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myaekingheart · 3 years

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20 [Fanfic Writer] Questions Game

Thank you so much for tagging me, @lemony-snickers! This is tons of fun, I love answering these kinds of big questionnaires 😂💕 Also putting mine under a cut because there’s a lot of questions and I like to ramble.

Also gonna go ahead and just tag whoever wants to do this! 😅💕

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

As of August 27, 2021, I have a total of 77 works on my AO3!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

Funny enough, I was just looking at this, specifically, earlier today and kind of laughing about it. Right now, my total word count across all my works is 1,148,941 😬

3. How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

Apparently 12, but some of them I don’t really consider “big” in my fandom repertoire. Naruto is my greatest fandom with a total of 60 fics so far, followed by The Chronicles of Narnia and Rise of the Guardians. The rest are ones I either did crossover fics with or just did one-off little pieces with--The Incredibles, Tangled, Brave, How to Train Your Dragon, Arthurian Mythology, Disney Princesses, Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, Back to the Future, and Frozen.

4. What are your Top Five fics by kudos?

The Scarecrow and The Bell (Naruto) - 470 kudos The Day Kakashi’s Mask Slipped (Naruto) - 139 kudos Sunflowers (Naruto) - 92 kudos Sakumo the House Husband (Naruto) - 81 kudos Someone to Lean On (Naruto) - 67 kudos

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always try to respond to comments, because I like to acknowledge when people respond to my work. I cherish comments like nobody’s business, especially when they’re kind and reactionary. I just really love seeing/hearing what people think of the way a story is progressing, or what they thought of a one-shot. Comments keep me going especially when it comes to longfic so I want to be able to let readers know that I do in fact see their comments, that I’m acknowledging what they’re saying, and that I appreciate them. Plus, it can be kind of fun to tease upcoming events in a fic through responses to people’s comments, too. Because I’m mean.

6. What fic have you written with the angstiest ending?

Definitely Hothouse (Rise of the Guardians/The Incredibles; Jack Frost x Violet Parr; American Horror Story AU). This was the first multi-chaptered fic I ever wrote to completion and I honestly cringe when I remember it exists both because it’s so poorly organized (and full of nasty plot holes) and because I just went ham on the gore factor. It definitely has a really bittersweet and heartbreaking ending to it, too.

7. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I think I’ll definitely have to say Temptation. The story itself was kind of a ride, and it’s only the first installment in a series, but it follows the plot of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe but remixed due to the presence of an original character, but the ending is still roughly the same as the original: they defeat the evil, the Pevensies are all crowned kings and queens, happy days. Reading the last few paragraphs of the last chapter honestly still gets me all up in my feelings.

8. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I used to be more of a crossover writer due to one of my main ships being a crossover ship. They weren’t super crazy, though, because they were both CGI-animated films. The craziest crossover I’ve ever written is an in-progress/unfinished multichapter piece, Kakashi, Enchanted, that sees our favorite Copy Ninja get kamui’d into the Disney princess dimension and has to help the likes of Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel on his journey to find a way back to his own world. It’s a super weird premise but definitely one of my more lighthearted works and fun to revisit when I need to decompress.

9. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don’t think I’ve ever received hate so much as I’ve received criticism. The closest I ever got to hate on a fic, I think, was someone left an overly personal and mentally disturbed comment on a chapter of my main fic that made me convinced they needed to seek therapy and deal with their own personal issues rather than take it out on a fanfic about animated ninjas.

10. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Maybe 👀 I’m super vanilla when it comes to smut, though. I think the wildest thing I’ve ever written in smut is breeding kink.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of, and I hope I never will.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not yet! I had someone ask to translate a one-shot of mine in Russian but I never got a response back when I laid out my terms and conditions.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not! I used to do paragraph-style roleplay which was kind of like cowriting fanfiction but writing is so personal and sacred to me that I don’t know if I could ever actually cowrite a fic with someone. I like brainstorming with other people, but writing for me is more of a deeply personal and independent endeavour.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Oh god, this is a tricky question because it depends on fandom. I absolutely love New Dream (Rapunzel x Eugene, Tangled) and have for the past ten years, and my love for them as only grown since watching Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure. I don’t write or even really read a ton of fanfiction for them, though. I’m also still highly dedicated to my favorite crossover crackship, Frostfield (Jack Frost x Violet Parr, Rise of the Guardians/The Incredibles) and to this day, if you search for that ship on AO3, I am the sole provider of every single fic about them so far. I’m not as active with them as I used to be, but they got me through some really rough times back in the day and still mean so much to me. A lot of my favorite ships across fandoms, though, are honestly canon x OC ships of mine because I am a self-indulgent bitch who needs to project. So Peter Pevensie x Eilonwy (The Chronicles of Narnia) and Kakashi Hatake x Rei Natsuki (Naruto) are really important to me and I’ve poured so much of myself specifically into their stories. I think it’s safe to say Kakashi and Rei is my all-time favorite ship across all fandoms, though, just because of how much their story means to me. The Scarecrow and The Bell is my magnum opus, my pride and joy, and I’m sure it will be my biggest fandom footprint of my entire life. I’ve dedicated the past three years to this story and these characters and I intend to continue doing it until it no longer brings me joy (which I hope it always will). There’s just so much I could say about this story and Kakashi and Rei’s relationship but I don’t think we have enough time or space in this post for that 😅 Just know that they mean the world to me and I will always hold them in the highest regard as a beautifully messy, flawed, passionate, soulmate-y ship that I love with all of my heart 🥺

EDIT: I also feel obligated to tack on some of my absolute favorite Naruto ships because I may not have written for all of them (yet) but they still make me unbelievably happy or I find them really compelling and enjoy the idea of exploring them:

Naruhina is precious happy sunshine and The Last honestly felt like a wonderful Disney princess movie to me, it was so cute and the romance was so on-point, Naruhina just makes me so incredibly happy and I love them with all my heart.

MinaKushi also gets me all up in my feels and I adore them with every fiber of my being. Their romance also gave me Disney princess movie vibes which I love, their story is just so damn sweet as is their character dynamic and I am still so heartbroken that they never got to be a happy family with Naruto because you know what? It’s what they deserved!

SasuSaku is so compelling to me and I really feel like we were cheated out of seeing their relationship develop and evolve postwar in the same way The Last did for Naruhina. They’re my favorite angst ship and while I don’t think they were written that well in canon, I love the possibility and potential of them together and am excited to explore them more in-depth in my own writing.

NejiTen is just too cute, I really love the way Neji and Tenten’s personalities compliment each other? I don’t have much else to say about them except that I really love them together and think they have so much untapped potential that I also can’t wait to explore in more depth in my own writing.

15. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Paper Hearts and Impromptu Bookmarks, probably. I love the premise of this story a lot and I have so many interesting ideas for it but at the same time, it also feels kind of cheap and cringey to me, in a way? It takes all of these ideas I probably would have had if I had been into Naruto when I was a kid and kind of compiles them all into one big story. Kakashi and Aiko’s relationship and story is still really important to me and I want to continue it someday but for right now, I just haven’t had the motivation or desire to write any more of it. I think I’m just so overwhelmingly preoccupied with writing Kakashi and Rei’s story that I can’t imagine writing any other Kakashi x OC fics right now.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I want to say that I’m really good at capturing complex emotion? I don’t know, I write a lot of angst and mental upheaval in my fics which can be really difficult to try and capture, but I think I do a decent enough job of it? And just writing difficult subjects in general. I think it’s really important to address difficult topics such as mental illness and relationship difficulties and everything but I also want to try and write those topics in a way that is both authentic to the experience while also still tasteful. I don’t want to drive readers away with heavy subject matter but rather present a situation that feels real and authentic while also still being digestible. I may not be doing a very good job of that during the current arc of my fic that I’m working on, but I’m trying haha

EDIT 2: I also want to add onto this to say that I’m really proud of my organizational techniques for writing longfic. It’s not necessarily a strength in terms of the prose itself but it’s something that’s taken me years to really get a grasp on and find a method that works perfectly for me and so far, it’s been extremely helpful and beneficial to me. I don’t know where I would be now as a writer without these essential tools in my pocket.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I feel like I do a really bad job of the “show, don’t tell” thing. It can be really hard to balance descriptive prose with straightforward writing that moves things along. I don’t want to dwell on mental dialogue to the point where you lose track of what’s going on, but I also don’t want my stuff to read like “Character A did xyz. Character B said abc. They went to 123″, whatever. Another thing I struggle with is sentence variation. I always fall into the same patterns when I’m writing prose and I get really self-conscious about it because I don’t want to sound repetitive or disrupt the flow of the writing. One of my favorite things about prose is focusing on the cadence of the words, I think it’s one of the most beautiful things about writing in general, but it can just be really difficult to get a good grip on that. I’ve been told in the past that I apparently have a really good grasp/control of the language or whatever but sometimes I just find that really hard to believe when I look at my work with such scrutiny. I think one of my biggest pet peeves with my own writing, too, is feeling like I start all of my sentences the same five different ways. I’ll read other people’s works and they’ll write sentences like “Glass-blue water lapped against the shores of a deserted beach as a lonely woman gazed off into the distance” and I can just never figure out how to realistically write sentences that start like that in the context of my prose and it drives me fucking crazy, like I’m definitely jealous 😅

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’ve never really thought much about it before, but I think there are pros and cons! For bilingual/multilingual readers, I think it can be a really enriching reading experience because they know what’s being said in both languages. For people who only know one language, however, unless a translation is provided, I feel like it can be really alienating. I think the best use of that for both worlds is using it as a means for miscommunication humor. Other than that, I think it can be a slippery slope that depends on what kind of reader you are and how it’s written.

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The Chronicles of Narnia! My very first fanfiction was a Narnia fanfic that I barely remember except that it laid the basis for Temptation and my Narnia fanfic series as a whole. I never posted this first iteration anyway, but I remember it was 2008/2009 and I wrote a solid 80 pages (which was wild for me at the time) and had gotten halfway through remixing the events of Prince Caspian when my computer crashed and I lost absolutely everything. I’m still heartbroken that it’s gone forever, not because I’d want to go back and read it necessarily (since I’m sure it was actually hot garbage) but at least for nostalgia’s sake. Either way, like I said, this long-lost fic laid the basis for the very first fanfiction I ever posted, the first published (and never finished) iteration of Temptation back in 2011 on deviantART and the since-defunct Figment. I fell out of the fandom around 2012/2013 and left the story alone for a while before ultimately deciding to completely redux and rewrite the story when the fixation swung back around again between 2016 and 2018.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Despite the fact that it’s still in-progress, definitely The Scarecrow and The Bell. This fic just genuinely means so damn much to me and I will cherish it for the rest of my life because of how much it’s given me, how much love and passion and time and even parts of myself that I have poured into this, and also just how expansive of a story this is. Not only does it touch on some very dark and heavy topics, but I’ve also created so much of my own characters and meta for this story that it’s almost an entire universe in and of itself. I’ve just contributed so much additional world-building and created so many new OCs to fill important roles in this story and in Rei’s life, and they’ve all become so deeply important to me as they’ve developed further over the years. I’ve come up with so many interesting ideas for everyone and their lives, which are all slowly becoming so rich and varied. Not to mention that it’s my most popular fic to date as well as my longest fic at 632k and counting. I’ve really just genuinely poured so much of my heart and soul into this story, it’s my absolute favorite thing I’ve ever done and I really mean it when I say that I will cherish it for the rest of my life.

#tag games #ramblings

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snkpolls · 3 years

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SnK Episodes 73 & 74 Poll Results (for Anime Only Watchers)

The poll closed with 44 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Manga Readers’ poll, click here.

Anime only watchers, beware of spoilers if you venture over to the manga readers’ poll results.

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RATE EPISODE 73: SAVAGERY 42 responses

The rating for episode 14 was notably positive, with 97.6% of respondents giving the episode a 4 or 5 (majority being 5s). And just a single 3!

this shit was so good, I love you mappa <3

Best anime ever

RATE EPISODE 74: SOLE SALVATION 43 responses

The subsequent episode garnered a bit of more muted response, although there was an equal amount of 5s given out. Overall, 86% gave the episode either a 4 or a 5. There were also six 3s.

Masterpiece

zook

WHICH WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT OF EPISODE 73? 43 responses

The pie for episode 73 was rather colorful! 23.3% most enjoyed the much anticipated Levi vs. Zeke 2.0. 20.9% thought seeing Levi having to fight his own comrades in titan form was the most memorable moment of the episode. At a tie for 14% people thought Eren disparaging his friends and Eren beating up Armin had the biggest impact in this episode. 9.3% felt the biggest impact by seeing Armin punch Eren in the face, while another 7% were most impacted by Levi’s brutality against Zeke as he filleted his legs.

WHICH WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT OF EPISODE 74? 43 responses

The scene that stuck most with anime watchers was Zeke detonating the thunder spear and sending Levi flying, with 51.2% of respondents giving their vote to the closing scene of the episode. 11.6% felt the most impacted by the scene of Zeke listening to Grisha yelling at Dina through the door, and another 11.6% felt the reveal of Zeke’s euthanasia plan is the detail that stuck out the most. 7% seemed most affected by the Yeager Brothers’ secret conversation.

EPISODE 73 IS TITLED, “SAVAGERY.” OF THE OPTIONS BELOW, WHICH CHARACTER DO YOU THINK BEST EXEMPLIFIED THIS WORD? 42 responses

The episode’s title, “Savagery” can most certainly be attributed to one of the characters on screen, so it’s no surprise that there was differing opinion on which character exemplified that. The plurality (47.6%) chose to go with Levi, perhaps due to his arguably cruel treatment of Zeke after his victory. Eren was the runner up with 31%, probably due to the cruel nature of his words to Mikasa and Armin. The rest of the votes went to Shadis’ nemesis, Floch and a few to Zeke himself (Titanization Man).

HOW BADLY DID YOU FEEL ABOUT LEVI HAVING TO KILL HIS OWN SQUAD? 43 responses

Although there were some people who didn’t really seem to care, most of the respondents (88.3%) seemed to feel for Levi’s struggles. Poor guy needs a break!

poor levi he through some shit:(

ON A SCALE OF 105, HOW WOULD YOU RATE LEVI VS. ZEKE 2.0? 43 responses

Levi vs Zeke 2.0 garnered a lot of praise from the responses gathered. 90.7% gave the showdown a 4 or a 5 (mostly 5s) and no one gave it a score lower than 3. Very nice!

WHY DO YOU THINK FLOCH MADE THE RECRUITS BATTER INSTRUCTOR SHADIS? 43 responses

Floch’s actions in Episode 73 focused on Instructor Shadis and the takeover of the Training Facility, culminating in Keith’s beatdown. We asked you why you believe Floch made the cadets do so. 34.9% of respondents thought that it was due to Floch having an ego trip, as Shadis said himself. 14% thought that it truly was due to Floch believing in Shadis representing the old order, necessary to “purge”. Finally, some select folks believed that Floch wanted to make an example out of the Instructor. Finally, another 34.9% of respondents said that all of the aforementioned reasons were valid to a degree.

HOW CUTE WAS BITTY ZEKE? 42 responses

Little Zeke has appeared multiple times in Episode 15 and what better way to make one feel sympathy for someone than portraying them as a cute kid? 78.6% thought Zeke was exceptionally cute, giving a score of 4 or 5 (mostly 5s). The rest were less thrilled, though there were only two 1s.

lil baby zeke is so cute

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT GRISHA’S TREATMENT OF ZEKE? 43 responses

Grisha’s treatment of Zeke during his childhood is perhaps one of the most important events when it comes to shaping Yeager Junior’s view on the world. We asked how you felt about that. 27.9% stated that they felt much sympathy for Zeke and believed he deserved none of it. Another 27.9% sympathized with Zeke, but didn’t hold too much blame over Grisha due to his precarious position. A little over 25% went even further called Grisha the worst parent in the series. Quite a lot of those in AoT/SnK. 11.6% were more mild and simply chastised Grisha for his treatment. One person said that they didn’t care for Zeke’s struggles at all and we also received 2 write-ins.

Grisha's intentions were good, but the way he treated Zeke was not

I get that he doesn't want anyone else to suffer the same tragic and horrific fate that Fay did, but I still wanted to reach through the TV screen and smack the life outta Grisha

DO YOU FEEL THAT ZEKE WOULD HAVE GROWN INTO AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT KIND OF PERSON IF GRISHA HAD TREATED HIM BETTER? 43 responses

An interesting what-if comes when asked about the possibility of Zeke being treated differently by his father in his childhood and how that would affect Zeke’s view of the world. 53.5% believe that even if Grisha treated Zeke differently, it’s not possible to say if Yeager Junior’s worldview would be completely different since there were other factors. In contrast, 32.6% think that his perspective would have been totally divergent from the one we’ve seen. 9.3% weren’t sure and we also received 2 write-ins.

Zeke is who he is because of his childhood, it includes Grsiha's treatment but also his grand parents and Ksaver. If we take off one piece of hid childhood, he would have been another person.

If the circumstances were right, possibly. But that would take a hell of a lot of trauma.

WHO DO YOU THINK HAD A BIGGER IMPACT IN SHAPING ZEKE’S WORLDVIEW? 43 responses

Just under 70% believe Ksaver had a bigger impact on shaping Zeke’s viewpoint on existence, in contrast to a little over 30% who think Grisha was the bigger pull here.

WHO TURNED OUT MORE LIKE GRISHA, IN YOUR OPINION? 42 responses

It is also interesting to note the comparison between the two Yeager Brothers and how much influence their father had on them. Overwhelmingly, 81% believe that Eren turned out to be more like Grisha in his nature versus 19% who think that Zeke received such honor (or dishonor, if you so choose to believe).

WHO WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO PUNCH IN THE FACE AFTER THESE EPISODES? 42 responses

We decided to give the respondents an out for their frustrations by allowing them to choose a person to a punch! The “golden” dishonor went to Floch, with 35.7%, which was followed by Eren with 16.7% and the author of the original work himself, Isayama Hajime, also with 16.7%. Geisha received the bronze and 14.3% of the vote. Zeke and especially Levi were less popular options. In contrast, 7.1% stated that they had no interest in punching anyone. Also, no one expressed a desire to physically assault us, the pollsters. Thanks!

HAVE THE EVENTS THAT HAVE TRANSPIRED CHANGED YOUR OPINION ON EREN? 42 responses

Was Eren’s shocking behavior enough to change some opinions about his overall character? 31% of viewers stand firm in their love and support for Eren and agree that his actions haven’t changed their feelings at all. 26.2% are feeling a little more dicey, wanting to see more of his development before deciding if he’s really worthy of their support or not. 9.5% have changed their opinion on him and see him more negatively, though on the flipside… 7.1% feel the opposite, stating they didn’t like him before but are now watching with curiosity.

I dont know

I’m mad about what’s happening HOWEVER, that is my man ✨😌

I like him increasingly since the beginning of the story. His development is fantastic. Best character.

I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but not anymore. This ain't it chief

WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE EMA TALK? 42 responses

The majority of viewers were genuinely shaken by this scene, with 38.1% feeling that there is nothing but pain on the road ahead, while another 23.8% are already actively wailing at the apparent death of EMA’s bond. 21.4% are simply in disbelief at Eren’s treatment of his friends. A small handful actually enjoyed Eren eviscerating his friends, while another handful didn’t really have an opinion either way.

It was awesome. Isayama lets us build our opinion without any sign of "look, that's the good way to think"

I can excuse the whole raid of Liberio and mass murder thing, but beating up Armin? Telling Mikasa he hates her? That's where I draw the line

I am soulless. For Eren to go from sharing his dreams of the future with Armin and Mikasa to threatening them like enemies broke me. Easily the hardest part of the anime to watch to date.

DO YOU THINK THAT EREN IS CORRECT ABOUT ARMIN BEING MANIPULATED BY BERTOLT? 41 responses

More than half of respondents believe that there is some truth to what Eren is saying, but that he’s not wholly correct. 26.8% feel that Eren is dead wrong about Bertolt affecting Armin. In equal parts of 9.8%, fans either feel that Eren knows what he’s talking about, or aren’t sure what to think.

DO YOU THINK EREN IS RIGHT ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE ACKERMAN CLAN? 42 responses

Similarly to the previous question, more than half of respondents feel that there is only some truth in what Eren is saying about the Ackerman clan. Though, the opposite of people’s views on his words to Armin, 28.6% actually think what Eren said about the Ackerman clan is the whole truth. 9.5% think he’s full of it, and 7.1% aren’t sure.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT EREN’S EXPLANATION OF THE ACKERMANS’ POWERS? 42 responses

45.2% of viewers feel that Eren’s explanation of the Ackerman power is a somewhat positive thing, and that it adds more layers onto the relationships that our Ackerman characters have with others. 16.7% are just happy to have any kind of explanation at all and think it makes perfect sense. On the flipside, another 16.7% feel that everything Eren said wasn’t true and are reserving judgement for further story development. 14.3% absolutely hate Eren’s explanation of the Ackerman power and feel it cheapens the bond characters like Mikasa and Levi have with others.

Kenny said it : "Everyone was a slave to something". It makes perfect sense. 💯

DOES EREN BELIEVE THE CRUEL WORDS HE SAID TO ARMIN AND MIKASA? 42 responses

More than half of respondents still have some faith in Eren and believe that he wasn’t being his true self when talking with Armin and Mikasa. 23.8% don’t want to say either way for sure if these feelings are genuine. 19% think that Eren believes every word he said and truly feels his way toward his friends now.

EREN SAYS HE IS FREE. ARMIN SAYS EREN IS A SLAVE. WHAT DO YOU THINK? 42 responses

When it comes to whether Eren is truly free, or if he’s actually enslaved by something or someone else, 33.3% feel that it’s a combination of the two options. 19% believe that he’s somehow being controlled by previous holders of the titan powers he possesses, while another 19% aren’t sure what to think. 16.7% believe Eren is free, and that when he says everything he does is of his own will, that he is right.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN TO MIKASA NOW? 42 responses

Eren was particularly hurtful to Mikasa, a character who has been nothing but loyal and caring toward him for the entire duration of their friendship. Many fans would like to see her develop away from him, but is this moment the catalyst for such development? 57.1% seem to feel that she will grow from this experience, though it would be impossible for her to stop caring about Eren despite his poor treatment of her. 11.9% feel the opposite, and think that she won’t grow from this experience, but rather that it will hinder her, and she will be forever broken. 9.5% believe that despite Eren’s cruelty, she will continue to have unwavering faith in him. Small handfuls either felt she will move past this and become her own person without Eren impacting her anymore, or that she will grow to deeply resent Eren as a result of his actions toward her.

EREN TALKS ABOUT HOW MIKASA’S HEADACHES ARE A SIDE EFFECT OF HER ACKERMAN GENES. LEVI IS SEEN GRABBING HIS HEAD IN THE EPISODE PRIOR. DO YOU THINK HE’S ALSO HAVING AN ACKER-HEADACHE AT THAT MOMENT? 42 responses

Levi is seen grabbing his head for the first time in the series just before Eren mentions Acker-headaches are a thing. 57.1% believe that Levi is, indeed, having a headache, giving more credibility to Eren’s words. Versus 42.9% who believe that Levi wasn’t having a headache in that scene, and was simply just grabbing his head.

HANGE AND PIXIS HAVEN’T SPOKEN SINCE THE WINE PLOT WAS REVEALED, SO HOW DOES PIXIS KNOW ABOUT THE WINE? 41 responses

39% of viewers feel that Pixis couldn’t have been aware of the wine, but that he was sure that Zeke would somehow try to pull a stunt like turning the people of Paradis into titans. 24.4% think it’s possible that Yelena had already confessed about the wine plot to him during their earlier conversation. 22% think he just doesn’t know about the wine and didn’t know Zeke could even do such a thing.

I have no idea. I didn’t even consider this.

DO YOU THINK THAT PIXIS AND NILE ARE DESTINED TO BECOME PURE TITANS, NOW THAT WE KNOW THEY INGESTED THE WINE? 41 responses

Now that we have confirmation that Pixis and Nile both drank the spiked wine, more than half of respondents believe that they are destined to become titans in the near future. 29.3% feel the opposite, and believe that they will be able to avoid this fate.

DID SHADIS GOAD THE NEW RECRUITS IN AN EFFORT TO PROTECT THEM? 40 responses

60% believe that Shadis was looking out for the trainee cadets when he goaded them into trying to beat him up, ensuring that they wouldn’t have to become a victim to the Yeagerists’ violence. 32.5% aren’t sure what his intentions were, and a small handful felt it was a hard no.

YOUR THOUGHTS ON FLOCH? 42 responses

Floch doesn’t seem to be netting many positive opinions so far, with 38.1% of respondents stating that they “absolutely loathe him.” 26.2% aren’t in support of Floch, but are still willing to throw their faith behind Eren. 14.3% hate him, but are having a good time doing so, and 11.9% are actually in support of Floch’s actions despite some missteps along the way.

