should have taken a loan but what she ended up doing, perhaps carelessly, was give false numbers on her tax returns. To feed & care for her sick sister and unemployed family members/ now functionally parentless nieces, get the good education and stuff.

She blames herself a lot more than I blame her; It was kind of a “chaotic good” act IMHO, if there’s a price there’s a price I see they can’t have everybody not paying taxes, but, she did it to FEED HER FAMILY, like, people are more important than money. I believe she was justified there (or I guess that’s my chaotic neutral showing).

But - She was beating herself up over this & possibly risking the house loans & getting her husband into trouble - it was his money after all, police came & pretty much raided their house for the money, it’s a wealthy Doctor so they think he pocketed the cash for simple ol’ greed and blew it on gold chains or cocaine or something. Nope. He had no clue. (does he ever? He doesn’t know basic shit about any of us.)

That alone didn’t do it - Instead, I suspect he rather enjoyed his favorite game of playing martyr and my mom, having a conscience, was gonna take full responsibility and accept jail.

But here’s the kicker: They didn’t buy it. No one would believe that he wasn’t in on it, that he didn’t know what he was doing with his own money. They thought he was blaming his wife to save himself. That he pushed everything onto his wife to the point that he has no clue about his own finances seemed so silly they didn’t buy it. Like many times when I complained about him, his level of jerkass was believed to be too ridiculous to be true - It seemed more likely to them that my mom was simply taking one for the team. Personable, humbly pudgy lady, hardhearted slimey smartass who get lawsuits for being callous to patients before? Who’d you suspect of tax fraud? All the times I heard “Well he’s a doctor and you’re just a crazy little girl” turned upon their head.

Irony is he’d never do it. And I say that as someone who hates his guts. Same reason he’ll brag about how women dig him and the children he makes but would never actually cheat - He’s too in love with the idea of his own rightheousness. He’s too proud. It’s what his ego is built on. In contrast to his wife, he’s all about them rules wether they’re moral or not.

And, this is my suspicion because I didn’t wanna pry here, but, I guess he acted like not dumping her over this meant she’d sold him her soul, the usual “ingrate” shtick he pulls whenever he’s displeased- He must have said something outrageous and kellyanne conway levels of reality-bending -

And mom flipped. At least, she says things happened to make her spill things she’d held back long. I’m not sure if she said this or if he arrived at this on its own, but, he seemed to arrive at the conclusion that this would not have happened if he hadn’t pushed everything onto his wife & actually been there for her.

As my mom puts it, lots of stuff came together - an ex-co worker conspiring to run out of an old job, me not talking to him, the tax problem... and he couldn’t find a rationalization other than “You’re an animal and there’s a point to what everyone is saying”, and perhaps for the first time, he saw reality. She says it got through to him what he did not me, and by extension what he did wrong with everyone else. Apparently, things have been rather different since that day.

He’s actually staying out of my way. I don’t have to worry about him inviting himself to my wedding. He’ll be working at the new job he took to collect the money he owes the ministry of finance, but isn’t insisting that my family comes along. So often, he dragged us across the country for his career & took us all away from our friends, but it seems that this time, my sisters get to keep their friends & mom gets to get the new job where she holds a leading position & is well respected. She even said he’d understand if he’s missed that particular train for good.

Also when little Jana came to visit him, he seemed to actually spend time with her & organize a great & eventful holliday for her.

At least, that’s what my mom says. I’m so use to his fake promises of change, his false remorse, and his flashy gestures of ingratiating behavior - How would anyone ever know the difference for sure?

Especially the vacation for the child, he’d dne things like that before (regardless of wether the children actually enjoyed what he’d planned for them), flashy gestures to prove his “goodness”. flimsy words that “everything will be different”.

I just don’t want to engage with it personally.

But you know what makes me believe something changed? Because the person telling me this was my mom, speaking in her own voice - It’s not the dictated Voice Of God(TM), his majesty demanding that everyone accept his version of reality or accept the label of a selfish terrible person.

It’s her own perspective that I’d sometimes hear when she was angry, a perspective that’s more optimistic than mine & wants to see the good in people; She doesn’t agree with me on everything, she still thinks his deeds were the product of ineptitude rather than malice, entitlement and objectification, but, it’s not like I need her to agree with me.

The difference is still startling. That wasn’t his Paradigm or what I had experienced so far at all, looking at me leaving as a selfih capriciousthing I did to hurt them or he helping my fuckup self out and i better be grateful.

She told me instead to convey her utmost thanks to the therapist lady and that moving out was one of the best things that ever happened (!!!), that this was super strong, mature & unexpected of me(aparently she and grandma had written me off as the family spinster and liable to set myself on fire besides XD ...Fair enough, actually, there were quite some misadventures ^^°) That she thought I even looked different since then when my facial muscles weren’t all contorted in anger & more of a glow beingthere (which she attributed largely to my fiancé so far - and sure, he helped. I cannot stress the awesome enough.)

There was a total aknowledgement that I didn’t owe him shit and that the shit of the past justifies my not talking to him, no pressure, no judgement, no hope or expectation that we would ever get along, just - there were more gushy positive things that I can remember right now. I don’t wanna toot my own horn, it’s just what happened.

And I’m not sure what to do about/with it.

What now

It’s a strange feeling and I’m still processing it. I’m only now writing post though I’ve known about it for a few days. I’ve just been doing things, talking to peeps etc....

