#neither of them are good at effective communication or really being emotionally vulnerable | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

insomniacowl · 3 years

Text

Neon genesis Evangelion Analysis Chapter 23: Katsuragi Misato Part 2 Dear Shinji, this is my will.

Misato: So you don't want to meet your dad?

Just like me

Let us start from the beginning. The scene in the first episode where Misato drives down to meet Shinji. Her first words to him were, "Sorry, I made you wait." This, I believe, is the first of many times their interactions will revolve around the theme of "Waiting." The line also contrasts with her final words to Shinji, "Let's continue when you get back."

Her cross is first brought to our attention through Shinji's eyes as Misato shields him from the blast of explosions from the Self-defense force's missiles used against Sakiel. Then, on their way to NERV, Shinji confides to her about his feelings towards Gendou. Misato empathizes, saying, "You're just like me," pointing to their commonalities.

She later consoles Shinji as he refuses to pilot Eva-01 and tells him to "Not run away from himself." At this point, she was already seeing herself reflected in Shinji, and those words were meant for herself as well.

After this point, Misato constantly finds herself reflected on Shinji. While it has a positive influence, like in episode 1, it also frequently caused Shinji to hurt. One criticism viewers lay on Misato is the sarcastic tone she sometimes takes when talking to Shinji about his actions. "You don't want to pilot the Eva? With that kind of determination…. What a pain!", Is one of the harsh words directed at Shinji. Even in episode 12, her cold reaction to Shinji's contemplation regarding Asuka is also, in its own way, infamous.

Yet, if we consider that she sees a lot of herself in Shinji, those lines come to represent her self-contempt rather than how she sees the fourteen-year-old. Misato was not really in the position to take care of teenagers if we consider her character flaws.

While such actions are worthy of criticism, there is room to empathize considering the traumas she had to endure, which has shaped the kind of "Adult" she became. As a young child, she was in the center of the Second Impact, and the psychological impact has led to her being mute for a few years. However, she seemed to have eventually recovered. Perhaps to compensate, we are told that she became an overly happy and talkative person. On top of this, she has studied hard and become a student at the Second-Tokyo city University. She met and began living with Kaji in the year 2005, at the age of twenty. According to Ritsuko, she even had a week-long sex marathon with Kaji, where neither of them left the house during the period.

To elaborate on her constant need for physical pleasure, we can start from the glimpse of her inner monologue we get during the instrumentality. We learn that it was one of the few things she had control over that made her feel alive when she was intimate with Kaji. Yet she breaks up with him because She saw a glimpse of her father reflected in him, although that was what got her attracted to him in the first place.

What are you embarrassed about? You wanted the man you love to see you for who you were. NO!

I wonder about that. You wanted your father to see you for who you were. That's not true!

We can identify Misato as struggling with Electra Complex (Oedipus Complex for girls) regarding how she views her father. She then attempted to quench the thirst for affection her father failed to provide her from a different man who felt similar to him. This can be observed through Kaji and Shinji. Two people sharing the same character flaws as her father (Workaholic and being bad at human interaction) being the two people she opened herself up to (Mentally, emotionally, and sexually). Misato was hoping to compensate for the loss she suffered and recover from her past trauma using her relationship with these two.

Consciously or unconsciously, she likely understood this side of herself. She felt disgusted by herself, leading to her breaking up with Kaji while punishing and labeling herself as someone "Undeserving to love." While her relationship with Kaji was open and overtly described in the series, some of you might wonder how Shinji is involved in this process. Especially regarding the sexual aspect of this analysis.

We can definitively say that Misato and Shinji do not share a simple Guardianship relation. But the discussion about Misato and Shinji can wait for now. First, let us discuss Hyuga Makoto.

Hyuga is seen approaching Misato as more than just a direct superior at work (Especially after Kaji's death). "Only if it's with you (I don't mind dying from the base self-destructing)." It is a telling line that highlights Hyuga's feelings that he begins acting on in the latter part of the series. Turning him into a more dimensional character. While Misato seems to be aware of such advances, we never see her acting on it. Neither accepting nor rejecting him outright. Since this is at the low point of her emotional journey, Misato would have been okay with anyone. Thus, it makes us wonder if there could have been more intimacy between the two off-screen. I'd argue that Hyuga died a virgin (or at least that there was no sexual relationship between the two) based on Hyuga's fantasy during the instrumentality.

To bring our discussion back to Kaji, we are shown that he was the first man she trusted and gave her first intimacy to. At the same time, she was someone Kaji was able to trust and be vulnerable with. We never see either of them refer to each other by their names. While the reason is not depicted, we can make an educated guess and say that it stems from their determination to interact professionally. Without letting their (embarrassing) past hinder their work.

But perhaps it was destined that this guise was not meant to be. In episode 15, we see the two confide in each other. Misato laments about her father and her regret of not being a good lover for Kaji. Kaji embraces and accepts her of it. The last time they ever shared a bed, Kaji gives her his final present. His death led to Misato shedding many tears, but the present helped guide her to her next step. Before this point, we see her constantly drinking her favorite beer, but never after this event. All we see her drink from then on is canned coffee, Kaji's favorite drink. And now, two peoples' worth of "Will" lived on inside her. One from her father, the other from Kaji.

Now, let's discuss the last "Male" in her life: Shinji. As mentioned earlier, Shinji was more than just a child under her care. Shinji's first introduction of Misato was through her photo that she sent him. It is a revealing photo of herself with arrows drawing attention to her breast. As a side note, the actual words in this image were written by Anno himself, and the lipstick mark was from one of the female Gainax staff.

From the photo, we can see that Misato wants Shinji to see her as more than a potential caretaker (as ethically should), but as someone of opposite gender and a "potential" love interest. Although, of course, we can brush it aside as a part of her quirky and fun-loving attitude. But the problem arises in the latter part of the series where this attitude crosses the line. The suspicion is confirmed in the official pamphlet's character introduction describing her as Shinji's family + co-worker + superior + "lover."

Misato: Shinji, I'm going in. This is about all I can do for you right now.

Shinji: No!

The scene central to this discussion happens in episode 23 when she takes her seat next to Shinji, who is grieving the death of Second Rei on his bed. Although surface-level reading is, Misato wants to hold his hands to comfort him. If that is the case, the line "This is all I can do for you right now" is unnecessary. And not only that, but Shinji's rejection of this advance is also too strong to justify the conclusion of the surface level analysis. If anything comes to mind about an act that two grown-up adults do on the bed is "Sex."

Even if we try to give the benefit of the doubt and stay at the surface-level conclusion that is psychologically comfortable, this is Evangelion. It refuses psychological comfort. The film book released by Gainax has a note about this scene that says, "Misato is attempting to give Shinji her body." This is even alluded to in the shot right before the line, the head of the chair being where Shinji's Penis would be, and Misato coming to sit right on top of it.

Throughout the series, both Misato and Asuka approach Shinji as the "Other sex." it's natural for Asuka since they are the same age. However, it is unnatural to think of Misato (Who is twice his age) approaching Shinji sexually (neither should be accepted). So let's dive into how Misato might think about that. As early as episode 2, we are shown Misato yelling at Ritsuko through the phone, saying, "There is no way I will lay my hands on a boy!". This is perhaps foreshadowing what she will be doing in the later part of the series. So what changed in her throughout the series that she would end up trying to lay her hands on Shinji sexually. Did she genuinely believe that it was the only way she can console Shinji? Or perhaps there was a more selfish reason, to distract herself from the sadness of losing Kaji? Well, it could be both. There is a middle ground and an explanation that I prefer. Kaji was the only man she allowed herself to be vulnerable with. Because the best means of communication between the two have been sexual, she most likely believed this to be the most effective way to empathize and be vulnerable with Shinji.

We can see this as another manifestation of her Electra complex if we consider that Shinji also reminds her of her father.

As many of you are aware, Evangelion borrows concepts from psychology and is strongly influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis. Psychological terms are heavily used, especially in later episodes. The characters' internal conflicts are put into the spotlight in episodes 18, 19, and 20. All these episodes use terms from psychoanalysis for their title. Let me touch on each of them briefly over here. Episode 18's title is "Ambivalence." It refers to the coexistence of two conflicting emotions (Love and hate) regarding something and was coined by Eugen Bleuler in 1911. Freud borrowed this term in his analysis. His followers believed it to be an essential state that leads to the sadistic sub-phase of development. Episode 18 is also when the dummy-controlled Eva Unit-01 destroys Bardiel. Thus the title can also help us understand the Destrudo-led sadistic destruction of the dummy program.

Episode 19's title is "Introjection" and was a term heavily used by Freud. It is the unconscious adoption of the ideas or attitudes of others and a psychological defensive mechanism used by the ego to minimize anxiety. Almost every human being goes through this phase and is a part of healthy development as an individual. Episode 19 is when Shinji emits a strong dose of Destrudo and achieves a 400% synchronization rate. Here, we can try to explain the use of this term for the episode title in two ways. The first is to refer to the synchronization process of the pilot and the Evangelion. Secondly (and more specifically to the episode), to refer to Shinji becoming an individual that has become a part of Unit-01. Becoming a part of Unit-01 who have just absorbed the S2 engine and become as though god.

Last is episode 20, titled "Oral stage," and is the stage central to Freud's theory of Libido's development. Libido is the potential sexual energy, and Freud categorized the development into four distinct stages, starting with the oral stage. During this stage of development, the child clings onto its mother's breast for nourishment. This is also when the child begins to develop the ability to distinguish between themselves and the other. The significant happening of episode 20 is salvaging Shinji from Unit-01's Core, trying to bring Shinji back as an individual and away from the comfort of his mother. This can be seen to parallel the child leaving its mother's womb and coming to be born into its own person. And to add, they had to inject Libido into the Core to salvage him.

To return from our long detour, Evangelion is a series that heavily draws its conceptual inspiration from Psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis. What Freud posits, and perhaps most central to his scholarship, understands that desires created by both Libido and Destrudo, any forms of mental energy are irresistible and irrepressible. That is to say, if during one's development if any of such mental energies' expressions are disturbed and blocked off, it will results in the development of harmful coping mechanisms as an adult. In the case of Misato, her father's absence resulted in the absence of ways to healthily release her Libido. Therefore, Misato's inappropriate advance towards Shinji could manifested the harmful coping mechanism she developed as a child.

Losing her father as a child resulted in dysregulation in Libido. Losing Kaji, the only person she truly loved, left Masato broken. At this point, she had no other way to release her desires other than laying hands on a vulnerable child. When both Shinji and Penpen refused her the physical affection she needed, she could only find comfort in listening to Kaji's final voice message in repeat. Yet, she did not lose all possibility to recover. She was able to dry out her tears and began to follow the road her father once took. This leads her to analyze the evidence Kaji passes onto her and begins questioning the truth behind Rei. By the end, she manages to reach close enough to understand the "Truth." This is how she was able to explain to Shinji what was going on. She also experiences character growth through this process, becoming able to fully understand and empathize with the pain of others.

This is also when we see her starting to differ from Asuka. While both lost Kaji, whom they both loved, Misato comes to accept this loss and can carry herself as an adult. By the end, she was mature enough to send the grieving Shinji to Unit-01 during the End of Evangelion. While Misato has always convinced Shinji to get on the Eva, now, she was different from the past. Unlike in episode 4, where she emotionally manipulated Shinji into piloting Eva. Unlike episode 12, where she drew a hard line and coldly forced him. In EOE, she was no longer forcing Shinji out of her own hatred of the angels. All there was, was a grown adult's desire to convince a child that "Life is worth living." Even if she were to die during this process. All there was, was Misato's advice as an adult to the crying child. And it was this "will to live" that was passed on from Misato to Shinji.