Everyone's saying 'Fuck Gabi' but I've been screaming 'Fuck Floch' with my whole chest since the end of season 3...he receives all of my hate LMAO

FUCK FLOCH

I have fostered an visceral hatred for him since the moment he was introduced and honestly now I'm just glad it's justified

WE’LL ASK AGAIN, DO YOU THINK EREN IS TRULY WORKING WITH THE YEAGERISTS? 42 responses

40.5% believe that Eren is working with the Yeagerists, but with a different goal than the one they think he has. 16.7% don’t think he’s working with them at all and that it’s just a narrative ruse. 14.3% don’t know what to make of this connection just yet, and 9.5% refuse to believe anything until they see Eren giving orders to the Yeagerists directly.

HISTORIA HAS REMAINED OUT OF THE PICTURE IN THE CURRENT TIMELINE. WHERE DO YOU THINK HER LOYALTIES MAY LIE? 41 responses

Historia hasn’t been able to speak for herself yet, so we were curious where you thought her loyalties may lie in this whole conflict. 31.7% believe that she is only looking out for herself at this point. 22% believe that her loyalties are with Eren - but not the Yeagerists, and another 22% believe that her loyalties are with someone else who we haven’t been able to deduce yet. 12.2% believe that she is all in with the Survey Corps.

IF ZEKE HAD EXPLAINED HIS PLAN TO LEVI, DO YOU THINK THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN A BETTER OPPORTUNITY FOR THEM TO HAVE A DIALOGUE, RATHER THAN JUST OPPOSE EACH OTHER? 42 responses

A solid 50% of viewers think that there is no way Zeke and Levi would ever be able to share a dialogue about the solution to Eldia’s problems. 31% are less sure, thinking it’s possible it could go either way, while 16.7% believe that they could have talked out their problems if only they had chosen to try and trust one another.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT LEVI SLICING ZEKE UP? 42 responses

A total of 64.3% of respondents seem to enthusiastically support Levi’s treatment toward Zeke, with 33.3% specifically agreeing with the sentiment of “Good for him!” While another 31% feel that Zeke absolutely had this coming and can’t fault Levi for his actions. 26.2% are still in support of Levi’s decision to fillet Zeke’s legs, though they do agree the action was a bit on the cruel side. Only a small handful either felt disappointed in Levi or supported Zeke in setting off the thunderspear.

very very satisfying

He did it for Erwin<3

HOW HAS LEARNING ZEKE’S BACKSTORY AFFECTED YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT HIM? 42 responses

With more context on Zeke’s actions, thought process, and the reveal of his true plans, we were curious how opinions may have changed on his character. 38.1% simply just feel sorry for him after seeing how hard his childhood was. 26.2% agree that his backstory is indeed tragic, but that it doesn’t excuse his behavior or his plan. 9.5% feel positively about Zeke, saying they want to love and protect him forever, while 7.1% just aren’t sure how to feel about Zeke now.

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE REVEAL FROM ZEKE’S MEMORIES? 42 responses

31% of viewers felt the biggest takeaway from Zeke’s memories was the reveal that the Founding Titan has the ability to manipulate Eldian DNA. 26.2% most enjoyed learning what the true nature of Zeke’s plan was. 19% were happy to understand the reason why Grisha sold out his parents to Marley, and another 11.9% were happy to see how Zeke learned about Grisha’s survival and Eren’s existence (though for some, maybe it was because of the Bertolt crumbs?).

WAS ZEKE’S CHOICE TO TURN IN HIS PARENTS JUSTIFIED? 41 responses

41.5% believe that Zeke was justified in turning in his parents as it was able to protect himself and his grandparents - innocent parties that would have otherwise been in trouble - from going down with Grisha, Dina and the restorationists. 22% believe that he was justified because his parents’ poor treatment toward them deserved some kind of consequence. 19.5% feel the other way, however, and believe that Zeke should have let his parents know Marley was closing in on them. Another 14.6% believe that Zeke could have figured out another way to prevent his parents from being sent to Paradis.

Mixed feelings.

IN A STORY FILLED WITH TRAGIC CHILDHOOD BACKSTORIES, WHERE DOES ZEKE’S RANK? 41 responses

Nearly half of the fandom agree that Zeke’s childhood backstory is toward the top of the list of the most tragic ones in this series, but not quite enough to claim the title of “the absolute worst.” 26.8% agree that his backstory was pretty bad, but still can’t empathize with his current actions or his goal. 22% believe that he didn’t have it any better or worse than anyone else in the series, and only a small sliver feel that Zeke is truly deserving of the “most tragic character” award.

KSAVER TELLS ZEKE THAT DINA AND GRISHA NEVER LOVED HIM. THOUGHTS? 42 responses

When it comes to the matter of whether Grisha and Dina actually loved Zeke, nearly 60% felt that they did love him, but their love for him didn’t supersede their commitment to their mission to restore the Eldian Empire. 21.4% feel that their love for Zeke and commitment to their mission were equal in strength. 16.7% agree with Ksaver, and believe that Grisha and Dina didn’t love Zeke at all.

DO YOU THINK KSAVER WAS A GOOD PERSON? 42 responses

While we only see Ksaver for one episode, we were curious about your judgement of his character. 35.7% believe that he was a good person, even if he may have made some bad decisions at certain points. 28.6% believe he truly was a good person, and genuinely cared for Zeke as if he was his own son. 19% feel the opposite, and believe he wasn’t a good person, feeling that he manipulated Zeke and disapprove of him lying to his wife and son about his Eldian genetics. 11.9% aren’t sure what to think, but feel there’s more to Ksaver’s story than meets the eye.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE REVEAL OF ZEKE’S PLAN? 42 responses

In general, respondents seem to be shocked at the reveal of Zeke’s true plan, with most of them ranking it a 4 or 5 in its shock factor. One voter leaned more in the direction of the reveal of his real plan being a bit underwhelming.

DO YOU THINK EREN TRULY AGREES WITH ZEKE’S PLAN? 42 responses

33.3% are firm in their belief that Eren would never get on board with Zeke’s euthanasia plan, and that he’s “playing Zeke like a fiddle” right now. 31% believe that Eren does agree with Zeke partially, but still likely has his own separate goal from Zeke. 16.7% aren’t sure, and another 7.1% believe that Eren is truly on board with Zeke’s plan.

DOES ZEKE’S RATIONALE FOR KILLING PEOPLE HELP JUSTIFY IT? 41 responses

43.9% are somewhat understanding of Zeke’s plight, believing that Zeke’s intentions aren’t necessarily unjustified, but that he has still been unnecessarily cruel about his approach to it thus far. 39% don’t see any justification in his actions and think he’s just full of crap. On the flipside, 17.1% believe that Zeke truly feels he is doing the right thing and as a result they are able to empathize with his actions.

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE, WHICH IS THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS? 40 responses

When it comes down to being forced to choose one evil or the other, 62.5% believe that if their hands were tied, bringing an end to the Eldian race (whether by Zeke’s plan or by other means) is the lesser of the two evils. 37.5% feel the opposite, and believe that the liberation of Eldians is more important than the survival of the rest of the world who wants to destroy them.

WHAT CONDITION DO YOU THINK LEVI IS IN PHYSICALLY? 42 responses

So MAPPA really left us in the dark on this one. With lots of time to speculate, we were curious what you thought about his physical condition after the explosion. 33.3% believe that he is likely missing a part, or parts, of his body after the impact. 19% think it isn’t as bad, with just some scratches or scrapes. 11.9% believe that Levi is going to be just fine (he’s an Ackerman after all, right?!), while a smaller handful have assumed the worst and believe when we see him next, he will be confirmed as dead.

He’s FINE everything’s FINE

HOW DID THESE EPISODES MAKE YOU FEEL ABOUT THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERS?

The 5 characters that we listed had the biggest focus in these episodes (typically in a controversial light) so we wanted to see how opinions may have changed.

The characters who seem to have received more negative backlash were Grisha and Floch, with Eren trailing behind them. Zeke and Levi were viewed more favorably when all was said and done. Though for unchanged opinions, Eren and Levi seem to have hit more in the middle than the other characters did. Grisha appears to have netted no positive feelings.

WE’VE ONLY GOT ONE EPISODE LEFT FOR THIS RUN! HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT IT? 42 responses

When it comes to the feelings of respondents about the anime ending, we’ve gotten a multitude of responses. A plurality, 45.2% had a more positive view, looking forward to the Part 2 announcement. Close behind were 42.9% who expressed their frustration at the loss of a source of entertainment on Sundays. Less popular responses focused on open despair (due to the anime ending) and in contrast to the rest of the respondents, one person expressed disappointment in this entire season. We’ve also received one write-in.

I’ve already started up the manga, I couldn’t wait for the last episode and I certainly can’t wait for part 2 lol

DO YOU THINK WE WILL GET AN ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE NEXT ANIME INSTALLMENT NEXT WEEK? 43 responses

We’ve asked the respondents whether they believed we were going to get a Part 2 announcement the week of the final episode. Now we know that to be the case, it is interesting to look back. 67.5% expressed hope in seeing that announcement with 41.9% (overall) feeling a bit cautiously optimistic, in contrast to the 25.6% (overall) seeing conviction. In contrast, 30.2% were not so sure, with 20.9% (also overall) not feeling too hopeful and 9.3% (again, overall) were lacking any expectations at all. Now we know that the former folks were pessimistic for no reason. Yay.

Please MAPPA I need this :,(

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODES?

Tears

The reveal of Zeke's backstory has shown us once again that in AoT, there is no black and white but multiple shades of gray and that people like Zeke and Levi can be savage despite having noble intentions. It's sad that Eren and Armin would have to fight like that and I'm annoyed that Mikasa chose to hurt Armin when he punched Eren for her. It's like she has shown that what Eren was saying about her is true.

No other thoughts just sad :(

Pain.

I know Zeke is no ordinary Man. Everyone thinking"oh Zeke boy evil, cruel, throwing something" ı think always not Just that simple. Because ı saw, he sells patents, its really Hard choice for 7 8 years old boy.

the recent episodes have been amazing and Isayama has by far the sexiest brain out of all creators, period

I was shocked to find out that Ksaver told Zeke to turn in his parents. I honestly thought Zeke was just feeling bold that day LOL but ya excellent episodes, 5/5 for both! As always, thank you MAPPA for the food<3

I am Scared and Sad and I can't wait for the next one

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 43 responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated! We will post the poll for episode 75 soon!

In the meantime, please feel free to send us up to 5 of your favorite characters via ask or submission for our ongoing popularity poll - that poll will close on the 10th of April! :D

#snk poll #snk polls #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #snk #aot #snk s4

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andrewuttaro · 3 years

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American Christianity’s Death by Trump

This conversation could’ve very easily been had before January 6th, 2021. It should’ve happened on a massive scale in 2016. Some of us have had this conversation in small groups and through blog posts exchanged on forums. Some whole Churches have even put out statements and memorandums and even condemnations. Not enough. After that date, this conversation is imperative for everyone who considers themselves a Christian in the United States of America.

I know you read the title. If you bothered to read this post, you must believe there is something sincere and worthy here. I don’t think its hard to see. Do you? Is American Christianity dying because of the influence of President Donald Trump? If you don’t think that’s true you probably don’t think its even remotely true. I’ll get to you in a minute; but if you’re someone who maybe even endeavors to wear a cross or crucifix around your neck and you don’t think he’s the death of us, but you’re close to thinking that… how does this image make you feel?

Used? I know Christians who tell me this event in June 2020 made them feel used. Yeah, the ones I’m thinking of voted for him before and after this event. If you don’t think he’s the death of us, then you probably have a couple words about Abortion or “religious liberty” on deck. Sure, as a practicing Catholic I can attest to voting in this country as a double-edged sword. Two dominant political parties: neither represents the entirety of our beliefs, no nationally viable party here probably ever will. We all vote for a candidate in spite of their disagreements with us on certain beliefs. It’s been the Christian way since the rise of modern democracy.

But save your abortion and religious liberty defenses. They’re not enough. Not now, if they ever were. Not with this man. Only God will finally judge his soul, but tell me honestly: do you think he’d ever been inside that Church? Do you think he knew where it was before the day he ordered the tear gas to clear his way there? Do you think he saw that book he held aloft as anything more than a political weapon? Does he know Christian faith as anything more than a political tool? And let’s not pretend its just about the man himself. Trump World, all those who support him including a broad swath of the Christian religious elite in this country, has turned a blind eye to the more authoritarian actions for what? Political expediency? We can now abandon any religious principle for what, desire to follow a political leader? That thinking has now made publicly professed Christians into accomplices in an Insurrection.

One last thought to the crowd who feels he’s not the death of us but not by a lot. Perhaps you think him, and his movement are a passing torment; and true followers of Christ will soon come to their senses to how they were swindled by this great swindler of American history. Even if Jesus-following Americans see the light of a Post-Trump world (if such a thing will exist anytime soon) would our revival matter to anyone beyond us? What has this President, who overwhelmingly carried at least one Christian demographic group in both his elections, done to our credibility, our witness to Jesus Christ? What has he done to our mission? Nothing we will be able to repair in my lifetime, not in the public life of this country.

Now for you folks who, if you’re still reading, are cringing at my dramatics: I won’t address American Evangelicals here or the myriad low-liturgy Protestants who effectively belong to that group as well; I don’t know your life experience the way I know the Catholic life experience in this country. So, here’s some thoughts on that: 48% of American Catholics identify as Republicans, 47% as Democrats according to a recent Pew Research Report. You may look at those numbers and say religion doesn’t really matter to most Catholics in their political lives if there isn’t a consensus, right? Well, apart from American Evangelicals who voted for Trump in both of his elections at rates at or above 90%, every Christian religious group in this country is split nearly down the center like Catholics. What should we gather from this: perhaps the Gospel goes different ways in different places? That’s probably right but this is different.

The Gospel doesn’t go any way with this man. If you call him the sinful doer of God’s Will please then also give that title to the far more respectful man succeeding him; a man who has been inside a Church for something other than a funeral recently. Yes, we Christians must discern our vote and often finally do the democratic duty in spite of half our beliefs; but this man occupies a whole different eschatological plain than the average politician. Christians need to respond a certain way to politicians like this. An Insurrection of the same caliber consisting of predominately non-white dissidents would’ve been a bloodbath and I don’t think you have a leg to stand on disagreeing with that considering this past summer. How do our black and brown brothers and sisters hear our witness to the Gospel after this crowd gets waved into the Capitol and take selfies with the police like some kind of anti-democratic festival? The President of the United States incited an Insurrection that law enforcement gave preferential treatment to and you still want to defend whoever American Conservatism tells you to in the name of Jesus?

Call all politicians liars, cheats and sinners if you want. I won’t argue against that point. But no leader of the free world in modern history has so decisively and shamelessly used Christianity and its place in American history and contemporary life as a weapon like Donald Trump has. That tear gas bible scene was just the most obvious incarnation of it. If this man’s public life has even inclined a single soul toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ than it is truly God’s miraculous doing. He breathes no sincere word of Jesus’ message and no number of my fellow Catholics can be confirmed to the Supreme Court to further God’s will under this man’s reign. If he is not the modern Nero, enjoying musical accompaniment as Rome burns, then nobody is. If any Christian stands by a political demagogue of this caliber they do so at the detriment of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Before the Insurrection, the biggest media conglomerate bearing the title of “Catholic”, Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), was already silencing any voice that went against their idol in Donald Trump and his agenda. Right-Wing Catholicism in this nation has seen prominent Priests and Bishops support America’s authoritarian to the point of calling on Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic Church, to resign! Anyone who doesn’t adhere to Trump, the secular icon of neo-conservatism, evidently isn’t good enough to even lead a religious institution. America’s most well-known Catholic Bishop, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Arch-Diocese of New York, has slow peddled any criticism of Trump to this point and still only tacitly criticizes him in the aftermath of this attack on American Democracy. What has become of us Americans who also venture to call ourselves Christians?

The only reason there are any self-identifying Christians supporting him is by way of cultural comfort. Some find it easy to support him given their place in this nation’s socio-religious structure. Some find it advantageous to support him for a variety of reasons that find there way back to the love of money. Finally, still others support him for the sinister dreams of the perversion of the Gospel best called Christian-Nationalism. I know it for fact that members of that last group broke into the Capitol. Those who do not identify as Christians are watching and nothing this man has done has made their hearts softer to the message of the Gospel. If you can’t recognize that you are only deceiving yourself now; and indeed, the Gospel isn’t truly your highest priority.

I will turn 27 years of age this, our Lord’s year 2021. My generation has as many who identify as agnostic, atheist or nonreligious as we do all religious. For my generation, the Christian faith is not growing; and the wisdom of old age will not restore it for the millions of us who never knew it in the first place. This ugly episode has certainly converted none of us. I acutely remember the day after he was first elected: I was a Youth Minister and sat in a staff meeting as we all looked down at our hands dumbfounded. How would we ever teach the faith with this cloud hanging over our heads? How would we even be credible? My fears that day in 2016 were fully confirmed on January 6th, 2021.

American Christianity will not die because of Donald Trump. Yes, Christianity will sure enough persist in this country for as long as it lives. Religion is always culturally entrenched, and the religion of Jesus Christ will likely always be somewhere entrenched in the life of this nation. But if the Christians of this country stand by or, worse more, cheer on future authoritarians like Donald Trump, our witness to the Gospel of Jesus will be void of all meaningful mission and bankrupt on a moral level that would alienate us from the face of God. Such a fate is tantamount to the death of the Christian faith in this country and the sooner we realize this sooner we can envision someday when we begin to make it right.

#Trump #Christianity #catholic #blog

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heyoricohannah · 5 years

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Post Bar Mitzvah Part 9:

After the song’s come to an end, and all the energy and contentment it caused throughout the room slowly leveling down, the six kids decided to leave the restaurant after giving Amber casual farewells, now standing right outside where they each talk in pairs.

Well, Buffy and TJ aren’t doing much talking, standing in-between Walker and Andi and Cyrus and Jonah, who might as well not even know that anyone else is still there.

“So I guess we’re the single ones of the group.” TJ says to her, not needing to worry about anyone else hearing him.

Buffy snickers. “Guess so.”

“Unless,” TJ looks through the window of the diner, keeping an eye on Amber who’s clearing up their tables.

Buffy scoffs in disbelief. “Keep dreaming, idiot.”

He grins at her. “What about you and Marty?”

Buffy turns hostile from just thinking about the turn of events. “We’re not talking about that.”

TJ understands.

“So I guess it was just a coincidence that your friends were here with you?” Walker teases Andi.

“Huh.” She chuckles. “I kinda kept them around just in case something bad happened.”

The rest of them return Walker’s gentle smile. “You mean if I ended up being a total jerk?” He grins.

“More like if I froze up and I had no idea what to say.” Andi giggles.

“Don’t worry. I was nervous too. It was kinda my first date.” He admits.

“This was a date?” Andi’s ecstatic.

“Yeah! Well, maybe not officially, but, we could have a do-over. Somewhere more...” He looks around to those surrounding them. “Private.”

They all chuckle.

“Yeah, that sounds nice.” Andi says. “Uh, before you go...” She properly introduces him to each of them.

“Nice meeting you guys.” He says to them. “Bye.” He hugs Andi once more, giving her a huge smile and feeling the rest of them keep watch on him as he walks off.

Once he’s out of earshot, the guys consider him pretty lucky considering just how much Andi and Buffy are squealing to each other.

“Owe.” TJ cringes and quickly covers his ears, making Cyrus and Jonah scoff.

“I’m sorry Marty ruined everything.” Buffy says to Andi.

“It’s fine, we got a good song out of it.”

Cyrus beams at Jonah after she says this.

“You okay?” TJ asks him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.” Cyrus keeps his answer honest.

“Good.” TJ pats his shoulder, admiring him with the others.

“I, didn’t want you guys to find out like that, but,” he glances at both TJ and Jonah. “But, now I’m just glad you know.”

“We are too.” Jonah smiles.

“Eh, I kinda knew.” TJ admits.

The others look at him and snicker.

“I didn’t.” Jonah says.

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re just that oblivious.” Cyrus teases, cracking them all up.

“So the girls already knew?” Jonah asks him.

“Yeah, what can we say, we’re just that special.” Buffy jokes, causing them all to scoff and smile.

“Let’s go.” She decides, quickly placing her hand on Cyrus’ back before walking down the sidewalk with Andi and TJ, letting Cyrus and Jonah have their space.

“You didn’t have to do that...” Cyrus smiles to him.

“Yes I did.” Jonah keeps it sincere, chuckling along with him and keeping a good eye on him. “You’re so brave, Cyrus.”

He grins. “So are you...” He gives him a light shove, having them giggle. “Thank you. For being a great friend.”

He smiles at him once more and begins catching up to the others, leaving Jonah smiling through the pain that that last word has brought him as he watches Cyrus in despair.

Things have already begun to grown so muddled, that he almost can’t feel himself continue forward.

That next morning at school before the start of first period, Buffy is still bad mouthing Marty to her peers, who are trying her best to calm her down about the situation.

“I’m never seeing him again. Never ever never ever never.”

“You do know you’re on the same basketball team, right? You’re gonna see him during the game.” Andi reminds.

“Buffy, it’s okay. I’m over it.” Cyrus says. “It’s not like you confirmed it to him. He has no real proof.”

“Eh...” TJ doesn’t exactly believe that.

“Excuse me.” Cyrus asks, he and the others confusingly looking at him.

“Well I’m just saying...” TJ doesn’t know how to continue.

“What.” Cyrus frowns.

“Nothing!” TJ defensively looks at him, the pitch of his voice increasing.

“It’s just...Sometimes you can be a bit—“

“Gay? Well what do you expect?” Cyrus asks him.

“I don’t know...” TJ suddenly takes it all back, making Jonah frown and the rest of them roll their eyes.

“I’m gonna talk to Marty after class.” Cyrus states, which has Buffy recoil. “Ugh. My whole morning is ruined now, I’ll see you guys later.” She walks off to class without another word.

“I still can’t tell if she’s more petty about what he did to me, or what he did to her.” Cyrus brings up.

“What did Marty do to her?” TJ wants to know.

“Nothing, really.” Andi says. “He told her he liked her, and when she didn’t want to move forward, they just stopped talking.”

“Why didn’t she want to move forward?”

“Because.” Cyrus starts. “She’s Buffy.”

That, she is.

After class out in the halls, Cyrus is surprised to see Marty actually approach him.

“Hey man...”

“Hey...” Cyrus wishes he knew what to say.

“Uh, I’m so sorry about yesterday. I was terrible. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.” Marty states.

“It’s okay. It’s not like you were using it against me or anything. Besides, you were right. I am gay.” Cyrus explains, returning his smile.

“You helped me come out to the guys, so, thanks for that.” He adds.

“Yeah.” Marty nods. “You have my total support, a hundred percent.”

Cyrus couldn’t be more relieved.

“Besides, you’re not the only one, right?”

“Nope.” Cyrus chuckles, thinking Marty is talking about the general world around them.

“I mean, Jonah did write that paper.”

“What...?” Cyrus asks.

“You know, on gay rights. It was pretty moving.”

Needing a few seconds to respond, Cyrus starts laughing nervously. “Yeah, but, that doesn’t mean...”

Does it? Marty assumed Cyrus was gay, and he was totally right!

“Oh, sorry, I uh, didn’t mean to jump to conclusions.”

“No, no, you’re fine.” Cyrus plasters on a smile, trying to shove away the abrupt conclusions of his own.

“And hey, before you go, do you think—do you think Buffy will ever forgive me...?” Marty asks.

Cyrus blinks, tutting lightly and thinking it over.

“I’m sure she will after she knows you and I are cool. But besides that whole thing, I think you should talk about what happened with you guys in the first place. I know rejection sucks, but, you should at least make ends meet before she leaves.”

“Leaves?” Marty’s head begins to spin.

“Oh.” Cyrus flinches at the realization. “You haven’t heard...She’s moving away soon with her Mom...”

“When?” Marty panics.

“We don’t know when, exactly, but, sometime in the near future.” Cyrus doesn’t know how much longer he can handle looking at his devastated expression.

“You should talk to her, Marty.” Cyrus says his last words to him before turning away and separating himself, his mind currently so distracted that it seems like TJ pops out at him from almost nowhere.

“So I read Jonah’s paper, and-“

“What? Dude.” Cyrus was hoping he’d be the one to remain loyal.

“And all I’m saying is no straight guy would write that.” TJ blatantly ignores his interruption.

“TJ, come on, don’t make assumptions.” Cyrus doesn’t need any of that.

“What? Why not? I’m allowed.” TJ feels personally offended. “I’m just saying, it’s something to think about.”

Cyrus glances away and exhales anxiously, getting Buffy’s attention after she sees her walking by them in the other direction.

“Buffy. Marty knows you’re leaving, so he’s probably gonna try and serenade you or something before time’s up.” Him and TJ give her double thumbs up.

“What...?” She practically squeaks.

“It’s fine. He and I are cool now.” He lets her know.

“Yeah, well we’re still not.” She claims.

“Buffy, you do realize that you’re the one who rejected him.” TJ says.

“What? No I wasn’t, what did you tell him??” In complete denial, she goes off directly at Cyrus.

“Nothing...!”

In response, all she can do is groan and roll her eyes before she stomps away, leaving Cyrus and TJ to look at each other fairly timidly.

At lunch, TJ seems to care about Gus and Jonah talking more than Cyrus does. By a whole lot.

Meanwhile, Buffy isn’t very happy about the fact that Cyrus keeps focusing on Marty.

