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demenior · 3 years

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Dem’s Big Post About The Spn Fics Part 1/2

aka The Wrap Up to celebrate To Exist Again and To Become a Man now being finished!

(This will be a long post. This is your only warning.)

Admittedly this is a bit of a weird thing to be doing, but I wanted to try it out for 3 reasons:

I love talking about my own work and

It functions really well as a self-reflective tool for me to improve on, and

I can answer some big questions people might have because there was a LOT of worldbuilding in these stories.

We’ll start off with reflective stuff, and move into the juicier world-building focused stuff later into the post. There will be major spoilers for both fics to come!

To begin with a funny anecdote, Why Did I Write These Stories?

I was beginning to write and work out the story that I wanted to write for Spn (what will now be To Destroy a Man. As I was writing the scene, I realized I had a LOT of ideas and while I was trying to avoid as much exposition as I could, it became quickly apparent that I was needing to create my own au (this scene eventually became chapter 34 of To Become a Man). A short prequel seemed like a good idea, to quickly hash out the ‘prior’ events that I needed to go through so all the readers could be on the same page. While plotting out prequel points, I realized Sam and Dean were going to have drastically different experiences during the same time period, and I was trying to figure out who’s pov would be better for which scenes, and how to keep momentum when they’re going through such radically different types of changes. Ultimately I decided to split their povs, which I also thought would be a fun project! And I naively assumed each pov would take about 2 chapters each, rounding out to maybe 15k total.

I had my ending points: Dean n Cas soul-merged and (basically) married, Cas on the lam from heaven and a complete anomaly, and Sam juiced up full of powers and a weird mix of archangel and antichrist but still 100% human and ready to fight God.

Now I needed to add weight to these changes, so I wrote 200k of build-up.

Am I proud of these fics?

OF COURSE I AM!!! These are the longest fics I’ve ever written AND finished AND in the fastest freakin turnaround ever (both were finished writing, barring edits, in like 6 months holy shit)

I didn’t write a single scene that I “didn’t” want to write. If I had trouble writing it, as in it was fighting me, I scrapped it. Most obviously was the scene in Dean’s pov where he and Sam were intended to meet some other hunters and Dean declines working with them because he’s nervous about being outed as queer. It was meant to be a good scene! I wanted to introduce some new characters! But it just wasn’t working so I said ‘thank you, next!’.

But it means this story was an absolute joy to write. Because for a while all I was doing was ‘if I wanted to write one scene into supernatural, what would I write?’ and then just DID that!! It’s why there’s a lot of ‘Salmondean do dumb shit or have really dumb heartfelt conversations’ scenes.

Would I change anything?

If I’d been less eager to start sharing, I might have planned out the story beats a little tighter so there were less ‘soft’ chapters and a draw/pull for people to come back and keep reading. I felt Dean’s story specifically lagged at points and could have used some tighter editing (there was a noticeable lull in directed movement between Dean n Cas getting together, until Sam corrupts Amy).

I also probably would have held Sam’s story until I’d finished Dean’s so I could make the two line up better! Probably could have inserted more scenes into Sam’s fic that way, and made sure things were a little more consistent. In an ideal world one concept I had was to release 1 chapter from each pov every week that would correspond to the same time frame so we’d be getting real-time SalmonDean pov narrative. Unfortunately that didn’t work!

The biggest takeaway overall is for me to focus more on what moves the plot, and to make my scenes do more than 1 thing so I can cut down on wordcount and increase my efficiency.

Of course every writer will find things they want to fix in anything they’ve ever written, so these are minor “mistakes” at best. I’m so dang proud of these fics.

Onto more interesting things!

How Did I Put These Fics Together (because it’s different than anything I’ve ever done before)

Normally when I write a story, I plan out the beats I need to hit, see where I need to insert any kind of foreshadowing/buildup, and then write from A to B to C and so on and so forth. Hence, this is why I can normally post things as I complete chapters, because it’s all a linear progression.

For these two stories, rather than linear plot/a normal story structure, I just sat and free-wrote any and every scene that came to mind and then pieced them into a kinda-linear form like putting a quilt together. You’ll note that this is why there’s not a lot of internal callback or a feeling of sense of time flowing within the fic (save for points where I went back and specifically edited it in). How long does the story take place over? Hard to say! Your author has the barest grasp on linear time even on a good day (how many times did I say ‘see you on [wrong day]’ at the end of chapters lmaaoooo)

This also meant EXTENSIVE editing on the back end once I decided in what order I wanted my ‘quilt pieces’ to be. Hard to say if this is a bonus or a negative!

But I did want to try and capture the vibe of the lives they lead, as a bit of a ‘slice of life’-style story, when the slice of life is the profound weirdness of the Winchester roaming life, and how things are status quo- until everyone almost dies oh shit!! And then they have to keep living because no therapy we die/undie like Winchesters. Do I think I captured this effectively? Hmm. Good question.

Dem where the FUCK did the inspiration for a lot of the magic and creature weirdness even come from?

Honestly? Music, primarily. And completely mishearing lyrics!

Nightwish ‘Ever Dream’: the line is ‘my song can but borrow you grace’ and because my brain is scrambled eggs on a good day, I heard ‘grace’ ‘song’ and ‘borrow’ in that order and have had, for YEARS, the mental image of Cas borrowing Dean’s soul to power himself up for battle.

From there I’ve always been enamored with the ‘wavelength of celestial intent’ descriptor that Cas drops in s6 for “what he is”.

I also really like ocean metaphors mostly because I’ve been obsessed with the ocean and things in it since I was like… 5??? So really this was me just rolling with what I know lmao. I love using (somewhat) accurate scientific metaphors for very intangible things!

I was also finishing my degree in biology/ecology while writing these fics and I think it shows

Stars ‘The Night Starts Here’ gives us the series title and the fic titles. Except for ‘To Exist Again’. TEA was almost titled ‘The Upwards Fall’ because I wanted all 3 of the Main Stories to have titles from this song, but I couldn’t make anything else work in tandem with the series name ‘The Love It Takes’ while also working for Sam’s personal story. So Sam, as always, is the rebel <3

Stars ‘Up In Our Bedroom, After The War’ is basically the vibes of the whole story. TFW has been, literally, to hell and back!!! There’s a bit of melancholy and sadness, a lingering dark, but the chance of a bright new tomorrow and a soft start.

Let’s Talk About Themes in The Story! What were you looking to accomplish?

My earliest notes for TFW are, as follows:

Dean’s journey of self-discovery (who am I when I’m not trying to be Dad?)

Dean wants to settle down! He wants a big family! He wants to be domestic!

Basically: Dean doesn’t want to have a short life of hunting. He wants to live!

Dean’s journey of realizing he’s bi, and him accepting that

Dean’s relationship to Sam is both older brother/parent

And continuing Dean balancing these roles while also letting Sam be an adult

Dean’s Big Issues/Fears about never being good enough for people to want to stay with him (these are effectively highlighted in that Cas thinks he’s not useful enough to be wanted)

Sub Plot:

Castiel’s autonomy

Cas’ fall from grace, to trying to restore Heaven, to wrecking it further

He’s majorly depressed by the end of s7 (before purgatory)

Wants to stay in Purgatory but doesn’t tell Dean

Remains depressed after leaving, but resolved to keep living on because he’s clearly meant for something

After the seraphim reveal: does he have free will?! How does he grapple with this? How does he live in a way he can be proud of?

And lastly

Sam gets his powers back CAUSE THATS HOT

where tf did they go????

he got them from Lucifer?????

sleeper agent??????

Sam is The Chosen One

Accepts that he is More Than Human and to celebrate all parts of him

Lucifer and Sam friends?? Work together????

Sam needs autonomy in his choices/his life

If you compare these to the overall arc of TFW within the two stories, I think I got a lot of them! But you’ll also note a lot of these things aren’t concrete goals that are easily measurable (ex: Dean wants to learn to bake pie. In chapter 1 he starts a fire in the kitchen. By the end of the story he finally makes A Good Pie.) part of the lack of concrete milestones was why I felt it was important to tell Dean (and Cas’) story by going back to the point they meet, in s4! Dean’s gradual change towards his feelings for Cas, his relationship to Sam (heavily influenced by the s7 events of this fic) and then his own relationship with himself were such slow burns that I felt it would be a disservice to try and cram a change like that into a timeline like “1 year”.

I felt like these subtle changes and adjustments actually felt a lot truer to life-- people often change in very small, gradual ways over time, even without realizing it and often times not consistently! If only we could all gain skills like the sims, where we can easily level up and remain at that high level of performance!

So the Guy Who Ate Satan, A Celestial Nuke that Developed Sentience, and Dean walk into a bar…

Sam’s story in Spn The Show has always been a ‘chosen one’ kind of narrative. Sam is living with one foot in the realm of the monsters, and I wanted to bring that back full force! It really makes sense for him that he should only continue to grow in power, might, and magic!! As the story progresses.