In true 5 fashion I couldn’t interact with my BF after that and took a long nighttime walk for cooling/processing (I talked to him right after that tho)

It might seem callous - but, I’m unable to feel anything other than callousness towards this person, because else I could not have survived his constant guilt tripping. The dude just activates my eight, if you pardon the typology speak.

All I feel is “Serves you right.” Serves you right for being two-faced, bit ya in the ass didn’t it?

Because, he spent all this time convincing the world he was this perfect person, and now they all believed him, and there’s no way Mr. Perfect don’t do his own taxes.

I understand that it is objectively wrong for someone to be convicted of something he didn’t do. Maybe this is a childish idea of vindictiveness or justice, but, at its heart, that’s not what it’s about. It’s just that in a way it’s a validation of my reality and that I wasn’t making him up, things I kept saying... “If you don’t wanna leave him, then let him do his own laundry for a few weeks”

It’s that it was for years like everyone thought he was perfect and I was the only one who could see his filthy side and now it’s out in the open. I hit him back. I made him understand. I got him to ignore me back/ leave me in peace. I helped my family be treated better - as a child, I had a hard time accepting that I couldn’t do that, that it wasn’t my place and that the last thing my mom needs is someone else asking her to pick sides or telling her what to do. It was a hard, humbling maturation process with ongoing slipups there to, like, detach, and leave it t me siblings & mom what was their business & none of mine and respect their choices.

I stopped caring about the other things, too, at least, when I left. I didn’t want or expect him to ever aknowledge my world, my perception or feelings. It’s kind of some of the things I wanted once but didn’t want to want anymore and even if I did, it’s all burned & charred and I’ll never be able to show that person the trust necessary for an intimate relation, not after all the lies, fake apologies that couldn’t be bought without accepting that he was right bout everything after all, and all the emotional expressions so far being used as tools to hurt & control me. I still have nothing in common with him nor any reason.

After the conversation, I felt... purged, the awknowledgement that I somehow do have power, but at the other hand, this doesn’t really change anything for me.

If he changes - great for him. Great for the family members still attached to him. But I don’t care about HIM, I have to care about me because he never did and nothing changed for me.

The scary shadow that’s embedded itself in my consciousness so much I still hear it after 2 years of avoiding the man (half of which has been spent happily engaged) may no longer have any sort of physical counterpart in reality.

So what does that mean for me? theres not a real enemy to push against. or there may or may not be it shouldn’t depend on tht. its not like i believe or need to believe in automatic karma

All in all, I have a feeling like World War II just ended and the Americans just arrived. On the one hand the bad guy were punished... not perfectly, but enough, hard enough to make them look pitiful, I’ve survived, but everything is still in ruins and irretriavably decimated.

I never want to say never because I aknowledge that it is always possible for me to learn - I thought it was unlikely I’d ever get married and even less to a man, but I said it might be possible, and now ive come across this situation and this person where it makes perfect sense and is totally worth it. If I had said “cia, doesn’t fit my profile” the moment he suggested it, I would have missed this.

Then again, I also hold that conflating 0% sure and 99% sure is one of the great errors of humanity - there is such a thing like reasonable doubt but that does not mean knowing nothing. Knowing almost everything is not knowing nothing. its just a fact of how our universe works sometimes - what is the position & impulse of an electron at any given moment? Can’t say, it’s uncertain to a measurable degree.

We can’t disprove that there isn’t a big pink sucker on the backside of pluto but we have no reason to suppose it either.

And at that level of certainty,have to say I would be unable to forgive the man or even feel anything other than hatred toward him if he wore the crown of thorns

I can’t ever trust him & emotionally reveal myself to him, too often has he twisted my words. It’s not about being obsessed with him either - there’s 7 billion peeps on this planet he’s welcome to make friends with im just not one of them. I’m generally not friends with people just for the heck of it.

I mean, I get it. Mom says she may have been too hesitant to let me go, the counselling lady said something in that direction, I might be biased as her daughter, but, actually, I think she was right in her estimate/ justified in that reluctance, like, I get it, I’m a vaguely shizoid hyperdweeb and peopling is hard for me. Even if this high grade quality snowflake relationship there’s work - as hthere always seems to be, realistically - and don’t have this natural sense for what people expect.

But though I reserve the right to declare this some premature epiphyny just in case and for personal effort, I’m... and a spent a while debating & deliberately decising the word choice here.... beginning to dare think that I might be able to like, handle that & make peace with it like I’ve made peace with my inner unapologetic snowflakey emo child back in my teens.