Misato places her necklace on Shinji's hands and wraps his hands around it. Just as how she once held onto it while facing death in its face. Her father's memento. The love towards one's family. Hope for humanity. And all else that the cross symbolized. And the cross passed on from Misato to Shinji like the passing of the torch. To pass on the will to live. This was followed by a grown-up's kiss, just like how Kaji showed her, the perfect way to, perhaps the only way to fully communicate this will and pass it on. To want the other to continue living and hoping to live on as a part of their memory.

With the kiss, Misato stopped pretending to be Shinji's inept guardian.

She sent Shinji off, hoping that he could become a grown-up who can stand by himself.

Misato: You will be alone from this point on. You need to choose for yourself.

Shinji: No. I can't.

Misato: Crying isn't going to solve anything, either!

Misato: You hate yourself, don't you? That's why you hurt others. Deep down, you know that you suffer more when you cause someone else pain than if you just let yourself get hurt. But Shinji, that was your decision, so that makes it a valid choice. That's what you wanted, so that makes it worthwhile, Stop lying to yourself, and realize that you do have options. Then accept the choices that you made.

Shinji: But you're not me. You don't understand!

Misato: So what if I'm not you?! That doesn't mean it's okay for you to give up! If you do, I'll NEVER forgive you as long as I live.

Misato: I'm not perfect either. I've made tons of stupid mistakes, and later, I regretted them. And I've done it over and over again. A cycle of hollow joy and vicious self-hatred. But even so, every time, I learned something about myself.

Please, Shinji. You've got to pilot Eva and settle this once and for all. Find out why you came here. Why you exist at all.

And when you've found your answers, come back to me. Promise me. See you soon.

Kaji: Go and do what you can. No one will force that choice on you. Think for yourself and decide for yourself. GO and do what you must right now. So that you don't live to regret it.

Misato: If I had known it would end like this, I would have changed the carpet as Asuka suggested.

Many discussions about Eva centered around her last words, the one about the Carpet and Asuka. Most of the theories have interpreted it with the spilled coffee during the instrumentality scene. I'll touch on the scenes shown in instrumentality in future chapters. But for the discussion here, note that the coffee was not spilled on the carpet during the instrumentality scenes. So I'd instead interpret this line separately from it. Personally, I believe this to be Misato, as an adult, regretting not being as kind and compassionate as she could have been to Asuka.

Unlike Shinji, who she managed to pass on her will and true feelings, she did not have that privilege with Asuka. Instead, she wallowed in her sadness, not looking out for Asuka, who was herself suffering from traumas and grief. The regret of not being a good guardian and not making the home comfortable for Asuka would have hit her as waves of regret crashed in as she laid bleeding cold on the floor of section R-20.

After Shinji, who she just sent off, Asuka, who she feels sorry for, After Penpen, who was always there for her, Kaji now crosses her mind. Was she waiting for his praise for passing on his will to Shinji?

As though she can see him, she stares at the sky. Right before the explosion, we see Rei standing over her. Perhaps it was Lilith who traveled through time.

And we come to the final scene of the EoE. Shinji and Asuka are lying down on the shore, staring at the sky. At this moment, we are reminded of Misato through the cross, now nailed to a wooden post. The cross has come to symbolize Misato's hope and dreams for the two children who will now be growing up into two adults. Will Misato be able to revert back to her human form by her soul desiring it? Nobody knows. But I don't think that matters. Because now, Shinji carries on her will.

Let's continue when you get back.

I'm back. Welcome back.

Welcome Shinji, this is your new home.

I'm back.

Welcome back!

Sorry, made you wait!

TBC Chapter 24: Ritsuko Part 1 Mother and Daughter

#Neon genesis evangelion #Evangelion #Eva #End of Evangelion #Nge #Nagisa Kaworu #Lilith #Sci-fi #Ikari Shinji #Soryu Asuka Langley #Asuka #Ayanami Rei #rei #Anno Hideaki #Katsuragi Misato #Kaji Ryoji #Anime #Analysis #Review

104 notes · View notes

sleephyjhs · 3 years

Text

the ghost of you ; myg

pairing; human!yoongi x ghost!reader

genre; angst , supernatural au , lovers au , ghost au

tw; description of death and accidents, death mentioned throughout, heavy descriptions of grief and loss.

wc; 2.96k

playlist; too much to ask - niall horan

m.list

Forty-three. Forty-four. Forty-five. And counting. His shoulder must’ve ached by now - there’s no way it couldn’t have done. Why was nobody helping him? Nevermind. If I knew Yoongi, I knew he wouldn’t want to give anybody else the hassle. It hadn’t been that long. Such a prominent trait of his wouldn’t have withered away so soon.

He’d hardly ever ask me for a favour when I was alive. Now that I’m dead, isolation was his only company.

I watched from the balcony landing on the upper floor of his new apartment. Slowly, it had begun to dawn on me that I was nothing more than a phantom - an unfamiliar spirit that haunted his hallways. I wasn’t expecting to leave Yoongi as soon as I did; the guilt hadn’t quite drained from my blood. On the first night, I sat opposite him in the dimly lit living room. A single whisky glass, still coated with the third refill of the night, hugged the black coaster on the coffee table. The phone screen glowed with condolence and devastation, and his cheeks glowed with the numbing sting of grief and alcohol. There was a pizza box too. It still steamed with the anticipation of being eaten - I’m not sure whether he ever did or not.

I sobbed with him. Uncontrollable, I was. He was. He couldn’t hear me - nobody could. It was for the better, I could wallow in my own grief without being disturbed. But I could hear him. God, could I hear him.

“Why her? Why me? It should’ve been me. I need her.”

Vulnerability was far from Yoongi’s regular state. Seldom did I see him so emotionally honest. I’ve had time to reflect. Actually, all I’ve done is reflect - there isn’t much else for me to do. Watching him cry out into the echoes of a now apartment for one reminded me of the times where my echoes were met by his soothing presence; supportive and caring words which may have only been so effective since Yoongi was the one delivering them.

I wondered if he knew I was here. Who am I kidding? Yoongi doesn’t believe in ghosts. Spirits, phantoms - none of it. Why would I be here? Why would I want to stay with him? “Heaven is a better place for her, she belongs in a better place,” is what he reminded himself, verbally, leaning against the bathroom counter. He couldn’t even look himself in the eyes.

Everything happened so quickly. I hate that I remember so much of it. It wasn’t Yoongi’s fault at all, nor was it mine. Engraved in my memory was the image of the approaching car, spinning, pulling up heavy dust from the low grade country road. Clashing headlights blinded us both, and yet somehow I still could see the doom that we were to encounter. I screamed. Yoongi scrambled hurriedly at the wheel, urgently attempting to accelerate past the uncontrollable vehicle.

But it was too late. Instant collision led my passenger window to burst into a thousand rainbow shards. They showered me; it was as though I was being grated. Perhaps if I hadn’t worn short sleeves, the coarse edges of the glass wouldn’t have shaved me as closely as they did. Airbags were past their purpose now. I can’t remember if I was still screaming. Or if it was Yoongi. Maybe a bystander?

With all the reminiscence death brought me, what I believed to be my last thoughts may well have been a lie; a façade to disguise my lack of memory. I hated not being able to remember. If I did find a way to communicate with Yoongi, I could never truthfully tell him he’s the last thing I thought about. I simply didn’t know. I never will.

There are things I’m certain of. He told me over and over again, “We’re okay. We’ll be alright.” That was a lie, I knew it was then, too. I had no choice but to believe it. Believing the alternative was too scary. Too real.

“I love you.” I must’ve said this. Everyone takes the opportunity to confess to their loved ones that they do indeed love them when in such a peril dilemma. They’re almost preprogrammed; do we even mean it when we say it?

I meant it. I loved Yoongi. I love Yoongi. Sequencing the shower of shards came my last thought. A void in my mind; the silhouette of a missing sticker from the book of my life. Grief completed the last gap in the book, and it’s replacement was good enough for me to convince myself it was reality’s choice too.

“I’m so sorry.”

This could’ve been the guilt of grief interrupting my focus. I knew I was going to die, but for all I knew, Yoongi easily could’ve joined me. He was fortunate, always had been. Even if it wasn’t my honest last thought, it was more than valid now. I am sorry.

The short transaction of my spirit from reality into the unknown was short. I lingered at the sight of the crash, watching over Yoongi. I learned quickly that I was now nothing more than an apparition, perhaps one of the imagination only. The glass crumbs that had pierced his skin begged me to remove them, but I couldn’t. Aligning my fingers with his fresh wounds, I persevered with trying to extract the debris from his body. But I couldn’t. My nails scraped through, clean; from my perspective, I was mere steam in the shape of my now lifeless body.

Sirens wailed and beckoned from miles away; at least for as far as I could hear. Thick evergreen trees were unable to filter the swirling sapphire lights from illuminating the crash scene. I counted how long it took a stroke of light to return to Yoongi’s weakened face. Three seconds. One, two, three, and then a strip of blue curtained his forehead. And then again.

I only learned that I was the only casualty after eavesdropping on the attending paramedics. Now that I’d thought about it, I didn’t even turn to my lifeless body. I needed no awakening; I was well aware of the realm I had now entered. Yoongi was alive, he was more important. Checking his pulse was impossible; all the help I could provide was watching him breathe.

Help. What am I talking about? If he had stopped, what was there that I could’ve done? I suppose now that watching him inhale and exhale with shaky breath was for my own sanity rather than his well-being.

His breath was laboured, heavy with shock. He was still talking to me, rocking me, begging me to respond. And I did. I screamed at him, telling him that I was there, I was with him. He didn’t hear me, but that wasn’t enough for me to stop. I cried, howled with shallow pain. Yoongi was then unreachable. He was only sitting next to me.

Since then, I haven’t left his side. Our shared grief is unbalanced, however. I know he’s there. I can see him, smell him, hear him. But he can’t. Of course, there are photos of me in his phone. Even a few of us together. It’s all that was left of my image. And it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t give him any more, and he couldn’t gain any more.

Funnily enough, that there was one of my pet peeves that I’d festered since meeting Yoongi. He took more photos of me than he’d allow himself to feature in. Nothing spectacular would have to occur either. One night, I watched over his shoulder as he scrolled through, what seemed like, the hundreds of photos inhabited his camera roll, ones I hadn’t noticed he’d even taken. In one, I was timidly hiding behind one of the couch pillows as I intensively watched one of the horror films he’d hilariously recommended. In another, I was messing about with Holly on the floor of his parent’s house, ruffling his unshaven winter fur.

He stumbled across one of us together. Finally. Us at his brother’s wedding, under the rice white canopy threaded with the gentle subtleties of wildflowers. I dwelled on how particularly handsome he looked in his suit, with a smaller bouquet of fern sprigs and poppies attached delicately to his breast pocket. My arm was intertwined with his; he held my hand tighter than he ever had before. There was another from the same day; his brother and his bride joined us, and then his family, and then the remainder of the guests. I’ll never forget that day, ever.

My risen cheeks fell as the memories shifted to the back of my mind again. With memories came heartache and remorse. Heartache; I’ve lost the love of my life. Rather, he lost me. But I can no longer touch him or remind him how much I treasured him. That’s the unconventional type of heartbreak. And remorse? I took our time together for granted. Too short, it was. We were together for over 5 years, and he made them feel like minutes. In the end, we really couldn’t have been any closer than we were. But all the memories I had of Yoongi were the tiniest fraction of those that I wanted. I wanted more than that. I still do.