Cas also got a power up! I do desperately love in the show that he was kind of a grunt/nothing angel, and so even when he defected to TFW he was a huge help for them, but in the scale of things he was an annoying fly to most other angels. It really worked for the underdog story of s4/5. In this I wanted to give him a power up, and originally it was actually going to be close contact with Sam that eventually changed Cas into something unknown (you can still see traces of this in ch34 of TBAM, where Death remarks ‘Castiel could be [Sam’s] first creation’. But for a combo of reasons: how Sam’s magic needed to have intent, the entire concept of free will and consent, and how much I wanted Dean and Cas to have their effect on each other, I decided to go with the route that Cas has actually always been something angel-adjacent rather than becoming something new. TFW/Supernatural has always been about free will and making your own story, so I amplified that with Cas.

Dean has always been A Normal Guy, which is part of the appeal of him and Sam (2 normal dudes!) taking on the Very Not Normal. As explained above, Sam’s story is ‘normal guy finds out he’s the chosen one’ and so, in a story about very large concepts and huge monsters and acts of magic, I felt it was very important to keep Dean as normal as possible. To the point it became a running gag to me, personally, in that ‘no matter what cool shit happens around him, Dean has to stay as Just A Guy’. And it’s a very humanizing role that allows the story to have the scale it does!

What were the most important themes in your story?

Sam’s Autonomy

I wasn’t even going to include the plot about Lucifer’s death in this story— that was going to come up in a later story, actually! And rather than Sam having ate Lucifer, the original idea was that they’d become a SamandLucifer entity (this harkens back to a concept I wanted to write when Swan Song first aired).

That storyline would have involved a lot of mental ‘Sam and Lucifer discuss what it means to live, which one of them is more worthy of life and if they do deserve to destroy the world for the pain they’ve been forced to go through, just to create the dichotomy of good and evil for everyone else’ discussions. There would be a lot of talk about how Sam hates and fears Lucifer for the pain Lucifer put on Sam, how Lucifer hates Sam because he and Sam are the same but Sam’s brother loves him anyways, etc.

Ultimately that was scrapped because Sam’s entire story in the show is always about how the world and everyone around him manipulates him and that he never actually gets to make choices about his own life or body that aren’t influenced or part of someone elses’ design. And that always bothered me that Sam was never allowed to be himself without having to be ashamed of it, and I wanted to make sure that Sam’s triumph of being proud of himself/proudly choosing to exist (again) was evident in his story

In the end I needed Sam to have this visceral win over his tormentor. As the story shows, in this case Lucifer was abused and put into a position where he was incapable of empathy and could only express himself in violence. Sam even understands this! But it doesn’t change the fact that Lucifer tortured Sam in unimaginable ways for thousands of years.

With that in mind I didn’t like the idea of Lucifer and Sam having “co-ownership” of their new identity, so I made the choice that Sam had to be the survivor. This tied in well with Sam’s new crusade to restore free will to the universe, because he’s breaking the narrative of his own story!

While Castiel wasn’t a pov character, his own autonomy and free will was equally as important. You’ll note that many, many paragraphs and conversations revolved around that theme and that in the end Cas followed himself (and love!) which ensured his freedom of self <3

The Brothers are WEIRD PEOPLE!!!! And Codependent to a Worrying Degree, but It’s Also How They Survive

It’s very hard to show “unusual” relationships when you’re writing from the pov of the two people who don’t think there’s anything weird about their relationship. Sure, they say ‘yeah it’s probably weird that we still share a bed’ but that’s kinda more in line with ‘I had a nightmare and I want to be close to the person who makes me feel safe’. Hashtag normalize co-sleeping when you need it!!!

From there I did try to point out how the boys have a weird perception of lifestyle in the little things they did.

From thrifting everything from clothes to appliances to books (thrifting is a valid lifestyle! It’s incredibly handy when you’re on a budget.)

To never actually having condiments or knowing how to use a dishwasher cause they’ve lived in a car, a motel room, or squatted in old houses their whole life.

I tried to have them wear each others’ clothes or casually swap things as much as possible. They live out of each others’ pockets!

Also the brothers are just weird people!! It’s hard to show from their pov, cause they don’t know how far off from normal they are, but like…

Everything about Sam and Amelia was NOT right like holy shit those two were wilding in their grief. They are very lucky things worked out for them and that they got to be hashtag Weird Girls together

Dean explicitly, in the story, gets horny after killing stuff!! Violence has done a number on his psyche and he’s gotten some wires crossed that maybe shouldn’t have been, or maybe could be worked out in a safe space but… uh… how likely do we think Dean is gonna go find a safe space to deal with any of his shit???

LOVE!!! Love is truly what this whole story is all about

If you’ve read the stories, you know how much emphasis I put on love. Love is the strongest force in the Spn Universe! It’s what averted the apocalypse and saved the world (Swan Song), it’s what created free will (Cas’ entire arc!) I love love!!!!

I went out of my way to not put any definitions on platonic love vs romantic love because I think love is love is love and how you express that is the difference. Neither is more powerful than the other because LOVE is powerful!! Sam and Cas are the most important people in Dean’s life and he loves them equally! He shows this by giving Cas kisses and stealing Sam’s socks.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when I have to hear explanations like ‘I love you, like a brother’ or ‘I love you, but like, as a friend because I’m a lesbian and you’re a man’ etc etc in media. If you have to continuously define how your characters love each other, then I don’t think you’re doing a good job of portraying their relationship. So you’ll see that I never put those parameters in any conversation. Dean DOES muse that he loves Cas differently than he loves Sam or Bobby, specifically because there is a romantic and sexual tone that his feelings for Cas takes, but not because he loves Cas more or less than he loves Sam or Bobby.

Which means, if you haven’t realized it yet, the Series + Fic Titles are meant to be a complete sentence because the power of love IS the thesis of this series:

The Love It Takes To Exist Again (Sam’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Become a Man (Dean’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Destroy a Man (TBA)

And now for fun stuff. Behind the scenes!!

What’s Something People Probably Don’t Know?

The demonic fungal/hydrothermal vent growth on Sam’s arm was thrown in literally as I was posting the chapter because I had just finished a 48 hour cram session of writing a report on tube worms for an ecology class (I was chanting my tube worm song as I wrote it) and it ended up being a HUGE hit with both readers and myself. But it was so last minute I had trouble fitting it in more throughout the rest of Sam’s story!

Cas’ orders? That may or may not have bound him to Dean and removed his free will? Were written into Sam’s story and I went ‘oh SHIT that’s compelling’ and then left them there as a ‘guess I’ll figure that out when I get to Dean’s story lol’

Originally Dean and Cas were supposed to get together after having their souls bonded, and have been in a UST limbo the entire time before that. Mostly because I think the entire concept of ‘we just got married of the soul I guess we should try dating?’ is very funny. CLEARLY the two of them were way more eager to fall in love than I anticipated (thank you Cas for your honesty) but you can still see shades of this original idea here and there (especially in ch35 of TBAM)

I never intended Dean and Benny to connect so well!! Benny was going to reunite with Andrea, she was going to live, and they were going to go off into the world and leave the story. And, uh, here we are. I’m still debating if I need to adjust the relationship tag or not haha. Polyamory is fun, especially when I was planning for Sam to be the polyamorous brother...

Speaking of, I can’t believe I forgot about Sam and his sexuality! If I rewrote TEA I would have had Sam contemplate more on his lack of sexual appetite due to trauma, up until he meets Benny and he gets to rediscover how he wants to be a sexual person

Many of Sam and Dean’s absolutely stupid sibling conversations were lifted near-verbatim from conversations I’ve had with my siblings

And lastly...

Dem where’s Kevin????????????? Where is our sweet baby boy????????

He’s SAFE!! He’s in the Hunter pipeline somewhere cause Sam handed him off to Bobby’s people. He and his mom are safe and at some point they probably got rib sigils like SalmonDean did against angels, but for demons. I didn’t have room in this story for him!!! But my baby boy is SAFE and I want to get him back to university because it’s WHAT HE DESERVES!!!!

To that point: god there were/are SO many characters that I just didn’t include in the story so far because I didn’t feel comfortable including them without stalling the story for them. To that point: pretty much everyone who is alive/dead in s8 is that way in this story, except Bobby who gets to live.

[Check Out Part 2 for reader questions!]

#the love it takes series #to exist again fic #to become a man fic #dem speaks

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gifted-burnout-archive · 3 years

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How do you write smut and not make it sound cringy? As a virgin who has never partaken in sex, what. the. fuck.

Your writing is a godsend btw <3

This is such a good question, first off, thank you for asking me of all people!