#emotional abuse #feelings

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sherristockman · 6 years

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Pharma Dogs Hunt Down Vaccine Disruptors in California Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola “Anti-Vaxxers Have Found a Way Around California’s Strict New Immunization Law. They Need to Be Stopped.” This hostile and derogatory headline was published in the Los Angeles Times November 8.1 The “loophole” they’re referring to is the use of medical vaccine exemptions written by physicians. According to this editorial, no more than 3 percent of children “should reasonably” qualify for a medical exemption to avoid vaccination, yet parents of more than 10 percent of school-aged children enrolled at 58 California schools in the fall of 2016 had obtained a medical exemption written by a physician, allowing their children to attend school without every dose of every state-mandated vaccine. “The new law — SB 2772 — pushed up the statewide immunization numbers to a safe level overall. But dozens of schools have reported suspiciously high numbers of medical exemptions that, if left unchecked, could endanger their communities,” the LA Times editorial board writes. Medical Exemptions in California Have Tripled Since the Personal Belief Exemption Was Eliminated in 2015 On June 29, 2015, California enacted SB 277, which eliminated the legal right for parents to file a personal belief exemption to vaccination for religious and conscientious beliefs so their unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children can attend school. Now, school-aged children in California must get nearly three dozen doses of 10 federally recommended and state-mandated vaccines or forgo their right to be educated in a public or private school. The alternative is for parents to homeschool their children — an option that is simply impossible for many single parents or families in which both parents work. The article goes on to state: “[T]he numbers of medical exemptions statewide didn’t just rise after SB 277 took effect, they tripled, with a few schools reporting exemptions from as many as a quarter of their students. Given what health experts say about the expected rate of medical exemptions, that’s just not credible. Are there some physicians who are, for either ideological or financial reasons, helping parents avoid vaccinating their healthy kids?” California Doctors in the Crosshairs The authors note there have been “examples of a few doctors’ offices that advertise medical exemption evaluations for a fee,” and that these doctors are providing medical exemptions for health conditions that are not included in the narrow list of contraindications to vaccination defined by federal health officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).3 By and large, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which develops CDC vaccine policy guidelines, limits medical exemptions to severe allergic reactions to previous vaccinations and rare severe immunodeficiencies. According to the LA Times, some children have received medical exemptions for autoimmune disorders, such as eczema, asthma and diabetes, which federal health officials do not consider a vaccine contraindication. Under current law school officials must accept a medical vaccine exemption form signed by a licensed physician. “The only real enforcement mechanism against doctors circumventing the vaccination requirement is through the Medical Board of California,” the LA Times noted, meaning the only way under current law that the state can limit medical exemptions is for the state medical board to hunt down and punish doctors who think for themselves and stray beyond the CDC’s narrow contraindication guidelines if they believe a child’s health will be endangered by vaccination. “It would be better to discourage doctors from helping parents to game the system in the first place. That could be accomplished by some level of secondary review and approval … At the very least, county health departments could ask to review anonymized medical exemption forms to look for suspicious patterns in the cited medical conditions or in the doctors signing the forms. Failing a better response from the Medical Board, public exposure may serve as an effective antidote to abuse of the medical exemption rule,” the LA Times writes. The Case of Dr. Sears Pediatrician Dr. Robert Sears has been in the state medical board’s crosshairs since 2016, when the executive director of the California medical board accused him of “gross negligence” in the care and treatment of a pediatric patient who received a medical exemption for two “unusual and severe vaccine reactions,” which Sears determined would place the child “at risk of further harm,” were the child to receive further vaccinations.4 Sears has also been a vocal opponent of the current federally recommended childhood vaccination schedule, which advises doctors to give 69 doses of 16 vaccines, which is three times as many vaccinations as children received three decades ago. His 2007 book, “The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child,” included an alternate schedule that gave fewer vaccines on one day and spread the vaccination process out over a longer period of time, which many proponents of mandatory vaccination laws blame as being a major cause of parent’s doubts about vaccine safety and a rise in the numbers of vaccine exemptions for school children. The California medical board will review Dr. Sears’ case sometime next May and make a decision about whether or not he will be sanctioned. What the editorial board of the LA Times is suggesting is for the California medical board to go after more doctors who, like Sears, are giving medical exemptions that do not strictly conform to narrow CDC contraindication guidelines. This approach completely fails to respect a doctor’s professional expertise (and conscience) when making a judgment about whether or not vaccination will harm a child’s health. It’s worth noting that ACIPs vaccine contraindication guidelines for medical exemptions excludes 99.9 percent of children, and leaves virtually no room for individualized considerations. As noted by Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), in the video above, an unprecedented number of children are born healthy, get vaccinated and are never healthy again. Yet the LA Times is pushing for a group think, mob mentality aimed at health professionals and parents who are trying to protect children from vaccine injury and death by putting safety before unnecessary risk. There’s No Way to Predict Who Will Be the Proverbial ‘Sacrificial Lamb’ The one-size-fits-all approach to vaccinations is dangerous in the extreme. Scientists have clearly demonstrated that some people are more susceptible to vaccine damage than others but, because the individual circumstances that raise vaccine risks are so multivaried, there’s no way to accurately predict who will be harmed and who will not. Reports published by physician committees at the Institute of Medicine confirm that vaccines can injure and kill people, and that: Very little is known about how vaccines or microbes act at the cellular and molecular level in the human body5,6,7 The Institute of Medicine confirms that an unknown number of us have certain genetic, biological and environmental susceptibilities that make us more vulnerable to being harmed by vaccines, but doctors cannot accurately predict who we are8,9 Clinical trials of experimental vaccines are too small to detect serious reactions before they are licensed10,11 The U.S. recommended child vaccine schedule through age 6 has not been adequately studied to rule out an association with allergies, autoimmunity, learning and behavior disorders, seizures, autism and other brain and immune dysfunction12 As noted by Fisher in a previous article: “Vaccination must remain a choice because it is a medical intervention performed on the body of a healthy person that carries a risk of injury or death13,14 … We do not all respond the same way to pharmaceutical products like vaccines, so vaccine risks are not being borne equally by everyone in society. Why should the lives of those vulnerable to vaccine complications be valued any less than those vulnerable to complications of infections? And why should people not be free to choose to stay healthy in ways that pose far fewer risks?” The Immoral and Unethical Foundation of Americas Public Health Law You’ve probably heard that mandatory vaccinations are “for the greater good” of society. That’s exactly what the LA Times editorial board is saying as well. What many do not realize is that this “greater good” argument is based in utilitarianism — a philosophy created by Jeremy Bentham, a 19th century British attorney and social reformer15,16 who mocked the U.S. Constitution for affirming the natural rights protected in the First Amendment. Utilitarianism judges the rightness or wrongness of an action by how it affects the majority. According to Bentham, an action is only moral or ethical if it results in the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. During the Doctors’ Trial at Nuremberg after World War II, doctors who performed horrific scientific experiments on prisoners invoked the utilitarian defense, claiming it was moral to sacrifice the health and lives of some individuals to advance scientific