A week after moving into our new apartment, no, his new apartment, Yoongi’s piano arrived. Grand was a shortcoming. Sleek monochrome keys and polished curves competed the modern design of the main hosting room; beautiful was miles from capturing how impeccable it actually looked.

I took my time in exploring its position. The piano and I were familiar; it was the first big purchase after moving into our first home together. Yoongi cared for this piano as if it were his child. He sang to it too, although I’m not sure he always knew I was around to hear. His own songs, those that he’d dedicated to me, ones he played as a young teenager still learning the most complicated chords. One day, I asked him to teach me something. A simple infant lullaby, something easy. Bearing in mind the amount of commitments this man usually had, the act of taking time from his schedule to teach me what really was a useless skill was near enough tear-jerking.

“See? You’re a natural.”

“Some people can play this at three, Yoongi. It’s nothing impressive.”

No matter the skill or talent involved, Yoongi never failed to encourage me. There’s a lot we did together that alone I wouldn’t have even considered. Really, encouragement was an understatement. Neither of us were particularly adventurous, yet together we seemed prepared to try anything. I was never able to thank him for that.

I hovered my fingers over the middle keys, examining for any marks or bruises. Sure enough, there were none. I’m not sure what I expected. Sometimes, I was convinced Yoongi took better care of his piano than himself. I didn’t mind in the slightest. The songs he wrote me for special occasions made me quite glad he did.

There were days when dragging him away from the piano to return back to the real world for a minute or two was near impossible. Instead, I developed a habit of joining him on the stool. Looking at it from the landing made it look small. It was, really. But it didn’t feel like that when I sat beside Yoongi. If it did, I never noticed. That’s the Yoongi effect.

Minutes become hours, hours become days, days become forever.

Today, I haven’t paid much attention to Yoongi’s whereabouts. The glass banister that enclosed the upstairs landing was my usual seat; I watched everything from here. A few people had come to see Yoongi, his parents, the members, a couple old friends, it was the first time I’d seen him smile since I’d gone. He ate without hesitating, he laughed heartily again. He even cracked a joke in response to another.

He looked happy, and that made me happy.

It wasn’t necessarily moving on, though. Each day, something was different about the apartment. I sat on Yoongi’s bed as he set up the wardrobe. His monochrome closet hadn’t lost its ‘Yoongi’ essence. Next to the wardrobe was a spare cupboard of an identical size. Would I have been able to, a tear might have just fallen from my eye. Yoongi filled the rails with my clothes. They still smelled like me; the same perfume with a base note of my regular deodorant. A pair of my best heels which he bought me for attendance of a some grand event or another next to my white canvas converse sheltered in the top cubbyhole on top of smaller garments of mine that he hadn’t quite brought himself to donate.

The day after, I caught him spraying a couch cushion from our old home with my signature perfume. He always did like it. On the nights where we became closer than close, I always made sure to wear it for him; I knew I’d be rewarded for it. My memory now lived on in the form of a staining stench. One that I was certain would one day suffocate him.

Today, there were no changes. Yoongi left the apartment early in the morning - I suspect for work. He needed to get out, desperately. I was around him all the time - both ironically and genuinely - so much so his new apartment had become a smaller trinket of a shrine to me. I’d get sick of it too.

Wherever he went, I let him go. What was I supposed to do to stop him? Ghosts don’t pack much of a punch.

It was the first time I’d gone more than a few hours without seeing him since my death. Usually, Yoongi was never further than the corner of my eye, and if he was I could at least hear him humming to himself

But the silence was still. There was chaos in the calm. This sudden isolation was my first opportunity to mourn Yoongi alone since we lost one another. I didn’t cry though. Instead, I wallowed in the emptiness I felt. Of course, I was empty. I felt as though I were the right side of a friendship bracelet, missing the ‘Best’ side of me.

Somehow, I’d managed to traipse downstairs. Aimless wandering was on track to become my first spiritual habit. I approached the piano - I had meant to do this. I understood now how there could be comfort in music. When Yoongi aligned himself so closely to his piano and his songwriting, it was difficult to now associate one to the other.

The stool was already ajar - I could squeeze in here. Pianos are overwhelmingly daunting the first time you sit at one without somebody who can play. There are more keys - more options - than you first assume. I ran my fingers down from the highest octave down to the lowest. Strangely, I could near enough feel the rumps of the keys against my plushy skin. Pushing down, the melody Yoongi had taught me began to play like an exclusive soundtrack of my 20s.

It was all in my head, but it felt real. Grief has always done strange things to people, and it seemed I was no exception.

For hours, I continued to replay the limited memory of what Yoongi had taught me. After a while, I began adding my own chords or notes, completely oblivious to the overall value they deducted from my solo performance. Eventually, I became lost in my own serenade. Miscellaneous noise blocked itself out; I was alone with my piano.

His piano.

And so, when Yoongi walked back into his home, he seemed quite stunned to hear our song echoing through the marble-accented walls. He stood, utterly speechless, in the archway to where he left his prized possession. I only noticed him after a few seconds.

If Yoongi didn’t believe in ghosts before, he was left with close to no other choice now.

Maybe he thought he was imagining the sound? Until his jaw dropped, that’s what I had believed too. Yoongi’s gummy smile revealed itself to me; it was almost as though I could read his thought procession from his eyes. Scrunching the tip of his nose, I watched as Yoongi fought back what I was positive were tears.

How the melody was audible to us both was far beyond my comprehension; perhaps it was our connection that made the melody viable to us. The keys were real, I could feel them. I shouldn’t have been able to, but I could.

Yoongi stalked up to the piano like a lion stalking his prey. Except Yoongi wasn’t preparing to pounce. He was scared of frightening my melody away.

Nothing could have frightened me away. This was as close as I’d ever dared to return to Yoongi. I knew too well that if I got too close, I’d never be able to separate myself from him again. I wouldn’t put myself through that heartbreak again. Or him, should he even realise that I was there.

The stool that matched the piano was longer than the average, but it still wouldn’t have seated both me and Yoongi. He edged himself to the end of the stool as though he were making room for me. Still, there was no gap between us. My leg overlapped his. He was warm. I was not.

He played my same melody in a lower octave, even adapting to my added chords and adlibs. He smiled to himself, tears finally slipping from his lower eyelid. Some rushed to the cliff of his jaw and fell to their demise on the black keys of the piano. I would’ve given anything to wipe them away. Anything at all.

tag list !!

@mama-m0chi @liriaus @loveyoongles @weltmaya @mrsfortune1306 @janeelizabeth1216

#yoongi #bts angst #yoongi angst #min yoongi #suga #yoongi imagine #yoongi one shot #bts #bangtan #bts reactions #bts imagines #bts one shot #bts drabble #request #bts headcanon #bts mtl #bts fluff

134 notes · View notes

cutegirlmayra · 4 years

Note

Here's an angsty prompt idea. After their latest battle with Eggman his latest invention inadvertently gets Amy sick which is quickly becoming fatal (not necessarily what IDW is doing but like same vibe you know). Sonic demands Eggman do something to fix this and save her. And we all know Sonic isn't the most emotionally vulnerable but when it gets touch and go he really fears it might be the end. But Amy gets healed and all's well that ends well. Appreciate it ^_^

Only if you’re okay with me going SUPER angsty lol.

-----------------*TRIGGER WARNING*--------: This will be dealing with disabilities/seizure like symptoms, if you are sensitive to this material, please read any of my other fanfictions! (As someone with Asbergers and ADHD, I hope you’ll understand that I know the severity of the context, but I’m in no way trying to make fun of or portray disability in any negative way. If my writing appears as such please note it was unintentional.)

I have put a ‘Keep Reading’ for those of you who wish not to read it.

(Image found from this location: (x), if you have art you’d like to showcase, I still need Preview Images! I’d love to have some helpful artist allow me permission to use their art with their links as credit to advertise their works and also for a preview image to my prompts, thank you so much and support the original creator of this image!)

Prompt:

After all was said and done... no one thought it would turn out like this.

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Silver all piled around as Sonic sat beneath a shaded tree and held a sleeping Amy next to him.

“This doesn’t look too good...” Tails had taken a sample of Eggman’s third party experimental toxin, meant for Sonic but the enemy ended up targeting Amy as a test-run.

Needless to say, Eggman ended his alliance with the third party after he got ‘experimental crazy’ and decided he didn’t want to work with someone so trigger-happy.

The toxin seemed to place Amy in an endless sleep cycle, but she would twitch or sound off painful whimpers and groans and toss in the sleep at times.

“The data suggests it’s attacking her brain, working it’s way up from the injection point it was shot from all the way up the spinal chord, so it’s striking the main hub for communication signals to the rest of the body.” Tails was watching the gunky chemical inside her progressing at a sluggish pace as it infected up the spinal chord, but not quite at the brain yet.

The image made it look like it was hugging her spine and oozing its way up, but still had a ways to go.

Sonic blinked his eyes, not sure what this could all mean but looked down at Amy. She started her twitches and sounds of pain, so he took his hand and moved it up off of where she was leaning, looping it around to rub the opposite shoulder and looked back to Tails. Her struggles ended with struggling pants, before going back into a deep sleep.

Silver shook his head, folding his arms. He was clearly distressed, him and Amy had joined up early in the adventure, he felt this was somehow his fault, even though he did nothing wrong.

“That madman just kept shooting those shots with that drug everywhere! Whatever it is, it’s got to be a threat to the future as well.” He was so focused on the task at hand, that he hadn’t looked back until he heard Amy cry out and bent to a knee, seeing she had taken a hit for him.

Eggman hollered about waiting for Sonic to be the first hit, but the third party seemed to have their own agenda, and almost shot Eggman too.

Everyone escaped getting hit and defeated both him and Eggman before they parted ways, taking Amy’s limp form somewhere safe.

Before she was fully under the chemical’s effects, she had flinched and stiffened on the ground, trying to keep her pain silent before dropping into the blacked-out state...

“We have to find Eggman, he’s the one who knows the most about this experimental chemical.” Tails motioned his hands, then showed the gunk’s path upwards by pointing to Amy and traveling his hand up from where her spin would be. “We’ve still got time, a couple hours, just going off an estimate.”

Sonic looked back to Amy, “I can’t leave her like this, Tails. She’s unsafe, and that guy still hasn’t shown up yet.”

It was true that they lost sight of the mad scientist, but they were unaware Eggman had separated himself from their ‘unethical services’ but mostly because they wouldn’t follow orders.

Silver shook his head, getting a grip on his emotions. “I’ll do it.”

Knuckles, remaining silently crushed by the lack of help he could offer, turned in surprise to Silver.

“I’m partly the reason this happened... if I just had looked back and paid more attention to her...” he closed his eyes, clearly distraught as Knuckles turned his head away, also thinking that since Silver was with her, he should have been more attentive.

“It’s not your fault, Silver.” Showing some compassion, Tails moved over to him and placed a reassuring hand on Silver’s arm. “Honest, I’m sure if Amy could, she’d say the same thing too.”

Silver looked to Tails and sighed, nodding. During his brief moments of meeting her, he could tell she was a very kind girl.

“I know that, but... I still feel awful!” He kicked the ground and turned away, but looked back over his shoulder to Sonic. “Sonic,... I promise you, I’ll do what I can to keep her safe... but you have to go and confront Eggman about all this.” He swiped out his hand, showing his strong sense of justice as his eyebrows narrowed in his anger.