“Cyrus why do you keep looking at him.” She snaps, sitting in-between him and TJ at their table.

“He’s nice, okay...?” Cyrus innocently looks at her.

“Oh please, this is exactly what you did with TJ.”

“Hey!” TJ happens to take offense. “I’m nice now! And Marty’s always been nice, he’s just acting the way he is now ‘cause he’s still in love with you.”

“Ew!” Buffy almost gags. “Don’t say ‘love’.”

“Why not?” Andi asks, right across from her. “Love is a good thing.”

“Maybe for you.”

“Yeah, love is stupid.” TJ decides.

“Who broke your heart.” Cyrus asks.

“Myself.” His blunt answer almost makes Andi choke on her milk.

“Hey guys.” Jonah comes up to them and sits down beside Andi.

“Why do you keep talking to Gus.” This is TJ’s first question.

“Because he’s my acquaintance, and we’re on the same sports team...” Jonah frowns.

“Yeah, so? It’s not even frisbee season, dude.”

“Are you sure this has nothing to do with him being ginger?” Jonah can’t help but wonder.

“Yeah.” Andi harshly accuses.

“For your information, I happen to find gingers very attractive.”

This brings on a discomforting pause between the five of them, until Cyrus sniffles, and Jonah clears his throat.

“What.” TJ demands. “What. What are you guys, ginger-phobic? Must I put on the South Park episode again??” He starts to frazzle.

“No...” The rest respond both shyly and simultaneously.

“So, you think Gus is attractive?” Buffy asks.

“Whoa Buffy. I’m not the gay one. Cyrus is.”

“So?” Cyrus asks. “That doesn’t mean I find Gus attractive.”

“Tasteless.” TJ says under his breath.

Overwhelmingly puzzled, others glance at each other with raised eyebrows and shrugged shoulders.

During after-school practice, with the help of multiple basketballs found in the gym’s storage room, Buffy and TJ let the others get in on the action, which quickly distracts them both from focusing on what they came to do, which was focus for the big game on Friday.

“Jonah!”

Jonah wastes no time messing around with Cyrus, lifting him off the ground again and taking away his basketball, making the others slow down from running around and look over in appreciation.

“That’s a foul.” Cyrus giggles.

“You’re a foul. Just kidding no you’re not.” Jonah grins, the two of them laughing so much that he ends up setting Cyrus down.

“Ohh, he shoots, he scores!” TJ swipes the ball from Jonah, throwing both it and the ball of his own towards the net at the same time, both of them bouncing off the rim and onto the floor.

This leads them to all try and throw in their various basketballs one by one, giggling excessively and running around the gym like maniacs.

Again, Jonah grabs Cyrus and pulls him in close, unable to not crack up while jokingly advising him to apologize for ‘running away from him.’

“You’re so annoying.” Cyrus smiles, beaming forward and anticipating his reaction.

“What? What?” Jonah repeats himself, pulling Cyrus in by his shoulders and giggling so much into his ear that Cyrus almost falls forward guffawing.

TJ and the girls would be taking admiration to this, except they’re also too busy playing around and rambunctiously reacting to every single little thing that‘s said or done to one another.

“Hold on!” Buffy laughs to TJ and Andi who keep on chasing her around and pestering her with basketballs, coming to a stop and jogging over to the bottom of the bleachers where her phone rings inside her bag.

“Hey, mama.” She answers it, speed walking out of the gym to block out everyone else’s obnoxious noises that grow even louder when TJ and Andi begin a hectic game of one on one, whereas Cyrus and Jonah keep interfering by blocking their shots and getting in their way. After about a minute or so, their antics are put to an end when Buffy makes her dramatic return through the double doors.

They all stop and look her way, expecting to hear nothing good.

“Buffy...” Andi almost doesn’t want to hear her say it.

Yet she does.

“I’m leaving for Indianapolis on Saturday...”

#andi mack

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realtalk-princeton · 3 years

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i'm a potential '25 deciding between stanford and princeton. i really love both schools but i've heard intimidating things about how social life at pton can be competitive, and the concept of eating clubs feels a tiny bit cliquey (but i can also see how eating clubs foster a really strong sense of community!) would you say people at pton are happy? is it easy to form close relationships/make friends? is there anything you don't like about pton? (why did you choose pton?) thank you so much!

Response from Ocean:

It’s true that certain aspects of social life at Princeton are competitive. However, I wouldn’t say that social life as a whole is competitive. There are certain “prestigious” clubs that require bicker or an interview/application process, but by and large most clubs are open to everyone and it’s very possible to just decline to participate in those competitive types of activities. They’re not essential or central to Princeton life in that sort of way.

Eating clubs are a little bit different. I haven’t really noticed them to be “cliquey”, exactly, as everyone I know who is in an eating club has many friends in other eating clubs or not in eating clubs at all. Although there is certainly pressure around that aspect, I don’t think it’s any different than typical Greek life on most campuses -- maybe even less so because club members don’t actually live at the eating club, and aren’t required to do fundraisers or volunteer work together in the way a fraternity or sorority might.

I would say it’s pretty easy to find and make new friends. It’s a small community (slightly smaller than Stanford), so you see a lot of the same people over and over. If you run into someone from your class at the dining hall, for example, it’s easy to sit down with them and strike up a conversation. Would I say people are happy? Right now I’m mostly noticing a lot of stress and depression among students, mostly mourning the lack of a normal school year, what we lost to the pandemic, and so on. But I wouldn’t say we are more depressed or stressed than the average student at a prestigious institution. During my mostly-normal freshman year, I was mostly very happy.

As for things I don’t like about Princeton... well, you pretty much hit the nail on the head with the competitive aspects of social life. I also wish there were better support systems in place for students who are struggling, but I think this is an “America’s healthcare system is shit” problem rather than a Princeton-specific problem.

I chose to come here mostly because of the financial aid package, to be honest. I didn’t get into any of the other competitive schools I applied for so it was basically Princeton or my local university, and Princeton was cheaper and much better quality. Other contributors feel free to add on!

Response from TNTina:

honestly although this post might get quite long, i think it would probably be better the more contributors respond to this, because everyone’s experience is unique and everyone has different things they like and dislike about princeton.

i chose princeton because it was the best school i got into - i did not know prior to college what i wanted to study, and princeton is on a holistic level a very well rounded school. i still think it’s a very well rounded school as a whole, but if there are specific fields you think you might want to go into, i advise you consider this more heavily in how you choose a school. princeton, for example, doesn’t offer b. arch degrees. i’ve also heard that pre-med here is a big grind, and the grading is harsher compared to other similar schools. if there are specific professors you admire, consider that - i have a friend in east asian studies who gushed about a specific professor who was a total legend in the field and she was able to engage him in one on one interactions at princeton. if you’re interested in an experience like bridge year, also consider that. to top it off, i’ll just comment a few things that i think are unique to princeton that i like and that i don’t like.

positive: access to professors - i may just be really lucky but my major has just been one of the most positive aspects of princeton to me. my professors have been overwhelmingly accessible and accommodating; they have checked in on me when i’ve struggled with personal problems, they have arranged meetings with me on the weekend last minute; princeton’s undergraduate focus really shines through.

alumni connections: princeton does reunions (like the actual event) like no other school. truly, i think the alumni network is by far the strongest of any school in this country. i can’t speak for experiences at other schools but there have been times i have needed advice and reached out to alumni - i’ve been lucky for sure, but there has not been a single alum who hasn’t replied to me and devoted a considerable amount of time to talk to me. the internship i’m doing this summer i probably got in large part because i vibed with an alum i got in touch with.

neutral: single major: you can’t double major at princeton, and you wouldn’t have the time to even if you wanted to. in retrospect, i definitely wanted to double major if i went anywhere else, but without the single major policy i also don’t think wouldn’t have found the department i’m currently in.

independent work/thesis: you should really think this one through. thesis is mandatory for all undergraduate students, and a good amount of your time here will be spent doing research. this is a huge grind and a bit of a pain for a lot of people but it is also really really beneficial for grad schools, and i’ve heard from several alumni that it is also really impressive to employers (at least in some fields). it is also just a very unique intellectual experience.

negative: eating clubs. i really am not a fan of the eating club system for several reasons. i do not think they are ‘cliquey’ necessarily, but at the very least they pose logistical challenges - if you are in different eating clubs than your friends or you’re not in an eating club, in your later years it becomes hard to get meals with friends. it’s also logistically difficult for underclassmen, and i think it exacerbates an artificial class year divide, as most upperclassmen eat in eating clubs and underclassmen will often have limited opportunity to eat with their upperclassmen friends. the eating clubs also pose an absurd cost (the main reason i did not join a club). and despite how much they might deny it, each eating club does have a different reputation and thus has a tendency to attract people who vibe with that reputation. eating clubs also have extracurricular/social affiliations to a degree, and i think this also exacerbates a tendency for people to just group with people who are similar to themselves. this is not to say that people don’t do this naturally in society and at other schools though. on a more positive note though, i will say though that i think ocean is right about the fact that people do not typically identify very strongly with their eating clubs and their eating affiliation does not define them in the way that a frat or sorority might. if i had to choose, i would definitely prefer 70% of people being in an eating club than 70% of people being in greek life.

best of luck, you have some fantastic choices - and i really think you can’t go wrong here!

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johnboothus · 3 years

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EOD Drinks: Peggy Noe Stevens

In this episode of “End of Day Drinks,” Peggy Noe Stevens discusses her organization Bourbon Women and what the bourbon industry needs to do to promote inclusion. After becoming the world’s first female master bourbon taster, Stevens used her expertise to create Bourbon Women. There, other women can learn more about the spirit through workshops and what she calls “edu-tainment.” While some events revolve around bourbon food pairing and education, Bourbon Women has also debunked industry-wide myths that women prefer weaker bourbon. In fact, after holding a series of blind tastings, Stevens’ team found women actually prefer stronger, spicier, higher-proof, and more robust whiskies.

Here, Stevens shares what a master bourbon taster does day to day and some of the bourbon pairing advice from her new book, “Which Fork Do I Use with My Bourbon?”

She also discusses some of the issues in the bourbon industry and what steps retailers and trade show pros can make to take women seriously in the whiskey world. She insists that producers don’t have to “pinkify” a product, and should instead ensure they’re making space for more women to ask questions about different products.

Bourbon Women will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year, with thousands of women now in its ranks. Since Covid, the team has shifted to virtual events that have increased access to bourbon education for hundreds of women, including past “Sip-posiums” and an upcoming Toast to the Tenth Celebration.

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Or Check out the conversation here

Adam: From VinePair’s New York City headquarters, this is “End of Day Drinks,” where we sit down with the movers and shakers in the beverage industry. So pour yourself a glass and listen along with us. Let’s start the show. On today’s episode of “EOD Drinks,” we’re talking with Peggy Noe Stevens, the first female master bourbon taster and the founder of Bourbon Women.

Bourbon Women is an organization for women who are passionate about bourbon culture, women, and the promise of adventure when the two are combined. It’s an independent forum that brings women of all walks of life together over a glass of bourbon with a focus on initiating, cultivating, and inspiring deep and meaningful relationships; encouraging the development of women personally, professionally, and courageously; and supporting members in their journey to become the best versions of themselves in the world of bourbon. Additionally, they provide a safe, inclusive environment for fun, discovery, and learning. This was an interview that we recorded with Peggy right before the holidays. So she also gives us a little bit of information on pairing bourbon with some of her favorite dishes. All right, Katie and team, take it away.

Katie: Hello and welcome to VinePair’s “End of Day Drinks” podcast. I’m Katie, I’m the editorial associate here at VinePair. And I’m lucky enough today to be here with Peggy Noe Stevens. Peggy, thank you for joining us.

Peggy: Oh, my pleasure. Happy holidays to you.

K: You, too. Peggy is the world’s first female master bourbon taster and the founder of Bourbon Women, which is the first women’s consumer organization in the beverage industry, so we’re really lucky to have her on. I’m also joined by some of my fellow editorial team. So Adam Teeter, VinePair’s co-founder. Hey, Adam.

A: Hey Katie, what’s up?

K: And then Cat Wolinski, who is VinePair’s senior editor.

Cat: Hey, everyone, and hello, Peggy. So exciting to have you on.

P: Thank you.

K: So, Peggy, we’re so excited to have you, especially right before the holidays, and talk about everybody’s favorite fall and winter drink — that is bourbon. And we all brought a bourbon drink today. Right? So I’m curious what everyone decided to mix up.

P: I got to tell you, I’m even more curious on what y’all gravitated towards. So I’m all ears. I’m all ears.

A: I’m drinking bourbon the way I normally drink it, which is straight.

K: And what bourbon did you choose?

A: What am I drinking?

K: Yeah.

A: I mean, Peggy, are you gonna get mad at me if I tell you — I’m drinking Evan Williams single barrel.

P: Why would I be mad about that? In fact, I think I’m a little jealous, actually.

A: I just find it to be like, an amazing bourbon for the money.

P: Absolutely.

K: Cat, what about you?

C: So I also usually sip my bourbon neat, but in the festivity of the podcast, I tried to make a cocktail really quickly. I was going for a Hot Toddy because that’s sort of my thing the past couple of weeks. But I didn’t really have time to make it hot. So I basically just tried to mix in a drop or two of honey into a couple of ounces of Rare Breed. And I expressed some fresh mint leaves and dropped them in there, and mixed it up with an ice cube. The honey did not dissolve, which is probably not surprising, but it’s actually really tasty.

K: That’s quite fancy for a last-minute cocktail.

P: I’m impressed, actually.

C: We got creative in all that time working from home. You know, it’s like this is my chance to have some fun and do something weird.

K: Totally. What about you, Peggy?

P: Well, I have been doing some blind tastings today because I’m a whiskey reviewer for American Whiskey Magazine. So when I do that and I’m just tasting straight, I always want a real cocktail after I do that. And so it was perfect timing for your podcast. And I made a black Manhattan. And what I love about those, it’s your typical add your bourbon, but I also put a little bit of bitters, some cherry syrup, and then I put some amaro and that’s why they call it a black Manhattan, because you just put enough to change the color of the cocktail to a darker color.

K: That sounds delicious.

C: I don’t think I’ve ever put amaro in my whiskey like that.

P: And that’s the thing. It’s so funny because I find out that so many people don’t because they do vermouth instead. But I was turned on to this, oh gosh, probably five years ago. It was actually another bourbon woman that taught me about it. And once I did, I was hooked. And it’s kind of my go-to cocktail these days.

K: That’s awesome. Well, I’m drinking some apple cider that I heated up and I just put a little bit of Maker’s Mark in there. It’s really delicious. There’s a place right near by me that smells like fresh cider. So I’ve been drinking it a lot, spiked and not, throughout the days here because it’s really cold. I’m in Colorado, Peggy. So it’s been snowing, and it just feels like the perfect winter drink.

P: That sounds delicious. Absolutely. I hear a lot of Toddies, of course, and I just wrote an article about warm winter drinks. So you all are right in line.

K: We’re on trend. That’s good to know.

A: Always good to know.

K: So, Peggy, can you talk a little bit about Bourbon Women? I know that bourbon is obviously a very male-dominated industry, so I’ve just been curious what it’s like for you to lead a bunch of women in that space. And how have you seen things change over the course of your time working in bourbon?

P: Oh, wow. Well, it’s been an evolution, and the best way I can say it is when I was young in the industry and I worked for major spirits company, I was a master taster, female master taster, and I would travel around and conduct tastings and largely 90 percent, if not 98 percent in the audience were male. And if there were any kind of trickle of women, it would be just a couple. But I’d never hear from them during the seminar. They would always come up after the seminar and I was really understanding their loyalty to bourbon, how they loved it, how engaged they were during the seminar, but they just never raised their hand. And so fast-forward to when I started my own company and the industry still really wasn’t having what I call a conversation with women. They were out there. So I conducted a bunch of focus groups throughout Kentucky and asked women, what do you want? You know, if there was an organization or a way that the industry would talk to you about bourbon, what would that be? And would you like it? And it was just overwhelmingly unanimous. And so Bourbon Women Organization was born right after that. And that has been literally 10 years ago. And I’m happy to say that we now have thousands of women across the U.S., some international, we’re celebrating our 10-year anniversary. We’re calling it a Toast to the Tenth in 2021. I’m glad it wasn’t in 2020. And we’re having a two-day virtual where we celebrate 10 cities with distilleries and we have formal branches in, a little bit over 10 now, like New York, California, etc. And I’m just so excited about the enthusiasm that these women have shown because we’ve conducted well over 250 events across the nation in that period of time. All lifestyle events, whether it’s cooking with bourbon, bourbon tastings, whiskey comparisons, we’ve had distillery speakers, master distillers come in and the women just love it. And virtually where we thought we were so disappointed that we couldn’t do our annual sip-posium. That’s “Sip-posium” in 2020 because usually about 350 women come in for an entire weekend for bourbon excursions and culinary dinners at distilleries and all of these things. It was OK because we ended up doing a three-day virtual conference back in August and our reach through that virtual conference — there’s always a silver lining to 2020 — really extended it to more women. So we don’t know what to expect at our next conference in 2021 because we had just so many women reaching out saying, what’s this about? How do we join? They just loved it. So I could not be more pleased with how the industry has supported us, helped fund us at these different events, and how the women have responded.

K: That’s awesome. And so you said that you’ve been kind of conducting that virtually, which I think is really cool because obviously it does help gain access for people who might not have been able to go travel. So I think that’s really awesome. I’m curious, as a master bourbon taster, first of all, if you could talk about — what does a master bourbon taster do, and how does that work during this virtual world that we’re currently living in during Covid?

P: Right. Well, first of all, I became a master bourbon taster. I was the first female master bourbon taster in the world, if you can believe it. That was back in the ’90s. And I remember almost taking a pause when they said, do you realize you’re the first one ever given this title as a female? And I thought that was, as excited as I was, and honored that I was, it was almost odd to me. Right, because I couldn’t believe that in the 1990s that we were that far behind. But what a master taster does, it can be different from distillery to distillery because that’s how we roll in our industry. And there’s master blenders, master distillers, and we each kind of do our own thing. The master taster is usually quality control, it is usually identifying flavor profiles within the whiskey to have the consumers understand what they’re drinking. And I would conduct tastings. I served as an ambassador for a particular brand for quite some time, and then in my own company, it became truly part of my business. Business being sourcing whiskey for different companies that wanted to start a distillery. I mentioned just a minute ago that I was doing some blind tasting. I do whiskey reviews. I’m a spirits judge and invited to many spirit competitions to really kind of profile different whiskeys and judge the quality of them. So a master taster can really envelop quite a few areas within the industry. And it’s been tons of fun. It has been something that I purely enjoy and have truly parlayed my love for a whiskey palate into food pairings with bourbon. And so that’s another passion of mine. And so I just came out with a book along with my good friend Susan Reigler, who’s also a spirits writer. It’s called “Which Fork Do I Use with my Bourbon?” Because people are almost gun shy. They think wine is the only thing that could ever go with food. And that is certainly not the case because bourbon is so complex. So we not only teach in the book the tricks of the trade, but how to conduct a tasting, what to look for in a bourbon, how to food pairing, how to entertain in your home using bourbon. So we kind of took everything that I’ve ever learned, I think, in bourbon and entertaining, and put it in the book so that a consumer could enjoy it in their own home.

A: So, Peggy, you’ve been around bourbon for a very long time, obviously very famous family connection to bourbon. I’m curious to really dig in here and talk about what the bourbon industry needs to do, and I think the whiskey industry, in general, to make itself more welcoming to women, because there are so many people that talk to us, readers who say, “I’m a massive whiskey drinker, but I just don’t feel like the industry ever talks to me. I don’t feel like the brands talk to me. They always assume that it’s just something that men drink.” And so what does the industry need to do better? And what do we as a publication need to do better in order to ensure that we are talking to women equally when it comes to talking about whiskey?

P: Well, I simply love that you’ve identified that and have asked that big, bold question. And there’s quite a bit that can be done. One of the premises, too, of the Bourbon Women Organization was not just to start a conversation with women and give what I call edu-tainment to women, but it was also to debunk the myth that the industry had. They thought that a woman, in order to drink bourbon, that they would have to dumb it down and make it sweeter and lighter proof and not so robust. And it was quite the opposite. So one of the things that we really dug into was research. And we conducted, again, blind tastings. We conducted tasting profiles based on a woman’s palate. And what we found hands down is that women across the board, this is no coincidence, liked stronger, spicier, higher-proof, and more robust whiskies. And so when we deliver that information, we kind of what I said, debunked the myth that’s out there to let spirits companies know, don’t dumb it down, you don’t have to “pinkify” it just for a woman to enjoy it, to make it more welcoming for a woman. And I’ll just take a quick example. Take your whiskey trade show. I have attended so many of those across the country and scores of men will come in, women will come in. And I have noticed that the representatives sometimes behind the table that are pouring the whiskey, they really pay attention to the men. And they’re pouring the whiskey and they’re talking to the men. And the women almost have to beg for a glass or say, “Hey, I’m over here.” And they need to identify with women when they are approached by a woman. To talk to them, to welcome them, to give them that glass, ask them if they have questions. Because what we have found is these women are no whiskey 101 people. They know their stuff. They are researchers, they’re educated, they’re working women. They study just like men do. Another area that I think is really important, too, is in the retail stores, especially when you go to a liquor store and a woman is going down the aisle looking at bourbons, to ask her if she needs any assistance and let her ask questions. That’s another area that I think is really important. Some of the events that we hold, we just did one, for example, with Four Roses. We call it the Sip and Stream. And we did a hand-selected barrel pick with Four Roses and bottled it and sold it in the liquor stores and it was specified to a women’s palate. We did another one with Maker’s Mark this holiday season. It sold out in two hours, a whole barrel of bourbon sold out in two hours by the women buying it because that shows passion. So I think the more we show the love that females can have with this industry and with a product, it’s quite profitable for the industry because we’re the other half of the population.

A: Exactly.

C: More than half, in most cases. I was going to ask, Peggy, what you think about the cross-collaboration with other beverage industries? Because today, we actually just published our 50 Best Beers of the year, and one of them was the Brooklyn Brewery Black Ops 2019 Vintage, which was aged in Four Roses barrels. And that was a really special treat for us to try and ended up in our top 50. And something we see a lot in beer, like bourbon-barrel-aging products, and we see it everywhere now, I mean, what’s your opinion on, is bourbon reaching beer drinkers that way, or is beer reaching bourbon drinkers? And then finally, what about bourbon-barrel-aged wines?

P: Well, I have to tell you, I think you struck a really hot trend right now, and first and foremost, I shall say I’m an equal opportunity drinker. I will have a beer, I will drink wine, I will drink my bourbon. So that’s good because we can all play together and we can play together very well between all the different industries. What’s a very hot trend right now are what is called “finishes” or barrel-aged products. In fact, I just wrote another article called “The Final Finish,” where a lot of bourbons are traditionally making their bourbon as they normally do, but they are sourcing different barrels. They might be an Armagnac barrel. It might be a Calvados barrel, it may be a rum barrel. And they’re doing a finish by letting the bourbon, some of the bourbon rest in that secondary barrel. And that is called technically a barrel-finished product. So with beer, using the interior of a barrel, we can only use in our industry a barrel one time. That’s according to our bourbon definition, white charred oak barrel, one time use. And then we sell it to people like wineries and tequila will buy bourbon barrels, the Scotch industry, etc. But what everybody needs to know is that usually up to 85 percent of the flavors, the best flavors of that barrel are given to bourbon. And then the used barrel you can still, of course, get great-quality flavor. It just takes a little bit longer. And because bourbon is complex and adds so many great congeners to beer, wine, etc., that’s why you’re seeing such a trend, because of our complexity. And there are some really great bourbons that are Cabernet-finished that I have tasted. There are really great beers that are bourbon-barrel finished. So I think it’s really insightful. I think it’s innovative, and I think we need to keep playing with each other.

K: So going back to something that you mentioned a bit ago, you were talking about how a lot of people think that wine is the only thing that you can pair with food, and that you completely disagree. You think bourbon can pair really well with food. Can you talk a little bit about some of your favorite bourbon and food pairings?

P: Oh, sure. It depends, of course. I love to pair bourbon throughout the course of the meal, so when I entertain in my home and have groups of people over that are bourbon fanatics, we don’t serve wine. I pair a different bourbon with each course and also with the appetizers. So we have a ton of fun doing that. But I would say appetizers to me are the most fun to pair because you can really get layers and layers of flavor. One in particular that I’m making for Christmas, it’s a Christmas holiday, one that I favor, it is a mushroom cap and I take country ham and Boursin cheese, which is kind of an herbed cheese, and I blend those together. I stuff the mushroom, brush it all with olive oil, and then I bake them until the cheese is kind of bubbly. And I serve that with a barrel-strength whiskey, because it is a very earthy flavor with between the country ham, very savory, and earthy again with the mushrooms. And then that herb cheese with the olive oil — it is just phenomenal how it harmonizes with that salty country ham. So you almost need, because it is so rich, you almost need a barrel-strength bourbon to almost cut through some of that savoriness. And what it brings to the table is this overlay of caramel note and vanilla note. So think about all the flavors that I just spoke of coming together and taking a bite of that.