knowledge that could save the lives of many others.17,18 In other words, this philosophy proclaims that it’s alright to kill your child if it saves two or three others. This philosophy might be useful on the battle field or in crisis situations where you absolutely cannot save everyone, but should not be the basis of public health law. The utilitarian defense was rejected as immoral and unethical in Nuremberg, and the first principle of the Nuremberg Code that grew out of those legal proceedings is that “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.”19 Alas, the U.S. never addressed its philosophy to medical risk-taking and never strayed from its utilitarian roots. This is why we now have states where healthy, bright children are refused an education unless their parents are willing to play a dangerous game of Russian Roulette with their child’s life “for the greater good.” Whooping Cough Resurgence Blamed on Vaccinated Infection Carriers The case for mandatory vaccinations without exception also fall flat when you consider the scientific evidence showing that the re-emergence of many infectious diseases is in fact rooted in the vaccination program itself, and has nothing to do with people’s decision to not vaccinate. This certainly appears to be the case with whooping cough. As noted by Science Daily in 2015,20 “The dramatic resurgence of whooping cough is due, in large part, to vaccinated people who are infectious but who do not display the symptoms.” That was the conclusion of a study published in BMC Medicine,21 which concluded that: “[A]symptomatic transmission is the most parsimonious explanation for many of the observations surrounding the resurgence of B. pertussis in the U.S. and U.K. These results have important implications for B. pertussis vaccination policy and present a complicated scenario for achieving herd immunity and B. pertussis eradication.” This study also concluded that the practice of cocooning — where family members are vaccinated to protect newborns — does not work, “because even if you get the acellular vaccine you can still become infected and can still transmit.”22 Despite such findings — and this is not the only study showing vaccinated individuals can transmit disease — the unvaccinated are routinely singled out as scapegoats when outbreaks occur. Pertussis Has Out-Evolved the Vaccine Last year, Tod Merkel, principal investigator at the Laboratory of Respiratory and Special Pathogens, Office of Vaccines Research and Review at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), also confirmed that “it’s not unvaccinated individuals that are driving the [pertussis] infection,”23 which in 2012 had ballooned to 50,000 reported cases24 from 1,000 cases in 1976.25 Yet, 2014 and 2015 saw a significant decline in reported cases, dropping to 32,971 and 20,762 respectively. These dramatic up-and-down swings are independent of vaccination rates, which have remained relatively stable at 95 percent for school-aged children, and 80 percent for booster shots.26,27 Merkel’s research also suggests asymptomatic carriage in the vaccinated population “explains the increased disease incidence in the U.S.” Commenting on his findings, he notes, “We think the vaccine, although it’s preventing disease in the individuals who are vaccinated, is not preventing them from becoming infected, carrying and transmitting the bacteria.” Fisher’s fully referenced article, “Pertussis Microbe Outsmarts the Vaccines as Experts Argue About Why,”28 published last year, reveals that researchers have in fact known for decades that both whole cell pertussis vaccine and acellular pertussis vaccines fail to prevent infection and transmission of infection that can then be spread by vaccinated asymptomatic carriers.29 The B. pertussis organism actually began evolving to evade whole cell pertussis vaccine soon after the combination DPT vaccine was introduced in 1949, developing new strains that produce more pertussis toxin to suppress the human immune system and cause more serious disease. Today, the pertussis strains included in the vaccine no longer match the pertussis strains causing the disease. This is yet another reason why whooping cough infection has risen. All of this has been scientifically verified, yet pertussis outbreaks are still met with disbelief. In January 2016, whooping cough broke out in a Florida preschool, where it continued to spread among students, staff and family members for five months. The high vaccination rate at the school did not prevent that sustained outbreak, which makes sense once you accept the fact that the vaccine no longer works as advertised. According to Medscape, only five out of the 117 pupils had not received the complete series of three doses of DTP vaccine.30 In this case, the children’s recent vaccination histories worsened the situation because doctors were reluctant to test for and diagnose pertussis when the child was fully vaccinated. This hesitation and assumption that the vaccine would offer protection against infection and transmission — which, again, has been disproven for decades — allowed the spread of the infection by asymptomatic carriers to continue. Mumps Outbreak Caused by Faulty Vaccine In related news, it looks like the mumps outbreak that began in August at Syracuse University is also the result of a flawed vaccine.31 As of November 13, there were 41 confirmed cases of mumps among students. All had received the recommended two doses of the mumps, measles, rubella (MMR) vaccine. In 2010, whistleblowers sued Merck, the maker of the only mumps vaccine licensed for use in the U.S., accusing the company of falsifying data to inflate the perceived effectiveness of the vaccine. According to the legal complaint, the two whistleblowers, who worked for Merck, were pressured by management to participate in the fraud, and were threatened with arrest if they filed a complaint with the FDA. That lawsuit is still pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The court is scheduled to decide whether the case will go to trial sometime next year. The whistleblowers blame the re-emergence of mumps on declining vaccine efficacy. Yet, despite that very real possibility, mandatory vaccination proponents such as Dr. Paul Offit suggest the best way to address the mumps vaccine failure problem is simply to require a third dose of MMR vaccine before students enter college.32 The ‘Public Health Risk’ Fallacy In this lecture, immunologist Tetyana Obukhanych, Ph.D., author of “Vaccine Illusion: How Vaccination Compromises Our Natural Immunity and What We Can Do to Regain Our Health,” explains how vaccines damage your immune function, which can result in any number of adverse health effects. In May 2015, just before California law SB 277 was enacted, she published an open letter to legislators,33 specifying a number of reasons why discrimination against unvaccinated children is unwarranted, as they pose no public health risk. She wrote, in part: “It is often stated that those who choose not to vaccinate their children for reasons of conscience endanger the rest of the public, and this is the rationale behind most of the legislation to end vaccine exemptions currently being considered by federal and state legislators country-wide. You should be aware that the nature of protection afforded by many modern vaccines — and that includes most of the vaccines recommended by the CDC for children — is not consistent with such a statement. I have outlined below the recommended vaccines that cannot prevent transmission of disease either because they are not designed to prevent the transmission of infection (rather, they are intended to prevent disease symptoms), or because they are for non-communicable diseases.” Obukhanych’s list includes inactivated poliovirus vaccine, tetanus, diphtheria toxoid vaccine (contained in the DTaP vaccine), acellular pertussis, H. influenza and hepatitis B vaccine. She also points out the “measles paradox,” which is that “as measles immunization rates rise to high levels in a population, measles becomes a disease of immunized persons.”34 “In summary, a person who is not vaccinated with IPV, DTaP, HepB and Hib vaccines due to reasons of conscience poses no extra danger to the public than a person who is. No discrimination is warranted,” she notes. She also points out that serious adverse events are in fact far more common than publicly admitted, with 1 in 168 children requiring emergency room admittance following their 1-year wellness check when vaccines are given, according to Canadian research. One in 730 children ends up in the emergency room after their 18-month vaccination appointment. Some conscientious doctors are aware of these kinds of risks, and are willing to work with parents who have concerns about their child’s well-being by writing medical exemptions. Is this really a crime that should be punished by the removal of their license to practice medicine? Mandatory vaccinations place many children at unnecessary risk, oftentimes for very little if any benefit. To remove informed consent protections from vaccine laws by eliminating all personal belief vaccine exemptions and severely restricting medical exemptions by thwarting doctors from doing what they believe is in the best interest of their patients, is an inhumane, draconian measure based on utilitarianism — an unethical philosophy upon which public health law should not be based.