Sonic waited a moment, as though weighing his options and looked down at Amy.

He gently picked her up, and carried her over to Silver.

In a few short gestures with his eyes, he showed that he was passing the responsibility over to Silver, however short the time would be from him facing Eggman and then coming back to her.

They held a stare for a long time... as though both hedgehogs were making a silent contract, and Silver finally bowed slightly as he took Amy.

Sonic’s hand gripped her arm that was about to flop off her stomach and dangle to her side but his fast reflexes had caught it. He held it a moment, as though transferring the responsibility was a difficult decision. But... if there was hope, he was going to go for it, and Amy would have to be okay...

He had to make sure of it.

He slowly placed it back on her stomach, rubbing her hand discreetly as though promising her he wouldn’t be too long.

He then looked back up to Silver and nodded, the transaction was made and the message was loud and clear.

Don’t Fail.

As Sonic gestured for Tails and Knuckles to follow with a pivot to the new route and a nod, Tails spun his tails and lifted off the ground, taking one final look to Amy and Silver. He smiled weakly, as though also showing his agreement to this, and then went to follow Sonic.

Knuckles... just walked by, glaring Silver down... but finally he unfolded his arms and groaned towards the ground, taking off in a running start.

Looks like he felt too uneasy about this... but didn’t voice his concerns.

He was trusting that it was Sonic’s decision, and apparently would go with it. As he went though, he caught up to Sonic’s leisurely pace in waiting for him, and gave him the same uncertain glare he had given to Silver.

Another message between men: I don’t like this.

Sonic looked away from it, but his expression held no joy, only a serious focus towards the next, on-coming step and fight: I know. Neither do I.

Tails’s eyebrows bent, seeing the mute exchange between the two, his hands bundled up and held in as his usual go-to position for flying, but he turned his body around as he flew forward to look back at Silver holding Amy, his head slackening with his shoulders falling... Helpless.

Tails swallowed hard, “Be safe... Amy...” And didn’t look back...

When Silver finally took a deep, calming but determined breath in, he looked over to see Sonic and his friends had disappeared into the next zone.

“I won’t be naive this time.” He told himself, and headed towards the X-Tornado, stationed just beside the tree. “This time... I won’t make anyone worry.”

It was several hours later as Silver sat down after collecting water and watched Amy on the ground. He fiddled with his gloves, growing a bit restless, wanting to help protect the future but knowing his place was to protect Amy for now.

He looked up and used his telekinesis to fiddle with a blade of grass, making it move left or right and tugging on it but not enough to pull it from the ground.

The world was so beautiful to him... he didn’t want even one blade to die in it.

That thought... led him to look over at Amy.

His eyes bent and it was clear he was remembering her finding him, and how sweet and bubbly she was... she had persisted in joining him for his search for Sonic, carrying a warning that he never knew would have benefited her to know... why did he feel the need to keep it a secret for only Sonic to know?

It wasn’t like he disregarded her, but maybe he didn’t value her company as much as he should.

Now, seeing her so still upon the ground... the wind not even reaching her... It was all a bit much to bear.

He tucked his head down between the gap of his raised knee and bent arm, trying to hide his emotional state as his eyes squinted and mouth trembled.

He wasn’t crying, but he was also trying to fight the sensation of being about to cry.

Then it happened.

She started another twitching and jerking, making odd sounds that spooked him.

“N-no, you’re okay. You’re okay..!” he rolled to his knees and held his hands out as though once again... feeling helpless.

Even his words were desperate to sound comforting, but his panic was so relevant in them.

He used his powers to get a blob of the fresh water he had collected up into the air, moving it towards her mouth.

“Please Amy... just endure it a little longer...” He pleaded, before he heard a large crash and turned around.

The water fell to her side, as the twitching and flinching became minor, but still happening.

He saw a fallen tree, and narrowed his eyes at it before gasping as a robot from the third party, clearly stolen from Eggman’s designs, began to approach.

Then more and more of Eggman’s stolen property, with new logos that were just slapped on over Eggman’s logo sticker started approaching him.

“Not again...” Silver’s fists shifted into a rage-filled jerk, as though in one swift moment, he was ready to destroy and protect. “I won’t let you hurt anyone ever again!”

As the robots all raised their machine-gun arms, having detected them, it was clear they weren’t shooting bullets... but darts.

“Ur-rah!” Silver lifted up the X-Tornado with his power and held it up as cover to the shots fired. The darts stabbed into the X-Tornado, and the black substance was evident in a small cylinder attached to the dart’s tip.

It leaked into the X-Tornado,... but at least it wasn’t into anyone’s body.

He rose to a knee, shoving the X-Tornado forward to push the robots down. Amazingly, the X-Tornado didn’t even dent in, but was still perfectly intact.

However, some of the darts did bend like a nail having been jammed in the wrong way.

He shoved the X-Tornado to the side and skidded the robots hide off of it, shoving them back into the forest where they came from.

He stopped only to look down at Amy, her twitching much less now, but it was clear something was happening.

He gritted his teeth, his eyes still glossy from his despair before at her condition. “Hang on, Amy... They aren’t getting you. You’re no one’s experiment!” he moved one arm away from lifting the X-Tornado, but his balanced faltered now that one arm was using his psychic power to lift the huge plane up.

He strained, sweat falling from his brow as he jammed his teeth together even more and tried lifting Amy up from the ground too... then himself.

It was a huge escape effort, two hands carrying one large plane’s weight in one hand, and the other with him and Amy.

Knowing his power was faltering at handling too many objects at once, and one being massive, he kept feeling himself dropping and having to catch himself.

When Amy jerked, his mental concentration was momentarily lost and he almost dropped her.

That was the last straw.

“I can’t out run them.” He looked around, knowing he needed a better solution. “I’ll have to hide you and distract them.”

Seeing in the distance a mountain, he pulled up his legs, gathering the rest of his courage and strength, and shot himself towards it.

There was a cave!

His expression turned to joy at the realization, and he quickly flew down to it. “That looks safe!” he exclaimed, gliding down and putting the X-Tornado in the cave first, in and off to the back left where another tunnel formed from the main one.

Out of sight.

“Okay, Amy... Please forgive me...” He caught her into his arms, and held her tightly, dipping his head down in shame at having to leave her side. “Sonic... I said I’d do my best... this is my best option... please believe me...” He flew up to the plane’s passenger cockpit, thinking that if anyone did discover the plane, they would see there’s no pilot and perhaps not search it further but abandon it.

He lifted the clear shielding and placed her in the seat, strapping her in.

She had stopped twitching, and worried, he put two fingers to her nose and mouth.

Shallow breathing...

He frowned, but leaned forward and hugged her head one last time.

When he heard more logs crashing and snapping from being trampled by robot bodies forcing their way through the landscape, his head swung up to check the cave and hurriedly dropped the shielding down again.

“I’ll come back, and hopefully, I’ll bring Sonic and some good news too.” both hands were against the shield, he moved his face closer to look in and still saw her asleep.

“...I’m sorry.” He turned his head away, flying off from the plane’s exterior slowly... danging himself in the air before looking back to the entrance of the cave, having flown into the center tunnel way again and looked as though he was prepared to battle.

He shot out of the cave and began hitting the robots with his power, ramming them into each other and denting their hides till they sparked. “This way!” he cried out, and led the assault of robots after him.

More hours passed...

Shadow was running off with a stolen formula blueprint, trying to evade flying robots that were even greater rip-offs of Eggmans.

As he turned into a cave to hide, he walked down it stealthily, still holding the container with the data chip inside it.

“Rouge, I’ve got it.” he spoke out, touching a device by his ear as he examined the cylinder container further.

“Does it have it?” her voice rang urgently through the mic.

“No... but my scanners say it should be... what?” He walked towards the hidden tunnel path and his eyes widened.

“Shadow? What’s wrong? What are you getting?”

“It’s...” His eyes traveled down the darkness from the plane’s tip, seeing it littered on the side with darts. “The X-Torn-... AH!” his shock couldn’t have been more real as he hurriedly jumped from the cave’s side to the plane’s hide and pulled an intact dart out.

He tilted the chemical inside it... watching it slosh around.

“It wasn’t an error... they’re here!” He exclaimed, but hearing the robots outside, he moved down the plane’s top and kept stealthily pulling out more darts.

“Incredible! Way to go, Shadow! Who knew this abandoned G.U.N base would come so much in handy..! Oh, that’s right. I did. Is it some sort of secret lab..?”

He ignored Rouge’s gloating when his foot hit something in the dark, another cockpit. He looked back to adjust his foot and get around it,... when a darkened silhouette that didn’t match the angles of machinery caught his attention.

Then the shaded figure began to violently twitch and cause a ruckus, almost like a seizure episode.

The thrashes completely threw Shadow off guard, and he stumbled back, his expression showing his horror at whatever beast was trapped inside.

“Rouge, there’s something else here.” He didn’t have time to explain, but pulled out a Chaos Emerald, “Chaos Control!” he illuminated the cave and his entire demeanor fell into a grave look of confusion.

“It can’t be...” His eyes darted left and right, examining her condition as he couldn’t understand what he was witnessing. “It’s-!”

But before he could continue to explain to Rouge, who was blind as a bat from only being able to listen in and not see what was going on, robot steps started echoing in the cave. He turned around, a look of serious emergency on his face.

“Shadow!? What did you find!? Don’t leave me in the dark here! What’s all that thumping sound!? Shadow! Shadow, respond!”

“Not now, Rouge!” he killed the mic, tossing it to the ground as he ripped it off his ear and used Chaos Spears to jam into the shield and break the material.

He unstrapped her from the seat, feeling her flopping onto him and helped her over his shoulder. “Darn, I was hoping for more samples, but this is too important.” He turned back to the see the robots’ lights now come on, searching like a beacon out at sea in all sorts of directions... it was as though they were hurrying to find him too...

He jumped down and consequently crushed the G.U.N earpiece on his decent down, hurrying to the back of the cave.

When the robots fired on their jets, he knew he was heard.

“Chaos-!” he held up the Chaos Emerald. “Control!” and teleported through time and space.

Back with Rouge, she was complaining how the old computers couldn’t diagnose Amy and scan the chemical at the same time.

“What’s more important?” Shadow folded his arms, looking to Amy, “A life or a future life?” then glared to Rouge as though it wasn’t an option to contradict him.

She looked to Amy, not shaking anymore and sighed, knowing the answer as she cut off the research side of the computer and turned on it’s scanners.

“This is bad...” Rouge saw the screen... “The chemical has spread up her spinal chord and has it’s greasy little tethers at the base of her brain.”

“That’s impossible.” Seeing the image, Shadow’s arms dropped and he lurched forward, as though he wasn’t expecting the results to be this severe. “The chemical compound would need an extraordinary amount of time before reaching that far! Where was the injection location?”

When he turned back to Rouge... her hands were trembling, hovering over the keyboard.

He looked up to see her eyes mortified at these readings of Amy’s current state, and Shadow had to approach her and pull her away from the computer, quickly typing in to see more data.

It took all of Rouge’s strength to look away, turning back to Amy and covering her mouth, reaching for her hand.

“How... How could this happen?” Her voice was choking up, “Sonic... Sonic would never allow this to happen! How could they just abandon her like that!” she hit her hand holding Amy’s into the table she was laid out on.

“Keep it together, Rouge.” Shadow’s voice sounded controlled, as though a solider, keeping the trauma at bay and back away from his work. “We need a cure.” He continued, “Or the rest of us are going to end up this way.”