C: That sounds delicious.

A: Yeah, you’re making me really hungry.

P: You know, that’s why I just love dissecting an appetizer and kind of breaking down all the flavors and then, you know, what to pair it with.

A: So you’ve obviously seen the bourbon industry evolve over the past few decades. What do you think is to explain for two things? One, just it’s explosive growth in general. And two, the recent sort of explosion of these certain bottles that become collector’s items and then the prices just become insane. So I’m thinking, obviously we all know Pappy Van Winkle, but, you know now it’s basically anything that comes out of Sazerac, right? It’s all of these different producers that I remember for example, I used to be able to buy some of these for 30 bucks, you know, five, six years ago. And now I can’t even find some of these producers on the shelves. What do you think is explaining all of that fervor around bourbon?

P: Well, I will tell you, going back, let’s say, to the mid-’90s bourbon, actually, I’ll go back to the ’80s, bourbon actually had a decline in the ’80s, and we weren’t doing a great job of marketing across the world. Globally, Scotch was kicking our butts, if you will. And so I think what happened in the ’90s, we started to see a resurgence and it was a myriad of things. It was the cocktail culture. For example, bartenders were starting to bring back some retro cocktails like the Manhattans, the Old Fashioneds, Highballs that demanded use of bourbon. And so I think cocktails really helped people gravitate back to bourbon. I think pop culture had a huge hand, like “Mad Men,” if you watched that, they drank a lot of bourbon.

K: Totally.

P: And so with all these influences happening, we became better marketers. We launched the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, which, it’s a bucket list thing to do now, where you can travel around to the different distilleries throughout Kentucky, I think we now have over 60 distilleries in Kentucky. So we just started to do a better job globally as well, breaking into markets, having other destinations. Japan especially fell in love with bourbon. So globally, we developed a better footprint in reach. And so that’s really — it didn’t happen overnight. And we’ve seen a trajectory. I think the Kentucky Distillers Association, about five or six years ago, did a 20-year trajectory that our growth would continue. And so far it has, so knock on wood. Now, the other side of the coin I think that you spoke about was limited expressions and exclusivity. That seems to be right now anyway, the name of the game. I think that scarcity of product like Blanton’s for example, you mentioned Sazerac. It’s really difficult to find right now and where once I could buy a case at the local liquor store.

A: Me, too!

P: And its fervor, as I call it, or fever, I should call it, of consumers who, it’s all kind of word of mouth. “Oh, this you’ve got to try this. They’re running out of that.” And also the distilleries now jumping on that bandwagon of limited expression. You see Woodford Reserve doing a bit of that, just saying we even put this in a smaller bottle because there’s only a limited amount. The more exclusive, the more people want. And that is my distinct impression. And there are, believe me, some bourbons out there that I just think are incredible that are worth the price of purchase. Peerless is making a beautiful rye right now. Colonel Taylor, I can’t even find myself.

A: I can’t either. I love Colonel Taylor, too. And I can’t find it anywhere.

P: Right. It’s exceptional, but it’s so darn hard to find. So even though those have become what I call “cult products,” you just wonder, though, when people kind of give up and say, we’re just going to have to start drinking something else because we can never find it. So when does the pendulum swing?

A: Well, and just as a follow-up there, that’s what I’m wondering. Because that’s what we’re hearing on the editorial side from Irish whiskey producers, from Scotch, again, who are starting to say, well, we’re producing liquids with age that is sometimes older than a lot of these 10-year-old bourbons people are going crazy for. And you can find us and we’re also 35 bucks. And is this our opportunity? And I think what you’re talking about here is really interesting, because the fact that you’re recognizing that that could be a problem, that that’s a threat for bourbon, that the scarcity that everyone’s obsessed with now could possibly hurt the category is really interesting to me.

K: Yeah, definitely.

P: Well, it’s my perspective, and they’ve proven me wrong many times, I’m sure. But my perspective is I think it’s really cool that people are excited about bourbon and exclusivity. I think it’s really exciting. It’s just at what threshold will a consumer stand back and say, we’ll wait for that whiskey to come out or we’ll wait for that — you know, I just don’t know that answer. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. And I described it recently to somebody as an analogy of art. You know, I know that if I look at an art piece, it might touch me personally, but it might not touch my husband personally because he thinks it’s ugly. And so bourbon is kind of in the eye of the beholder, just like art is.

A: I like that.

C: So, Peggy, I actually have a question that’s taking the opposite perspective from long loved-legacy bottles. In the Bourbon Women group, how many people are you seeing who are aspiring entrepreneurs, who are looking to start their own bourbon brands or whiskey brands or launch another kind of business in this industry?

P: Many. Now, we are a consumer group — we just happen to have industry people that like us and join as well — but we are truly a consumer group. However, within that consumer environment, I know there’s a woman right now who actually retired from her first industry love because she fell in greater love with bourbon. And now she has a job in the bourbon industry. And we see a lot of that, that people have fallen in love with the culture. They had no idea that it could be a career. So we try to network women as much as possible. That’s part of our mission with Bourbon Women is to create a great networking resource for those young females. I was on the phone just the other day with another young individual millennial that is in a totally different industry, but she worked during the summers at a distillery, really wants to start a career in that. So she sent me a resume. I’m circulating her resume. We have those kinds of connections and we can’t do it, of course, for everybody. But as many as we can touch that are female, we do.

K: That’s awesome. Well, Peggy, thank you so much for coming today and talking to us about all things bourbon: Bourbon Women, bourbon pairings. You are clearly super knowledgeable about the subject and we were very excited to have you come. So we really appreciate it.

P: Well, I loved it. And if anybody is interested in joining Bourbon Women just go to BourbonWomen.org. You will see our February event Toast to the 10th on Feb. 25 and 26. And I hope everybody joins us. You’ll see what we’re about.

K: Great. Well, congratulations on 10 years, that’s so exciting.

P: Thank you.

A: Thank you so much.

C: Thank you, Peggy. It’s been a pleasure.

P: All right. Bye bye.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of “EOD Drinks.” If you’ve enjoyed this program, please leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people discover the show. And tell your friends. We want as many people as possible listening to this amazing program.

And now for the credits. “End of Day Drinks” is recorded live in New York City at VinePair’s headquarters. And it is produced, edited, and engineered by VinePair tastings director, yes, he wears a lot of hats, Keith Beavers. I also want to give a special thanks to VinePair’s co-founder, Josh Malin, to the executive editor Joanna Sciarrino, to our senior editor, Cat Wolinski, senior staff writer Tim McKirdy, and our associate editor Katie Brown. And a special shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, VinePair’s art director who designed the sick logo for this program. The music for “End of Day Drinks” was produced, written and recorded by Darby Cici. I’m VinePair co-founder Adam Teeter, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks a lot.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article EOD Drinks: Peggy Noe Stevens appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/eod-drinks-peggy-noe-stevens/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/eod-drinks-peggy-noe-stevens

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kindcstguardian · 4 years

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MISC.

Name. ( 天喰來留 ) Amajiki Rairu. Nicknames. Raicchan, Rurucchan, RaiRai. Age. 15 years old. Birthday. January 8th ( Capricorn ). Nationality. Japanese. Languages. Japanese. Basic English. Gender. Female. Sexuality. Demisexual. Status. Single. Occupation. Student.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.

With a pair of overwhelmingly successful and amazing siblings it’s was a major worry for everyone if she developed an inferiority complex, but instead she praised her siblings and wanted not to pursue an actual career but become a DETECTIVE which, actually, caused more worry than relief.

The youngest Amajki with the year difference of two and a half with Tamaki and nine with Miho, she is still living with her parents and was always a fan of underground heroes, the heroes who worked behind the shadows or even VIGILANTES themselves ( being a fan of a quirkless one ). Despite this, it never called her attention to enter U.A, Shiketsu, Ketsubutsu or any other hero academy however, it doesn’t mean she held back from doing so. She was accepted to U.A with a self-calculated score not to purposedly enter the heroics course but instead the general education department, and is currently a first-year of class 1-B. That aside, all the events that had been taking place were way too fascinating and she genuinely feels it was the right decision to choose this academy. Her quirk is called MEMORY QUIRK and much like her older brother, she has to eat something in order to activate though the function is entirely different: she has to eat something edible or not ( per example, concrete ) and gains the memory of the object in question but from the very be origin ( kind of, like a movie from the object point of view i.e. what the object went through to reach the current state she ingested ) since she doesn’t know how to tune it yet the downside is she is unable to respond until her quirk wears off and stays frozen in place. If she were to genuinely become the detective she wants to be, all she needs is to eat different parts of the EVIDENCE to figure out THE WHOLE CASE.

x INFO.

POWER. ★★★☆☆ SPEED. ★★☆☆☆ TECHNIQUE. ★★☆☆☆ INTELLIGENCE. ★★★★☆ COMMUNICATION. ★★ ☆ ☆☆

VERSES.

Main verse.

TAG. 「 001 ／ Rairu 」

Vigilante &&. detective enthusiast.

Takes place within the current events, up to date with the manga. As part of the general education, there are many things she ought to learn in the name of infinite possibilities and undiscovered potential, but unlike some of her fellow classmates and peers, Rairu has no interest in changing department and settles to be a jack of all trades and master of some.

Second main verse. TAG. 「 002 ／ Rairu 」

Pre-Chisaki &&. Eri. During the internship.

When the time to choose an internship that was willing to take you after the sports festivals show-off ( one that bitterly remains in her memory since she wasn’t fast enough ), it frustrated her to no end and caused her to increase her training, at times pushing herself too far. The fire that was IGNITED IN HER HEART at the feeling of loosing had no comparison, she had to be fast and had a better shape if she wanted her dream to be real but she had been a second too late. Hence why she practically begged to the Guidance Counselor, Inui Ryo or Hound dog, to take her under his care this was all behind a simple reasoning: she was lacking technique, she wasn’t as sharp as she aimed and focused too much on planning in the run which as good but often forgetting her surroundings or potential resources wasn’t. Rairu needed someone who used their senses rather than having all figured out in the blink of an eye. Experience. And no one but Hound Dog, someone with sharper and heightened senses, came to mind.

Third main verse. TAG. 「 003 ／ Rairu 」

After Eri’s arc / During the cultural festival planification.

Due to the naturally close bond with Mirio and growing up basically side by side, seeing him as an older brother... she was INFORMED about his situation which brought her to tears, feeling frustrated that she couldn’t do anything to help. Maybe she could have helped, but it would be a long list of what ifs that would only leave her feeling impotent, fists clenched to her sides, blood drawn from her palms thanks to her nails digging into the skin. At the very least, she wasn’t ignorant of where that HIATUS came from. Without the knowledge of her sibling or anyone, she sneaked with some major difficulty but successfully into the scene and ATE some of the actual concrete plus bits here and there of the destroyed building, gaining some flashes and scenes that took place within the facility. Rairu genuinely completed eating the parts that had blood, but she didn’t. Mostly out of respect, and she gained some knowledge of what took place and how difficult the situation had been. What pierced through her chest and made it even more painful was when she ate part of the cloth used on Lemillion’s cape that was underneath some rocks, flashing before her eyes those devasting moments, seeing the last bits of his struggle and how much he held them back. What a HERO truly was...

Fourth main verse. TAG. 「 004 ┋ ᴠɪɢɪʟᴀɴᴛᴇs ／ Rairu 」

Ketsubutsu high-schooler / Part-time vigilante.

As a first-year, she wasn’t allowed to take the provisional hero license exam since apparently it’s recommended only for two-years and those who really showed a major improvement since day one until the date of the exam; however, that didn’t stop her sense of justice or reckless behavior inspired by Knuckle Duster. Rairu counts with free time given her high-school it’s not targeted unlike U.A., the situation and conditions are different though the faculty remains ALERT in case of being under attack or requiring to act as BACK-UP at a worst-case scenario. With this free time of hers after school since she rather not think about how her older brother and childhood friend had to move into the dorms of U.A. until weekends, she found herself getting involved with THE CRAWLER and POP-IDOL after getting wrapped up with a villain who had used some illegal substances and caused their quirk to intensify and cause havoc due to not being able to control it. Providing assistance without noticing her body moving on its own, it was natural that she climbed on The Crawler’s back and asked ( begged ) him to please take her away before any pro-hero saw her since she was an actual hero-student and she could potentially get EXPELLED for this or earn the reputation of PROBLEM KID which was trying to avoid, living as quietly and discreet as possible. Naturally, this led her to find out the hideout of the boy and where actually the pair would have meetings with others. This, too, caused Rairu’s heart to skyrocket, feeling an unfamiliar adrenaline and utmost need to join against their protest but acceptance at her STUBBORN SELF. A dream, she finally found HER ULTIMATE DREAM for a future that was within her reach as contradictory as it was. It made her upset that she crossed paths with Knuckle Duster without properly meeting him but hearing stories or even seeing the pictures hanging there alongside his reminder ignited a fire in her heart. When the class in which she had to announce her hero name arrived, she merely wrote and exposed MOONEATER as the opposite of her brother, gesture that was brushed aside since it was expected ( and some even called it LAME ) but little did they know the second she’d leave school, she wore a different costume and call herself DAREDEVIL.

Lovesick/ Yandere Simulator verse. TAG. 「 ʟᴏᴠᴇsɪᴄᴋ ／ Rairu 」

Tba.

No matter how many times she read those old newspapers or articles online, there was something STRANGE. Why would a respectable detective ruin his career by harassing and stalking a young highschooler? Something did not quite match, he had a good reputation, it wasn’t logical to ruin it for fame, he wasn’t that kind of empty and rotten man. It wasn’t long before she had to apply for a highschool, her grades were above average so she tried luck with Akademi High passing without difficulties the entrance exam. Rairu instantly felt something FISHY about the institution that was hidden from all media and the director who never came forward, what’s with actual DELINQUENTS and even BULLIES allowed? Wasn’t that a privileged school? Many things didn’t add up, many things were straight-up RED FLAGS... but rather than terrified, she was curious and excited at all the mystery. It was a big puzzle, a game of murder, to find clues and make connections. TO SURVIVE THE BIGGEST THREAT and whilst Rairu suspected the Aishi girl following right into her mother’s steps, someone else was pulling the strings... Someone who Rairu wanted to MEET. In the meantime, she would keep an eye on all girls that surrounded the upperclassman Yamada as a guardian of sorts, purely out of a sense of justice.

? verse. TAG. 「 00? ／ Rairu 」

Tba.

TAGS.

「 Amajiki Rairu ／ ᴘʏʀʀʜɪᴄ. 」

「 Amajiki Rairu ／ INQUIRY」

「 Amajiki Rairu ／ MUSINGS 」

「 Amajiki Rairu ／ VISAGE 」

「 Amajiki Rairu ／ MANNERISMS 」

「 Amajiki Rairu ／ INTROSPECTION」

「 Amajiki Rairu ／ HEADCANON 」

「 Amajiki Rairu ／ ROMANCE 」

「 Amajiki Rairu ／ CRACK 」

RELATIONSHIPS.

✘ · ♡（）

1 note · View note

beardcore-blog · 4 years

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Dark pattern…Pull to refresh…Bait-and-switch…Misdirection…Hijack If You Control the Menu, You Control the Choices…Where does technology exploit our minds weaknesses?

A dark pattern is "a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills." The neologism dark pattern was coined by Harry Brignull on July 28, 2010 with the registration of darkpatterns.org, a "pattern library with the specific goal of naming and shaming deceptive user interfaces.Bait-and-switch patterns advertise a free (or greatly reduced) product or service which is wholly unavailable or stocked in small quantities. After it is apparent the product is no longer available, they are exposed to other priced products similar to the one advertised. This is common in software installers, where a button will be presented in the fashion of a typical continuation button. It is common that one has to accept the program’s terms of service, so a dark pattern would show a prominent "I accept these terms" button on a page where the user is asked to accept the terms of a program unrelated to the program they are trying to install. Since the user will typically accept the terms by force of habit, the unrelated program can subsequently be installed. The installer’s authors do this because they are paid by the authors of the unrelated program for each install that they procure. The alternative route in the installer, allowing the user to skip installing the unrelated program, is much less prominently displayed or seems counter-intuitive (such as declining the terms of service).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern

This pattern is also used by some websites, where the user is shown a page where information is asked that is not required. For example, one would fill out a username and password on one page, and after clicking the "next" button the user is asked for their email address with another "next" button as the only option. It is not apparent that the step can be skipped. When simply pressing "next" without entering their personal information, however, the website will just continue. In some cases, a method to skip the step is visible but not shown as a button (instead, usually, as a small and greyed-out link) so that it does not stand out to the user. Other examples that often use this pattern are inviting friends by entering someone else’s email address, uploading a profile picture, or selecting interests.

”This is a civilizational moment in a way I’m not sure we’re all reckoning with,” Harris said on stage. “It’s a historical moment when a species that is intelligent builds technology that … can simulate a puppet version of its creator, and the puppet can control the master. That’s an unprecedented situation to be in. That could be the end of human agency, when you can perfectly simulate not just the strengths of people but their weaknesses.”

Where does technology exploit our minds weaknesses?

I learned to think this way when I was a magician. Magicians start by looking for blind spots, edges, vulnerabilities and limits of people’s perception, so they can influence what people do without them even realizing it. Once you know how to push people’s buttons, you can play them like a piano.

That’s me performing sleight of hand magic at my mother’s birthday party And this is exactly what product designers do to your mind. They play your psychological vulnerabilities (consciously and unconsciously) against you in the race to grab your attention.

I want to show you how they do it.

Hijack #1: If You Control the Menu, You Control the Choices

1-kW01thCZaWQyq0A08hSj5Q (1) Western Culture is built around ideals of individual choice and freedom. Millions of us fiercely defend our right to make “free” choices, while we ignore how we’re manipulated upstream by limited menus we didn’t choose.

This is exactly what magicians do. They give people the illusion of free choice while architecting the menu so that they win, no matter what you choose. I can’t emphasize how deep this insight is.

When people are given a menu of choices, they rarely ask:

“what’s not on the menu?” “why am I being given these options and not others?” “do I know the menu provider’s goals?” “is this menu empowering for my original need, or are the choices actually a distraction?” (e.g. an overwhelmingly array of toothpastes) Photo by Kevin McShane

How empowering is this menu of choices for the need, “I ran out of toothpaste”? For example, imagine you’re out with friends on a Tuesday night and want to keep the conversation going. You open Yelp to find nearby recommendations and see a list of bars. The group turns into a huddle of faces staring down at their phones comparing bars. They scrutinize the photos of each, comparing cocktail drinks. Is this menu still relevant to the original desire of the group?

It’s not that bars aren’t a good choice, it’s that Yelp substituted the group’s original question (“where can we go to keep talking?”) with a different question (“what’s a bar with good photos of cocktails?”) all by shaping the menu.

Moreover, the group falls for the illusion that Yelp’s menu represents acomplete set of choices for where to go. While looking down at their phones, they don’t see the park across the street with a band playing live music. They miss the pop-up gallery on the other side of the street serving crepes and coffee. Neither of those show up on Yelp’s menu.

Yelp subtly reframes the group’s need “where can we go to keep talking?” in terms of photos of cocktails served. The more choices technology gives us in nearly every domain of our lives (information, events, places to go, friends, dating, jobs) — the more we assume that our phone is always the most empowering and useful menu to pick from. Is it?

The “most empowering” menu is different than the menu that has the most choices. But when we blindly surrender to the menus we’re given, it’s easy to lose track of the difference:

“Who’s free tonight to hang out?” becomes a menu of most recent people who texted us (who we could ping). “What’s happening in the world?” becomes a menu of news feed stories. “Who’s single to go on a date?” becomes a menu of faces to swipe on Tinder (instead of local events with friends, or urban adventures nearby). “I have to respond to this email.” becomes a menu of keys to type a response (instead of empowering ways to communicate with a person). 1-LsgYHAM-xhnkYGSkocOmew

All user interfaces are menus. What if your email client gave you empowering choices of ways to respond, instead of “what message do you want to type back?” (Design by Tristan Harris) When we wake up in the morning and turn our phone over to see a list of notifications — it frames the experience of “waking up in the morning” around a menu of “all the things I’ve missed since yesterday.”

A list of notifications when we wake up in the morning — how empowering is this menu of choices when we wake up? Does it reflect what we care about? (credit to Joe Edelman) By shaping the menus we pick from, technology hijacks the way we perceive our choices and replaces them new ones. But the closer we pay attention to the options we’re given, the more we’ll notice when they don’t actually align with our true needs.

Hijack #2: Put a Slot Machine In a Billion Pockets

If you’re an app, how do you keep people hooked? Turn yourself into a slot machine.

The average person checks their phone 150 times a day. Why do we do this? Are we making 150 conscious choices?

How often do you check your email per day? One major reason why is the #1 psychological ingredient in slot machines:intermittent variable rewards.

If you want to maximize addictiveness, all tech designers need to do is link a user’s action (like pulling a lever) with a variable reward. You pull a lever and immediately receive either an enticing reward (a match, a prize!) or nothing. Addictiveness is maximized when the rate of reward is most variable.

Does this effect really work on people? Yes. Slot machines make more money in the United States than baseball, movies, and theme parkscombined. Relative to other kinds of gambling, people get ‘problematically involved’ with slot machines 3–4x faster according to NYU professor Natasha Dow Shull, author of Addiction by Design.

But here’s the unfortunate truth — several billion people have a slot machine their pocket:

When we pull our phone out of our pocket, we’re playing a slot machineto see what notifications we got. When we pull to refresh our email, we’re playing a slot machine to see what new email we got. When we swipe down our finger to scroll the Instagram feed, we’replaying a slot machine to see what photo comes next. When we swipe faces left/right on dating apps like Tinder, we’re playing a slot machine to see if we got a match. When we tap the # of red notifications, we’re playing a slot machine to what’s underneath.

Apps and websites sprinkle intermittent variable rewards all over their products because it’s good for business.

But in other cases, slot machines emerge by accident. For example, there is no malicious corporation behind all of email who consciously chose to make it a slot machine. No one profits when millions check their email and nothing’s there. Neither did Apple and Google’s designers want phones to work like slot machines. It emerged by accident.

But now companies like Apple and Google have a responsibility to reduce these effects by converting intermittent variable rewards into less addictive, more predictable ones with better design. For example, they could empower people to set predictable times during the day or week for when they want to check “slot machine” apps, and correspondingly adjust when new messages are delivered to align with those times.

Hijack #3: Fear of Missing Something Important (FOMSI)

Another way apps and websites hijack people’s minds is by inducing a “1% chance you could be missing something important.”

If I convince you that I’m a channel for important information, messages, friendships, or potential sexual opportunities — it will be hard for you to turn me off, unsubscribe, or remove your account — because (aha, I win) you might miss something important:

This keeps us subscribed to newsletters even after they haven’t delivered recent benefits (“what if I miss a future announcement?”) This keeps us “friended” to people with whom we haven’t spoke in ages (“what if I miss something important from them?”) This keeps us swiping faces on dating apps, even when we haven’t even met up with anyone in a while (“what if I miss that one hot match who likes me?”) This keeps us using social media (“what if I miss that important news story or fall behind what my friends are talking about?”) But if we zoom into that fear, we’ll discover that it’s unbounded: we’ll always miss something important at any point when we stop using something.

There are magic moments on Facebook we’ll miss by not using it for the 6th hour (e.g. an old friend who’s visiting town right now). There are magic moments we’ll miss on Tinder (e.g. our dream romantic partner) by not swiping our 700th match. There are emergency phone calls we’ll miss if we’re not connected 24/7. But living moment to moment with the fear of missing something isn’t how we’re built to live.

And it’s amazing how quickly, once we let go of that fear, we wake up from the illusion. When we unplug for more than a day, unsubscribe from those notifications, or go to Camp Grounded — the concerns we thought we’d have don’t actually happen.

We don’t miss what we don’t see.

The thought, “what if I miss something important?” is generated in advance of unplugging, unsubscribing, or turning off — not after. Imagine if tech companies recognized that, and helped us proactively tune our relationships with friends and businesses in terms of what we define as “time well spent” for our lives, instead of in terms of what we might miss.

Hijack #4: Social Approval

Easily one of the most persuasive things a human being can receive. We’re all vulnerable to social approval. The need to belong, to be approved or appreciated by our peers is among the highest human motivations. But now our social approval is in the hands of tech companies (like when we’re tagged in a photo).

When I get tagged by my friend Marc (above), I imagine him making aconscious choice to tag me. But I don’t see how a company like Facebook orchestrated him doing that in the first place.

Facebook, Instagram or SnapChat can manipulate how often people get tagged in photos by automatically suggesting all the faces people should tag (e.g. by showing a box with a 1-click confirmation, “Tag Tristan in this photo?”).

So when Marc tags me, he’s actually responding to Facebook’s suggestion, not making an independent choice. But through design choices like this,Facebook controls the multiplier for how often millions of people experience their social approval on the line.

Facebook uses automatic suggestions like this to get people to tag more people, creating more social externalities and interruptions. The same happens when we change our main profile photo — Facebook knows that’s a moment when we’re vulnerable to social approval: “what do my friends think of my new pic?” Facebook can rank this higher in the news feed, so it sticks around for longer and more friends will like or comment on it. Each time they like or comment on it, I’ll get pulled right back.