#VitalityPath

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t-baba · 7 years

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Transcript: Ask the UXperts: What Stakeholders Need to Know About Psychology — with Susan Weinschenk

I had an enjoyable and informative morning hosting Dr Susan Weinschenk in our Ask the UXperts Slack channel today.

The topic of of discussion was “What Stakeholders Need to Know About Psychology”. It was a popular topic with our audience (no surprises there!) and Susan was generous with her knowledge and guidance. We talked about everything from project ownership to handling gender bias, and some great resources were shared.

If you didn’t make the session because you didn’t know about it, make sure you join our community to get updates of upcoming sessions.

If you’re interested in seeing what we discussed, or you want to revisit your own questions, here is a full transcript of the chat.

Transcript

hawk

2017-03-15 21:00

Welcome everyone – thanks for joining us today.

hawk

2017-03-15 21:00

And a huge thanks to @susanweinschenk for her time. It’s much appreciated.

hawk

2017-03-15 21:00

I’m excited about this session. I’ll start by introducing Susan, who will then introduce the topic

hawk

2017-03-15 21:01

At that point we’ll throw it over to the rest of you for your questions

denisekedwards

2017-03-15 21:01

has joined #ask-the-uxperts

desertcoder

2017-03-15 21:01

has joined #ask-the-uxperts

hawk

2017-03-15 21:01

If things get busy, I’ll queue the questions for Susan, so feel free to ask them as they come up for you

shuvy

2017-03-15 21:01

has joined #ask-the-uxperts

hawk

2017-03-15 21:01

I’ll post a full transcript of this session on http://uxmastery.com tomorrow and pin it in the channel.

hawk

2017-03-15 21:01

So… formal introduction:

hawk

2017-03-15 21:01

Susan Weinschenk has a Ph.D. in Psychology, is Chief Behavioral Scientist and CEO at The Team W, Inc, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin.

hawk

2017-03-15 21:01

She consults with Fortune 1000 companies, start-ups, governments and non-profits. Dr. Weinschenk is the author of several books, including 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People, and How To Get People To Do Stuff. Clients include Medtronic. Walmart, Disney, Amazon, and the European Union Commission.