Smut is tricky, and you will always feel that what you write is cringe. every single time i write smut i worry i’ve done it wrong. And lack of real life experience can be daunting. Please remember that everything gets better with practise: for me, i’ve dabbled in erotica and romantic scenes for a lot longer than a twenty year old writer should have experience for, that is to say i had wattpad when i was 13.

everything is below the cut because this got longgggg

1. description. talk about the room around your characters: is it cramped, spacious? what does the couch feel like? what are they wearing and how quickly can they take it off? if their relationship is friendly before the scene, there might be nerves: describe them. If they hate each other, describe the adrenaline, the self-hatred for sleeping with that particular person. Look at things like breathing pace, body temperature, talk about the way the characters’ skin feels. are their hands calloused? Small and dainty? Talk about the way they move from one point to another: most people kissing tend to stumble a whole bunch. if you’re focused on making out, you aren’t thinking about your feet.

onto more graphic stuff. sweat, the nipping on skin when someone gives you a hickey, the electricity that passes through you when someone’s hands touch more sensitive areas of the skin. whispering seductively into someone’s ear, building the tension with verbal foreplay or actual foreplay.

2. the timing. sex scenes have a cookie cutter layout: a and b make out, a and b have sex in x y or z way, and they both get to finish by the end (unless you’re writing comedy, where you might find a male partner finishing very quickly). The average length of time sex takes in real life is between 5-40 minutes, for both partners to come. If you are doing a short, hide in a closet and fuck sort of scene, it will be short. Your descriptions are important still, but they should match the length of the scene. If it’s 40 minutes and multiple orgasms for a lady, it will be more drawn out, so so too with description. i am always aware of my timing when i write: i don’t feel comfortable writing longer sex scenes like other writers, so i stick to a timing in my head of between 10-25 minutes. you can cater to your own needs: readers don’t see the process of why you chose a short sex scene over a longer one.

3. words to use. the language of smut is weird to navigate. some terms are so outdated reading them hurts. again, take the scene you have and work with it. more common slang like cock, dick, cunt, pussy, all work in the right context. direct language like this works best in scenes that have pace, whether it be a manic stripping off of clothes in anger, or a quickie in the shower. there’s aggression in some of the words that matches the enemies to lovers tone: cunt especially gives off a much more male-domineering vibe to a situation, unless you reverse expectations.

on the other hand, words like shaft and member, pearl or bud (for describing the clit), they have a much softer read to them. slower scenes work well with softer language, and i’ve often found it easier to focus on emotion and feeling in these scenes. for penetrative sex, you don’t really talk about the vagina so much as what sensations occur upon penetration. softer language works for that softer feel.

if you want sweet sex, talk about feelings (emotional, physical); if you want rougher sex, talk about other senses (what kisses taste like, the smell of sweat in the air, hearing grunts and moans, seeing your partner’s body), focus on more primal ideas.

4. rolling waves of pleasure. I absolutely despise describing cumming, and finishing off the sex scene in general, because in real life there’s an awkwardness to it. unless you’ve been with the same partner for years, there’s going to be some cringe there. but as an author, you can eliminate it: change the silence to revelation. but cumming in general is hard to write. the language for it always feels weird, especially for girls cumming, because no one has really figured out what that sensation is. we only compare it to other ideas. rolling waves of pleasure is the most common phrasing of a woman cumming: it is overused, but it is effective.

There’s plenty of other phrases you can use: talking about building pressure or heat in the abdomen, the neediness that sets in when you are right on the edge, and finally relief of it when you do cum. this goes for girls and guys. you’ll find movement needs to seize when one partner cums, at least for a moment. women can have multiple orgasms during sex, with proper stimulation, but men realistically cum once ‘per round’. in short, men (and when i say men i am using it as a more common umbrella term for people with penises, obviously this isn’t always the case) have a longer recharge time. sex usually finishes, or takes a break, after the man has cum. their body will lose a level of control (usually best put as ‘movements becoming sloppy’), and they will thrust harder a few times before ejaculating, in the case of vaginal or anal sex when he finishes still inside a woman (again, woman is an umbrella term). finishing outside most likely involves using their hand to finish themselves.

which brings me to

5. oral is good. oral sex (hand to genital, mouth to genital) is so useful in sex scenes. in longer scenes, it will play a big part in setting the tone of the upcoming sex, in shorter scenes it can be the main event. there’s levels of experience that come from eating a girl out or giving blowjobs: there’s a level of skill in fingering someone to completion, or giving a handjob. clitoral stimulation is so important too: there’s a good percentage of women who won’t get off on penetration alone, so use that bundle of nerves generously.

and again, descriptors here matter on situation. it’s good to include lube or spit in the mix with oral, nobody wants a dry handy. in the case of penises, pleasure in variations on a repetitive process (added flares of blowjobs include spontaneous moves of the tongue, including the hand to some degree, teasing the tip of the shaft). for vaginas, there’s a lot more to work with (fingering and eating out at the same time, tongue, the clit cannot be overstated here). i always have some hesitation writing oral, and i think a lot of writers can feel that. why drag out the possible cringe even longer? but oral is foreplay, foreplay is important. if you’re going to bypass it, make a point of it: have a character insist on the ‘‘main event’ because of need, of time, of excitement.

6. you are going to feel cringe anyway + final tips. smut is always going to be a little weird to write. accept it now. but the thing is, even cringe smut is enjoyable. what i’ve offered is only my advice on this, from my point of view as to what makes decent smut. you could try some of this and realise it doesn’t work for you or your writing style, that’s ok. the best way to learning to write smut is a) practising and b) reading smut! pick up on phrases other authors use that you like, rewrite scenes in different locations, with different actions.

when i say use protection, do it. whether it’s contraception in the form of the pill or jag or patch or whatever, or a condom, promoting healthy sexual habits is never a bad thing. unless you got characters trying to actively get pregnant, or they live in some reality where contraception isn’t a thing/because female repression was everywhere until like 50 years ago and even then we sort of suck at letting women be free to have sex yada yada, protection is going to be used. and the pull out method is not protection, let’s not pretend it is. get that male love interest putting on a condom, get your lady lead (again, generalisation to the max) on some birth control, and let them have at it (note: condoms on after oral). if it’s a same sex sex scene, please remember that condoms are still definitely a good idea for two men if there’s penetration (obviously two women is a completely different story).

finally, don’t be mean to yourself. my most read story right now contains smut i’m not particularly in love with, but it was an attempt and people appreciate you even trying. writing good smut is not easy: and while us writers tend to hold ourselves to impossible standards, you really need to let them go with smut writing. it’s a try and fail process, it’s much more about learning what works for your writing than the act you’re putting on the page. you’ll fuck up more than once; you will succeed much more than you think you will. genuinely, just give it your best shot.

i believe in you nonnie, and i hope this helps in some way shape or form.

#let’s talk about smut baby #abby extensively explaining topics because she can never give a short answer

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mystiika · 4 years

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peter; re snape’s worst memory

today i want to talk about order of the phoenix, chapter 28: snape’s worst memory as this chapter is what forms a lot of people’s opinion about the relationship peter had with the rest of the marauders.

& i want to start off by reminding people that while this is snape’s memory, harry is viewing like some third party, able to see & hear everything but can’t pick up on anyone’s feelings or thoughts so it’s all solely his perspective. now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on.

so when harry first enters the memory, he’s calling everyone by their name, save for peter, who is referred to exclusively as wormtail, already implying that he’s something less than human or that harry doesn’t believe peter should have the dignity of being called his real name. this of course i only mean in regards to description, naturally the marauders calling each other by their nicknames doesn’t fall into the same category.

❛ Wormtail looked anxious; he was chewing his fingernails, staring down at his paper, scuffing the ground with his toes. ❜

so normally, this would add to the idea that he’s stupid & that his academic skills are lacking. i chose to explain this by simply saying that the boy just don’t test well? i headcanon him as having dysgraphia ( explanation here; it’s not long ) but in short, he is by no means stupid, in fact he’s quite intelligent ( as we find out later in the series ). dysgraphia is a learning disability that makes the act of writing difficult. it leads to problems with spelling, grammar, poor handwriting & difficulty organising thoughts on paper. so, going along with this learning disability, it means that, understandably so, for tests & exams, he’s a ball of anxiety. he tries his best, but he can’t help something making the same mistakes time & time again. he relies a lot on the friends around him for help with his academics but that crutch is gone as soon as exam time rolls around. it’s only natural that he blanks & might go so far as to cheat off a neighbour if he thought it would help & he could do it without getting caught.

next the boys start cracking jokes about how of the questions was about listing five signs to identify a werewolf. ❛ Wormtail was the only one that didn’t laugh. ❜ then peter goes on to list the few he remembered but mentioned how he struggled to recall all of them & to this comes the response of ❛ “ How thick are you, Wormtail? “ James said impatiently. “ You run around with a werewolf once a month— ” ❜

it’s at this point i’d like to remind you that no matter how close the boys were, they’re still all a bunch of asshole teenage boys? they’re not equip with all the patience needed to deal with peter’s academic shortcomings all the time. & it’s only natural that they would struggle to understand why peter couldn’t just function properly like the rest of them. there’s no diagnosis, no name or term you can associate with peter’s difficulties. you can be close, & still be annoyed with each other, especially with an issue that comes up as frequently as peter’s disability. james being impatient with peter about something as small as that doesn’t mean that they’re not still best friends, it doesn’t mean that james necessarily thinks peter is actually stupid, it’s just tiring to deal with all the time. i mean, they’re only 15/16. you can’t expect all that much of them.