“Who says they haven’t already!?” Rouge’s back bent forward as she coughed into her hand, unable to keep her emotions under control with a sight like this. “She’s slipping away and they just left her there to-!”

Shadow flung around and gripped her hand, pulling her back to him.

His glare said it all.

Don’t assume anything.

She felt her knees get weak and slowly lowered herself to sit on the ground, her wings drooping in stages as they lowered down and dragged against the floor.

Shadow just watched her and removed his aggressive grip on her wrist as it slipped through his grasp. He didn’t mean to be so hostile, but now wasn’t the time to judge others’ actions.

It was the time to act and save.

“I will find Sonic.” He declared, moving back over to the panel of controls and typing in more directives. “I’ve seen enough to know her state... she still has some time before it completely eats away at her mind.” the entire computer shifted over to what looked like research on the chemicals being scanned. “The amount we found should be plenty, I’ve set the computer to reverse engineer. It will take some time... but keep her alive till I can bring Sonic and his friends here... to answer for what they’ve done.” With that last sentence, Rouge looked up to see the pain in his eyes... to show he had a heart after all.

Did he have doubts that Sonic wasn’t as kind and admirable as he had seemed to be? The answer was a resounding yes. He wasn’t denying Rouge’s accusations, but wasn’t going to give in to them until he had the truth.

Nothing was being ruled out, and Rouge nodded as she wiped her wetted eyes and stood back up, being brave.

“Make sure you give them what they deserve for me... Shadow.” she moved back to Amy’s side, and Shadow closed his eyes as though silently accepting that he would.

“If all looks lost...” He began, turning his back to her and talking over his shoulder.

She shook her head, raising her head up as though to catch any remaining wetness from becoming tears.

He looked back towards the exit, not finishing the thoughts, per her body language’s request... and took off.

More hours passed...

“This is ridiculous!” Rouge was surrounded by Eggman’s robots, but stood in front of them and held her arms out to keep them from approaching Amy. “You expect me to believe you came all this way for her!? And not to get your greedy hands on the chemical!?”

“My machines are already leagues ahead of your outdated G.U.N technology!” Eggman’s voice billowed through one of the robots, holding guns made of lazer-power towards her. “As you can see, I’m not equipped with that awful drug. I had thought it would make controlling mindless robots easier to get rid of the human mind entirely, I had no idea what they were really working on...” he confessed, pausing Rouge a moment as she listened to what he was saying. “Now, if you’d be so kind, I’d rather have something to barter with when Sonic realizes I’ve parted ways with the mad professor...”

“So she’s your bait and switch!?” Her leg swung as though threatening to drill into his robots.

“W-woah, woah, calm down, Mama Rouge. I have a nutralizer I created for myself in case this might happen... It would benefit both me and Amy’s current state to test it out, don’t you agree?” His voice sounded as though he was trying to negotiate. “Yes, I want Sonic’s fury to be redirected, but that doesn’t mean I have no intention to present a perfectly healthy Rose to him... Savvy?”

She... slowly lowered her foot down, still ticked off as the robots surrounded Amy and began to move her into a floating transport pod.

“There, now we see eye to eye...”

“If anything happens to her Eggman...” She flew to sit on the end of the pod, showing she was coming too. “You’re screwed.”

“Don’t think I don’t know that... come along then.” he groaned, showing his own ‘calm distress’ as the robot he was speaking through turned and the rest marched out with the transport pod in the middle.

Getting to Eggman’s base, his computer screens were massive compared to the old G.U.N base... but as Rouge stayed by Amy’s side... Eggman’s face grew more and more like stone...

The results... were not in his favor.

As though whimsical at first, he was now showing signs of racing against the clock. Treating Rouge like a nurse all of a sudden, he spoke quickly out without a shred of emotion, only hurry. “That extraction gun. Over there.”

Rouge was being to panic at his odd shift in behavior, but quickly used her wings to push herself to move faster, rapidly grabbing the object he barely gestured to and rushing back to him with dust flying up in her wake.

“She better make it Doc.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Hold her down, she’s not going to like this.” He jammed the gun’s barrel to her side.

“DOCTOR!” Rouge shoved it off her body, “Have you lost your mind!?”

“Rouge, if you interfere, I’ll be sure to blame the consequences on you.” His threat was nothing like she had seen from him before... and complying, she did as she was told.

She pushed Amy’s arms down to the her sides, over her head as Eggman swung the gun back into position.

“What will it do to her?”

He said nothing, only working fast, moving some parts on the gun as it lit up, and then cocked it.

“Eggman...” her plea revealed her fear...

He shot into Amy’s side.

Amy’s body lurched forward and from her, a painful cry.

“Keep her down.” Eggman seemed to be grabbing a stick with movable features and cocked it back again.

An odd substance started draining into the gun.

“You’re not gonna do it again!” Rouge cried out, but Eggman just lowered the gun and let the substance spill into it.

“Could you not talk and let me work, woman!?” Eggman rudely spat out as he watched the substance mingle with some blood... before unhooking it from her side and grabbing some medical supplies to stop the bleeding. “There... if anyone asks...” He kept one hand on the bandage... “I did what I could.”

Rouge saw the grim look on his face and her’s finally broke.

She looked back to Amy, who was slowly coming too, but something was off with her.

Eggman looked away, “I stopped the process.”

“You what?” Rouge saw him turn his face away from her, as though he was hiding something.

“...It’s damage could be recovered... but that’s up to Amy now...” he was speaking too sorrowfully, as though trying to distance himself from the situation.

Rouge wouldn’t allow it.

“EGGMAN!” she grabbed his padded shoulder and yanked him down, he let her, though it was clearly uncomfortable for a man of his height to slump so far to the side like this. She hollered frantically in his ear, “You tell me what you don’t want me to know!”

He grimaced, as though not wanting to but then Amy stirred again.

Her body did some more twitches... as though her muscles were aching, before she slightly... opened her eyes.

Rouge released Eggman and appeared right by her side in seconds, “Amy..? Sweetie, tell me you’re okay.” she placed a hand to her cheek.

“...Rrrrouge...” she breathed out.

Rouge sighed in relief and dropped her head, “Thank Chaos.”

But... when she looked to see Eggman’s face.

Stone.

Why wasn’t he relieved too?

Rouge, worried again now, looked back to Amy.

She was making odd hums, as though waking up, but something was off with them. She looked to Eggman, “Egg...” she said, but began to create weird forms with her mouth, and Rouge’s hand twitched off her cheek as she continued to move as though unused to her limps.

Rouge’s chest rose and fell... “What’s wrong with her?” she demanded, feeling her heart tighten as though not wanting to beat anymore. “WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?!” she turned to Eggman but that was when Sonic, Silver, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow busted through the door as it feel like cold steel to the empty entrance.

“Rouge!” Shadow cried out, and it was clear Silver was beaten down and bruised... what had happened?

Knuckles darted by the two, followed by a speedy blue blur and Tails... was frozen in fear.

Amy’s eyes wouldn’t concentrate on anything, and her expression didn’t match the situation at all.

Sonic’s blur paused in front of her... stone.

Knuckles halted his franic steps... before looking to the screen, then back to her... his footsteps slowed... and then he fell to his knees.

He bashed his fist into the ground, and then lowered his back as though unable to look further.

Silver’s eyes shook, “Is she..?”

Shadow turned his head away, and Tails finished everyone’s trail of thought...

“She’s... gone.” He gripped his head.

“B-but she’s alive!” Silver gestured to her, grabbing Tails’s shoulder, “She’s still moving!”

“She’s not there!” Tails jerked himself away from Silver, “Her mind’s gone! The Amy we knew is gone!” he cried out, crying and cringing as he fell to the ground, sobbing. “It’s been too much time... We traveled to the cave and she wasn’t there. That took time!” He gripped his chest as Silver’s world began to crash down on him. “Shadow took time to find us!” He seemed to curl up on the ground, as Amy gestured a hand in the air, as though trying to grab something flying around her, as though in her mind... things were different. “We were stopped by that man and had to fight for our lives! We finally got him taken care of and unable to stop us further, but then Shadow got the G.U.N results remotely and my miles-electric had to download the signal, that meant we waited!” he gripped his head again, panting and wheezing as though also going through a mental breakdown. He started shouting as the room fell motionless... still... except for Amy. “When we discovered that the chemical probably had destroyed half of her already, we rushed to find Rouge!”

The situation looked like they were hung up on a wild goose chase, trying to scramble around and find Amy.

“BUT WHEN WE GOT THERE SHE WAS GONE!”

Rouge collapsed to the ground, covering her face with one hand, but through the slits in her fingers, her eyes shrunk and trembled.

“WE COULDN’T SAVE HER!”

-Many days later...-

Cream was out with Amy, supervised by Vanilla as she sat on a bench and walked the two. Cream was bending down to pick flowers, but Amy was staring up at the sky, as though transfixed on something, before Cream held up a flower and she took it, wobbling it in front of her face.

Cream gave a forced smile, just glad that it amused her.

Then... beside Vanilla... Sonic appeared.

“..How is she?” he asked, but his usual cheer and charisma was gone.

Vanilla smiled and looked down to her hands laying gracefully on her lap. “... Her appetites good... she only says one syllable words though... and not many for several days now.” She looked back up with a mother’s care at the two girls, seeing Cream and Cheese try to engage Amy but Amy was still shaking the flower profusely in front of her eye.

Sonic also stared... then folded his arms and adjusted his balance, looking on the ground as though uncomfortable.

“...Does she recognize anyone?”

“She recognizes Cream, but doesn’t seem to notice me. She’ll speak to Cream, but not engage me.” There was some pain being held back in her words... “I hand feed her... But sometimes she bats my face or shoves my hand away.”

Sonic turned abruptly away from her, “I don’t need to hear that!”

“... You asked...” she lowered her head, as though she’s been answering politely for too long, and so she told him the truth to see if that would satisfy him. “She may never get any better, Sonic... You come by and ask but I always tell you the same, kind things... today, you must face the possibly that Amy may be mentally disabled for life now.”

Sonic whole being tensed up, but not wanting to lash out at her, he held it in, struggling.

“... You should see her. Talk with her.” Vanilla finally said, looking to him, “She’d like that.”

“...I don’t think I can handle if-” he cut himself off, hearing the shift in his voice cracking and not liking his emotions being so real in front of others. He cleared his throat and looked to the sky... just like Rouge had done to keep the wetness in her eyes. “If she doesn’t know me.”

Vanilla remained silent, but like a loving mother, got up and embraced Sonic from being, resting her head on his shoulder and leaning her cheek into his, rubbing and stroking his head to calm him down.

“Her mind may not, but her heart will always know who you are, Sonic. You should speak to her.”

With that kind, motherly encouragement, Vanilla called back Cream and Cheese and took her hand as Cream took Cheese’s arm.

“We’ll give you two some space.” she moved further down the trail as Sonic was now solely in charge of watching her.

He took a deep breath, clearly uncomfortable, but walked softly over to her, trying not to spook her.

He bent down by her side, “Hey,... Amy.” He felt a lump in his throat as his smile he had tried to summon for her sake vanished at the sight of the flower falling from Amy’s hands and her taking a few seconds to stop shaking, and just stare at her hand while her damaged brain tried to figure out what had happened.

He closed his eyes, sitting down from his squat and finding this terribly hard.

He had avoided this for so long... he had beaten up Silver in his rage and then yelled at Shadow for leaving her as well.

By the time he got to Rouge and Eggman, there was no rage, only heartache.