jakkii

2017-03-15 21:02

Morning all! Joining from wet and gross Sydney

hawk

2017-03-15 21:02

If you’re interested in upskilling, TheTeamW have some great courses http://ift.tt/2fkC09R

hawk

2017-03-15 21:02

Morning @jakkii :slightly_smiling_face:

debbiev

2017-03-15 21:02

I’m encountering gender bias issues. What advice do you have for women working with make stake holders

desertcoder

2017-03-15 21:02

Question: How do you best manage stakeholders…so that they don’t ‘lord over’ new features?

hawk

2017-03-15 21:03

So @susanweinschenk – over to you for an intro to the topic

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:03

Hi Everyone!

jakkii

2017-03-15 21:03

Oh that sucks @debbiev – good question for discussion for sure

hawk

2017-03-15 21:03

(everyone else, I’ll mark your questions with a :grey_question: so you know they’re queued)

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:04

@debbiev Deborah Tannen has a great book on communication and how men and women phrase things differently in the workplace. I would check out her work.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:04

I always think it’s good to talk about research rather than your opinion if/when you are disagreeing with a stakeholder

debbiev

2017-03-15 21:04

Thx @susanweinschenk I will

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:05

@desertcoder what do you mean “lord over” new features?

debbiev

2017-03-15 21:05

I’m actually working on my own app, getting out voted by the guys working on my marketing materials

desertcoder

2017-03-15 21:06

@susanweinschenk : “lord over” meaning instead of relying on research, a stakeholder tells the product team what to build and when.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:06

yes, that happens a lot… that a stakeholder wants to do things a certain way.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:07

this may sound weird, but I think the job of a UX designer is to come up with the best alternatives

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:07

but that we have to understand that only a fraction of what we suggest is implemented

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:07

it can be frustrating, but I think we need to change our definition of what successful means

jakkii

2017-03-15 21:08

@debbiev I think this is the book @susanweinschenk is referring to: http://ift.tt/2mvCRFM

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:08

ask yourself, “is anything about this product better for my having been involved?” and if the answer is yes, then you’ve been successful

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:08

having said that, the other tack is that data always helps. you have to take it out of me vs. you and put it on to “the data from our users shows that…”

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:09

another thing is to phrase things in terms of the stakeholder and what is important to him/her

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:09

sometimes they turn down your idea because they don’t see that it will actually help solve the problem they are interested in

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:10

for example, you want to implement a certain feature because you know it’s a better way to go in terms of what’s standard, or what the users will want

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:10

but if you can rephrase that in a way that is in terms of what the stakeholder wants….

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:10

instead of “The users have asked for…” or “On the other apps we have…”

jakkii

2017-03-15 21:11

“To meet your objective X, we should do Y, because Z…” ?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:11

and instead say, “If you want people to click on that button more often” or “If you want to increase conversion by x %…”

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:11

@jakkii right… it means you have to know what their goals are, not just guess

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:12

and then you repeat those back to them

usama.mirum

2017-03-15 21:12

what if there goals are not what the user wants?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:12

@usama.mirum so now you are asking the interesting question of who is it you are actually “working” for

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:13

you have to ask yourself, “on this project, what is my job. who am I supposed to make “look good”.”

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:13

there’s always one person — usually the one who can decide if you are getting paid or not!

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:14

and the sometimes ugly truth is that your job is to make that person look good

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:14

within reason (i.e., don’t do anything immoral, illegal, or unethical)… and if you don’t agree with what they are doing, then I think it’s your job to tell them you don’t agree and why, and what a better way is

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:15

however, it’s THEIR project, not yours

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:15

in the same way that means that since you don’t have total authority you also don’t have total accountability.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:15

i make sure the stakeholder knows that we are in this together — their decisions count — in an accountability manner…

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:16

so unfortunately, we can’t always be the advocate for the user

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:16

which i know some people don’t like me to say out loud!!!

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:17

but it is the reality of it .. if you want to keep doing the work and have a chance to have some of your ideas implemented

hawk

2017-03-15 21:17

So assuming they make a bad call and the users respond with attrition, how would you approach the stakeholder to rectify the situation?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:17

it’s also why I think it’s important to now and then go design something that you DO have total control over!!! an app for a hobby, your own personal website and so on

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:17

so you don’t go crazy!!

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:18

@hawk so i would explain clearly why I think we should do X instead of Y… and let them know the the decision is theirs. In a case like that i will probably document it in some way… via a status report or an email trail or meeting notes

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:19

then when it doesn’t work out i can bring it up again

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:19

i wouldn’t say, “told you!” but i’d say, “remember we (notice the “we”) talked about the fact that that might happen. Perhaps we want to try an alternative…”

usama.mirum

2017-03-15 21:20

here is the dilemma though, you’ve researched and gathered the data to know what the user wants, stakeholders just want to push something else i.e their products…you take their approach as they are the ones paying…the experience goes bad….that ultimately makes your or your agency look bad

usama.mirum

2017-03-15 21:20

you already answered that..thanks :slightly_smiling_face:

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:20

i think sometimes UX people feel guilty when things don’t go well. that’s why it’s important to be very clear from the start that the buck stops with the stakeholder… they are accountable. You are working together with them. You are an adviser. If things don’t go well you are right there willing to help, but it’s not all your fault. They make decisions too.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:21