Everyone innately responds to social approval, but some demographics (teenagers) are more vulnerable to it than others. That’s why it’s so important to recognize how powerful designers are when they exploit this vulnerability.

Hijack #5: Social Reciprocity (Tit-for-tat)

You do me a favor, now I owe you one next time. You say, “thank you”— I have to say “you’re welcome.” You send me an email— it’s rude not to get back to you. You follow me — it’s rude not to follow you back. (especially for teenagers) We are vulnerable to needing to reciprocate others’ gestures. But as with Social Approval, tech companies now manipulate how often we experience it.

In some cases, it’s by accident. Email, texting and messaging apps are social reciprocity factories. But in other cases, companies exploit this vulnerability on purpose.

LinkedIn is the most obvious offender. LinkedIn wants as many people creating social obligations for each other as possible, because each time they reciprocate (by accepting a connection, responding to a message, or endorsing someone back for a skill) they have to come back through linkedin.com where they can get people to spend more time.

Like Facebook, LinkedIn exploits an asymmetry in perception. When you receive an invitation from someone to connect, you imagine that person making a conscious choice to invite you, when in reality, they likely unconsciously responded to LinkedIn’s list of suggested contacts. In other words, LinkedIn turns your unconscious impulses (to “add” a person) into new social obligations that millions of people feel obligated to repay. All while they profit from the time people spend doing it.

Imagine millions of people getting interrupted like this throughout their day, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, reciprocating each other — all designed by companies who profit from it.

Welcome to social media.

After accepting an endorsement, LinkedIn takes advantage of your bias to reciprocate by offering *four* additional people for you to endorse in return. Imagine if technology companies had a responsibility to minimize social reciprocity. Or if there was an “FDA for Tech” that monitored when technology companies abused these biases?

Hijack #6: Bottomless bowls, Infinite Feeds, and Autoplay

YouTube autoplays the next video after a countdown Another way to hijack people is to keep them consuming things, even when they aren’t hungry anymore.

How? Easy. Take an experience that was bounded and finite, and turn it into a bottomless flow that keeps going.

Cornell professor Brian Wansink demonstrated this in his study showing you can trick people into keep eating soup by giving them a bottomless bowl that automatically refills as they eat. With bottomless bowls, people eat 73% more calories than those with normal bowls and underestimate how many calories they ate by 140 calories.

Tech companies exploit the same principle. News feeds are purposely designed to auto-refill with reasons to keep you scrolling, and purposely eliminate any reason for you to pause, reconsider or leave.

It’s also why video and social media sites like Netflix, YouTube or Facebookautoplay the next video after a countdown instead of waiting for you to make a conscious choice (in case you won’t). A huge portion of traffic on these websites is driven by autoplaying the next thing.

Facebook autoplays the next video after a countdown Tech companies often claim that “we’re just making it easier for users to see the video they want to watch” when they are actually serving their business interests. And you can’t blame them, because increasing “time spent” is the currency they compete for.

Instead, imagine if technology companies empowered you to consciously bound your experience to align with what would be “time well spent” for you. Not just bounding the quantity of time you spend, but the qualities of what would be “time well spent.”

Hijack #7: Instant Interruption vs. “Respectful” Delivery

Companies know that messages that interrupt people immediately are more persuasive at getting people to respond than messages delivered asynchronously (like email or any deferred inbox).

Given the choice, Facebook Messenger (or WhatsApp, WeChat or SnapChat for that matter) would prefer to design their messaging system to interrupt recipients immediately (and show a chat box) instead of helping users respect each other’s attention.

In other words, interruption is good for business.

It’s also in their interest to heighten the feeling of urgency and social reciprocity. For example, Facebook automatically tells the sender when you “saw” their message, instead of letting you avoid disclosing whether you read it(“now that you know I’ve seen the message, I feel even more obligated to respond.”) By contrast, Apple more respectfully lets users toggle “Read Receipts” on or off.

The problem is, while messaging apps maximize interruptions in the name of business, it creates a tragedy of the commons that ruins global attention spans and causes billions of interruptions every day. This is a huge problem we need to fix with shared design standards (potentially, as part of Time Well Spent).

Hijack #8: Bundling Your Reasons with Their Reasons

Another way apps hijack you is by taking your reasons for visiting the app (to perform a task) and make them inseparable from the app’s business reasons(maximizing how much we consume once we’re there).

For example, in the physical world of grocery stories, the #1 and #2 most popular reasons to visit are pharmacy refills and buying milk. But grocery stores want to maximize how much people buy, so they put the pharmacy and the milk at the back of the store.

In other words, they make the thing customers want (milk, pharmacy) inseparable from what the business wants. If stores were truly organized to support people, they would put the most popular items in the front.

Tech companies design their websites the same way. For example, when you you want to look up a Facebook event happening tonight (your reason) the Facebook app doesn’t allow you to access it without first landing on the news feed (their reasons), and that’s on purpose. Facebook wants to convert every reason you have for using Facebook, into their reason which is to maximize the time you spend consuming things.

In an ideal world, apps would always give you a direct way to get what you want separately from what they want.

Imagine a digital “bill of rights” outlining design standards that forced the products that billions of people used to support empowering ways to navigate towards their goals.

Hijack #9: Inconvenient Choices

We’re told that it’s enough for businesses to “make choices available.”

“If you don’t like it you can always use a different product.” “If you don’t like it, you can always unsubscribe.” “If you’re addicted to our app, you can always uninstall it from your phone.” Businesses naturally want to make the choices they want you to make easier, and the choices they don’t want you to make harder. Magicians do the same thing. You make it easier for a spectator to pick the thing you want them to pick, and harder to pick the thing you don’t.

For example, NYTimes.com let’s you “make a free choice” to cancel your digital subscription. But instead of just doing it when you hit “Cancel Subscription,” they force you to call a phone number that’s only open at certain times.

NYTimes claims it’s giving a free choice to cancel your account Instead of viewing the world in terms of choice availability of choices, we should view the world in terms of friction required to enact choices.

Imagine a world where choices were labeled with how difficult they were to fulfill (like coefficients of friction) and there was an FDA for Tech that labeled these difficulties and set standards for how easy navigation should be.

Hijack #10: Forecasting Errors, “Foot in the Door” strategies

Facebook promises an easy choice to “See Photo.” Would we still click if it gave the true price tag? People don’t intuitively forecast the true cost of a click when it’s presented to them. Sales people use “foot in the door” techniques by asking for a small innocuous request to begin with (“just one click”), and escalating from there (“why don’t you stay awhile?”). Virtually all engagement websites use this trick.

Imagine if web browsers and smartphones, the gateways through which people make these choices, were truly watching out for people and helped them forecast the consequences of clicks (based on real data about what it actually costs most people?).

That’s why I add “Estimated reading time” to the top of my posts. When you put the “true cost” of a choice in front of people, you’re treating your users or audience with dignity and respect.

In a Time Well Spent internet, choices would be framed in terms of projected cost and benefit, so people were empowered to make informed choices.

TripAdvisor uses a “foot in the door” technique by asking for a single click review (“How many stars?”) while hiding the three page form behind the click. Summary And How We Can Fix This

Are you upset that technology is hijacking your agency? I am too. I’ve listed a few techniques but there are literally thousands. Imagine whole bookshelves, seminars, workshops and trainings that teach aspiring tech entrepreneurs techniques like this. They exist.

The ultimate freedom is a free mind, and we need technology to be on our team to help us live, feel, think and act freely.

We need our smartphones, notifications screens and web browsers to be exoskeletons for our minds and interpersonal relationships that put our values, not our impulses, first. People’s time is valuable. And we should protect it with the same rigor as privacy and other digital rights.

Tristan Harris was Product Philosopher at Google until 2016 where he studied how technology affects a billion people’s attention, wellbeing and behavior.

For more information and get involved, check out timewellspent.io. This piece is cross-posted on Medium.

MARCH 7, 2016 by TRISTAN HARRIS Tech Companies Design Your Life, Here’s Why You Should Care

UNCATEGORIZED 5 COMMENTS

Four years ago, I sold my company to Google and joined the ranks there. I spent my last three years there as Product Philosopher, looking at the profound ways the design of screens shape billions of human lives – and asking what it means for them to do so ethically and responsibly.

What I came away with is that something’s not right with how our screens are designed, and I’m writing this to help you understand why you should care, and what you can do about it.

I shouldn’t have to cite statistics about the central role screens play in our lives. Billions of us turn to smartphones every day. We wake up with them. We fall asleep with them. You’re looking at one right now.

Of course, new technologies always reshape society, and it’s always tempting to worry about them solely for this reason. Socrates worried that the technology of writing would “create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they [would] not use their memories.” We worried that newspapers would make people stop talking to each other on the subway. We worried that we would use television to “amuse ourselves to death.”

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“And see!” people say. “Nothing bad happened!” Isn’t humanity more prosperous, more technically sophisticated, and better connected than ever? Is it really that big of a problem that people spend so much time staring at their smartphones? Isn’t it just another cultural shift, like all the others? Won’t we just adapt?

Invisibility of the New Normal

I don’t think so. What’s missing from this perspective is that all these technologies (books, television, radio, newspapers) did change everything about society, we just don’t see it. They replaced our old menus of choices with new ones. Each new menu eventually became the new normal – “the way things are” – and, after our memories of old menus had faded into the past, the new menus became “the way things have always been.”

gold-fish-in-waterASK A FISH ABOUT WATER AND THEY’LL RESPOND, “WHAT’S WATER?” Consider that the average American now watches more than 5.5 hours of television per day. Regardless of whether you think TV is good or bad, hundreds of millions of people spend 30% of their waking hours watching it. It’s hard to overstate the vast consequences of this shift– for the blood flows of millions of people, for our understanding of reality, for the relational habits of families, for the strategies and outcomes of political campaigns. Yet for those who live with them day-to-day, they are invisible.

So what best describes the nature of what smart phones are “doing” to us?

A New “Perfect” Choice on Life’s Menu

If I had to summarize it, it’s this: Our phone puts a new choice on life’s menu, in any moment, that’s “sweeter” than reality.

If, at any moment, reality gets dull or boring, our phone offers something more pleasurable, more productive and even more educational than whatever reality gives us.

And this new choice fits into any moment. Our phone offers 5-second choices like “checking email” that feel better than waiting in line. And it offers 30-minute choices like a podcast that will teach you that thing you’ve been dying to learn, which feels better than a 30-minute walk in silence.

Once you see your phone this way, wouldn’t you turn to it more often? It always happens this way: when new things fill our needs better than the old, we switch:

When cheaper, faster to prepare food appears, we switch: Packaged foods. When more accurate search engines appear, we switch: Google. When cheaper, faster forms of transportation appear, we switch: Uber. 756612-b6f6919a-555a-11e3-b451-c2835887c2f5

So it goes with phones.

But it also changes us on the inside. We grow less and less patient for reality as it is, especially when it’s boring or uncomfortable. We come to expect more from the world, more rapidly. And because reality can’t live up to our expectations, it reinforces how often we want to turn to our screens. A self-reinforcing feedback loop.

And because of the attention economy, every product will only get more persuasive over time. Facebook must become more persuasive if it wants to compete with YouTube and survive. YouTube must become more persuasive if it wants to compete with Facebook. And we’re not just talking about ‘cheap’ amusement (aka cat videos). These products will only get better at giving us choices that make every bone in our body say, “yeah I want that!”

So what’s wrong about this? If the entire attention economy is working to fill us up with more perfect-feeling things to spend time on, which outcompete being with the discomfort of ourselves or our surroundings, shouldn’t that be fantastic?

wall-e

Clearly something is missing from this picture. But what is it?

Maybe it’s that “filling people up,” even with incredible choices on screens somehow doesn’t add up to a life well lived. Or that those choices weren’t what we wished we’d been persuaded to do in the bigger sense of our lives.

With design as it is today, screens threaten our fundamental agency. Maybe we are “choosing,” but we are choosing from persuasive menus driven by companies who have different goals than ours.

And that begs us to ask, “what are our goals?” or how do we want to spend our time? There are as many “good lives” as there are people, but our technology (and the attention economy) don’t really seem on our team to give us the agency to live according to them.

A Whole New Persuasive World

And it’s about to get a lot worse. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality will offer whole new immersive realities that are even more persuasive than physical reality.

zuck-virtual-reality

When you could have sex with the person of your dreams, or fly through jungles in the Amazon rainforest while looking over at your best friend flying next to you, who would want to stick with reality?

By the way, this isn’t your usual “look, VR is coming!” prediction. This is the real deal. Facebook recently spent $2 billion to buy Oculus Rift, and hopes to put them in every home for this holiday season. Just like the late 1980’s when suddenly everyone you knew had a Nintendo.

Acknowledging the Problem

So we have a fundamental misalignment– between what the attention economy is competing to produce (more perfect, persuasive choices that fit into any moment), the design of our phones, and the aspirations people have for their lives (their definition of “the good life”).

AttentionEconomyMisalignment

So what’s missing from the design of our phones? I like to use the metaphor of ergonomics. When you think of ergonomics, you might think of boring things like how a cup fits into someone’s hand, but it’s way more than that.

If regular design is about how we want things to work, ergonomics is concerned with failure modes and extremes: how things break under repetition, stress or other limits. And the goal of ergonomics is to create an alignment between those limits, and the goals people have for how they want to use it.

10 Handle diameter

For example, an ergonomically designed coffee mug aligns the natural fatigue of forearm muscles during use (as a person “lifts” it to sip) with how frequently people want to use it, so they still can lift it successfully with repetition.

What does this have to do with phones?

Our minds urgently need a new “ergonomics,” based on the mind’s limited capacities, biases, fatigue curves and the ways it forms habits. The attention economy tears our minds apart. With its onslaught of never-ending choices, never-ending supply of relationships and obligations, the attention economy bulldozes the natural shape of our physical and psychological limits and turns impulses into bad habits.

Just like the food industry manipulates our innate biases for salt, sugar and fat with perfectly engineered combinations, the tech industry bulldozes our innate biases for Social Reciprocity (we’re built to get back to others), Social Approval (we’re built to care what others think of us), Social Comparison (how we’re doing with respect to our peers) and Novelty-seeking (we’re built to seek surprises over the predictable).

Millions of years of evolution did a great job giving us genes to care about how others perceive us. But Facebook bulldozes those biases, by forcing us to deal with how thousands of people perceive us.

This isn’t to say that phones today aren’t designed ergonomically, they are just ergonomic to a narrow scope of goals:

for a single user (holding the phone) for single tasks (opening an app) for individual choices And a narrow scope of human physical limits:

how far our thumb has to reach to tap an app how loud the phone must vibrate for our ear to hear it So what if we expanded the scope of ergonomics for a more holistic set of human goals:

a holistic sense of a person a holistic sense of how they want to spend their time (and goals) a holistic sense of their relationships (interpersonal & social choices) an ability to make holistic choices (including opportunity costs & externalities) an ability to reflect, before and after …and what if we aligned these goals with a more holistic set of our mental, social and emotional limits?

A New Kind of Ergonomics

Let’s call this new kind of ergonomics “Holistic Ergonomics”. Holistic Ergonomics recognizes our holistic mental and emotional limits [vulnerabilities, fatigue and ways our minds form habits] and aligns them with the holistic goals we have for our lives (not just the single tasks). Holistic Ergonomics is built to give us back agency in an increasingly persuasive attention economy.

Joe Edelman and I have taught design workshops on this, calling it EmpoweringDesign.org, or designing to empower people’s agency.

It includes an interpersonal ergonomics, to “align” our social psychological instincts with how and when we want to make ourselves available to others (like in my TED talk), so that we can reclaim agency over how we want to relate to others.

Just like an ergonomic coffee mug is safe to live by, even under repetition, over and over again, without causing harm to ourselves or others, in a Time Well Spent world our phones would be designed with Holistic Ergonomics, so that even under repetition, over and over again, our phones do not cause harm to ourselves or others — our phones become safe to live by. They support our Agency.

How to Change the Game

Android.Apple_.001

Right now, two companies are responsible for the primary screens that a billion people live by. Apple and Google make the two dominant smartphone platforms. Facebook and Microsoft make leading Virtual and Augmented Reality platforms, Oculus and Hololens.

You might think that it’s against the business models of Apple and Google to facilitate people’s agency, which might include making it easier to spend time off the screen, and use apps less. But it’s not.

Apple and Google, like all companies, respond to what consumers demand.

When Privacy became important to you, they responded. They developed new privacy and security features, and it sparked a whole new public conversation and debate. It’s now the most popular concern about technology discussed in media.

When Organic food became important to you, they responded too. Walmart added it to their stores.

We need to do the same thing with this issue. Until now, with this experience of distraction, social media, and this vague sense that we don’t feel good when we use our phones for too long, there’s been nothing to rally behind. It’s too diffuse. We receive so many incredible benefits from tech, but we’ve also been feeling like we’ve been losing ourselves, and our humanity?

But we’re naming it now.

What’s at stake is our Agency. Our ability to live the lives we want to live, choose the way we want to choose, and relate to others the way we want to relate to them – through technology. This is a design problem, not just a personal responsibility problem.

If you want your Agency, you need to tell these companies that that’s what you want from them– not just another shiny new phone that overloads our psychological vulnerabilities. Tell them you want your Agency back, and to help you spend your time the way you want to, and they will respond.

I hope this helps spark that bigger conversation.

www.tristanharris.com/essays/

Posted by bernawy hugues kossi huo on 2019-10-06 11:15:19

Tagged: , Hijack , Refresh , Control , Dark , Pattern , TristanHarris , Weakness , Civilization , Simulacra , Simulation , Intelligent , Build , Technology , Mindless , Mind , Magical , Magician , Vulnerability , AntoineBourdelle , Sculpture , Buffoon , Fashion , Alternative , Performing , Face , Illusion , Upstream , Freedom , psychological , consciously , unconsciously) , Western , Culture , individual , choice , empowering , unplugging , unsubscribing , social , approval. , vulnerable , reciprocate , gestures. , reciprocity , impulses , Monitoring , autoplaying , persuasive , wellbeing , behavior.

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theartofbeinganerd · 7 years

Photo

And here it is, the Epilogue for a hand to hold (take me home)! I’ve loved sharing this fic with you all so much. To see how much other people enjoyed it when I’d never intended on posting this fic, thinking that I was the only one who’d be interested in it has been so wonderful, truly! Thank you to everyone that has liked, commented, reblogged, given kudos, etc, you’re all so fantastic!!

(Ao3)

“Today’s top story: Grant Ward, brother of Senator Christian Ward and former police officer, is officially being charged today in connection with the string of murders committed over the past several months, apparently dating back to even before the slaying of a local family, one of whom is the only known survivor of the attacks. He, along with several other members of the gang now said to be known as ‘HYDRA’ are due to appear in court next year, though there’s still no word on the mysterious connection of several prominent politicians, businessmen, and police officers said to be involved –”

Fitz turned the volume of the news broadcast down low, setting the remote down beside him on the couch with a world-weary sigh. Ward’s arrest hadn’t been the victory that Fitz had been expecting all these months for it to be, and it did nothing to erase the sick feeling that still swirled in his gut from time to time, nor would it bring back Sarah’s family, or any of the other lives that he’d so carelessly taken.

According to Daisy, the station had been abuzz with activity for the past few weeks since Ward’s initial arrest, and that Fitz was probably lucky that he hadn’t been there during the interviews – she’d had to be pulled out of Ward’s interrogation by Coulson himself before she could pass her own sentence on him.

The question that seemed to be on everyone’s minds, though, was why? Ward still hadn’t spoken a word, but from what they’d managed to gather from his accomplices, HYDRA was supposedly some sort of cult, rather than a gang as they’d previously assumed. And the strangest part? They apparently worshipped some demon-god named Alveus that Ward had apparently claimed to be in contact with.

Demon worship had never seemed like Ward’s particular brand of crazy, but Fitz supposed that everyone was hiding something.

However, as more and more of Ward’s accomplices had systematically been identified, taken in, and questioned, the whole situation had only continued to get worse; with a few choice looks from May, a handful of Ward’s lackeys had begun to spin the tale of a HYDRA that had been running in their town for years. According to them, it had started with a couple of powerful men who sought to use the criminal underground to their advantage, and had their hands in drugs, prostitutes, money laundering, and several other serious crimes.

It hadn’t been proven yet, of course, but already the von Strucker and Malick families had been implicated, along with Daniel Whitehall, Alexander Pierce, and Lieutenant Garrett. Which, Fitz couldn’t help but think, made sense – after all, he’d been the one to train Ward, had taken him in when he was a rookie and taught him everything that he needed to know to survive. And, it also explained why information on the case had been mysteriously disappearing from the station.

Ward, though, seemed to have taken the HYDRA ideal just a step too far with his demon-worshipping cult, which coincidentally began its killings right after he’d been fired by Coulson. The suspicious timeline, however, begged the question – had Ward actually gone off the deep end, or had the entire thing just been a cleverly constructed ruse to get back at Coulson and the station as a whole with a seemingly unsolvable case, designed to discredit them? With Ward refusing to speak, it made it almost impossible to answer definitely, though Fitz was sure that they all had their assumptions.

The only good thing that had come out of the recent weeks was the news that Sarah Hudson was making a full recovery, and would soon be completely healed – physically, at least. According to Daisy, she’d been seeing a child psychologist at the hospital, and they’d already been making some progress in helping Sarah to come to terms with the horrible event and the loss of her family.

Fitz had been by to see her once, on his last day in the hospital himself after the gunshot wound in his thigh had been stitched up, and she’d seemed to be in pretty good spirits, given the situation. Daisy, though, made regular visits in to see her, confessing to Fitz once that she wanted to make sure that Sarah still had someone that cared about her around. Fitz felt pretty safe in assuming that once Sarah went into the foster care system upon her release from the hospital, Daisy would be keeping a close eye on her.

Despite all of that, the situation was still overwhelmingly and understandably negative and, as the full extent of HYDRA and its crimes continued to be revealed more and more with each passing day, it seemed to be the only thing that the news reported on anymore. It didn’t help that their viewers were shamelessly eating up every single new detail, which only made the news stations more desperate for new information to report on – and, as such, Fitz had been unable to escape it since the whole damn thing had started.

Fortunately, at that moment, there was a knock on the door of his flat. Grateful for the unexpected distraction, Fitz turned the TV off, carefully rising and limping over to open the door on his still-aching leg. When he found a frazzled-looking Jemma on the other side, he gave into his surprise at her sudden appearance for a beat, then stepped back and asked, “Would you like to come in?” She nodded wordlessly, tucking her hair behind her ear as she followed him to the kitchen. “I’ve already got a pot of tea brewing.”

Once they’d sat down at the table with cups of tea, an uncomfortable silence fell heavily between them, and it stretched on until Fitz came to the realization that she wasn’t going to say anything to break it.

“How have you been? I haven’t seen you since that day I was in the hospital for my leg,” he commented, a bit glad for the opportunity to do so, since thoughts of the encounter had been plaguing him in the past few weeks just as much as the Ward case had been.

The visit had been brief; she’d come in while he was still hopped up on pain meds after surgery, and she’d just stood beside his bed, running her fingers through his hair and looking at him with tears in her eyes. Since that moment, though, she’d become strangely MIA, and even Daisy had had trouble getting a hold of their mutual friend.

Fitz had been worried and rather confused by the whole thing, but he hadn’t wanted to push, or to just randomly show up on her doorstep. Instead, he’d forced himself to wait until she made the first move, until she reached out to him, always abundantly aware of the subtle but important shift in their relationship since the almost-kiss at the hospital all those weeks ago now; he didn’t want to make the wrong move and subsequently ruin the friendship that they’d spent the past few months building up. After everything that had happened lately, he just couldn’t afford to lose her, couldn’t even begin imagine getting through all of this without her presence in his life.

Finally, after another rather lengthy stretch of silence, Jemma breathed deeply, then murmured, “I’m sorry.” It was the first time that he’d heard her voice in weeks, and even though he’s resolved to give her the space that she obviously needed, he’d missed her, and the sound of her voice washed over him like soothing summer rain after a violent thunderstorm, the balm that he’d been missing in the tumultuous days since he and Daisy had gone to confront Ward. “I’ve been…busy.”

It was unbelievably obvious that she was lying – he’d learned over the months of their friendship that she wasn’t great with deception to begin with, and she didn’t really seem to be trying much to improve on it at the moment.

Trying to ease the sudden tension that was filling the room, Fitz cleared his throat, then joked, “Y’know, I can’t believe that I’d never been shot before in my life, only to find myself on the receiving end of two gunshot wounds in as many months.” When Jemma merely winced, he decided that what he really couldn’t believe was that he couldn’t seem to stop himself from stupid jokes about getting shot. “I’m sorry, that was dumb. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

With her eyes planted firmly on her tea, Jemma took another deep, shuddering breath, then launched into what was clearly a planned speech. “Fitz, I care about you so much that it…it scares me, but I can’t…I can’t do this, I can’t be with you if I have to wonder every night if this is going to be the one that finally takes you away from me. I can’t continue to be distracted at work, always wondering if your…your body will be on the next gurney I see. I just can’t do it, so even though it…it kills me that I’ll never be able to figure out what’s between us, I think…I think it’s best if we don’t see each other anymore.”