& here is another reminder coming your way, my peter pettigrew is canon-divergent. i mean, i can’t exactly call myself entirely canon-compliant as i blatantly ignore canon information. but i also want to say that the pieces of information ignore, are pieces that i think don’t make sense given the rest of the canon information we have. as we all know & as i won’t shut up about, peter had a lot of contradictions in regards to his character so with that in mind, the next quote we have about peter is the following:

so, the set up is that james had nicked a snitch & was playing with it. ❛ James was still playing with the Snitch, letting it zoom further and further away, almost escaping but always grabbed it at the last second. Wormtail was watching with his mouth open. Every time James made a particularly difficult catch, Wormtail gasped & applauded. After 5 minutes of this, Harry wondered why James didn’t tell Wormtail to get a grip on himself, but James seemed to be enjoying the attention..... “Put that away, will you,” said Sirius finally, as James made a fine catch and Wormtail let out a cheer, “ before Wormtail wets himself with excitement. ” Wormtail turned slightly pink, but James grinned. ❜

i’m not gonna say that peter was completely uninterested in james, that’s just stupid. but frankly, the way this played out made him seem... simple? for lack of a better word anyway. i don’t doubt that he would have been mesmerized, hell i probably would have watched interested with my mouth open too, but the idea of him gasping??? that’s dumb af. he may have a learning disability but he’s not developmentally delayed. it just doesn’t make any sense given what else we know/find out about his character. i do, however, think clapping isn’t out of the realm of possibility, but it wouldn’t come from a place of blind adoration so much as the same vibe of my friend doing some tricks with a basket ball & me going “ayyyy” & clapping in response. this is also more so the reaction i would have expected from peters ‘ cheer ’. & kind of in that vein of admiring james, i do think that peter was in love with james, whether he realized it or not. i’ve talked about it a few times before so i won’t get into it again now, but i guarantee he would have liked watching james show off, similar to way there we’re told about some girls watching him off to the side at the time. i also know that sirius or remus probably called him out on it the odd time, so it’s not exactly a surprise that sirius would have called him on it & that peter would have been embarrassed. that being said, i think it would have been accompanied by a nice, strong glare in sirius’ direction. in order to be best friends with the group, he’d have to be able to keep up with him. so if you think he’d just sit there & take it one-sided all the time, you’d be wrong. maybe not in this particular moment but you best believe he’d give it back just as much as he took.

then of course comes the bullying of snape & the whole time peter is hanging around ❛ with an avid look of anticipation ❜, ❛ watching hungrily ❜, ❛ sniggering shrilly ❜. he’s reacting the same way as everyone else, but he’s singled out using descriptors with such negative connotations. the only way it makes any sense to me is remembering that this is what harry sees, what harry thinks. kinda like when someone starts to annoy you, suddenly everything they do becomes annoying, even if it’s the same thing as what anyone else is doing, it’s gonna be annoying because you find them annoying as a whole. idk, peter doesn’t exactly seem sadistic so this is the kind of “canon information” that i ignore just because it makes no sense. it doesn’t fit the story, the plot, the relationship he has with the marauders, & most of all, the type of person i make him out to be given everything else that we know.

this whole scene just kinda downplays the friendship peter has, & makes it out to be something it’s not. people say that they only kept peter around because he was like some sort of groupie, obsessed & admiring them at all times. but it doesn’t change the fact that sirius said they all would have died for peter. died. let that sink in & then tell me that they only kept peter around to boost their self esteem.

thank u 4 coming 2 my ted talk

#❘❙❚ ┊ metas ➳ ❛ the gap between understanding & misunderstanding can best be bridged by thought ❜#❘❙❚ ┊ p. pettigrew. character study ➳ ❛ be not afraid of growing slowly be afraid only of standing still ❜

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xonismsx · 5 years

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peter; on snape’s worst memory

since i’ve been thinking about/talking about peter a lot lately, today i want to talk about order of the phoenix, chapter 28: snape’s worst memory as this chapter is what forms a lot of people’s opinion about the relationship peter had with the rest of the marauders.

❛ Wormtail looked anxious; he was chewing his fingernails, staring down at his paper, scuffing the ground with his toes. ❜

so normally, this would add to the idea that he’s stupid & that his academic skills are lacking. i chose to explain this by simply saying that the boy just don’t test well? i headcanon him as having dysgraphia ( explanation over here; it’s not long ) but in short, he is by no means stupid, in fact he’s quite intelligent ( as we find out later in the series ). dysgraphia is a learning disability that makes the act of writing difficult. it leads to problems with spelling, grammar, poor handwriting & difficulty organizing thoughts on paper. so, going along with this learning disability, it means that, understandably so, for tests & exams, he’s a ball of anxiety. he tries his best, but he can’t help something making the same mistakes time & time again. he relies a lot on the friends around him for help with his academics but that crutch is gone as soon as exam time rolls around. it’s only natural that he blanks out & might go so far as to cheat off a neighbour if he thought it would help & he could do it without getting caught.