@usama.mirum right. you can easily become the scapegoat. but if you are clear from the beginning what your role is then you can remind them later too.

usama.mirum

2017-03-15 21:22

perfect

hawk

2017-03-15 21:22

What else frustrates you about dealing with stakeholders ?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:23

I think it’s important too to always be educating.

hawk

2017-03-15 21:23

Do you feel like you have to justify your work/decisions/ideas?

laurelwn

2017-03-15 21:23

Ghosts – when they put you on mute to talk or don’t answer and you can hear them whispering.

hawk

2017-03-15 21:23

Ouch.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:24

You can provide mini-education sessions to talk about design issues in general that don’t have anything to do with a particular product you are working on… then if those issues come up you can refer to them.

juliadinh

2017-03-15 21:24

so what is the most important thing stakeholders need to know about psychology?

jakkii

2017-03-15 21:24

“You don’t need to talk to users, we already did this survey” :wink:

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:24

for example, you could do a session with them about color, or about best practices on images and so on… so that when you are working on a project that stuff will come up and it won’t seem so much like your idea vs. theirs

bgas

2017-03-15 21:25

@susanweinschenk how do you make sure stakeholders focus on the design of the wireframes instead of obsessing on irrelevant minuscule details?

usama.mirum

2017-03-15 21:26

what is your approach with stakeholders to innovate, push new barriers for something that’s never been done before..i.e governments, country’s regularities which are outdated and are blocking businesses to implement clutter less experiences

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:26

@bgas Let me bring something up at a larger level and then we can go back to your question. because sometimes i think the problems with stakeholders comes from expectations

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:26

about roles

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:27

I talk about two roles — one is where you are an “extra pair of hands”. So the stakeholder is the “expert” and you are there to help them out, be an extra designer, do some user testing, great some production graphics.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:28

the other role is that you are consultant/ you are the expert

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:28

and one of the things that happens is that you are thinking of this one way and they are thinking of it another, but you never talked about it

laurelwn

2017-03-15 21:28

@susanweinschenk – what do you do when a decision maker hasn’t been defined and no one in the meeting makes the decisions?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:29

so you keep giving them advice because you think they want you to be an adviser, and then they get frustrated when you do because they think THEY are the xpert and they just want you to do it the way they told you to

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:29

so i think you have to get that straightened out at the beginning

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:29

@laurelwn you have to insist that someone is the decision maker

laurelwn

2017-03-15 21:30

yea… that’s not easy with big, slow moving corps such as financial or pharma…

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:31

@laurelwn well, it may take a while to get a decision, but someone has to do it. you can give them the option of having you wait or you can move forward knowing things might change later… again i think it’s an accountability question. who’s accountable for deciding these things?

debbiev

2017-03-15 21:32

Good advice… It’s all about attitude adjustment. I like the idea of defining both of those roles from the get go

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:32

@bgas back to your question…. i would answer their question about the detail, but point out the higher level of the wireframe. otherwise you may need to skip wireframes with them, but you could explain that that means you will be doing more work in the long run

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:32

when you have to go back and fix a detailed prototype

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:33

@usama.mirum

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:33

your other question…

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:34

i would find out first if they want something innovative. and if they say yes, give them some preliminary ideas. i’ve had situations where they say they do want something new

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:34

but when i give them something new they want to go back to not new

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:34

give them a vision/storyboard of the new

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:34

before you do too much work on it

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:34

it’s always good to show them what other people/industries are doing

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:35

and they get very excited (or nervous) if you can point out what a competitor is doing

usama.mirum

2017-03-15 21:37

great! thanks so much.

corinned

2017-03-15 21:37

I’ve encountered the opposite problem – stakeholders say they want new and cutting edge, when in reality their users would just like something that works. How best to manage this tension?

debbiev

2017-03-15 21:37

What about selling the role of being the user advocate?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:39

@juliadinh your question about what do stakeholders need to know about psychology. — i think they need to know that users are focused on their tasks, may not like change, can’t see the color blue as well as others, may have very specific need

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:39

@corinned so someone has to decide — are we designing for the current users or are we going to make some big changes and figure out how to help current users adjust to the changes

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:40

@debbiev you can always be the user advocate, but you have to undrestand that the stakeholders may care about that and may not

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:40

if you can sell it that’s good

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:41

more psychology stuff — there is a difference between performance and preference… so users typically say they want to see all their choices at once, but research shows if you show too many choices then people don’t choose at all

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:42

or research shows that people read faster with a longer line length, but they prefer a shorter line length…. so what’s more important… that they read faster or that they read at all?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:43

that if people are stressed they may not notice things on a screen that are perfectly noticeable to the rest of us because when we are designing it we aren’t under the same type of stress

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:43

that 10% of men are colorblind and can’t distinguish between some colors

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:43

things that make a design difficult for people with impairments such as vision or hearing

debbiev

2017-03-15 21:43

So fewer words is better, right?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:44

fewer words is always better! and clearly understood words!

debbiev

2017-03-15 21:44

Also, there are things that my son notices, that I miss. I think it’s from playing video games

usama.mirum

2017-03-15 21:45

ways to motivate users other than gamification?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:45

and marketing speak can sometimes be the worse. recently I saw this:

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:45

“Delivering a seamless and consistent omni-channel buying experience — across mobile, social and in store — is no longer an option. Customers expect to be engaged in an immersive brand experience through contextually relevant content, marketing and promotions that extend the brand experience. Throughout their journey, customers need words that are accurate, complete, and informative; they need images that inspire; and they need videos that demonstrate a company’s essence, helping them to fully experience a given brand. B2B buyers want to see only relevant content based on individual, established agreements. Combining cognitive capabilities with powerful asset and content management enables commerce and merchandising professionals to deliver these kinds of experiences by analyzing content characteristics and quality and more effectively harnessing the power of their brand assets. They can create strategic and impactful personalized offers that outmaneuver competitors to increase sales while boosting brand value and market share.”