“It’s been a long time...” He admitted, “That we haven’t seen each other.” He pressed his two fingers into his eyes, and as he strained against crying, his lips trembled like Silver’s had once done... and it was clear he was on the verge of crying.

That’s when Amy’s eyes blinked and she turned to look at him.

She made some weird mumbling sounds that were in-cohesive, and hit his shoulder with a few strong bats.

“Ow, ow, stop!” he leaned away and held up his hand, catching her slapping hand.

“Son.” she said the first syllable of his name,... stared at him... and then angrily, almost child-like, began to hit him again.

“Woah, stop,.. stop,.. stop!” he kept counter-weighting the hand as she hit before trying to pull away from his touch, crying out as he finally let her go and she scrunched her arms into herself.

He didn’t know how to handle this, but he was going to do his best. “Do you... do you know who I am.”

She made a strange, but clearly upset face, and glared at the ground.

“... I’m so sorry.”

“Son...”

“I failed you.”

“Son...”

“I shouldn’t have left you there. I should have let Silver go with Tails and Knuckles. I shouldn’t have blamed him either... I should have listened to Knuckles’s gut feeling... he kept bringing it up and I kept thinking we had more time. I shouldn’t have punched and kicked him... I shouldn’t have shouted at Shadow... I should have just run, like I always do. I should have ran straight to you and I didn’t. I’m so sorry, Amy. I’m so-... I’m so lost without you.”

Amy’s body turned away from him.

It was a beautiful sky... a wonderful summer day... a perfect scene for a picnic or family outing.

But there they were, a broken man once revering himself as a hero... and a broken girl who he missed dearly.

Then, as though a snake about to strike, her hand went back up to strike him... but he began to cry.

Her hand twitched and slowed... before landing on his head.

“...Son...ic.”

He kept crying.

“Son.. ic... cry...”

He didn’t notice.

“Son..ic.. don’t... cry...”

Then his ear twitched, and his eyes shook a moment as they grew wider and wider.

“Sonic...”

He turned to look at her.

She was crying...

He watched... then cried out, “Vanilla!!!” his voice rang through the flowered fields...

It took time, but with help, Amy slowly recovered, and Sonic was with her every step of the way.

(A huge AU, but ya know, I thought-- ‘what’s worse than a huge side-effect that would lead Sonic to his breaking point?’ here you go~)

#sonamy #sonicxamy #sonamy prompt #amy rose hurt fic #amy rose prompt #disability warning

62 notes · View notes

bloody-cute-yandere · 3 years

Text

Hello I have written a dissertation about a phrase I hate

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right?

So I guess to start off this train of thought, I should explain what started it. I love listening to commentary channels on YouTube. They ARE my reality TV, except they seem to cover more important topics. One of the commentary channels I follow is CreepShow Art. I have listened to her videos for quite some time, and while she doesn’t show as much by way of scientific or empirical evidence in her videos, I do feel she is a pretty credible source because she does reference public posts as evidence for her claims, and a lot of what she talks about is readily fact-checkable. Over the past few weeks Creepshow has made a few videos about another youtuber Without A Crystal Ball (who I will abbreviate to WACB for brevity), who is another commentary channel that allegedly has questionable research tactics and reporting skills. She also is prone to being defensive and seems to have the mindset of “any criticism is hate”. Creepshow made a video first about how WACB had dug around in an inappropriate way to gain information about Tati Westbrook and then reported her findings in a more skewed way, which ended up painting Tati in potentially an unfairly negative light. WACB responded….. badly to the criticism she received from Creepshow and other channels that criticized her. She, among other things, went onto a livestream of another channel and doxed Creepshow in the chat. Also, potentially unrelated but someone has allegedly been repeatedly attempting to hack Creepshow’s social media platforms, along with several others that criticized WACB’s behavior. WACB also sent an email to Creepshow where she insinuated that Youtube itself was pushing the entire conflict between the two of them to be handled privately, but were watching the issue at hand. Creepshow responded by showing the email to her audience, which did include showing the email WACB used to reach out to Creepshow. WACB became upset that she had been “doxed” by Creepshow (though it is worth noting that the exposed email address in question happens to be attached to all of her social medias, and not any private information).

During WACB’s most recent response to being “doxed” she used the idiom “Two wrongs don’t make a right”, and I have been stewing on that particular idiom ever since. I’m sure that isn’t an unfamiliar phrase for most people reading this, but for those that haven’t heard it before, it runs akin to the idea of not stooping to someone else’s level when in an argument. The idea is that if someone hurts you then you should be the bigger person and not react in a bad way, because that won’t help the situation become resolved. To a certain extent I believe this idea is absolutely correct; if you want to resolve a situation with another person, you don’t want to make the situation worse by lashing out if they’ve done something to you that is hurtful, because then you just have more hurt feelings you have to resolve in the process of moving forward. However, this idea also hinges upon two crucial truths that must exist in order for it to apply. One: that the two people involved in a disagreement must or want to resolve the conflict at all, and two: that the first offense is not an act done with malicious or cold-hearted intent. It also depends on a moral compass that is entirely determined by outside influences as opposed to an internal value system.

The first assumption “two wrongs don’t make a right” depends on is the idea that both party members do actually want to resolve their current disagreement. If the two people in the middle of an argument are emotionally close (or tied together in other ways) and no one in the situation wants to (or can’t) cut ties with the other person, I would say that this assumption is valid. In the case of Creepshow and WACB, however, this is not the case. According to Creepshow they don’t know eachother. Speaking frankly, this means that there is no relationship that needs to be protected. One could argue a necessity for professional courtesy seeing as how they share the same platform and roughly the same content ideas, however the Youtube platform is so vast already that two single small to moderately sized channels having a feud shouldn’t in any real sense have any effect on the other’s job. In a more general sense, if person A cases a fight with a person they don’t know very well or don’t interact with much, there is no social consequence if person B stoops down to person A’s level (whether or not there are legal repercussions is a separate issue). Neither person A nor person B will have any sort of ripples in their own separate circles as a direct result of the negative exchange because their individual social groups will be biased to agree with their persons’ interpretation of the events. The social distance will also save person A and person B from any future unpleasantness through the mere virtue of anonymity.

A similar argument can be made for people who have no interest in maintaining a relationship they had previously had with each other; even people who had been previously close to eachother can decide to break contact with each other over egregious offenses. In these cases, there is less care about whether you’re behaving in a “good” way because you have no investment in the relationship progressing. In either scenario, it doesn’t matter if you stoop low in an argument if you’re willing to accept the consequences of that behavior, or if there won’t be any appreciable consequences for that behavior.

The second truth that “two wrongs don’t make a right” depends on is that the first offense is not a heinous vindictive one. For example, Doxing. Doxing is the illegal spread of personal information to the public. The act of doxing can leave the victim severely vulnerable to more violent crimes such as stalking, theft/ mugging, rape and murder because their location or other personal information is now known to people that may be willing to cause them physical harm. It’s a dangerous and illegal act. Other potential heinous actions from person A include any other illegal activity (such as assault or other forms of violence, theft) or can be something that technically isn’t illegal but is a severe breaching of boundaries or someone’s own comfort level. If you know someone personally you probably know things that would really upset them, and the act of going through and performing those actions KNOWING that they will be upsetting to your victim is cold-hearted and cruel. At that point in a disagreement, person A isn’t trying to resolve a problem, they are simply lashing out with the sole purpose of destruction. That is not constructive, nor is it ok. In these cases such as these there’s a high likelihood that person B will no longer want to associate with person A if they originally did. example: I knew a person a long time ago that was TERRIFIED of gnomes. They hated them. So, what would happen if at some point this person and I got into a disagreement and I decided to give her a garden gnome as a present? It wouldn’t be illegal by any stretch; it’s a gift. However, it’s a gift that the person would have HATED, and I would have known that. Between them and I it would have been a declaration of war, not a peace-making offer. Furthermore, it would have been proof that I was willing to use this person’s personal deep fears that they confided in me out of trust against them; even if our relationship survived the original disagreement it would probably never be the same. Who, in that case, could really blame this person if they responded in kind? It would be a human response and, in a way, I would absolutely have deserved it because I had breached her trust in an unforgivable way.

At risk of this becoming a dissertation, I happen to especially dislike the idea of the person who committed sleight A being the person to scream “two wrongs don’t make a right” after person B responds to them in the way that WACB responded to Creepshow. To me, that seems like person A is trying to put themselves on a pedestal of superiority, despite the fact that they hurt person B first. “I know what I did was wrong, but you’re not supposed to hurt me back! Two wrongs don’t make a right!” Person A is just trying to avoid consequences for their actions at that point. Because really, what happened to “treat others the way you want to be treated?” I know this begins to sound victim-blamey, but what right does a person have to be upset for (not really) being doxed after they knowingly decided to dox someone else? They’ve already shown that doxing is definitely something they’re ok with, so if they’re going to argue that the original doxing wasn’t a big deal, why is it suddenly a big enough deal to them now that they are the victim of it? I hate hypocrisy like that.

My final note on “two wrongs don’t make a right” is that the entire phrase depends on each person in the disagreement depending on an external source for their moral compass as opposed to having their own internal value system. Morality is, overall, an incredibly gray concept in any society. It is informed by each person’s individual moral ideals which can come from religion, family values, upbringing, influences from social idols and more. Even universal truths like “murder is wrong” become smudged quickly when ideas about self-defense are considered (which becomes even murkier when you begin to question what sorts of actions require “self-defense”). This means that there can be vastly different views about what is and is not ok about any particular topic within one society. There will also be some people that have a very strong internal moral compass within that society, and some people that depend more on the community to act as their compass. If a person who uses an internal moral compass to guide themselves, then they will behave in a manner that falls in line with that compass regardless of how their peers may respond. If, however, a person does not have a strong internal moral compass, their behavior will be largely influenced by those around them because they depend on that social structure to guide their behavior. For someone that has a strong internal compass that they rely on, the idea that “two wrongs don’t make a right” probably won’t have much value to them, because their morality is already determined regardless of what the people around them may say. If person A does x to them, then person B’s moral sense will determine what is and is not ok to respond with, and whether others say that response is right or wrong is irrelevant because they already believed they are justified in whatever response they had. For a person that relies more heavily on their peers for their moral compass, however, “two wrongs don’t make a right” might sort of work as an appropriate guide because it comes from an external place to encourage what socially would be considered “good” behavior, though that itself then depends on what is considered “right” and “wrong” by the surrounding populace, which has already been established to be a bit of a crap shoot.

Overall (and I cannot stress this enough), I don’t believe that a disagreement of any sort should come with responses like doxing or assault or theft or a breach of trust like the examples I gave above. I believe that all people should strive to be better and act with dignity. I always try to act as though everything I do will be posted online for the world to see, and if I wouldn’t want to receive the backlash I could get for a particular action then I tend to not do that thing in the first place. I also believe that hypocrisy is one of the more disgusting personality traits someone can have. If someone doxes another person, clearly they believe that doxing is a justifiable action, and to then have that person be upset when someone behaved in the same “correct” way (As far as person A has shown of their moral values), that is just plain gross. Don’t do to other people what you wouldn’t want done to you, and also don’t be surprised if you’re not the only person willing and capable of lashing out at your level if you decide to stoop low. If you don’t want to give someone else a pass, then don’t deign to believe that you deserve some kind of special allowance to stomp all over others.

2 notes · View notes

bitternessbitesback · 6 years

Text

Wish Upon A Star

AO3 FFN

Characters: Blossom, Boomer, Brick, Bubbles, Butch, Buttercup, Him, and Mojo

Summary: When you wish upon a star it's actually a satellite, and your wish has been recorded and cataloged. An agent is now assigned to your case.