thank u 4 coming 2 my ted talk

#peter pettigrew #meta tag tba.#❘❙❚ ✘ ┊ inconsequential ▶ ❝ about peter ❞

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bloojayoolie · 5 years

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Being Alone, Cats, and Children: @manhattan acc waiting 4 U! Justice 66171 -10 years old, 66 lbs Good looking, very social & friendly, playful, tail waggy, good with cats - ignores dogs on his walks HOUSETRAINED TO BE KILLED - JUNE 25, 2019 Tender love! Justice will make a believer out of ANYONE! The shelter describes him as: welcoming, very friendly and social, soft bodied, affectionate, tail wagging, and attention seeking. But there's way more! This plump and super handsome love bug might be 10 in years, but is a million in heart. He is so inviting, and yes he will squeeze into your lap (as shown in his video) He is still very playful, but in a manageable and respectful way. He does super with other doggies, and drum roll... cats too! There's really nothing lacking in this boy, except for not having a home. . Justice wears a honey colored coat, with matching honey eyes that still sparkle, and a honey sweet, sincere smile. Quality inside and out! He is a role model for all doggies, and will bring charm and good vibes to any home. Now that he is placed on the TBD list, time is quickly closing in on him. Please message our page now to see him safely out of the shelter through fostering or adopting. . JUSTICE@MANHATTAN ACC Hello, my name is Justice My animal id is #66171 I am a male tan dog at the Manhattan Animal Care Center The shelter thinks I am about 10 years old, 66 lbs Came into shelter as owner surrender 6/16/2019 Reason Stated: OWNER/PERSON HEALTH - Age related Justice is at risk for medical reasons. Justice has GI tract issues which may be attributed to a pelvic fracture. Justice is recommended for further veterinary care and an orthopedic consult to better understand the causation of the ailment as well as determining future course of treatment and management. Behaviorally, Justice would do well in most homes. My medical notes are... Weight: 66.6 lbs Vet Notes L V T Notes Medical Assistant 6/17/2019 [DVM Intake] DVM Intake Exam Estimated age: 10-12 years Microchip noted on Intake? Yes History : Owner surrender. Reported to not have had a bowel movement for over a week and straining to defecate. Subjective: BAR Observed Behavior - Very friendly. Wagging his tail. No growling, lunging, biting, etc. Evidence of Cruelty seen -No Evidence of Trauma seen -No Objective T = P =120 bpm R =eup BCS 7/9 EENT: Eyes clear, ears clean, no nasal or ocular discharge noted Oral Exam: 2/4 PLN: No enlargements noted H/L: NSR, NMA, CRT < 2, Lungs clear, eupnic ABD: Tense, difficult to palpate deeply, could not palpate colon U/G: M/I MSI: Ambulatory x 4, skin free of parasites, a couple skin tags, no obvious masses, healthy hair coat CNS: Mentation appropriate - no signs of neurologic abnormalities Rectal: Clean externally Assessment: -Constipated -Geriatric Prognosis: Fair to good Plan: -CBC/chem -Gave 40 oz sweet potato with 3 mL lactulose and 2 tbsp miralax mixed in food -Continue sweet potato 40 oz SID -Lactulose 10 mL PO BID in food long-term -Miralax 2 tbsp PO BID in food long-term -Sedated AXR tomorrow, thorough rectal exam, +/-enema (sedation: torb 1 mL IM, dexmedetomidine 0.8 mL IM) -Consider high fiber diet (w/d vs. fiber response) SURGERY: Permanent waiver due to age 6/17/2019 [Spay/Neuter Waiver - Age] It is the policy of ACC not to perform surgery on any animal over the age of 8-10 years due to the higher risks incurred in a shelter setting. The veterinarian is hereby issuing a permanent spay/neuter waiver, from the spay/neuter requirements of the City of NY due to the estimated age of this animal. ACC does recommend you consult with your veterinarian to determine if surgical sterilization is appropriate. 6/17/2019 CBC: -Polycythemia-r/o dehydration vs. other NOSF Chemistry: NSF Total T4: wnl 6/18/2019 Hx: dog has been having dyschezia BAR H pink 1 sec sedate and examination/radiographs Radiology Findings: R Pelvic Fracture- ischeal pubic fracture near acetabulum with some compromise to the pelvic inlet; moderately large amount of stool in distal colon Rectal exam- firm presence in cranial rectum; manually removed firm presence (very hard feces) Several enemas given CBC CHEM 6/18/2019 CBC CHEM- NSF 6/20/2019 Hx: had episode of obstipation-- responded to therapy. Has a fractured pelvis which has narrowed the pelvic inlet a little (old wound) bar h pink 1 sec eating well; going to the bathroom eent- mod tarta pln- wnl hl- 120 hr reg nm ss fp abd- relaxed msi- amb x 4 A) h/o constipation fractured pelvis-- old wound-- as dog is fully ambulatory rec'd ortho consultation BM have been regular and non-painful 6/23/2019 Not eating well and seems constipated again has a fractured pelvis (old) that is most likely affecting this dogs capability to defecate A) dyschezia secondary to pelvic fracture and pelciv inlet compromise P) seek New Hope Details on my behavior are... Behavior Condition: 1. Green Behavior History Behavior Assessment During intake Justice was friendly and affectionate will all staff members who entered the room. He had a loose body the entire time and allowed all handling without issue. He allowed counselor to scan for a microchip, collar, put on a leash, and give pets on his head and body. Date of Intake: 6/16/2019 Spay/Neuter Status: Not Applicable Basic Information:: Justice is a large mixed breed, male, who was brought in as an owner surrender. Previously lived with:: 1 adult, 1 cat How is this dog around strangers?: Justice is said to be welcoming and outgoing with strangers. It is said that he will jump on strangers to give them kisses. It is said that when he plays with adults, he will play exuberantly and can be a little rough. How is this dog around children?: Behavior is unknown How is this dog around other dogs?: It is said that when on walks, Justice is non-reactive towards other dogs. How is this dog around cats?: Justice previously live with a cat and it is said that he was playful and respectful towards the cat. Resource guarding:: It is said that Justice will growl when having his toys taken away. It is unknown how he will react to having his food or treats taken away. Bite history:: No known bite history Housetrained:: Yes Energy level/descriptors:: Medium Other Notes:: It is said that Justice can be hard to control when he is pulling on the leash. It is said that he isn't bothered by thunderstorms or fireworks. It is unknown how he will react to having his food and treats taken away, being taken off of furniture, bring given a bath, having his coat brushed, or having his nails trimmed. It is said that he will growl when having his toys taken away. It is said that when unfamiliar people approach the house, yard, and family members, he will bark. It is said that he is non-reactive to being restrained and being disturbed while sleeping. Medical Notes: It is said that Justice might have a blockage. For a New Family to Know: Justice is described as friendly, affectionate, and excitable. It is said that his favorite activity is running around. It is said that when in the home he will follow people around and enjoys being in the same room as the family. His favorite toy is said to be ball and he enjoys playing fetch. He was kept indoors and is used to sleeping in the bed with family members. He was fed both dry and wet food twice a day. It is said that he is house trained and to never has accidents in the house. It said that when left alone in the house that he is well behaved. He has never been left alone in the yard and has never been crate trained. He knows the command to sit. For exercise he is used to slow walks on leash and is said to pull hard. He has never been let off of leash. Date of intake:: 6/16/2019 Spay/Neuter status:: No Means of surrender (length of time in previous home):: Owner Surrender (In home for 5 years) Previously lived with:: An adult and a cat Behavior toward strangers:: Playful and exuberant Behavior toward dogs:: Ignores them on walks Behavior toward cats:: Playful and respectful Resource guarding:: Yes, Justice will growl when toys are taken away from him. Bite history:: None reported Housetrained:: Yes Energy level/descriptors:: Justice is described as friendly, affectionate, and excitable with a medium level of activity. Date of assessment:: 6/17/2019 Summary:: Leash Walking Strength and pulling: Hard Reactivity to humans: None Reactivity to dogs: None Leash walking comments: None Sociability Loose in room (15-20 seconds): Highly social Call over: Approaches readily Sociability comments: Body soft, stays by assessor Handling Soft handling: Seeks contact Exuberant handling: Seeks contact Handling comments: Body soft, leans into pets Arousal Jog: Follows (loose) Arousal comments: None Knock: Approaches Knock Comments: loose Toy: Grips, tense Toy comments: None Summary:: 6/17: When introduced off leash to the female greeter dog, Justice allows approach but mostly keeps to himself. Due to medical concerns, Justice has not been able to receive further evaluation around other dogs. It is recommend future introductions are conducted at a slow pace to respectful dogs. Date of intake:: 6/16/2019 Summary:: Social, loose body ENERGY LEVEL:: Justice is described as having a medium level of activity. BEHAVIOR DETERMINATION:: Level 2 Behavior Asilomar: TM - Treatable-Manageable Recommendations:: No young children (under 5) Recommendations comments:: No young children: Due potential resource guarding of toys reported in his previous home and seen on his assessment, we recommend a home without young children. Potential challenges: : Resource guarding Potential challenges comments:: Resource guarding: Justice is reported to growl when his toys are taken from him. On his assessment, he became tense when the toy he was in possession of was touched. Please see handout on Resource Guarding. *** TO FOSTER OR ADOPT *** HOW TO RESERVE A “TO BE KILLED” DOG ONLINE (only for those who can get to the shelter IN PERSON to complete the adoption process, and only for the dogs on the list NOT marked New Hope Rescue Only). Follow our Step by Step directions below! *PLEASE NOTE – YOU MUST USE A PC OR TABLET – PHONE RESERVES WILL NOT WORK! ** STEP 1: CLICK ON THIS RESERVE LINK: https://newhope.shelterbuddy.com/Animal/List Step 2: Go to the red menu button on the top right corner, click register and fill in your info. Step 3: Go to your email and verify account \ Step 4: Go back to the website, click the menu button and view available dogs Step 5: Scroll to the animal you are interested and click reserve STEP 6 ( MOST IMPORTANT STEP ): GO TO THE MENU AGAIN AND VIEW YOUR CART. THE ANIMAL SHOULD NOW BE IN YOUR CART! Step 7: Fill in your credit card info and complete transaction HOW TO FOSTER OR ADOPT IF YOU *CANNOT* GET TO THE SHELTER IN PERSON, OR IF THE DOG IS NEW HOPE RESCUE ONLY! You must live within 3 – 4 hours of NY, NJ, PA, CT, RI, DE, MD, MA, NH, VT, ME or Norther VA. Please PM our page for assistance. You will need to fill out applications with a New Hope Rescue Partner to foster or adopt a dog on the To Be Killed list, including those labelled Rescue Only. Hurry please, time is short, and the Rescues need time to process the applications. Shelter contact information Phone number (212) 788-4000 Email [email protected] Shelter Addresses: Brooklyn Shelter: 2336 Linden Boulevard Brooklyn, NY 11208 Manhattan Shelter: 326 East 110 St. New York, NY 10029 Staten Island Shelter: 3139 Veterans Road West Staten Island, NY 10309 * NEW NYC ACC RATING SYSTEM * Level 1 Dogs with Level 1 determinations are suitable for the majority of homes. These dogs are not displaying concerning behaviors in shelter, and the owner surrender profile (where available) is positive. Level 2 Dogs with Level 2 determinations will be suitable for adopters with some previous dog experience. They will have displayed behavior in the shelter (or have owner reported behavior) that requires some training, or is simply not suitable for an adopter with minimal experience. Level 3 Dogs with Level 3 determinations will need to go to homes with experienced adopters, and the ACC strongly suggest that the adopter have prior experience with the challenges described and/or an understanding of the challenge and how to manage it safely in a home environment. In many cases, a trainer will be needed to manage and work on the behaviors safely in a home environment. PLEASE ADOPT. DON'T SHOP. FOSTERS ROCK TOO. :)

#funny #lol #humor #memes #meme #memehumor #dank memes #funny pics #rolf #lmao #Being Alone #Cats #an

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health-and-felicidad · 5 years

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I Went to a Real Life Body Positive Pool Party, Just Like in Shrill. Here's What Happened

Swimwear can be one of the most intimidating and anxiety-inducing garments that we own. On the flip side, it can also be one of our biggest sources of confidence. For many of us that grew up loathing our bodies, particularly if they did not at all resemble what was being marketed in swimsuit ads, swimsuit season comes with a lot of feelings.