At first, Fitz was stunned, rendered completely speechless. At that particular moment, he couldn’t have responded to the declaration that came straight from his dreams and his nightmares even if his life had depended on it.

It was only when Jemma peered nervously up at him with tears rolling steadily down her cheeks, the sight as effective as a punch to the stomach, that he managed to find his words.

“You know, I received a very…strongly-worded phone call from my mum the other day. She told me that if it was really important to me, I could continue to put my life on the line, but…if being a police officer wasn’t what I really wanted to do, it’d be a damn shame if I lost my life over it.” He chuckled quietly, shaking his head as he admitted, “I also had a conversation with the chief, and after a lot of hard thinking…well, I’ve decided what’s best is for me to leave the precinct and go back to school for engineering.”

For a lengthy moment, Jemma merely gaped at him, at a clear loss for words. But, then she let out a teary, disbelieving laugh, pressing a hand to her mouth as her shoulders sagged from the release of a tension that she seemed to have been carrying for far too long. He almost wanted to say something more then, to try and return the favor, to tell Jemma just how much he cared for her, but he figured that she deserved some time to process his admission.

Plus, Fitz also kind of figured that he’d been a bit…obvious about his feelings for her, despite his best attempts to keep them under wraps, and so it probably went without saying.

However, it was only a few minutes more that suddenly, before Fitz could even register that she’d moved, Jemma had reached across the table and dragged him to her by the front of his shirt, and he didn’t even have time to gasp in shock before her lips were finally pressed against his.

Fitz gave a pleasantly startled moan against her mouth, hastily reaching out to catch himself on the table, lest he stumble and knock their tea over (though, honestly, even that likely couldn’t stop him from kissing Jemma now that he’d gotten his first real taste of her – truthfully, he was almost worried that nothing could stop him from kissing her, not even the end of world). Jemma’s hand shifted to grip his shoulder, sliding along the curve of it to cup the back of his neck and bury her fingers in his short curls.

When he parted his lips and gently tugged her bottom lip between them, dragging his teeth along the sensitive skin, and she honest to god whimpered, Fitz had to wonder if he actually had died that day in Ward’s house and this was what was considered heaven.

Hell, even if it was, who cared? He was kissing Jemma Simmons – that was worth dying over, for sure.

When they eventually parted and their heavy, labored breaths filled the silence, Jemma nodded slyly at his injured leg and said pointedly, “You should probably have a doctor look at how that’s healing, just to be on the safe side.” Then, a coy smile curved her lips as she added, “But, I’ll have to ask you to remove your pants in order for me to do so.”

As a wide grin spread across Fitz’s face, he couldn’t help but remember all the times that his father had insisted that cops got all the women. Now, he was quite sure that his father had gotten it wrong – clearly, engineering was what got the ladies all hot and bothered.

He’d always known that he was in the wrong profession.

#shayna writes #fsfic #fitzsimmons #a hand to hold (take me home)#police officer au #epilogue #tw: homicide #tw: violence #mentions of them at least #i do have ideas for more in this universe #but this is the official end for now #!!!

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nyxelestia · 7 years

Text

Racism in the Teen Wolf Fandom

[This post originally tagged several people I was directly addressing, as I was expecting it to mostly be reblogged by them and their followers, with maybe a small handful of people I asked to take a look at this post even bothering to read this behemoth, let alone share it. However, a lot more people than I expected paid attention to and shared this post, including a blog that dedicates itself to highlighting racism in fandom. In the interests of preventing "raiding"/dogpiling behavior against the people I addressed this post to, I have removed their handles.]

tl;dr - I don't actually believe any of you are racists, no more than I am, than we all are by virtue of being raised in a white-centric culture, internalizing the attitudes expressed by our media and community, and carrying those attitudes with us into fandom. But that is all the more reason we need to address bigotry in our communities, no matter how passive or benign or minor, because that is the only way to engender change in this fandom, in fandom in general, and in ourselves. I take issue with your guys' posts and meta not because I think everyone should worship Scott - hey, he's not my #1 fave either - or because I think he is perfect (no one is, perfect characters are boring). I take issue with the fact a lot of your logic, meta, and analyses rely on the same racist arguments that permeate mainstream media. I object to the casual dismissal of canonical events, and the way headcanons and assumptions are treated as canon when analyzing the show (especially when they are overwhelmingly skewed a certain direction). And I object to the fact every attempt by myself and many, many others to point all of this out is often met with little more than dismissing everything with the vague claim that we're "too sensitive" and "see racism everywhere" and "are only using buzzwords". I don't think any of you are racists, but I think all of you have utilized or enabled racist rhetoric when talking about Scott (and several other characters, but primarily Scott, for reasons I explain down below).

I'm temporarily disabling anon - either one of you, or one of your followers, constantly fills my inbox with misogynistic slurs every time I speak up against bigotry in fandom, and I just do not have the time to IP block each one. I just got this lovely one just yesterday:

(I and everyone else who talk about racism in Teen Wolf fandom are accused of "using buzzwords", while I'm getting anons who accuse me of misogyny while calling me a cunt. Yay irony.)

If you want to yell at me, do it under your own name. And yes, out of all the people circle-jerking on the original post, I blocked the one who used name-calling now, and has demonstrated some remarkably immature behavior in the past. If bhadpodcast is going to act and post like I blocked them, I might as well actually block them and save myself the headache. They can still relay messages to me through one of you. The rest of you have demonstrated yourself to be open-minded and willing to listen to logical arguments in the past (or I don't know you well enough to assume that you'll ignore my words and skip straight to the name-calling) which is why I've tagged you.

This is a rodeo I've ridden before, and while I can always hope for change, the reality is that I have already expressed all of this in meta before, and that I've spoken to most of you directly about all of this. I'm familiar with the arguments you make, and I'm tired. So it's going to take pretty much all of my self-control to do this, but no matter what you reblog, I am not going to respond. I'm not going to get caught up in the tactics of deflection and distraction, I'm not going to let you draw me into petty arguments on isolated comments and use that as an excuse to ignore the overwhelming majority of this post, and I'm not interested in rehashing arguments I've already had a dozen times over with almost all of you at one point or another.

If you actually read this entire thing and have an honest rebuttal to something I stated below, and its something that is based in the canonical source material, is not contradicted by other canonical source material, and is not contingent on a headcanon, my Messenger is open. Otherwise, it's been good talking to you, and I'm sure we'll be talking about all of this again, soon enough. But I am stating my piece and peacing out, because I need to save up my energy for the next time this wank comes around - and given the way fandom has shown itself to act in the past (and the fact racism has been around far, far longer than television, letalone fandom), that is not an 'if', but a 'when'.

Below the cut:

1.) Yes, Scott is a character of color, I don't care what country you're in.

2.) The fact that most of the racism in Teen Wolf fandom comes in microaggressions does not make it less racist.

3.) Actors and characters are held to tremendously disparate double standards and this is a huge problem, probably the biggest one.

4.) Racism of Teen Wolf fandom is highly reflective of racism offline/in the "real world".

On Scott actually being a character of color

Now, first and foremost - I don't really care what country you are from, Scott is a character of color. I get that some of you come from backgrounds where someone with his complexion is coded as white, but ignoring the fact that 1.) internalized racism is as much of a problem as external racism and 2.) most of ya'll have your own serious problems with colorism and race (where do you think America got it from?), the reality is that you are watching an American TV show, filmed using Amercian actors and and in a setting whose populace is designed to look American. On top of that, most of you have consumed plenty of American media before Teen Wolf, or media that reflects/contains the same problems with colorism and racism as American media.

Even if you did not perceive Scott as white on your first watch, the majority of the target audience did, a significant portion of your meta still used logic and arguments saturated in racist rhetorical history (American racism and otherwise), and many of your character delineations still fell along racial lines (i.e. which characters you headcanon as being secretly evil or having ulterior motives, and which ones you headcanon as secretly not being as evil as they act). As this article points out, the actual TV show has a pretty sketchy history when it comes to its treatment of non white, non male characters - granted, it's nothing new, most TV shows do this or something like this, as does most media in general. But "everyone else does it" and "it's always been this way" has never been an excuse before, and Teen Wolf doesn't get to start now.

On top of that, even if you personally came from a country with no ties to or influences from Western racism at all, you are still engaging in a fandom that is largely rooted in America, with American racial preconceptions, and dealing with American racial norms. Much of my issues with racism in your posts, meta, and reponses is not that an individual is immediately being racist, but rather are perpetuating racist misconstructions.

i.e. Stiles gets struggles on a test, and it's because he has ADHD, so/and he's still a genius, which is reinforced by all the times outside of school. Allison openly admits to having had to repeat a year before and failing a class now, and it's attributed to familial and superantural stress. But Scott gets a bad grade, he's an idiot, and the idea that he "never" does anything outside of school. You aren't going to call Scott stupid because of his ethnicity. But by taking away situations in which he has demonstrated intelligence and cunning and attributing it to someone else, you reinforce anti-Scott fans' rhetoric that Scott is an idiot who can't do anything, most of which traces back to racial stereotypes about Latino boys in the American education system. This is just one of many, many examples.

I understand why you feel like the fact you didn't code Scott as white on your first watch means you don't and can't possibly have racist attitudes towards him or express it in meta. But the thing is, bigotry is rarely about you individually, it's almost always about how you connect to and relate to a broader tradition of oppression and marginalization. There is not a single English-speaking or European country that does not currently have problems with racism and colorism, and while the nuances of how racism manifests varies from country to country, the traditions, media trends, and social habits do not - which is why the fact that people from different countries perceive characters' a little differently based on their appearances, the underlying rhetoric and logic is still the same.

Teen Wolf Fandom Racism

In the post this came clusterfuck from, the person I was responding to literally says, 'the hero is not a hero, and the villain IS the hero'. The fact that she didn't actually say their races doesn't change the fact all the positive attributes or successes of the character of color were projected onto white characters, while supporting the idea that the character of color is evil. She literally removed the character of color from the story, by claiming that the adult werewolf is actually the "teen wolf". AUs are fine and dandy and dark AUs are a lot of fun. But we call them AUs for a reason. The show itself is one created by people, not some documentary about real life events. The story presented is the story intended, and the post is one which undermines that story in order to demonize a character of color, while also deifying white characters, in a way that is contingent of separating the character of color from his own story and plastering his story onto white characters.

It's a not-so-micro microaggression. Just because you don't intend a certain bias, does not mean you are not acting it out or perpetuating it. Just because you are not intentionally judging someone on the basis of race, does not eliminate the fact you (and I) were raised in a very racist culture, and especially in a racist media environment, and express racialized judgments without intending it. We all do this - up until her library scene with Mason in Season 5, I was doing this with Kira all the time. And I've also fallen prey to the tendency to sideline Boyd. When I recognized that I ponder the stories of white characters who has as much screen time as him or even less so, I strove to change that.

This article explains the way fandom treats characters of color and how erasure manifests in fandom, and very specifically #3 in to one of you whose meta I was responding to before. The article is primarily about shipping, but it also specifically addresses the demonization of Deaton, and other characters of color, in the Teen Wolf fandom, and puts these into the context of fandom racism in general, not just Teen Wolf. In particular:

When characters of color are distanced from their triumphs and relationships in canon via headcanon, photo manipulations/edits, or simply not being written or drawn into fanworks, it’s an attempt to minimize the importance of the character. Whether or not it’s a subconscious or conscious distancing, the fact of the matter is that fandom does this on the regular and it usually only benefits white characters (and largely white fans) because it takes importance away from the few characters of color that the canon gives us.

This is literally erasing a character of color and replacing him with a white character, who the fuck thought this was okay? I get that this was a Stiles-centric event, but if you can smoothly switch out heads and paste in characters, then you can damn well make your own banner pulling together all the characters independently, without erasing the character of color and pasting a white character over him.

On top of that, the post points out how much racism in fandom manifests as separating characters of color from their white friend.

Take a look at the finale of Season 2. We never once see Stiles' reaction to Gerard (he wasn't even there, yet). Only edited for size and brightness, here is Stiles' entrance to the scene - after Gerard has already collapsed from the mountain ash:

Incidentally, the show never explains how Stiles actually knew to go to this warehouse in the first place, and at the the beginning of the scene, it was Scott, Chris, and Isaac who arrived here first, setting the location for the finale. There are a lot of possible explanations for all of these. But fandom only treats one as if it were canon, while rarely or never mentioning the other, equally likely, possibility. Why? Because that creates a separation between Scott and Stiles (despite/especially because of the fact the season literally ends with the two of them goofing off together).

The very ending of the season is about Scott and Stiles playing lacrosse together after Scott respectfully walks away from Allison when she breaks up with him, but how many post-S2 fics start out with Stiles feeling lonely because Scott abandoned him for Allison? We see Stiles discovering the alpha symbol and learning about the alpha pack at the same time as Scott at the beginning of Season 3A - yet why do so many people talk about Stiles helping Derek look for them over the summer as if it were canon? (In the interest of demonstrating full disclosure about our own mistakes, even I used to think this, just because it appeared in fanfic so many times. It wasn't until my second watch of S3 that I realized Stiles hadn't canonically been helping Derek look for Erica and Boyd, or known about the alpha pack beforehand.)

(Sloppy gif is sloppy. Derek and Scott were talking about alphas, so Derek actually said "A pack of them." This conversation was interspersed with cuts from the Braeden and Alpha Pack fight scene, so the awkward jumps are from cutting those out.)

This unconscious racism also manifests in how fandom treats actors of color in the fandom, and in Teen Wolf fandom.

Dylan O'Brien made a joke about violating native law and taking advantage of sacred land for his own personal humor, and fandom largely forgot about it in a week. Tyler Posey makes a joke about being gay, and fandom still rails at him over it. Tyler and Dylan should be held accountable to the same standards. Both of them made a stupid, shitty joke, and both apologized pretty quickly. Only one of them is still being taken to task for it.

One Tyler calls Sterek twisted and bizarre, the other Tyler calls Sterek disrespectful. Only one is taken to task over it, and it's the one who was routinely harassed about this ship, whose character is almost systemically marginalized from his own TV show, and whose character's death was being advocated to make another character into the lead of the show.

For those who want more quantative evidence

The number of fanworks about Scott compared to Stiles and Derek is ridiculous. On its own, in the context of a fandom that wasn't so otherwise racist or engaging in racist rhetoric and behavior, I'd buy that it was because there are many reasons why someone could identify with Stiles and Derek more than Scott. But most of the reasons people profess for identifying with Stiles - complexity, mental illness, etc., - are also attributes that apply to Scott's character, which means if you eliminate the things that are same, the racial difference becomes much, MUCH more prominent.

This is before getting into the fact that if you go into the Scott McCall tag right now, most of the fics (based on other tags, and summaries) aren't even about him, but about Stiles and/or Derek. Out of the 10 results in the first page when I just checked, only 1 had a summary that wasn't about Stiles or Derek. And it's really hard to take "Scott is just not that interesting" too seriously when I see how many people have forgotten really engaging scenes and stories with him, and how often people think a scene between him and either Stiles or Derek was actually between Stiles and Derek - and not him - in the show. People erase Scott from his own story, then claim he has no story.

Other Prominent Examples and Points of Contention

We live in a culture that romanticizes white pain in media, and dismisses the experiences and pain of non-white characters. Western audiences are trained and predisposed to dismissing characters of color, their experiences, their pain, and their development - or to taking these experiences and projecting them onto white characters. People are culturally trained to romanticize white, male suffering (which they do with Derek and Stiles), and dismiss men of color or their needs or pain (which they do with Scott).

To put it more bluntly, people will make a hundred gifsets about Stiles crying in the waiting room, but barely a dozen of Scott crying into his mother's arms. There are a hundred gifsets of Stiles conning Derek into a striptease in the first season, but barely any of Scott admitting he'd made a mistake in accusing Derek of murder, and trying to fix it. Does anyone remember that while Stiles and Derek were paralyzed on the floor of the police station in Matt's rampage, Scott had been shot? I've seen hundreds of gifs and images made of Stiles and Derek's pool scene - but I can't remember ever seeing a gifset about Gerard torturing Scott after that, stabbing him and holding the knife in while threatening his mother. And oh, hey, do you remember what Scott was dealing with during the pool scene?

No one is actively racist against Scott, but the implications that he's never changed, that he's never suffered, that he has no story, etc. etc. that so much of the anti-Scott meta is built upon - those are because people just dismiss his experiences and his story, without ever once actually thinking about it. They dismiss it when they watch it, and then again when they make a million gifs about Stiles and Derek's experiences, yet only a fraction as many about Scott's experiences.

This post illustrates my point quite nicely.

It's a pair of gifs from the first season about the boys after Hunters show up at the school, with feel good tags about Stiles "swooping in to save Derek". But here's the thing, those gifs have been edited to cut out Scott from the scene. Scott was the one driving Derek's car to rescue them. *Scott was was saving Derek too.* They were BOTH saving Derek's ass in here, but the gifs are edited to only show Stiles, and the tags only talk about Stiles. If you didn't actually watch this scene yourself, you probably wouldn't know that Scott was even there, let alone the fact the scene was primarily between him and Derek, not Stiles and Derek. How often do we see characters of color in critical roles get dismissed as "support staff"? Scott is "just" the getaway driver, so he's not important anymore to this scene, he no longer exists, only Stiles does.

(This can be a cute Sterek moment, but it can also be a cute Scerek moment and McHaleinski moment. Stiles and Derek actually have the least interaction in this scene, and Stiles is literally in the backseat and mostly in the background of the scene, which is focused on Derek and Scott.)

So now a lot of people are seeing this gifset, and not just internalizing those feel-good tags - they are internalizing the idea that it was only Stiles saving Derek, conveniently forgetting that Scott was even there. On top of that, the ensuing dialogue involves Scott admitting he made a mistake in accusing Derek of murder when he thought Derek was dead, and trying to fix the problem - but how many meta accuse him of never changing, admitting his mistakes, or addressing problems that he caused?

And this is just one example, from the very first season.

On top of that, that scene was also where Stiles and Derek find out the symbol Derek was investigating was on Allison's pendant. The next scene is Stiles pushing Scott to ignore Allison's need for space, in order to get that necklace - but Scott is the one who is blamed for "emotionally abusing her/manipulating her" for trying to reach out to her. I'd bet money that if Scott had decided to respect Allison's space, fandom would be decrying him for not helping Stiles and Derek hunt down an actual killer just because he didn't want to make a teenaged girl he barely knew a little uncomfortable. :|

Other Double Standards

Scott is called an abuser for levels of interpersonal violence that Stiles and Derek are constantly excused for it. Scott lies, and is called manipulative, Stiles lies, and he's just trying to protect people. People in fandom say that Derek is "violent, but not abusive", despite recurring acts of violence against relatively vulnerable characters who are under his care, yet they call Scott an abuser for all of two instances of lashing out at Isaac over something stupid.

Alan Deaton gets headcanons painting him as evil because he withholds information from the main characters. Stiles withholds information from the other characters, and he's just traumatized and scared.

Marin Morrell said if no other solutions to the nogitsune problem was found, then she'd kill one teenager who they already have confirmed is the source/host of the villain, in order to protect the rest of the town from the definite threat. Derek nearly murdered an innocent teenager, hoped for and attempted to engineer the death of another teenager, and dragged three more teenagers into a violent situation which they had little understanding of because he needed a pack (the alpha pack didn't come until later). But he is not called a villain at nearly half the rate Morrell is, if at all outside of the anti-Derek fandom. (Side note: neither of them are villains. Both of them are stuck dealing with the actual villains who've forced them into shitty situations. My problem is that while neither of them are villains, only one of them is repeatedly called and portrayed as one in fanworks.)

Boyd probably fares best, by virtue of barely ever getting mentioned in fanfic or meta, even in comparison to Cora or Erica (who he had about as much screentime as).

Fandom compares Scott to a rapist for using Derek's body against his will in order to save Allison's life. But where were they when Liam tried to kill Scott for his girlfriend, and Scott takes a few weeks to feel safe around him again instead of welcoming him back with open arms right away?

By the way, wanna know why fandom rarely gifs the scene of Scott forcing Derek to Bite Gerard with the actual dialogue?

Because you can't compare Scott to a rapist for using Derek's body against him when we see that he's only doing it because the villain is holding someone hostage and threatening their life, and you can't claim that Scott never apologizes for anything if you see him literally apologizing for what he's doing to Derek. And I'd bet even more money that if the reverse had happened, fandom would have decried Scott for letting Allison die "just" so Derek wouldn't have had to Bite someone he didn't want to, and called him a murderer for it.

People castigate Scott for successfully setting a broken leg when it was technically illegal, but I don't see any posts castigating Stiles for interfering in police investigations, violating people's privacy and boundaries, or interfering with an active crime scene/body search.

People call Scott a murderer because Theo killed Tracy and Josh on another character's information - not even a suggestion, just information - yet Derek actively sought to violate a girl's bodily autonomy and got her killed as a result. (I don't think he is a murderer for it - I think that if he isn't a murderer for Paige's death, then it's as ridiculous or even more so to claim that Scott is responsible for Theo's victims.)

Scott isn't perfect, no one on this show is, because perfect characters are boring. But only Scott is considered evil and villainous for not being perfect, while white characters' flaws are celebrated. Scott is derided for not being held accountable, but not only are the instances where he is held accountable erased, white characters' actions are constantly excused or justified without anybody screaming about their lack of accountability. Fandom hates on Scott for not verbally apologizing for things, but no one makes hate posts about the fact Stiles and Derek never verbally apologize, either. Fandom holds Scott up to an impossible standard while having little to no standards for the white characters. They use "he's the main character/protagonist/hero!" to justify the double standard, but then try to claim he ISN'T the protagonist or hero to justify giving his story to a white character - in the instance at the beginning of this post, a white villain no less - and casting him as the villain.

Main Points

I like darkfic as much as the next person, but that doesn't erase the fact that the process of making Scott a villain (as in, claiming Scott is actually a villain in the context of canon) is contingent on the racist traditions of separating a character of color from their own story, wiping away that characters' story, and romanticizing the struggles and personal strifes of white characters (often in the process of "giving" the character of colors' stories to them).

This problem isn't unique to Teen Wolf. Just about every fandom is racist, and many (if not most) of their media sources are even more racist than Teen Wolf. If anything, one thing Teen Wolf fandom has going for it is that, while it still has a lot of sexism and misogyny, it seems to have less so than most other, similar fandoms. Though the biggest point of comparison is the Supernatural fandom, so that might not be saying much.

The difference is that in other fandoms, the main characters are white, and most of the surrounding characters are white, too. Characters of color are always secondary ones. A Netflix show was the first time an MCU production had a non-white character as its lead. But in Teen Wolf, the main character is a character of color, and he's still getting treated the same way as secondary characters of other fandoms, if not even worse so.

I don't think any of you, as individuals, are racist. But I do think that all of you, as individuals, never examine racial biases in your media consumption or analysis. This leads to you microaggressively expressing racist attitudes in your meta, passively perpetuating racist stereotypes and tropes, and - however unintentionally - enabling racism in fandom.

I was also asked if I admit to my own biases, so here it is: When it comes to analyzing Teen Wolf (and making judgments about the show and the characters therein), I don't care about people's headcanons, or fanons, just the source material. The show was written by written by over a dozen people alongside Jeff Davis and produced by MTV, it did not magically appear out of thin air, nor is it a skewed documentation of some "real" story or "real" events. I believe in holding the characters' to the same level of accountability, and the same standards, as each other. If this makes me biased, then yes, fine, I'm biased.

I also know that none of these problems are unique to Teen Wolf fandom, and that actual Scott stans have also justified his poor decisions, and hated on Stiles and Derek. Some of you might remember me getting blocked by some Sciles BNFs for saying "Derek's not a rapist", and I've lost track of the number of times I'd try to reblog a Stydia or Stalia gifset, only for it to turn out I can't, and most likely this comes from my past of pointing out misogyny in those fandoms.

Meanwhile, Sciles fandom slathers heteronormativity onto the pairing as much as Sterek fandom does, and the fact that it's being done on an interracial relationship actually makes it a little worse than when it's on the all-white Sterek ship (but that's a can of worms for another day). Female characters like Allison, Lydia, Malia, and Kira are constantly utilized as little more than talking plot-devices or fag-hags in fandom unless it's explicitly about them, and they are reduced to caricatures instead of characters even more than the most underserved male characters of color, like Boyd. For all of them, I went onto their character tags, and I didn't find a fic summary that was about them until I got the second page, which is worse than Scott having only 1 out of 10 in the first page.

But the sheer amount of Scott hate outpaces hate of all the other characters combined, and the sheer amount of fanworks about these secondary characters outpaces the fanworks about the main character. And yes, every ship and character's fandom sent rape and death threats to the cast and crew over their stupid ship or character. But the amount leveled at Tyler Posey from Sterek fans, even before he finally snapped and made an unprofessional comment about it, is tremendously higher than all the other kinds of hate - especially when compared to the fandom's reaction to the Tyler Hoechlin also saying a negative comments about Sterek.

Fandom does not exist in a vacuum.