PRO CH1 CH2 CH3 CH4 CH5

PROLOGUE

The City of Townsville, normally a happy and boisterous place, was very gloomy today. The clouds were gray and heavy with rain not yet ready to spill, it was cold, and a certain scientist was definitely feeling the effects of the weather. He was miserable, none of his inventions of late had worked, his car had gotten a flat tire and was broken into the day he'd gone to get it fixed. Life was throwing him a curve ball and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't hit it away. This scientist was currently walking out of the grocery store, when he heard the thunder above him. Curiously looking up at the sky for just a moment, he didn't notice the tear in his grocery bags and was, to say the least, shocked when they tore open, spilling their contents onto the pavement of the parking lot. He groaned and said a string of choice words under his breath, after all, he was so close to his car. Nothing seemed to be going right lately, and to be quite frank, he was not happy with it in the slightest. He wondered then if when the universe had heard his wish just a few days ago, it decided to mock him instead. Laughing right in his face, it seemed, at the fact he wanted children. As if it was such a joy.

You see, John had always known he wanted to be a father, even from a young age. And when he got married, that's what his wife wanted too. However, they were ironically and tragically infertile. The adoption paperwork they would send in kept coming back negative, and his wife was appalled at the idea of a sperm donor. So she decided that since neither of them were getting younger, and it was obviously his fault for being infertile (working in a lab with dangerous chemicals killed his sperm), to divorce him for someone better. She wanted a family and couldn't have that with him. It was about four days ago and the divorce was officiated, with neither of them wanting anything from the other. Later that night he had wished upon a star for a miracle, for him to have kids. They were what he had wanted more than anything in the world.

That night after he got home, he put his groceries away and sat in front of his TV, bored and miserable. It was around 9 o'clock he had heard knocking. Perplexed at who could be rapping at his door this hour, he got up and opened it to see three beautiful baby girls in a basket with a note attached to them. 'They must be no more than three months old' he thought, hastily bringing them into his humble abode, not wanting them to catch their death outside in the freezing cold. On the note was nothing more than their names and to please take care of them. Silently thanking the heavens, he only wished they'd shown up sooner, when he was back at the grocery store. However, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he didn't care how many times he would need to go to the store; he would do it as many times as he had to for these three beautiful girls.

Nearly 17 years had passed since that night and they know now it was not a coincidence the girls had showed up on his doorstep mere days after he had wished for children. You see, at a young age, the girls had been recruited to join a top secret agency called SAINT (StAr INitiaTive) and assist them in their goal to make everyone's wishes, no matter how small, come true. The girls were perplexed at the idea, and the Professor had to be reassured multiple times that the chances of them getting injured are slim to none. Ultimately, the girls had agreed as long as it didn't interfere with their schooling and that was that. Every now and then they would get a text, email, even a bird sometimes with their mission. They were among the best operatives the company had ever seen and were glad they recruited the girls when they did. The potential was overwhelming and the success rate had gone up a whopping 15% since their joining.

However we'll get to that later, because the reason the girls had been recruited was due to their remarkable abilities. Blossom was incredibly intelligent (as were her sisters, but she was more logic driven than them) and had taught herself programming and coding at the age of 11 after having read all there is to read she was interested in. She learned to hack and released the unsafe and unjust practices of corrupt companies anonymously to the public, loving that she was able to help even a few people. She was always safe when hacking though and always made sure no one would ever be able to trace it back to her. She even hacked some of the government systems like the FBI and CIA just to see if she could. Blossom had taught herself so much, she was able to skip most of her courses and earned the ability to take classes at Townsville Community College and is on track to graduate early. She's currently taking classes to get her engineering degree with a minor in psychology. Some of the kids at her school were jealous of the red-head while others asked her to tutor them. She happily obliged and would have a study group every Tuesday and Thursday due to her ballet and agent responsibilities. The only thing abnormal about her other than her brain was her eyes. You see they are bubblegum pink in color, the Professor had done some tests when she was young and realized she has the very rare trait that is Alexandria's genesis, however instead of violet, they're pink. When she was younger some of the kids had been frightened by her, but it didn't take long for them to warm up to her, realizing she was no demon and having a smart friend was always a plus.

For Buttercup, she was recruited due to her incredible athletic ability. Any sport she tried, she was instantly good at. She took kickboxing, karate, and countless other martial arts classes. The Professor wanted the girls to be able to protect themselves when he wasn't around and it proved effective in controlling Buttercup's temper. She also meditated but it was really her skills in combat the agency was interested in. While all three girls were able to learn fast at whatever they put their minds to, it was obvious she's the fighting machine and would be needed for more dangerous missions like getting a child out of a bad home. While she is very intelligent like her older sister, she doesn't care about school or the classes, but is able to pass them no matter hard she slacks off. The school while confused, just thought she was bored with the curriculum and put her into AP and honors classes like her sisters. Buttercup's also on track to graduate early, but still she hardly participates in anything that has to do with school that isn't sports related. She takes classes at TCC like her sister, but it is mostly just core classes so she can get "official" credits for school and maybe have a major in business so she could run a gym someday. She is aspiring to join the MMA when she is old enough and the agency agreed to not interfere with her work, although they were hoping she would become a full time agent one day, as they had the same hope for her sisters.

Bubbles, last but not least, was recruited for her strange ability to learn any language after only hearing it once. She has the smarts of her sisters and is on track to graduate early as well, and is taking college courses like Blossom and Buttercup. Except her classes are for a veterinary degree with her minor having her take classes to become a human doctor as well. She wants to be an arts teacher too one day, but has decided to focus on her medical degrees for now. Although Bubbles is smart, she also enjoys doing all of the extra curricular classes the school allows her to take. Her interests are mainly in art, choir, cheer leading, and track. She also takes gymnastics classes after school on the days Blossom goes to her dance classes and is able to get a ride. On her days off she volunteers at the animal shelter as well as the daycare center. Bubbles is also an overall great people pleaser and is able to resolve even the most deadly of conflicts. Throughout her years, she was often seen as the most emotionally vulnerable of her sisters, to which she likes to use to her advantage. Whilst Bubbles doesn't cry as much as she did as a kid, she is still seen that way by most people. In fact, many feet the need to protect her (even if she can protect herself just fine).

Blossom and her sisters were special, the agency had noticed it immediately when they picked up the girls for the Professor. SAINT had been keeping an eye on them ever since, not failing to notice the urge to help others was strong in the three girls. They had seen it when they were still in elementary school standing up to bullies, had seen it in middle school when they helped their classmates or even a stranger on the street, and continued to see it now even in high school with their volunteer work and missions. These girls have surpassed everyone's expectations, after all they were still in middle school when they were recruited. The director could see how proud their father was and feels some pride too for the girls. After all, he had trained them to become better, stronger, smarter, and faster. They are by far the youngest recruits he has, but they are also the best.

In the Utonium household three girls, nearly young women now, were getting ready for the day to begin. The oldest of the three, Blossom, had just finished brushing her long orange hair and was currently trying to wake the second oldest, Buttercup. The youngest of the three, Bubbles, was still in her PJ's, swaying along to the beat of the music as she prepared breakfast for her family. A squabble could be heard upstairs, but it was nothing to fret about, it's just the dragon waking up. The parent of these three girls, John Utonium (or the Professor as they called him), had set up the table and took over for Bubbles with cooking, telling her to get ready for school. She smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek, handing him the spatula and racing up the stairs. He chuckled at the seemingly hectic nature of his house while reminiscing on the day he had gotten the three wonderful girls that he had no idea would change his life forever in the best way imaginably possible. As the Professor finished putting the food on the round table, he could hear two out of three of his daughters coming down the stairs. The first of which he could only assume was Blossom, as he could hear Buttercup muttering under her breath and stomping slowly down the stairs, none to happy to be up. Her chin length black hair un-brushed, and clothes totally encompassing the mood she was feeling (I don't care, I'd rather be home), still in her joggers and baggy shirt she had slept in the night before. Blossom, on the other hand, looked a bit professional for a school setting, but then again, she had always dressed nice for any occasion. As had Bubbles, but her style was a bit different. She is more girly than the other two and wore more skirts and dresses to school. She also tended to like them to be flowy, wearing those types of skirts with a loose tucked in shirt. Blossom usually opted for knee length skirts opposed to Bubbles and wore button ups with them. It was a rare occasion if she went out in jeans and a t-shirt if she was going to school.

"Good morning girls!" He said, chipper tone in his voice as he sat down at the table and started serving himself some food.

"Morning Professor!" Blossom replied, equally as chipper, taking the seat the the right of him and grabbing some pancakes as well as a couple pieces of bacon and pouring herself some water.

Buttercup just grunted as she sat across from her father, grabbing a plate and filling it with eggs, bacon, and sausage and pouring a glass of milk. She always had quite the appetite, after all she needs a lot protein if she wanted to stay fit and healthy. She also grabbed a slice of toast and started nibbling on it, still half asleep. The Professor smiled softly at his two daughters in admiration and couldn't believe how old they were getting. Soon they would be turning seventeen, before they graduate in December. They were growing up so fast, what with already taking college courses, volunteering at any place they could, and of course going on missions from SAINT. It's a wonder how they're able juggle it all, though he couldn't help but feel sad realizing that soon they would move out and pursue their own dreams. Only calling occasionally and visiting for the holidays. Blossom's voice took him away from his melancholy thoughts as he briefly heard her calling out for the youngest sibling to hurry up and come down.

"I'm almost done!" Is all Bubbles said in response as the other three downstairs shake their heads, knowing full well that she was not.

Buttercup was now alert and awake as she scarfed down her food, only responding to Blossom's questions once every three mouthfuls. The red-head looked disgusted with her sisters actions, but continued talking with her about school and missions they had. 'They have so much responsibilities on their shoulders already and still they are so young, I could never do that and not be bitter about it. I wouldn't have been able to handle the stress at their age' The Professor thought, looking at his girls once more while picking at his food as a feeling of pride and amazement washed over him. These were his girls, how did he ever get so lucky? It was then Bubbles finally came down in all her glory and sat down at the table to his left and Buttercup's right. She grabbed a couple of pancakes as well as some toast and poured herself some orange juice. It was funny how similar yet different all three were. Obviously though with Bubbles' vegetarianism, she wouldn't have touched the meat anyway.

They finished their food relatively quickly and cleaned up their plates. After they took their pills and brushed their teeth before heading to the car, where the Professor was waiting to take them to school. As they all piled into the car, he smiled sadly and drove them off to school. 'I wonder how I'll ever manage with out them?' he wonders as they say their goodbyes and he drives off to work.

(Blossom Hair, Bubbles Hair, and Buttercup Hair as I pictured them)

#powerpuff girls #blossom #bubbles #buttercup #professor utonium #fanfiction #powerpuff fanfic #my writing #bitternessbitesback #alternate universe #rowdyruff boys #brick #booomer #butch

1 note · View note

kkintle · 3 years

Text

Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss; Quotes

· Calibrated questions: queries that the other side can respond to but that have no fixed answers. It buys you time. It gives your counterpart the illusion of control—they are the one with the answers and power after all—and it does all that without giving them any idea of how constrained they are by it.

· While I wasn’t actually saying “No,” the questions I kept asking sounded like it. They seemed to insinuate that the other side was being dishonest and unfair. And that was enough to make them falter and negotiate with themselves. Answering my calibrated questions demanded deep emotional strengths and tactical psychological insights that the toolbox they’d been given did not contain.