As an adult, I have decided to reclaim the term “fat” as a personal identifier. It is just simply a descriptor of how I identify—fat, Black, femme, queer. Those are all descriptors for how I navigate the world. Identifying as fat or plus-size is important for me because it represents how I have to navigate the fashion industry in particular. Fashion is not at a point where they “don’t see size,” and it continues to prove incredibly challenging for fat or plus-size folks to shop for clothes that actually fit, both online and in-store.

RELATED: Women Are Still Grooming Their Bikini Lines—But Why?

The swimwear industry is notorious for being fatphobic and having a lack of options available for anyone over a size large. Not so fun fact: According to Dr. Deborah Christel, apparel design researcher and founder of size inclusive intimates brand Kade & Vos, only 10% of swimwear sold online is available in plus-sizes. Once the temperatures begin rising as summer months draw nearer, you begin hearing the phrases “beach body” and “bikini body,” and though no one may outright say that fat bodies are not included in those categories, it certainly has always felt implied. So if you are a fat or plus-size person who does not make drastic changes to your body during swimwear season, where do you go if you are not trying to put on a suit that makes you look like Aunt Carol going to water aerobics (no shade Aunt Carol, get your swim on, girl)? Where can you find a suit meant for the beach babe you were born to be?

RELATED: Ashley Graham Opens Up About Why She's Not Afraid to Show Her Stretch Marks on Social Media

Meet Kitty and Vibe, a swimwear brand that’s intentional about body positivity and size inclusivity. The brand created a new sizing metric that uses hip and inseam measurements to create the perfect fit. Each swimsuit bottom size comes in two size options for smaller booties and bigger booties. This eliminates the issue of sagging, bunching, or not enough coverage.

RELATED: Tess Holliday Just Rocked the Cutest Colorblock One-Piece Swimsuit—and It’s Perfect for Summer

In late July, the brand hosted a pool party that was like the real life version of the body pos pool party in Shrill. Kitty and Vibe aptly called their event “A Party for EveryBOOTY.”

RELATED: Chrissy Teigen Responds to Body Shaming Tweet: I 'Never Can Win'

When I arrived at the party, which was hosted at a swanky rooftop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I found myself experiencing the same feelings as Aidy Bryant’s character Annie, thinking to myself, “I should have the confidence of a journalist with press access to this rooftop party, but I’m a little nervous, shy, and hopefully I can get away with standing by the snack table for the night.”

This is typically how I feel attending bougie press events as a plus-size person. However, when I entered the party and saw the diversity (pardon the buzzword) around me, I immediately felt at ease. Stretch marks, wrinkles, melanin, and all body shapes were in attendance to celebrate this brand that too was celebrating them. It was incredible.

I chatted with 25-year-old founder Cameron Armstrong about the ethos of Kitty and Vibe, body positivity, and “A Party for EveryBOOTY.”

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HelloGiggles (HG): Was this the first event for the brand?

Cameron Armstrong (CA): Yes, it was. We’ve done a couple in-person markets, but this was really the first full on Kitty and Vibe brand event. It was really special because obviously Kitty and Vibe is all about inclusivity and diversity, celebrating each and every person exactly as they are. But it’s one thing to preach that message, and it’s another thing for people to actually buy into it and respond to it and love it and live it. And so when everybody showed up—and it was the exact kind of demographic of everything that we preach—it was so fulfilling.

HG: It was really cool for me to witness that myself, too. It’s like you said—it’s one thing to see it as a consumer or even read about it as a journalist. But to actually experience it is really nice. It’s great to see brands that actually hold up their end of the bargain.

CA: I was so giggly the whole night, just talking to everybody and saying, “I’m Cameron, I started it. This is crazy.” It was just the most authentic night. It was really special. I had some people tell me, “I came here alone and I was a little nervous, but I’ve made about six friends since being here.” I think that’s very telling.

RELATED: The Workout That Demi Lovato Says Makes Her Feel Sexy in Bikini Photo

HG: That’s awesome. So I have to ask, what is the story behind the name Kitty and Vibe?

CA: Yes, very unique name. So for me, when I created this mission for myself to fix all of the pains within swimwear, I really saw the biggest issue for women and swimwear being that, for a lot of women, nobody could ever find the perfect fitting bottom. It would either sag too much or be too skimpy. And then, also, the experience was so degrading and triggering for so many women. So it was these two issues that I was really focusing on finding solutions for: the fit and the experience. For me, I’ve always had a very small booty. And so whenever I would swim in the ocean, the water would pool [my bikini bottoms] and it would be so uncomfortable. So I took this real life experience with me being a woman in a swimsuit, and I started measuring anybody that would let me measure them. I found that the biggest differentiator across all these women was actually the inseam size, so belly button through the legs to the top of the tailbone. Which is why it’s called Kitty, because I couldn’t call it crotch. And from there, I developed these sizing metrics. In standardized swimwear, you have the small, medium, large, but in Kitty swimwear, within each of those hip sizes, there are two different inseam size options. That’s translated to the customer as S1 and S2. Then we ask, do you have a smaller booty or bigger booty? A smaller inseam or longer inseam? The simple questions really seem to work for the customer because our return rate is insanely low for e-comm fashion. It’s just giving her double the options; we’re not these one dimensional figures that can bucket into three size options. So that’s where Kitty comes from.

Vibe is taking a product [swimsuits] that’s been so historically worrying and depression-triggering, and flipping it on its head to make it something actually enjoyable. I wanted this product to no longer be an enemy of a woman, but a friend. I refer to each of the prints as vibes. So the way our business model works is we drop a new vibe. And when a vibe comes out, it’s available in every single size and every single style. So she can choose the perfect top that will fit her chest in her size and then the perfect bottom with the right coverage in her size, and then get it in that print. Whereas [for other brands], a print will come out that’s maybe only available in a triangle top, which is not supportive enough for someone with an E-size breast. So this really gives her the flexibility to curate the perfect suit for her. Then the suit’s delivered to your doorstep with a curated playlist that matches the vibe of your suit. …It really just personifies the product and it makes you so much closer to it, and it makes it less intimidating. So that’s Kitty and Vibe.

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HG: What does the design process look like?

CA: I’m so glad you brought that up. Because I have no experience in design, I do all of the design decisions on Instagram polls. So if you go on our Instagram, you’ll see a highlight called “Your Vote.” And any time that we are creating new prints or new shapes, new styles, new upgrades to the suits, the decision is made through majority vote. So I throw it up on a poll and I say, “Do you want this or this?” I think it was a no brainer, especially since I’m really not the expert, and who better to ask than the people that are going to buy it… It’s important to note that it’s the highest engagement we get on social media. It’s a really fun way to engage and get the customer hooked at early stages because she’s designing it herself. She’s choosing it.

HG: What exactly does the term body positivity mean to you?

CA: I think it’s tough because obviously it’s a buzzword, for sure… I think body positivity is important to look at it as not so black and white, where it’s like you have it or you don’t. It’s a never ending process of accepting who you are… I really think that the Kitty customer is someone who is on that journey of accepting themselves, but I don’t think she’s dwelling in self pity or self doubt. I think she’s seeing the glass half full and is very encouraged to support other women on the same journey. And it’s really about about sisterhood and lifting other people up along the way. I think the most important thing to me is that it is a process. It’s a journey, it’s not you have it or you don’t.

RELATED: Plus-Size Influencer Nabela Noor Opens Up About Her First Bikini Pic and How She Deals With Hateful Trolls

HG: What does diversity mean to you and especially in fashion?

CA: For all of my campaigns that I’ve done thus far, I have never hired professional models. The people that are in the campaigns are friends of friends or people that have reached out to the brand to say, “I love your message; I would love to be involved.” …I think diversity just means “real.” It’s not photoshopped. It’s not perfectly curated. And something that I really want to be mindful of is avoiding any type of exploitation. I think we’re walking a fine line now where, it’s amazing that the representation is so insisted upon, but I think it needs to be done in the most organic and tasteful way possible. Luckily, within Kitty and Vibe, the people who love the brand are diverse. That’s something I am so proud of because I think it’s rare to be able to create a movement that has such a wide spectrum of souls in love with what you’re putting out there. That’s probably what I’m most proud of; the authentic diversity that is seen when you look at the Kitty and Vibe community.