The attitudes by which white characters' trauma and experiences are used to justify their violence while characters of colors' victimizations are dismissed, is the same logic used to defend cops who "just reacted" or "panicked", while blaming young children of color for "getting shot" by not behaving 100% correctly. The logic by which a white characters' abusive behavior and characters of colors' abuse are dismissed, while the white characters' abuse and the character of colors' abusive behaviors are exaggerated, is the same logic for which white rapists are painted as "merely making a mistake" while a black shoplifter is painted as a bankrobber in the making.

And the logic of calling someone who explains all this an "ableist troll" for pointing this out is the same logic used to pit marginalized peoples against each other in an effort to maintain the status quo - why do you think racism between racial minorities exists? And the logic of claiming someone is just "exploiting real tragedies" to talk about racism in fandom only makes sense if you assume all fans are white, and therefore none have ever been or will be touched by racism or racial violence in their real lives, and only bring up race to prop up fictional characters. (Yes, these are why I blocked bhadpodcast.)

Some of you can choose to walk away from racism, you can talk about it in fandom and that is the only place it will ever affect you directly. Not all of us get that luxury. Some of us have to confront racism in our daily lives, and sometimes, the racism online and the racism offline start to look and sound the same.

And I will apologize for one thing on the post that started this: my tags in my initial response were needlessly aggressive. I had to deal with racism in my real life, and then I came home, and see echoes of that exact same racism in a fandom post, and I over-reacted in the tags.

The logic by which a character of color is erased from his own narrative, derided as a villain, and replaced by a white character, is the same logic that is used in professional environments to judge who has "worked hard" and who hasn't (and thus, who gets promoted and who doesn't). Maybe, if you've never experienced racial bias in the work place, these seem like problems worlds away from each other, but they are not, these are two different manifestations of the same subconscious bias. When I came into fandom and saw someone I consider close to a friend regurgitating the exact same illogic as one of my workplace superiors, I snapped.

When I say that fandom doesn't exist in a vacuum, this is what I mean. The same attitudes and judgments of people that exist in offline life - based on their physical appearance, their skin tone, their heritage, etc. - follow us into fandom, whether we like it or not.

I acknowledge I should've been a lot calmer about expressing my frustrations with that post. I probably shouldn't have answered so soon after work-life problems and just before I was supposed to go to bed. I tell people all the time to hold back on topics which are personal to them and wait until they are calmer to address it, and here I went and ignored that. I took out my anger on athena via those tags, and for that, I am sorry.

But it's also the only thing I'm sorry about. I still stand by my notion that the post I was responding to was very racist, and the fact that the characters' races were never brought up in the post itself does not change that.

#teen wolf fandom meta #teen wolf fandom problems #teen wolf fandom #scott mccall defense squad #pro scott mccall #but also pro derek and stiles and everybody #except the villains #i'm basically anti anti-ism #i can get why people might not realize that though #racism in teen wolf fandom #racism in fandom #references to #misogyny #racism #long post

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toddbirchard-architect · 5 years

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A Question Unanswered: "Why Did You Want to Become a Product Manager?" https://ift.tt/2TgGxLf

I've painted some pretty grim personal perspectives on Product Management in the past- perhaps comically so. There was that one time I dared make the sweeping generalization that most PMs have no interest in technology itself, but instead favored the glory of power and implied intellect. Or that other time, when I suggested oversaturation of the space could push the title towards meaninglessness... similar to the fate of marketing departments recent fall from grace to what is best described as “MailChimp Coordinators.” Brutal stuff.

That was around the time I decided to distance myself from Product. I figured this bubble of egotistical hustlers would pop at some point. I’m afraid I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Product Management: Bigger and Badder Than Ever

I mean “bad” in the literal sense, of course. Let’s rest on that for a moment to acknowledge what is objectively true: Product Management is certainly getting bigger. Bigger not only in the sense of volume, but salaries as well; reports are showing that average product management salaries have been on a steady upward trend (I'll post those them here once I find them). One report had the average salary of senior/director PMs overtaking Data Scientists: a perceived front runner for “sexiest job” thanks to a stupid article the Harvard Business Review wrote a hundred years ago. (On a side note, can we please never reference this article again? It’s excruciating to read field-based work without some subtle reminder that the author is “sexy.”)

In terms of volume of product managers, I don’t need to search for data to know something is wrong. Of the teams I’ve worked with in the last 10 years, whether they be external clients or departments in my org, it’s overwhelmingly common to see technical team breakdowns have as many or more Product Managers than actual engineers. In extreme cases, I’ve lobbied, begged, and cried for more Engineering staff in exchange for guaranteeing deadlines. The response, of course, is always the same: hire more managers. The thought process I imagine happening is “hey, there’s something going on there, we better bring in a Skilled Manager to figure that out!” Assuming that poor management is a company’s culture, the safest thing any upper-manager can do to hide their own cluelessness is place more buffers between themselves and problems.

My moment of Zen came to me after I had just started with a large company. Our team had a product team, as did the other (hundreds?) of teams in the same firm. With a straight face, our team’s Head of Product delivered the year’s initiative: to teach all the other Product Managers the concept of Agile Development. I paused. Looked around. Raised my hand, and could do nothing but say:

...Are we not addressing the more significant problem at hand here? How have we somehow managed to hire hundreds of PMs, each without the slightest clue as to how to do their jobs?

One person chuckled. As the head of product gave a political no-answer, I watched a room full of people trying not to internalize that statement. I was “taught” agile 4 times that year. I had been implementing Agile Development practices for 8 years prior.

Why Do You Want To Be a PM?

Ask any PM how they got into the profession, and I’ll almost guarantee you’ll receive some story of transitioning out of marketing or recruiting (neither of which have anything to do with product) because an opportunity opened up way back when. My personal answer to this question started by defining what I didn’t want.

It was a rainy day in Philadelphia. Now 10 years ago, the Comcast headquarters had just been completed as the tallest building in the city, and I held a gig on the top floor... as a Flash Developer. I was nearing the end of my contract, and a bit relieved to know that “White Shirt Wednesdays” and “Blue Shirt Mondays” would no longer remain in my vocabulary. As a favor, one of my bosses asked me to deliver a USB drive to a fellow on my floor whom I’d never actually met. After some quick directions to this gentleman’s office, I was beginning to see why he’d be hard to come by.

I was directed to what must have been a hallway perhaps 3 feet wide, and 10 feet long. One of those big-office “alleyways” to connect two sides of a floor. Strangely, one wall of this alleyway had a door- no, an entire office, looking out into the blueish grey wall 3 feet away. This was the guy.

I explained my business and delivered the USB drive. “The guy” wasn’t worried; in fact, he immediately laid back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, and let out a breath of self-satisfaction. “So you’re a developer, huh,” he asked. “Let me ask you this: what you want out of life?” Before I could think to respond, he continued: “I mean, look at all this,” gesturing around his 8x8 foot office. “If you stayed here at Comcast, all this could be yours too someday, you know.”

So there I was, on the 50-somethingth floor of the city’s tallest building, shrouded in storm clouds, sitting in a fluorescent-lit closet in a corporate office back alley. As the seconds ticked by, it became evident that this wasn’t a hilarious joke. At that moment, one thing was clear: I wasn’t sure what I wanted out of life, but I sure as hell didn’t want to be that guy.

(...And I definitely didn’t want to get to be that guy by building throwaway corporate apps in Adobe Flash).

Finding What I Wanted Out of Life

From that moment, I thought a lot about what I didn't want out of life. I knew that I loved coding, but after having picked up handfuls of Flash contracting jobs, I began to realize a trend. The more I created things for other people, my sense of autonomy diminished, the less individuality I had, and therefore, the less I enjoyed the act of coding. In a board meeting, one company referred to me as "the secret weapon." Another dubbed me the "the bullet," both of these things implying the same truth: when assigned a project, I would dissect it, refactor any nonsense, and over-deliver under time, and under budget.

That's all great, but I didn't want that. The problems I had with this type of heads-down work were the questions I had no authority to ask, such as:

Why are we building this in the first place? Is it really worth this much budget, as opposed to a simpler and cheaper solution?

Does anybody honestly believe that this feature will resonate with users? Imagine yourself using this app, except it wasn't your app. Is there any point of building this feature other than a stakeholder's personal need to have a sense of ownership over something?

We have meetings every week about problem X. Why don't we consider building Y to solve this issue?

As I analyzed "what I wanted out of life," I began to notice other things happening around me. I was putting in 18+ hours a day of work attempting to save a final project for University, which happened to be a video game. Thanks to some administrative nightmare, 6 people of our 9-man team became virtually unreachable midway through the project (it's a long story). I found myself taking point and scheduling check-ins (standups?) with the remaining troops. Despite their limited coding experience, we found ways to play to our strengths. We had one man on audio and soundtrack, one guy on visuals, and me on... everything else.

I lost the better half of a year and a relationship to that project. It was miserable. Meanwhile, the other fully-staffed projects were doing fine; in fact, they were flourishing. It didn't matter that the other teams didn't deliver anything technically impressive, or in some cases, finished. The teams which did best were significantly rewarded for the idea they had, despite being virtually unchanged from day 1. What's more, those receiving the highest credit contributed nothing but the concept itself (typically stolen from a project at another university, mind you).

Nobody cared that I personally pushed the limits of web browsers at the time to create a multiplayer RPG. Nor should they, in retrospect: nobody had attempted to do this; thus, nobody had any barometer for the effort or complexity involved. That was Lesson 1: Nobody Who Matters Cares How Impressive Your Code Is.

Meanwhile, professors were euphorically celebrating projects they could understand: which were typically simple apps which leveraged social media somehow. Word on the street was that each of the "idea guys" got taken out for drinks in celebration of their genius. Lesson 2: Hard Work And Originality Does Not Equate to Success.

Our project got abysmal scores. Begrudgingly, we went along with an event to showcase all projects that year and set up a station where anybody could sit down and play. We had 4 computers running the app over a local network, and the crowd loved it. Despite being cast into a dark shadowy corner of the room, it turned out users knew what they wanted more than professors. Lesson 3: The World Has Too Much Clueless Leadership. If you're not careful, you could spend your entire life programming something that had no place in the world to begin with. 9/10 startups fail, which I think is a high success rate considering 9/1000 ideas I hear regularly are abysmal.

How I Became A Product Manager

I didn't become a Product Manager because I was transferred, or promoted as an intern, or failed as a developer. I became a Product Manager by searching for Product Manager jobs out of college, and I landed it.

Everything I had learned from that final year of University taught me so many things that lead to a single conclusion: I am not happy in my career unless I am:

Collaborating with intelligent people.

Always having a say in defining what it is being built.

Building something meaningful.

I became a Product Manager because I was born to be a Product Manager. I love to code, but there isn't a single job description that reads "code what you think is best for the company." In fact, if we were to translate most job descriptions, they'd probably be closer to "code the thing that will get the person above you a promotion." I couldn't bear to watch my hobby become something I hated, and I knew the world is filled with developers who live that reality daily. I wanted to help them.

I would challenge all organizations to ask PM candidates why they've chosen the path. If a candidate cannot articulate a purpose which is unselfish, or legitimately speaks to their interests, they should not be hired. End of story.

Transitioning to a technical lead role allows me to do some of the things I set out to accomplish as a PM, but perhaps not as much as I'd like. The notion of switching back feels uneasy: the world has far too many Product Managers as it stands, regardless of how mediocre they may be. And let us not forget the "walled garden" effect: PMs can only become PMs because they know PMs. Shitty PMs hire more shitty PMs, and so on. I can say this from my personal experience interviewing at shitty companies I had no intention of joining: shitty PMs hate me. Misery loves company.

If I truly want to stick to what I love, a Principal Engineering role or equivalent feels like the next logical step for somebody like me to take. I can only hope the world's Product Management Hyenas can stay off Google Calendar and Slack for long enough to not to kill hope in the people I hope to help before then.

March 20, 2019 at 11:12AM

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persuadedproject-blog · 7 years

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Chapter 3

The he in question was not the pastoral Wentworth, but his brother. To most of the world, this variety of Wentworth was a diplomat. To Anne, he was an ex almost-fiance. He had come to stay with Pastor Wentworth the year of Anne’s senior year in college. Even then he was a remarkable young man - he was fresh out of college and pushing hard for a job with the international diplomatic corps. He was intelligent, serious, exuding a happy confidence. When Anne met him, she was still in her first bloom; her eyes sparked with life, and she was one of the few people who can embody both common sense and deep feeling.

Only half the attraction they both felt would have been necessary to bring them together - he had nothing to do all summer other than wait for his contacts to respond, and she had almost no one to love. Meeting under such prime conditions meant they could hardly help but fall in love. A deep friendship and compatibility were the cherries on top, which seemed to put them on a path towards a lasting relationship. Although they had gotten to know each other slowly (Anne could not put a point of time when she had first seen or spoken to him), once they knew each other, they were completely sold out. They quickly came to the point of knowing each other through and through, from family history to current mood based on a raised eyebrow. He learned about Anne’s mother, and the effect her death had had on the entire family. She discovered how he had gotten the nickname Captain (it had to do with signing up to captain a soccer team when he was ten, and then never showing up for a single practice), and heard stories of all the Wentworth siblings - where they had been adopted from, their personalities, and how all of them had eventually moved east for work. Every detail was part of a sculpture of their past, present, and future - a future which they speedily assumed would be intertwined.

What they had was a mutual affection between equals, and no one looking on could say who was happier. Not that many people were looking on; Mary was busy with summer school and out most of the time, so that only left Pastor Wentworth, Senator Walter, Liz, and Mrs. Russell. Pastor Wentworth was ecstatic to see his brother living outside of his vocational pursuits, Liz was indifferent, and the Senator (although not outright condemning the relationship) refused to give it any serious thought or comment. The year that Anne was in the relationship, he gave it the silent treatment. In Senator Walter’s well-documented opinion, diplomats were politicians who weren’t good enough to get elected and stay on U.S. soil. Particularly diplomats who were raised in Wyoming and looked Middle-Eastern (Anne found both of these things to be attractive qualities, but they repelled the senator away from anything close to approval). Since the topic was not a popular one with the senator, Anne did not keep him in the loop with how things were going, even when Cap first started talking about marriage. Anne had been curled up on the floor of her dorm room, doodling around her spring finals notes and talking to him on the phone when he had first broached the subject.

“Anne, what would you think about getting married?” Her busily sketching pen stopped abruptly.

“Getting married in general, or…?”

“You and me. Getting married.”

“Oh, well, I didn’t want to assume that is what you were asking. I didn’t want to misunderstand you, then have you cornered into marrying me or something.”

“Anne, you are the least presumptuous person I know. And do I seem like the kind of person who is going to let myself get cornered into getting married?”

“Your politeness is one of your finer points,” she defended herself.

“Well, I am not thinking about marrying you to be polite, I promise. You’d be the one doing me a favor. And I don’t need an answer right away, I know this came a little out of left field.”

“I mean, a little - I knew things were going well, and I kinda assumed we would get here eventually. What made it less eventual for you?”

“You know the diplomatic assignment I was hoping for?”

“Yes.”

“You know how people in Washington say they work for the government, but can’t go into a lot of detail about what they do?”

“Yeah, as a D.C. kid I met a handful of people like that over the years. You just learn what questions not to ask”

“Well, I have been accepted into...one of those positions.”

“You’re a spook?”

“I’m about to be in a government position I can’t talk about.” He said carefully. Anne leaned back against the wall.

“Okay, so how does not communicating work with a relationship?”

“Well, that’s why I was thinking about marriage. If we were married, I could tell you more. Not everything, but more. You would have a right to know at least generally where I am, and what I’m up to. I do want you to know what’s going on, and I do want you in as much of my life as possible. Like I said, you can take some time to think about it - but my assignments will start in August.”

“Well, everything is figure-outable, right?”

“If we put our heads together, I think we can make anything work.”

After this discussion, Anne approached both her father and Mrs. Russell - not with the CIA side of things, of course, but with the general situation. The senator continued to not actually forbid the relationship, but also to withhold his approval. Mrs. Russell also saw it all in a dim light - but her views were far less influenced by the fact he was a Washington outsider. She saw this as a chance for Anne to throw her future away for a somewhat unknown person. Anne was young; she had the world before her, she had just been offered a scholarship towards a master’s degree. All he had to offer was himself; no established career, no guarantees other than his leaving the country shortly after marriage. Although he said he wanted Anne to continue her education, Mrs. Russell saw marriage as Anne’s chances of completing her education plummeting. To her, this was young Anne (full of life and potential) being snatched away by a stranger. To be allied with someone who must also be married to his duty, to share the anxieties and rootlessness that came with his career, it broke her motherly heart to see a bright future degraded into - well, what Anne’s mother had experienced, more or less.

Cap was aware that he was not offering much, but he was sure - so sure - that he could make a viable career (and more than that a happy, loving life for Anne). His confidence was enough for Anne, and his strength fed her own. She thought that they were enough for one another, but Mrs. Russell saw things differently. She saw his confidence as reckless blind faith. To Mrs. Russell, risk was a thing to be entirely avoided - and Captain Wentworth represented nothing but risk. Anne could have withstood her father’s reasoning (or lack thereof) and disapproval. On the other hand, Mrs. Russell’s advice was harder to overlook. Her counsel was grounded in love, and certainly seemed sound. It was not spontaneous or giddy or overwhelmingly happy like Anne’s love, but it was certainly more pragmatic. After countless late night phone calls and sleepless nights, Anne was convinced within her own mind that it was best to end the relationship. She was persuaded that getting married was not only a bad idea, it was a wrong one. Of course she was not just swayed by seemingly selfish caution; the only thing that gave her the resolve she needed to end the relationship was thinking that it was for his good, as well of hers. She felt that it would be morally wrong for her to accept him. Her own mind had echoed for days with ways being unmarried would help advance his career, how she could be used against him, how for his own safety he needed to be 100% focused, without distraction. The belief that she was acting in his interests was her only consolation - and Anne needed every shred of comfort she could get, since she endured not only the pain of a bad breakup, but also knowing his bad opinion of her. He thought she had caved in to the snobbish tendencies of her family, that Mrs. Russell’s (and later Anne’s) concerns were rooted in a distrust of him. He had disappeared into the service with these thoughts, and had remained entirely out of her life.

They had known each other for a year, but anyone who has been lucky enough to find someone their soul loves knows the impact one short year can have. Overshadowing any happier times, the reverberations of the relationship impacted Anne for all the years following. More than five years had gone by, and there wasn’t one day when she had not thought of him, or felt the ache of regret. All of the butterflies that had once filled her whenever she heard his voice had turned to stone, and it was almost like they were still inside of her, weighing her down, and mocking her for ever having thrown herself into love. She got to the point where she could not remember a time when his name was not synonymous with the pain in her heart. Probably part of the problem was that she had added no variety to her life other than time, which passed without her permission. Anne went to work, she read, and she enjoyed watching quiz shows at night. She went on vacation only when her family insisted that she should come along (knowing the Elliots, can you really blame her?). No one who came into their circles could ever compare with her memories of Cap. A new love is the quickest cure for an old, pining one - but Anne could not find it. Charles Musgrove had taken her out a couple of times when she had come home to take care of her father, but she just could not generate the feelings she knew should be around for a long-term relationship. Mrs. Russell had been dissatisfied this turn of events; she had liked steady, thirty-year-career-path Charles, but (to her credit) she kept her disappointment to herself. After Anne ended her relationship with Cap, she and Mrs. Russell never discussed it. Anne never so much as alluded to it in all of their time spent together. Although she did not blame Mrs. Russell for the outcome, or her younger self for taking her advice, at twenty-seven she thought very differently of the whole situation. Anne knew that if a younger girl in the same situation asked for her counsel, she would not give them advice that would lead to such immediate misery, with only a 50/50 (maybe less) shot at happiness in the future. Comparatively, the life she had chosen to give up (even with all of the uncertainty, all the worry and secrecy involved in his work) would have been bliss compared to the last stretch of years.

Despite having limited resources of finding out how he had been, Anne gleaned that Cap’s confidence had paid off. Law enforcement agencies really ought to tap into the intelligence resource that is ex love interests searching (with no-traces-left meticulousness) through all of the social media accounts of said love interest, their friends, and their family. FBI research hath no fervor like a woman in pursuit of information on her ex-boyfriend. From her extensive reconnaissance, Anne knew he had been all over the world, that his career had been treating him relatively well, and that he had never remarried - his family had never even posted photographs of him with another girl. This research happened in Anne’s moments of weakness - most of the time, Anne thought it beneath her dignity, but about once a year, on a very lonely Friday night, she gave in. Not that it made her feel any better - most of the time she walked away vowing never to check on him again with a familiar, cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. Anne had been forced to be wise and practical in her younger years, and so it was only as she got older that she learned romance. This is the reverse of typical experience, but learning to appreciate reckless abandon was a natural, reasonable consequence of her careful caution.

With all of these circumstances, thoughts, and feelings floating around in Anne’s mind, she could not think of Captain/Frederick Wentworth visiting her home without a twinge of distress. Try as she might to tell herself it was ridiculous, that if she just tried hard enough she could ignore awkwardness and discomfort of it all, she could not be completely comfortable with the idea. Considering the fact that the Crofts, their relations, and their business were all that her family talked about for the next couple of weeks, she had to at least reconcile herself to the idea of the Crofts themselves. Her father, Mrs. Russell, and her sister acted like they had no memory of a little detail like her almost marrying Mrs. Croft’s brother-in-law. The oblivion (or feigned mindlessness, whatever it was) was almost a relief to her. She knew none of them would even think to breath a word to the rest of the world, since they could not be bothered to remember it with Anne around. Because Mrs. Croft had been on base near her husband during the entire year of Anne and Cap’s relationship, Anne thought that she would be safe from her realizing who she was. With all of this, she steeled herself for the eventual (inevitable) acquaintance with the assurance of all the awkwardness existing only inside of her own head.

Here ye, here ye! The author would like you to know that the decision to have Wentworth called Captain or Cap has nothing to do with Captain America of late popular acclaim, and everything to do with the fact the author could not bear the idea of a protagonist named Frederick or Fred. That is all, carry on.

Chapter 4: http://bit.ly/2hXEKgL

#persuasion #persuadedproject #janeausten #Austen

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nootropicsaustralia · 3 years

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Health Benefits of Music

Music has the capacity to capture attention, lift spirits, generate emotion, change or regulate mood, evoke memories, increase work output, reduce inhibitions, and encourage rhythmic movement – all of which have the potential to help you to do more, feel better, and stress less!

Article at a glance

Music has a profound effect on our brain and the release of dopamine Music can positively affect our mood, mindset and behaviour Music can benefit our physical and mental performance

We all have that one song that no matter where we are or what time it is will belt out every single lyric. We have those songs we know will pump us up for the gym, pep us up in the morning, and that playlist you put on in the car for a long road trip with friends. Music has the power to move us. Move us physically. Move us mentally. Move us emotionally. Music is said to be the universal language and has been deeply rooted in every human culture since the beginning of time. Dance, laugh, cry, smile, focus, energise, connect... music has the ability to bring energy and emotion out of all of us.

What if I told you that music actually improves your health? Thanks to advances in neuroscience we can see how hearing, playing or singing your favourite tunes help your brain function. The benefits of music in our health are overwhelmingly bountiful so let’s break it down and see the potential music holds to improve our health and happiness.

MUSIC AFFECTS OUR BRAIN'S CHEMISTRY Down to a cellular level, music has the ability to alter our brain chemistry. It can elevate positive emotion through releasing neurotransmitters and interacting with the reward centres of our brain. A recent study details how music stimulates hits of dopamine to the brain that can make us feel good.[1] Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and is the brain’s “motivation brain-chemical” and an integral part of the pleasure-reward system. That same feeling of pleasure we experience from chocolate, a runner's high, winning the lottery, can be experienced through music as it is all linked with dopamine. [2]Want an extra hit of dopamine? Science shows that turning your playlist on shuffle could give you an extra “I hit the Jackpot” boost when your favourite song comes on unexpectedly! [3]Music can help us connect with ourselves and also with others. Listening and playing music in the company of others stimulates the brain hormone oxytocin to be released. Oxytocin is another brain-chemical that helps us feel bonded with and trust others.[4] Music helps in socialisation down to a biochemical level but also is the key factor in many social events that brings us happiness playing at concerts, dances, and backyard BBQs. Studies have shown that the oxytocin boost music lovers are flooded with can make them more generous and trustworthy. [5]

MUSIC AS MEDICINE Music can be a useful tool in many aspects of our lives and new research is showing that music can even be more powerful than medicine. Music can be a form of distraction in painful or stressful situations. It can bring the mind’s attention somewhere else and alleviate symptoms. Anxiety is a feeling that has many physical effects on the body including increased heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels. All of these biological factors can be prevented or reversed with the help of slow tempo, low pitched, calming music. One study published in the national Library of Medicine concluded;

“Relaxing music decreases the level of anxiety in a pre-operative setting to a greater extent than orally administered midazolam. Higher effectiveness and absence of apparent adverse effects makes pre-operative relaxing music a useful alternative to midazolam for pre-medication.” [6]

Music therapy has been drawing much more attention in recent years due to evidence in reduction of pain that studies consistently show. A 2013 study with primary fibromyalgia patients, a poorly understood chronic pain syndrome, had participants listen to music once a day for four weeks and track their pain and depression levels. The treatment group reported a significant reduction in pain and depression at week four compared with the control group who reported no difference in pain at week four. [7]

THE BENEFITS OF MUSIC FOR EVERYDAY LIFE Music can be a tool to alter our perceptions and enter a target mindset.“

Neuroscientists have found that music enters our nervous system through the auditory brainstem and also causes the cerebellum to 'light up' on a brain scan.” [8]

Do you have a workout playlist, a study playlist, a throwbacks playlist, a party playlist? We can categorise different music by what it makes us do or feel. You can control your own mental environment through your musical environment.