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:45

written supposedly for business people

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:46

@usama.mirum oh, well, gamification in my opinion usually refers to a misunderstanding of what makes games motivating

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:46

gamification usually means providing rewards. and rewards are actually not what makes games engaging

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:46

which is why gamification often fails to achieve the results it was supposedly implemented for

hawk

2017-03-15 21:47

I think gamification using intrinsic motivators can work…

ashleamckay

2017-03-15 21:47

@susanweinschenk: Hey Susan, I just wanted to say that I think you’re awesome! Love your work! I have to run off to work now but I’m looking forward to reading the transcript after! Thanks!! :smiley:

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:47

@hawk yes… but often people don’t realize that and they just do rewards

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:47

@ashleamckay ok, thanks for coming on!

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:48

@debbiev yeah, i’m not sure what they were trying to say

debbiev

2017-03-15 21:49

@susanweinschenk yeah, I was a little slow, lol

usama.mirum

2017-03-15 21:49

@hawk intrinsic motivators, interesting

lynne

2017-03-15 21:49

There’s a great online course on gamification on Coursera which explores what does and doesn’t work and why (inlcuding extrinsic vs intrinsic motivators)

shuvy

2017-03-15 21:49

I’m actually curious about this one. In the finance space, “gamification” is “hot”, but people hate to look at their money sometimes – and the rewards/ intrinsic motivation balance is not clear in the designs I’ve helped with/ seen. Any thoughts?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:50

@usama.mirum people are more motivated by things like the desire to learn and master and interacting with others than by getting a reward

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:50

in fact research shows that if you give people rewards (external motivator) it can dampen the effect of the intrinsic (internal) motivators

jakkii

2017-03-15 21:50

I would agree. Done well, it can be useful.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:52

@shuvy money represents a lot more than just money… it’s tied to who we are, our self-stories, whether we feel we are “good” person, or successful. so you can’t gamify finance stuff with rewards. You have to get at the more complex psychology issues

debbiev

2017-03-15 21:52

I would like to see a financial gamification that shows me how soon I can retire based on my current savings habits/activity

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:52

@lynne do you know whose course it is?

jakkii

2017-03-15 21:53

I think there’s some apps doing that

hawk

2017-03-15 21:53

http://ift.tt/1LyBn82

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:53

@debbiev that would tie into larger goals and self-stories, and what’s important to that person, so that would likely be more successful.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:53

@hawk i’ll check it out

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:53

thx

hawk

2017-03-15 21:54

We have 5 mins left in the session. Any last questions?

lynne

2017-03-15 21:54

@hawk you beat me to it – yes that’s the one, taught by Kevin Werbach. He also has a book.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:54

i’d like to have a course that i can recommend to people.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:54

i talk a little bit about it in one of my online video courses, but I don’t spend much time on it

shuvy

2017-03-15 21:55

@debbiev have you looked at MoneyBrilliant? In answer to your question about goal directed savings.

usama.mirum

2017-03-15 21:56

any recommended books and courses on finance complex psychology issues?

usama.mirum

2017-03-15 21:56

any recommended books and courses on finance complex psychology issues?

zekegeek

2017-03-15 21:57

I’m also interested in book recommendations– any related to UX that you’ve found particularly helpful/interesting

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:57

@usama.mirum These aren’t necessarily just about finance, but they would apply: Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, and my book, How To Get People To Do Stuff are both about psychology issues that can be applied to design.

nicolasvelezuk

2017-03-15 21:58

What is the best research tool?

shuvy

2017-03-15 21:58

Have you had a look at http://ift.tt/TTbjch? Someone attempted to operationalise some of your thinking for a heuristics check. Do you feel it captures your findings well?

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:59

@zekegeek — I have top 10 book lists at my blog… I like Charles Duhigg’s book on Habits, a general intro book I like about UX is Leah Buley’s book a UX team of One. Of course i’d recommend my 100 things every designer needs to know about people and the sequel, 100 MORE things every designer needs to know about people.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:59

blog is blog.theteamw.com… lots of info there.

hawk

2017-03-15 21:59

Well, I think that might be a wrap! A huge thanks to you @susanweinschenk for both your time and knowledge. It’s been a really great session.

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 21:59

@shuvy yes, i know that article. it’s pretty good.

hawk

2017-03-15 21:59

http://ift.tt/1TXK1PV

susanweinschenk

2017-03-15 22:00

ok, thanks for joining me. it was fun!!

The post Transcript: Ask the UXperts: What Stakeholders Need to Know About Psychology — with Susan Weinschenk appeared first on UX Mastery.

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