HG: That actually leads me to my next question. As a straight-sized person yourself—meaning someone who isn’t plus-size or fat—what inspired you to create a brand that is size inclusive, body positive, and diverse—especially when it would be really easy for you to just create small, medium and large? Or, on the opposite end, you could have just tapped into the tokenization of the body positive and diversity movements in fashion. What inspired the movement behind the brand for you?

CA: I’m so glad you asked this because it’s something that I think about really often. To be totally transparent with you, it’s also my biggest insecurity… and when I close my eyes and put myself back at the beginning stages of developing this company, and why I was so fired up about doing it, it was really about the conversations that I had in my past with so many women. Everything that I’ve ever encountered where a woman feels less than because of the way she looks. When I developed the company, I was only two years out of college. I remembered so many conversations with friends where they would just be in tears because they didn’t want to go out that night or they didn’t want to go to the beach—simply because they didn’t like the way they looked. And it was heartbreaking. The one thing that I personally have struggled with in my life is acne on my back, so when I’m in a fitting room with the light beaming down on me, the acne scars on my back are what hinders me from feeling beautiful… And I thought to myself, “I need to give these women armor. I need to give them a suit that really just makes them feel beautiful, and that allows them to get out of their head and really realize that what matters is her confidence.” And so I think it was getting a taste of that triggering feeling. And I just decided that I had to do something about it.

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HG: Would you say more of your larger sizes are being bought than your smaller sizes?

CA: You know, it’s really across the board. I am glad you’re asking me that because I would want to refresh the data and take another look at it. Definitely the most popular sizes were around an M2 or L2—which would be between a size 8 to 14. So it’s really in the middle—it’s not your size zero or the super stick thin that you see so often in advertising. But [the most bought sizes are] not only the highest sizes I offer. That’s why I really don’t ever use the term plus-size to refer to Kitty and Vibe. Because for me, [being inclusive] means every single size on both ends of the spectrum. And as I’m able to grow and as I’m able to hopefully start fundraising and really turn this machine, I have every intention of expanding sizes on both ends of the spectrum. I think we won’t settle until there’s a Kitty that makes every woman feel comfortable.

HG: When you first launched, did Kitty and Vibe always sell the range of sizes available now? Or did it start out smaller and then expand?

CA: At the very, very beginning, it went up to a size 16. Then, within 60 days, I was able to use the sales from the first batch to jump up to a size 20 and give another top size. And then this spring, with our one pieces, those go up to size 24. So it’s kind of like, as soon as I have the sales under my belt, we churn out more sizes.

HG: What do you see next for Kitty and Vibe?

CA: The possibilities are endless. The sizing is at the forefront—it’s just going to keep [expanding] on both ends. And then, also, I’ve had a lot of people say that the sizing metrics—your hips and your inseam—is so brilliant… So okay, where else can we take it? And I think there could be really great potential within intimates. Imagine if you had underwear that could do this, or you had leggings that could do this, or even jeans?! It really keeps me up at night… So I’m not sure what will be next, but I can’t wait to find out myself!

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source https://www.health.com/syndication/went-to-body-positive-pool-party-shrill

#health #mind #body #fitness

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mariaaklnthony · 6 years

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The King vs. Pawn Game of UI Design

If you want to improve your UI design skills, have you tried looking at chess? I know it sounds contrived, but hear me out. I’m going to take a concept from chess and use it to build a toolkit of UI design strategies. By the end, we’ll have covered color, typography, lighting and shadows, and more.

But it all starts with rooks and pawns.

I want you to think back to the first time you ever played chess (if you’ve never played chess, humor me for a second—and no biggie; you will still understand this article). If your experience was anything like mine, your friend set up the board like this:

And you got your explanation of all the pieces. This one’s a pawn and it moves like this, and this one is a rook and it moves like this, but the knight goes like this or this—still with me?—and the bishop moves diagonally, and the king can only do this, but the queen is your best piece, like a combo of the rook and the bishop. OK, want to play?

This is probably the most common way of explaining chess, and it’s enough to make me hate board games forever. I don’t want to sit through an arbitrary lecture. I want to play.

One particular chess player happens to agree with me. His name is Josh Waitzkin, and he’s actually pretty good. Not only at chess (where he’s a grandmaster), but also at Tai Chi Push Hands (he’s a world champion) and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (he’s the first black belt under 5x world champion Marcelo Garcia). Now he trains financiers to go from the top 1% to the top .01% in their profession.

Point is: this dude knows a lot about getting good at stuff.

Now here’s the crazy part. When Josh teaches you chess, the board looks like this:

King vs. King and Pawn

Whoa.

Compared to what we saw above, this is stupidly simple.

And, if you know how to play chess, it’s even more mind-blowing that someone would start teaching with this board. In the actual game of chess, you never see a board like this. Someone would have won long ago. This is the chess equivalent of a street fight where both guys break every bone in their body, dislocate both their arms, can hardly see out of their swollen eyes, yet continue to fight for another half-hour.

What gives?

Here’s Josh’s thinking: when you strip the game down to its core, everything you learn is a universal principle.

That sounds pretty lofty, but I think it makes sense when you consider it. There are lots of things to distract a beginning chess player by a fully-loaded board, but everything you start learning in a king-pawn situation is fundamentally important to chess:

using two pieces to apply pressure together;

which spaces are “hot”;

and the difference between driving for a checkmate and a draw.

Are you wondering if I’m ever going to start talking about design? Glad you asked.

The simplest possible scenario

What if, instead of trying to design an entire page with dozens of elements (nav, text, input controls, a logo, etc.), we consciously started by designing the simplest thing possible? We deliberately limit the playing field to one, tiny thing and see what we learn? Let’s try.

What is the simplest possible element? I vote that it’s a button.

This is the most basic, default button I could muster. It’s Helvetica (default font) with a 16px font size (pretty default) on a plain, Sketch-default-blue rectangle. It’s 40px tall (nice, round number) and has 20px of horizontal padding on each side.

So yeah, I’ve already made a bunch of design decisions, but can we agree I basically just used default values instead of making decisions for principled, design-related reasons?

Now let’s start playing with this button. What properties are modifiable here?

the font (and text styling)

the color

the border radius

the border

the shadows

These are just the first things that come to my mind. There are even more, of course.

Typography

Playing with the font is a pretty easy place to start.

Blown up to show font detail.

Now I’ve changed the font to Moon (available for free on Behance for personal use). It’s rounded and soft, unlike Helvetica, which felt a little more squared-off—or at least not as overtly friendly.

The funny thing is: do you see how the perfectly square edges now look a tad awkward with the rounded font?

Let’s round the corners a bit.

Bam. Nice. That’s a 3px border radius.

But that’s kind of weird, isn’t it? We adjusted the border radius of a button because of the shape of the letterforms in our font. I wouldn’t want you thinking fonts are just loosey-goosey works of art that only work when you say the right incantations.

No, fonts are shapes. Shapes have connotations. It’s not rocket science.

Here’s another popular font, DIN.

With its squared edges, DIN is a clean and solid workhorse font.

Specifically, this is a version called DIN 2014 (available for cheap on Typekit). It’s the epitome of a squared-off-but-still-readable font. A bit harsh and no-nonsense, but in a bureaucratic way.

It’s the official font of the German government, and it looks the part.

So let’s test our working hypothesis with DIN.

How does DIN look with those rounded corners?

Well, we need to compare it to square corners now, don’t we?

Ahhh, the squared-off corners are better here. It’s a much more consistent feel.

Now look at our two buttons with their separate fonts. Which is more readable? I think Moon has a slight advantage here. DIN’s letters just look too cramped by comparison. Let’s add a bit of letter-spacing.

When we add some letter-spacing, it’s far more relaxed.

This is a key law of typography: always letter-space your uppercase text. Why? Because unless a font doesn’t have lowercase characters, it was designed for sentence-case reading, and characters in uppercase words will ALWAYS appear too cramped. (Moon is the special exception here—it only has uppercase characters, and notice how the letter-spacing is built into the font.)

We’ll review later, but so far we’ve noticed two things that apply not just to buttons, but to all elements:

Rounded fonts go better with rounded shapes; squared-off fonts with squared-off shapes.

Fonts designed for sentence case should be letter-spaced when used in words that are all uppercase.

Let’s keep moving for now.

Color

Seeing the plain default Sketch blue is annoying me. It’s begging to be changed into something that matches the typefaces we’re using.

How can a color match a font? Well, I’ll hand it to you. This one is a bit more loosey-goosey.

For our Moon button, we want something a bit more friendly. To me, a staid blue says default, unstyled, trustworthy, takes-no-risks, design-by-committee. How do you inject some fun into it?

Well, like all problems of modifying color, it helps to think in the HSB color system (hue, saturation, and brightness). When we boil color down to three intuitive numbers, we give ourselves levers to pull.