Focus

There are not many jobs where you have to be more alert, focused and precise than surgeons. A survey published that most surgeons actually listen to music while operating.“

90% of surgeons in the UK put music on the theatre's sound system during operations, with half of respondents favouring up-tempo rock, 17% pop music and 11% classical.” [9]

Another study done at Stanford showed that music engages areas of the brain which are involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating events in our memory. [10]

So next time you're cramming for a test or overwhelmed at work try putting in some earphones. It is recommended to listen to lower toned songs without lyrics to best help focus on these sorts of tasks.

Fitness

Music is both a mind and body motivator making it the ultimate trainer to carry you through your workouts also. Maybe you can relate… have you ever walked in the gym and walked right back out when you realized you didn't have your headphones? I sure have at the thought of running on a stationary treadmill for an hour, staring at the wall, with no beat to keep me going, no thank you!

An experiment with healthy male college students investigated the effect of upbeat music on their physical performance while riding stationary bicycles. The participants trained harder while listening to fast music and reported feeling better during the workout and enjoying it more. [11]

Background music may enhance performance on cognitive fitness tasks. One study found that listening to music allowed test takers to complete more questions in the time allotted, and get more answers right. [12]According to sports researchers Peter Terry and Costas Karageorghis; “Music has the capacity to capture attention, lift spirits, generate emotion, change or regulate mood, evoke memories, increase work output, reduce inhibitions, and encourage rhythmic movement – all of which have potential applications in sport and exercise.” [13]

Fun

And this is one of the things that we didn't need scientific evidence to prove. We all know the effects music has on us - it simply makes us feel good! One song can turn your mood a full 180. Some songs we can’t help but start dancing. Some get stuck in your head and can’t stop singing. And some make us nostalgic bringing up those same feelings from cherished memories.

Music is one of the most powerful neurobiological tools we have to change our mood, mindset, and behaviour. Music shapes our minds and actions, and more than just enjoying it we can utilise it to improve our health and happiness.

References

[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/9/3793 [2] https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(12)00941-5

[3] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201212/the-neuroscience-music-mindset-and-motivation

[4] http://esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2012/12/birdsong-study-pecks-theory-that-music.html

[5] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315937291_Oxytocin_Trust_and_Trustworthiness_The_Moderating_Role_of_Music

[6] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19388893/

[7] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1524904210001396

[8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811911013000?via%3Dihub

[9] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/379309

[10] http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2007/07/music-moves-brain-to-pay-attention-stanford-study-finds.html

[11] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19793214/

[12] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20865993/

[13] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3944555/

#music #health #healthtips #better mood

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stripedigital · 5 years

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Create the Best Email Subject Lines with These Useful Tips + Examples

Globally, experts estimate that nearly 4 billion active email accounts exist out there. Nearly 300 billion emails from businesses enter inboxes every single day. Do the math. People get around 75 business emails per day. And it’s only increasing.

Are you take time to read 75 emails a day? Are you opening that many? How many messages just sit there day after day, getting marked as read when you never even opened it?

This kind of skimming the inbox is what you’re up against. It’s why only the best email subject lines get opened. Let’s look at 50 of the highest performing and best email subject lines we’ve seen and why they work so well.

#1 Appeal to People’s Need for Instant Gratification

Whether the topic is weight loss, saving for retirement, or getting to page one in searches – people know there are no magic pills. But still the idea that you can have things now that you really didn’t have to work for appeals to a lot of people.

University of Illinois Professor, Shahram Heshmat Ph.D., studies the science behind how people make choices. He says “There is psychological discomfort associated with self-denial. From an evolutionary perspective, our instinct is to seize the reward at hand, and resisting this instinct is hard.”

The best email subject lines offer this opportunity for instant gratification.

As you’re exploring the examples of best email subject lines in this article, consider this point.

69% of email recipients will mark an email as spam just because of the subject line. There are no “magic bullet” subject lines that work every time for every audience.

There’s often a fine line between an effective subject line that has a high open rate and one that appears spammy. Understanding your audience and what the spam rates are telling you will help you adapt in order to navigate this fine line.

Now, let’s look at some of the best email subject lines that promise instant gratification.

Great Examples of Instant Gratification Subject Lines

1. “How to email a busy person (including a word-for-word script)” – Ramit Sethi

A word for word script means they’ve done all the work for you.

2. “Steal these email templates…” – Digital Marketer

3. “We Need Your Help! Get $5 in Free Gas For Completing Our Survey” – Pacific54

They had a 46% open rate with this subject line.

4. “Grow your email list 10X faster with these 30 content upgrade ideas” – Optinmonster

5. “Your beauty issues, solved” – Sephora

6. “Key Takeaways from SaaS Connect 2018” – Kiwi Creative

Busy people love when they can get the “Cliffs Notes” from an important webinar, seminar or meeting. This one earned Kiwi Creative a 60% open rate.

#2 Generate a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) Response

FOMO is a relatively unresearched psychological phenomenon that compels a person to do something for fear of missing out on information, an experience or something else that others have.

It’s this urge that keeps many tied to their social media feed, just waiting for the next post to appear when they’re not working. And sometimes when they are. Researchers are just beginning to conduct studies and learn what drives this overwhelming urge.

But from a marketing perspective, FOMO has been long established and confirmed through analytics, A/B testing and professional experience.

The average person can’t help but click if they feel they might be missing out.

Examples of FOMO Subject Lines

Using FOMO requires a delicate balance. Because marketers have been using it perhaps since the invention of the printing press, it can feel “played out.”

Explore new and different ways to generate a FOMO.

7. “Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring” – Warby Parker

Warby Parker is an online prescription eyeglasses company. Whether they know if your prescription is expiring or not, this is a very FOMO line.

8. “Happy Birthday Lindsay – Surprise Inside!” – Rent the Runway

The fact that’s it’s Lindsay’s birthday makes this not only feel exclusive. It also feels like whatever the offer is, it’s only good today.

9. “Hey” – Barack Obama

This one probably only works if you’re the President of the United States or high profile celebrity. But it’s definitely a FOMO subject line in that context.

10. “You’re missing out on points.” – Jet Blue

For people who are trying to build up travel miles, this is the worst thing they can hear. They want to know how to fix it ASAP. They do that by opening the email when they see best email subject lines like this one.

11. “The timer’s going off on your cart!” – King Arthur Flour

#3 Evoke Curiosity

People are very curious creatures. Curiosity and FOMO often overlap. But not always. The psychology behind them is very different.

Respected Professor of Psychology and Economics, George Loewenstein explains curiosity this way. It’s a feeling of mental deprivation caused by the perception that there’s a gap in understanding.

Deprivation is a strong word. But it’s very well-placed. When something makes a person curious, they feel like there’s a void that they must fill. It’s like they haven’t eaten in a week. And you just offered them a hamburger.

It’s the continual pursuit of knowledge that drives people to click the best email subject lines while leaving the rest of their inbox unattended.

Great examples of Curiosity Subject Lines

Curiosity is a very personal thing. What makes one person overwhelmingly curious will leave another scrolling by. Know your audience. Know what makes them curious and you’ll create the most amazing headlines.

Here are some companies who do curiosity very well.

12. “Not Cool, Guys” – Buzzfeed

We want to know what the “guys” did. Don’t you?

13. “DO NOT Commit These Instagram Atrocities” – Thrillest

Be careful with all caps. This was just enough to get attention without feeling like screaming or spam.

14. “Buffer has been hacked – here is what’s going on” – Buffer

Yes, they really sent this email when they got hacked. It allowed them to be the first to inform people about the event. They could control the conversation around it because they were proactive. And they used this exceptional curiosity-evoking subject line.

15. “Last Day To See What This Mystery Email Is All About” – Grubhub

16. “A faster donkey” The Hustle

Who wouldn’t want to know what The Hustle is talking about?

4. Craft Humorous Subject Lines

The world-renowned Psychologist, author and inventor of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud believed that humor was one of the few ways that you could connect straight to a person’s subconscious mind. It melts the mental blocks, defense mechanisms and logical thinking that may prevent a person from connecting with another.

If you can just make a person laugh, you’ve just earned a moment of their time.

Over the years, people have built up barriers to marketing strategies. Some people see FOMO subject lines coming a mile a way. They don’t click. They know what you’re trying to do.

People with these strong anti-marketing barriers don’t react the same way to humor.

Great examples of Humorous Subject Lines

Of course, the issue here is that what one person finds to be “ha ha” funny someone else might find to be in poor taste or even offensive. You’ve got to consider your audience and find what works with them.

Through it, you develop the best email subject lines.

Some of the best funny email subject lines we’ve seen include:

17. “Abra-cord-abra! Yeah, we said it.” – Quirky

Quirky is a website that connects inventors with companies that may want to buy their ideas. This corny play on words is followed by a conversational statement that people commonly make after saying something silly. It earned a lot of clicks.

18. “Yes, I’m Pregnant. You Can Stop Staring At My Belly Now.” – Baby Bump

19. “NEW! Vacation on Mars” -Gozengo

20. “Pairs nicely with spreadsheets” – Warby Parker

21. “Where to Drink Beer Right Now” – Eater Boston

The pub sent this one at 6:45AM on a weekday, making the timing part of the joke. You’re probably on your way to work at that time.

And we’ve got a bonus and possibly the winner.

22. “*Don’t Open This Email*” from Manicube.

If you found none of those remotely funny, it speaks to how hard it can be to pull off the perfect zinger. But don’t be afraid to explore humor as a means to overcome objections and barriers that stand in the way of a person opening an email.

#5 Create Outrageous Subject Lines

Boring, everyday subject lines don’t earn clicks. Even if you’re a buttoned-up professional brand, few audiences will respond to a simple description of the email.

You need to be bold. It helps to be a bit audacious. You can find ways to be a little outrageous without straying from your brand.

Being outrageous doesn’t mean stoking controversy or getting under people’s skin unless you really know your audience will appreciate it. It’s more about causing and “I can’t believe they said that” or “what is this all about?” feeling.

Great Examples of Subject Lines That Got A Little Outrageous

23. “Let’s get fat, Boston” – Thrillist

It was an email exploring some of the best restaurants in Boston. It’s a bit off-beat. But it makes you look.

24. “How to organize your VHS collection” – HubSpot

25. “Is Twilight the best movie ever made?” – HubSpot

26. “Our Blades are F***ing Great.” – Dollar Shave Club

Know your audience. Some audiences will find cursing funny or non-conformist. Others find it offensive. Dollar Shave Club gambled on this one and won big with their target audience.

#6 Make Them Feel Like an Insider

Why do we like inside jokes? People want to feel like they’re a part of something. And see something that they know only a handful of people will understand, they feel special.

This is true whether your audience is in MENSA (the club for geniuses) or in a certain field of work that uses a certain language. Using insider subjects further connects your audience to you because it shows that you’re an insider too.

Great Examples of Insider Subject Lines

Don’t worry. We’ll give you the explanation in case you’re an outsider among these groups.

27. “!” – DiningIn

People who use messaging apps will recognize an exclamation point as a stand-in for words. By using it the sender is expressing that they have something very exciting to show you when you open the email. The target audience will understand this and have to click.

28. “As You Wish” – Uncommon Goods

It’s a reference to the cult fantasy classic “Princess Bride”. Choose movies that are very likely to be viewed by your audience.

29. “Coffee’s for closers” – Glengarry Glen Ross

Not a known email subject line. But it should be. Anyone in sales or marketing would likely get the reference.

30. “11 is a crowd. We’ll wait.” – ThinkGeek

You may want to brush up on your binary code for this one. 11 in the binary representation for 3.

#7 Stroke Their Ego

We all have one. An ego. When someone else says something that makes you feel good about yourself, you probably just made a friend. A momentary feeling on vanity is what a person gets out of a subject line like these.

You may not think of vanity as an emotion.

But it certainly is. The best email subject lines tap into emotions. You don’t have to be a narcissist to feel it. People with all levels of pride and self-importance can be positively triggered when you stroke their ego.

Great Examples of Ego-Stroking Subject Lines

31. “Your Butt Will Look Great in These Workout Pants” – Fabletics

Who doesn’t want to hear that?

32. “Wow! Fantastic credit score.” – NerdWallet

For someone who’s financially-savvy, that’s a great compliment.

33. “So What Did You Think? Write a Review.” – REI

Demonstrating that you value a person’s opinion is a great way to stroke their ego.

34. “? Want a Custom Emoji of Tullamore & 6 Months FREE Walks?” – Wag

This is a personalized subject line. “Tullamore” is the dog of the person receiving this email. For pet lovers, the pet is an extension of the person’s sense of self. Complimenting the pet or offering them something special can be just as powerful as targeting the person’s ego.

35. “Hey [First Name]! Which one of these would be your favorite read?” – EmailMonks

#8 Feel Their Pain

When you can speak to a target audience’s pain points, you show that you understand how people use your product and why. It demonstrates that you think from the side of the consumer rather than from your own business from time to time.

Great Examples of Pain Point Subject Lines

36. “Since we can’t all win the lottery…” -Uber

This subject line speaks to a very specific audience. 70% of lottery players are in their 20’s and 30’s. Around 90% of players have jobs but say they’re having trouble paying their bills. These individuals are also the most likely to become Uber drivers.

37. “How to Survive Your Next Overnight Flight” – Thrillest

38. “Stop wasting time on mindless work” – Evernote

39. “[Pain Point] | [Company Name].” -Demanddrive

DemandDrive uses this template again and again to generate high open rates.

40. “[First Name], here’s how you can [Benefit from our Solution]” -Growthhackers

Similarly, Growthhackers has found a template that works well with their audience. They use it repeatedly to increase clicks.

As your exploring how to create the best email subject lines, think systematically. Explore by using a handful of templates that you can quickly fill in to generate a compelling headline.

#9 Create a Sense of Urgency

You’ve probably stumbled upon some classic TV commercials that say “Act now!”. And this is what you can try with your subject lines too. Although not necessarily these exact words, you can convey scarcity and urgency in your subject lines to urge subscribers to act immediately. However, be sure to use this subject line only when the campaign calls for it.

This is the oldest trick in the marketing book. But it still works in digital marketing. The analytics prove it. It’s definitely among email subject line best practices.

When someone feels that they have time to do something later, they put it off. They think at the time that they’ll come back. But they rarely do.

When people feel like they must open something now or miss out, they at least take a peek.

A study reported in the New York Times found that 20% of people are chronic procrastinators. If they don’t feel like they have to do it now, they won’t. The Journal of Consumer Research found “being busy” was one of the top social media “humblebrag” statements.

People like to stay busy. They like to be perceived as busy. They often don’t feel that they have time to open your email.

To get the highest email open rates, make people feel like they must open this now — not later.

MailChimp found the following benefits of using time-sensitive words:

Urgent – Increased email open rate by 79%

Breaking – Increased email open rate by 68%

Important – Increased open rate by 55%

Alert – Increased open rate by 31%

This is definitely a tip that you’ll want to follow up with analytics to make sure “time sensitive” words aren’t getting emails sent to spam folder. That 79% increase will be worth it for some when compared to spam rate.

Subject lines like these that can land some businesses in the spam folder. So they should always be tested first on a small segment of the email list.

Note there are many more ways to express urgency. Try these.

Great Examples of Time-Sensitive Subject Lines

41. “Your 7-figure plan goes bye-bye at midnight…” – Digital Marketer

42. “[New Product] just arrived. Only 15 left.”

43. “Before you write another blog post, read this” – Sumo

44. “Extended for a day! Get Free shipping through Friday.” – VerticalResponse

#10 Avoid Spam Language

You don’t always intend for the subject to sound spammy. But over the years, certain language has been flagged as spammy language by spam filters. because of the rampant misuse of that headline.

Experts estimate that each charity loses around $15K a year of would-be donations because they accidentally said something “spammy”. You don’t spend time and money building a quality subscriber list just to be sent to spam.

Act-On has created a great list of phrases an innocent business might use that sends them straight to spam.

Those words include but aren’t limited to:

Opportunity

Satisfaction Guaranteed

No Purchase Necessary

Eliminate Debt

FREE {In all CAPS}

Success

Hot

Bad Credit

Increase

Make Money Fast

This list may elicit feelings of nostalgia for the days before we had spam filters to filter this stuff out. But some of these are completely innocent words that are often used in spammy ways. You might not choose to avoid these words altogether. But definitely see how they are received by your audience.

Avoiding spam filters will help improve email deliverability.

#11 Segment Your Best Email Subject Lines

Segmentation is a form of personalization. You divide email recipients into groups based on a major trait that they share. This could be:

Age range

Industry

Geography

Job Role

Behaviors

Then customize the subject line based on this trait to make it more relevant.

The open rate for a segmented email is about 14% higher than non-segmented. When something feels customized and relevant, people are more likely to see it. On average, a business can increase email-generated revenues by 58% by segmenting.

#12 Personalize it

Personalizing is a step up from segmentation. It’s when you send a specific email to a specific person at a specific time.

You might include their name in the subject line. But personalization goes far beyond this.

Personalized emails may:

Welcome a new subscriber

Thank a person for their purchase

Suggest other items based on their purchase or viewing history

Remind them to finish a video

It’s both the timing and message that make these types of email subject lines so effective. This kind of timing is only possible through email automation.

This Email Monday chart shows how businesses are benefiting from email automation.

Examples of Personalized, Automated Email Subject Lines

45. “Hi, { Customer Name}, I’m deleting your Envira account” – Envira

This is a bold move that could backfire. Obviously, if you say you’re unsubscribing someone or deleting their account, you have to do it if they don’t respond. But a message like this can renew interest with a person who never opens emails.

46. “{Customer Name}, Did you miss out on some of these new features?” – Animoto

47. “Email subscriber exclusive: [Product name] sale is here.” – VerticalResponse

That product would be something this individual recently viewed. Automation can pull it into the email to make that missed sale. This kind of email is one of the top tricks for improving eCommerce ROI.

48. “Were we boring you, {Customer Name}?” – Unbounce

49. “Hey, forget something? Here’s 20% off.” – Bonobos

50. “Steve, where’d you go?” – Unbounce

The Best Email Subject Lines

The best email subject lines are built around your target audience and brand. But you can definitely get some ideas by looking at what’s working for other companies. These 50 examples will have you well on your way to creating high-performing subject lines of your own.

Are you getting the most out of your email marketing investment? We can help you achieve a higher ROI. Contact us today.

The post Create the Best Email Subject Lines with These Useful Tips + Examples appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog.

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deniscollins · 5 years

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These CEOs broke the rules at a secretive summit to expose a billionaire’s crude sexual comments

What would you do if you attended a financial industry summit which has a privacy policy that confines the information shared by industry leaders to only those who pay $25,000 to attend, and a keynote speaker makes crude, inappropriate remarks, including comparing his wealth management strategy to picking up women for sex: (1) Share the comments on Internet to expose them, (2) maintain the policy and say nothing because a financial person’s credibility is wholly dependent on their ability to be discreet and keep information private, (3) something else, if so what? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

On the second day of one of the nation’s most elite conferences for wealth management CEOs, self-proclaimed “self-made multibillionaire” Ken Fisher shared his industry philosophy during a fireside chat at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in San Francisco.

Fisher, 68, had been previously honored at the Tiburon CEO Summit and has written 11 books, regularly writes newspaper columns on finance and has a net worth of $3.7 billion. His conversation on the main stage with Chip Roame, managing partner at Tiburon Strategic Advisors, was a keynote event open to all 220 participants. There were no competing panels.

But almost as soon as his session began, attendees said online and in interviews with The Washington Post, Fisher used the spotlight to make crude, inappropriate remarks, including comparing his wealth management strategy to picking up women for sex.

Roame, who moderated the discussion, did not intervene or ask Fisher to stop.

In the audience, attendees quietly and privately discussed their shared dismay about what they characterized as a pattern of behavior. The backlash did not go public, though, until hours later — in large part because of a summit-wide privacy policy meant to confine the information shared by industry leaders to only those who pay the $25,000 to attend.

At least three attendees refused to stay quiet, willfully violating the summit’s code of conduct to expose Fisher’s behavior with the hope of bringing reform to the wealth management world — which eventually forced Roame to address the matter publicly and Fisher to apologize.

Violating the summit’s media policy was risky, attendees said, particularly in the field of wealth management. A person’s credibility is wholly dependent on their ability to be discreet and keep information private. But those who spoke out said this circumstance warranted an exception.

“I chose to speak out because maintaining a culture of silence around harassment and assault protects those who abuse their power, which then further marginalizes underrepresented groups,” Sonya Dreizler, a speaker and consultant to financial services firms, told The Post.

Dreizler, who specializes in investing that delivers both financial and environmental or social justice returns, came forward after her friend and fellow summit attendee Alex Chalekian shared a video of himself recapping Fisher’s behavior, which he called a “true debacle.”

Chalekian, founder and CEO of Lake Avenue Financial in Pasadena, Calif., said Fisher talked about dropping acid and his belief that charities are immoral. According to Chalekian and other attendees, Fisher also made crude comments about genitalia and mentioned financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges earlier this year before dying by suicide in prison.

“Things that were said by Ken Fisher were just absolutely horrifying,” Chalekian said in the video.

Rachel Robasciotti, founder and CEO of wealth management firm Robasciotti and Philipson in San Francisco, also publicly condemned Fisher’s words “at great personal risk to my career,” she told The Post in an interview.

“If we want things to be different, we have to be different,” Robasciotti said. “And that means not condoning that kind of behavior."

In the days since the summit, Roame has denounced Fisher’s remarks in a lengthy statement and vowed that the powerful billionaire will never again be invited back to the Tiburon CEO Summit.

“These comments lacked the dignity & respect that should be expected by any Tiburon CEO Summit speaker or attendee,” Roame said. “These were unacceptable words at Tiburon, in the wealth & investments industry, and in society generally.”

Roame also said he “commended” Chalekian for “having the strength to go public.”

Fisher has been forced to respond, too, both apologizing for and defending his words.

In an email to his employees at Fisher Investments that was obtained by Forbes, Fisher was dismissive of criticism from attendees and wrote that Chalekian’s video “mischaracterizes” what he said at the summit.

“It attributes views to me that I neither expressed nor endorsed,” Fisher wrote. “… Many of you are likely familiar with my sometimes colorful means of expressing myself. I like to say whatever is on my mind. I want to you to know I am sincerely sorry if anything I’ve said in your presence offended you. That certainly was never my intention.”

Fisher was more defiant in an interview Wednesday with Bloomberg News.

“I have given a lot of talks, a lot of times, in a lot of places and said stuff like this and never gotten that type of response,” Fisher told Bloomberg. “Mostly the audience understands what I am saying."

On social media, other financial advisers and wealth managers came forward claiming they had heard Fisher make equally crass comments while speaking at previous industry summits.

At one conference in Dana Point, Calif., last year, Fisher said it was “stupid” to brag about financial performance in a direct mailer, according to video of the summit obtained by Bloomberg. Fisher compared that move, according to Bloomberg, to “walking into a bar and you are a single guy and want to get laid and walking up to some girl and saying: ‘Hey you want to have sex?’ You just turn yourself into a jerk.”

When asked what he would have done differently in life, Fisher said he would have “had more sex,” according to the video.

Fisher told Bloomberg he is an “easy guy to dislike” because he manages so much wealth, adding that he regretted taking the speech invitation because it ended up being a “pain in the neck.”

“I wonder if anybody will be candid at one of these Tiburon events again,” he told Bloomberg.

On Thursday, Fisher expressed contrition.

“Some of the words and phrases I used during a recent conference to make certain points were clearly wrong and I shouldn’t have made them. I realize this kind of language has no place in our company or industry,” he said. “I sincerely apologize.”

Robasciotti said her critique of Fisher’s behavior has nothing to do with being candid.

“I don’t need political correctness; I need responsibility from the leaders,” she said. “No other CEO is going to do a deal with me if they’re thinking about me as a sexual object.”

Robasciotti identifies as a queer black woman in an industry overwhelmingly occupied by white men. Fisher’s words, she said, and the message they reinforce are what make it more difficult for people like her to succeed.

“If there aren’t women and people of color in the industry,” she said, “it’s because they don’t feel welcome.”

She is trying to change the work environment from the inside by hiring LGBTQ people, people of color and women and co-founding a social justice investing platform called RISE (Return on Investment and Social Equity), which has partnered with consumer activism and workplace equity groups to tackle the issue of workplace sexual harassment.

The initiative, called Force the Issue, is what she spoke about at the summit — just minutes after Fisher’s keynote address ended. The irony, Robasciotti said, was not lost on her.

“This exact issue was parallel,” she said.

#Ken Fisher #Sexism

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