For instance, let’s look at hue. We have two directions we can push hue: down to aqua or up to indigo. Which sounds more in line with Moon? To me, aqua does. A bit less staid, a bit more Caribbean sea. Let’s try it. We’ll move the hue to 180° or so.

Ah, Moon Button, now you’ve got a beach vibe going on. You’re a vibrant sea foam!

This is a critical lesson about color. “Blue” is not a monolith; it’s a starting point. I’ve taught hundreds of students UI design, and this comes up again and again: just because blue was one color in kindergarten doesn’t mean that we can’t find interesting variations around it as designers.

“Blue” is not a monolith. Variations are listed in HSB, with CSS color names given below each swatch.

Aqua is a great variation with a much cooler feel, but it’s also much harder to read that white text. So now we have another problem to fix.

“Hard to read” is actually a numerically-specific property. The World Wide Web Consortium has published guidelines for contrast between text and background, and if we use a tool to test those, we find we’re lacking in a couple departments.

White text on an aqua button doesn’t provide enough contrast, failing to pass either AA or AAA WCAG recommendations.

According to Stark (which is my preferred Sketch plugin for checking contrast—check out Lea Verou’s Contrast Ratio for a similar web-based tool), we’ve failed our contrast guidelines across the board!

How do you make the white text more legible against the aqua button? Let’s think of our HSB properties again.

Brightness. Let’s decrease it. That much should be obvious.

Saturation. We’re going to increase it. Why? Because we’re contrasting with white text, and white has a saturation of zero. So a higher saturation will naturally stand out more.

Hue. We’ll leave this alone since we like its vibe. But if the contrast continued to be too low, you could lower the aqua’s luminosity by shifting its hue up toward blue.

So now, we’ve got a teal button:

Much better?

Much better.

For what it’s worth, I’m not particularly concerned about missing the AAA standard here. WCAG developed the levels as relative descriptors of how much contrast there is, not as an absolute benchmark of, say, some particular percentage of people to being able to read the text. The gold standard is—as always—to test with real people. AAA is best to hit, but at times, AA may be as good as you’re going to get with the colors you have to work with.

Some of the ideas we’ve used to make a button’s blue a bit more fun and legible against white are actually deeper lessons about color that apply to almost everything else you design:

Think in HSB, as it gives you intuitive levers to pull when modifying color.

If you like the general feel of a color, shifting the hue in either direction can be a baseline for getting interesting variations on it (e.g., we wanted to spice up the default blue, but not by, say, changing it to red).

Modify saturation and brightness at the same time (but always in opposite directions) to increase or decrease contrast.

OK, now let’s switch over to our DIN button. What color goes with its harsh edges and squared-off feel?

The first thing that comes to mind is black.

But let’s keep brainstorming. Maybe a stark red would also work.

Or even a construction-grade orange.

(But not the red and orange together. Yikes! In general, two adjacent hues with high saturations will not look great next to each other.)

Now, ignoring that the text of this is “Learn More” and a button like this probably doesn’t need to be blaze orange, I want you to pay attention to the colors I’m picking. We’re trying to maintain consistency with the official-y, squared-off DIN. So the colors we go to naturally have some of the same connotations: engineered, decisive, no funny business.

Sure, this match-a-color-and-a-font business is more subjective, but there’s something solid to it: note that the words I used to describe the colors (“stark” and “construction-grade”) apply equally well to DIN—a fact I am only noticing now, not something done intentionally.

Want to match a color with a font? This is another lesson applicable to all of branding. It’s best to start with adjectives/emotions, then match everything to those. Practically by accident, we’ve uncovered something fundamental in the branding design process.

Shadows

Let’s shift gears to work with shadows for a bit.

There are a couple directions we could go with shadows, but the two main categories are (for lack of better terms):

realistic shadows;

and cartoon-y shadows.

Here’s an example of each:

The top button’s shadow is more photorealistic. It behaves like a shadow in the real world.

The bottom button’s shadow is a bit lower-fidelity. It shows that the button is raised up, but it’s a cartoon version, with a slightly unrealistic, idealized bottom edge—and without a normal shadow, which would be present in the real world.

The bottom works better for the button we’re crafting. The smoothness, the friendliness, the cartoon fidelity—it all goes together.

As for our DIN button?

I’m more ambivalent here. Maybe the shadow is for a hover state, à la Material Design?

In any case, with a black background, a darkened bottom edge is impossible—you can’t get any darker than black.

By the way, you may not have noticed it above, but the black button has a much stronger shadow. Compare:

The teal button’s shadow is 30%-opacity black, shifted 1 pixel down on the y-axis, with a 2-pixel blur (0 1px 2px). The black button’s is 50%-opacity black, shifted 2 pixels down on the y-axis, with a 4-pixel blur (0 2px 4px). What’s more, the stronger shadow looks awful on the teal button.

Why is that? The answer, like so many questions that involve color, is in luminosity. When we put the button’s background in luminosity blend mode, converting it to a gray of equal natural lightness, we see something interesting.

The shadow, at its darkest, is basically as dark as the button itself. Or, at least, the rate of change of luminosity is steady between each row of pixels.

The top row is the button itself, not shadow.

Shadows that are too close to the luminosity of their element’s backgrounds will appear too strong. And while this may sound like an overly specific lesson, it’s actually broadly applicable across elements. You know where else you see it?

Borders

Let’s put a border on our teal button.

Now the way I’ve added this border is something that a bunch of people have thought of: make the border translucent black so that it works on any background color. In this case, I’ve used a single-pixel-wide border of 20%-opacity black.

However, if I switch the background color to a more standard blue, which is naturally a lot less luminous, that border all but disappears.

In fact, to see it on blue just as much as you can see it on teal, you’ve got to crank up black’s opacity to something like 50%.

This is a generalizable rule: when you want to layer black on another color, it needs to be a more opaque black to show up the same amount on less luminous background colors. Where else would you apply this idea?

Spoiler alert: shadows!

Each of these buttons has the same shadow (0 2px 3px) except for different opacities. The top two buttons’ shadows have opacity 20%, and the bottom two have opacity 40%. Note how what’s fine on a white background (top left) is hardly noticeable on a dark background (top right). And what’s too dark on a white background (lower left) works fine on a dark background (lower right).

Icons

I want to change gears one more time and talk about icons.

Here’s the download icon from Font Awesome, my least favorite icon set of all time.

I dislike it, not only because it’s completely overused, but also because the icons are really bubbly and soft. Yet most of the time, they’re used in clean, crisp websites. They just don’t fit.

You can see it works better with a soft, rounded font. I’m less opposed to this sort of thing.

But there’s still a problem: the icon has these insanely small details! The dots are never going to show up at size, and even the space between the arrow and the disk is a fraction of a pixel in practice. Compared to the letterforms, it doesn’t look like quite the same style.

But what good is my complaining if I don’t offer a solution?

Let’s create a new take on the “download” icon, but with some different guiding principles:

We’ll use a stroke weight that’s equivalent (or basically equivalent) to the text weight.

We’ll use corner radii that are similar to the corner radii of our font: squared off for DIN, rounded for Moon.

We’ll use a simpler icon shape so the differences are easy to see.

Let’s see how it looks:

I call this “drawing with the same pen.” Each of these icons looks like it could basically be a character in the font used in the button. And that’s the point here. I’m not saying all icons will appear this way, but for an icon that appears inline with text like this, it’s a fantastic rule of thumb.

Wrapping it up

Now this is just the beginning. Buttons can take all kinds of styles.

But we’ve got a good start here considering we designed just two buttons. In doing so, we covered a bunch of the things that are focal points of my day-to-day work as a UI designer:

lighting and shadows;

color;

typography;

consistency;

and brand.

And the lessons we’ve learned in those areas are fundamental to the entirety of UI design, not just one element. Recall:

Letterforms are shapes. You can analyze fonts as sets of shapes, not simply as works of art.

You should letter-space uppercase text, since most fonts were designed for sentence case.

Think in HSB to modify colors.

You can find more interesting variations on a “basic” color (like a CSS default shade of blue or red) by tweaking the hue in either direction.

Saturation and brightness are levers that you can move in opposite directions to control luminosity.

Find colors that match the same descriptors that you would give your typeface and your overall brand.

Use darker shadows or black borders on darker backgrounds—and vice versa.

For inline icons, choose or design them to appear as though they were drawn with the same pen as the font you’re using.

You can thank Josh Waitzkin for making me a pedant. I know, you just read an entire essay on buttons. But next time you’re struggling with a redesign or even something you’re designing from scratch, try stripping out all the elements that you think you should be including already, and just mess around with the simplest players on the board. Get a feel for the fundamentals, and go from there.

Weird? Sure. But if it’s good enough for a grandmaster, I’ll take it.

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#The King vs. Pawn Game of UI Design

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elizabetdfhmartin · 6 years