· “I’m just asking questions,” I said. “It’s a passive-aggressive approach. I just ask the same three or four open-ended questions over and over and over and over. They get worn out answering and give me everything I want.”

· Fisher and Ury’s approach was basically to systematize problem solving so that negotiating parties could reach a mutually beneficial deal—the getting to “Yes” in the title. Their core assumption was that the emotional brain—that animalistic, unreliable, and irrational beast—could be overcome through a more rational, joint problem-solving mindset. Their system was easy to follow and seductive, with four basic tenets. One, separate the person—the emotion—from the problem; two, don’t get wrapped up in the other side’s position (what they’re asking for) but instead focus on their interests (why they’re asking for it) so that you can find what they really want; three, work cooperatively to generate win-win options; and, four, establish mutually agreed-upon standards for evaluating those possible solutions.

· This mentality baffled Kahneman, who from years in psychology knew that, in his words, “[I]t is self-evident that people are neither fully rational nor completely selfish, and that their tastes are anything but stable.”

· Through decades of research with Tversky, Kahneman proved that humans all suffer from Cognitive Bias, that is, unconscious—and irrational—brain processes that literally distort the way we see the world. Kahneman and Tversky discovered more than 150 of them.

· Kahneman later codified his research in the 2011 bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow. Man, he wrote, has two systems of thought: System 1, our animal mind, is fast, instinctive, and emotional; System 2 is slow, deliberative, and logical. And System 1 is far more influential. In fact, it guides and steers our rational thoughts. System 1’s inchoate beliefs, feelings, and impressions are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2. They’re the spring that feeds the river. We react emotionally (System 1) to a suggestion or question. Then that System 1 reaction informs and in effect creates the System 2 answer. Now think about that: under this model, if you know how to affect your counterpart’s System 1 thinking, his inarticulate feelings, by how you frame and deliver your questions and statements, then you can guide his System 2 rationality and therefore modify his responses.

· Emotions and emotional intelligence would have to be central to effective negotiation, not things to be overcome. What were needed were simple psychological tactics and strategies that worked in the field to calm people down, establish rapport, gain trust, elicit the verbalization of needs, and persuade the other guy of our empathy.

· It all starts with the universally applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there. By listening intensely, a negotiator demonstrates empathy and shows a sincere desire to better understand what the other side is experiencing.

· Psychotherapy research shows that when individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings. In addition, they tend to become less defensive and oppositional and more willing to listen to other points of view, which gets them to the calm and logical place where they can be good Getting to Yes problem solvers.

· Tactical Empathy. This is listening as a martial art, balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person. Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do.

· Life is negotiation. The majority of the interactions we have at work and at home are negotiations that boil down to the expression of a simple, animalistic urge: I want.

· Negotiation serves two distinct, vital life functions—information gathering and behavior influencing—and includes almost any interaction where each party wants something from the other side.

· In this world, you get what you ask for; you just have to ask correctly. So claim your prerogative to ask for what you think is right.

· The first step to achieving a mastery of daily negotiation is to get over your aversion to negotiating. You don’t need to like it; you just need to understand that’s how the world works.

· Effective negotiation is applied people smarts, a psychological edge in every domain of life: how to size someone up, how to influence their sizing up of you, and how to use that knowledge to get what you want.

· Remember, a hostage negotiator plays a unique role: he has to win. Can he say to a bank robber, “Okay, you’ve taken four hostages. Let’s split the difference—give me two, and we’ll call it a day?” No. A successful hostage negotiator has to get everything he asks for, without giving anything back of substance, and do so in a way that leaves the adversaries feeling as if they have a great relationship. His work is emotional intelligence on steroids.

· Good negotiators, going in, know they have to be ready for possible surprises; great negotiators aim to use their skills to reveal the surprises they are certain exist.

· In negotiation, each new psychological insight or additional piece of information revealed heralds a step forward and allows one to discard one hypothesis in favor of another. You should engage the process with a mindset of discovery. Your goal at the outset is to extract and observe as much information as possible. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons that really smart people often have trouble being negotiators—they’re so smart they think they don’t have anything to discover.

· I hadn’t yet learned to be aware of a counterpart’s overuse of personal pronouns—we/they or me/I. The less important he makes himself, the more important he probably is (and vice versa).

· There’s one powerful way to quiet the voice in your head and the voice in their head at the same time: treat two schizophrenics with just one pill. Instead of prioritizing your argument—in fact, instead of doing any thinking at all in the early goings about what you’re going to say—make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. In that mode of true active listening—aided by the tactics you’ll learn in the following chapters—you’ll disarm your counterpart. You’ll make them feel safe. The voice in their head will begin to quiet down.

· The goal is to identify what your counterparts actually need (monetarily, emotionally, or otherwise) and get them feeling safe enough to talk and talk and talk some more about what they want. The latter will help you discover the former. Wants are easy to talk about, representing the aspiration of getting our way, and sustaining any illusion of control we have as we begin to negotiate; needs imply survival, the very minimum required to make us act, and so make us vulnerable. But neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin

· Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard and we risk undermining the rapport and trust we’ve built.

· There’s plenty of research that now validates the passage of time as one of the most important tools for a negotiator. When you slow the process down, you also calm it down. After all, if someone is talking, they’re not shooting.

· Think of it as a kind of involuntary neurological telepathy—each of us in every given moment signaling to the world around us whether we are ready to play or fight, laugh or cry. When we radiate warmth and acceptance, conversations just seem to flow. When we enter a room with a level of comfort and enthusiasm, we attract people toward us. Smile at someone on the street, and as a reflex they’ll smile back. Understanding that reflex and putting it into practice is critical to the success of just about every negotiating skill there is to learn. That’s why your most powerful tool in any verbal communication is your voice. You can use your voice to intentionally reach into someone’s brain and flip an emotional switch. Distrusting to trusting. Nervous to calm. In an instant, the switch will flip just like that with the right delivery.

· There are essentially three voice tones available to negotiators: the late-night FM DJ voice, the positive/playful voice, and the direct or assertive voice. Forget the assertive voice for now; except in very rare circumstances, using it is like slapping yourself in the face while you’re trying to make progress. You’re signaling dominance onto your counterpart, who will either aggressively, or passive-aggressively, push back against attempts to be controlled. Most of the time, you should be using the positive/playful voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. A smile, even while talking on the phone, has an impact tonally that the other person will pick up on. The effect these voices have are cross-cultural and never lost in translation.

· When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). It applies to the smile-er as much as to the smile-ee: a smile on your face, and in your voice, will increase your own mental agility.

· The way the late-night FM DJ voice works is that, when you inflect your voice in a downward way, you put it out there that you’ve got it covered. Talking slowly and clearly you convey one idea: I’m in control. When you inflect in an upward way, you invite a response. Why? Because you’ve brought in a measure of uncertainty. You’ve made a statement sound like a question. You’ve left the door open for the other guy to take the lead, so I was careful here to be quiet, self-assured. It’s the same voice I might use in a contract negotiation, when an item isn’t up for discussion. If I see a work-for-hire clause, for example, I might say, “We don’t do work-for-hire.” Just like that, plain, simple, and friendly. I don’t offer up an alternative, because it would beg further discussion, so I just make a straightforward declaration.

· You can be very direct and to the point as long as you create safety by a tone of voice that says I’m okay, you’re okay, let’s figure things out.

· Mirroring, also called isopraxism, is essentially imitation. It’s another neurobehavior humans (and other animals) display in which we copy each other to comfort each other. It can be done with speech patterns, body language, vocabulary, tempo, and tone of voice. It’s generally an unconscious behavior—we are rarely aware of it when it’s happening—but it’s a sign that people are bonding, in sync, and establishing the kind of rapport that leads to trust. It’s a phenomenon (and now technique) that follows a very basic but profound biological principle: We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. Mirroring, then, when practiced consciously, is the art of insinuating similarity. “Trust me,” a mirror signals to another’s unconscious, “You and I—we’re alike.”

· While mirroring is most often associated with forms of nonverbal communication, especially body language, as negotiators a “mirror” focuses on the words and nothing else. Not the body language. Not the accent. Not the tone or delivery. Just the words. It’s almost laughably simple: for the FBI, a “mirror” is when you repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. Of the entirety of the FBI’s hostage negotiation skill set, mirroring is the closest one gets to a Jedi mind trick. Simple, and yet uncannily effective.

· By repeating back what people say, you trigger this mirroring instinct and your counterpart will inevitably elaborate on what was just said and sustain the process of connecting.

· I always try to reinforce the message that being right isn’t the key to a successful negotiation—having the right mindset is.

· It’s just four simple steps: 1. Use the late-night FM DJ voice. 2. Start with “I’m sorry . . .” 3. Mirror. 4. Silence. At least four seconds, to let the mirror work its magic on your counterpart. 5. Repeat.

· The intention behind most mirrors should be “Please, help me understand.” Every time you mirror someone, they will reword what they’ve said. They will never say it exactly the same way they said it the first time. Ask someone, “What do you mean by that?” and you’re likely to incite irritation or defensiveness. A mirror, however, will get you the clarity you want while signaling respect and concern for what the other person is saying.

· Here are some of the key lessons from this chapter to remember: ■ A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. ■ Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. ■ People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. ■ To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. ■ Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built. ■ Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart. There are three voice tones available to negotiators: 1. The late-night FM DJ voice: Use selectively to make a point. Inflect your voice downward, keeping it calm and slow. When done properly, you create an aura of authority and trustworthiness without triggering defensiveness. 2. The positive/playful voice: Should be your default voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. 3. The direct or assertive voice: Used rarely. Will cause problems and create pushback. ■ Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. Mirroring is the art of insinuating similarity, which facilitates bonding. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.

· Once people get upset at one another, rational thinking goes out the window. That’s why, instead of denying or ignoring emotions, good negotiators identify and influence them. They are able to precisely label emotions, those of others and especially their own. And once they label the emotions they talk about them without getting wound up. For them, emotion is a tool. Emotions aren’t the obstacles, they are the means.

· It may sound touchy-feely, but if you can perceive the emotions of others, you have a chance to turn them to your advantage. The more you know about someone, the more power you have.

· In my negotiating course, I tell my students that empathy is “the ability to recognize the perspective of a counterpart, and the vocalization of that recognition.” That’s an academic way of saying that empathy is paying attention to another human being, asking what they are feeling, and making a commitment to understanding their world. Notice I didn’t say anything about agreeing with the other person’s values and beliefs or giving out hugs. That’s sympathy. What I’m talking about is trying to understand a situation from another person’s perspective.

· Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it. Give someone’s emotion a name and you show you identify with how that person feels. It gets you close to someone without asking about external factors you know nothing about (“How’s your family?”). Think of labeling as a shortcut to intimacy, a time-saving emotional hack. Labeling has a special advantage when your counterpart is tense. Exposing negative thoughts to daylight—“It looks like you don’t want to go back to jail”—makes them seem less frightening.

· Once you’ve spotted an emotion you want to highlight, the next step is to label it aloud. Labels can be phrased as statements or questions. The only difference is whether you end the sentence with a downward or upward inflection. But no matter how they end, labels almost always begin with roughly the same words: It seems like . . . It sounds like . . . It looks like . . . Notice we said “It sounds like . . .” and not “I’m hearing that . . .” That’s because the word “I” gets people’s guard up. When you say “I,” it says you’re more interested in yourself than the other person, and it makes you take personal responsibility for the words that follow—and the offense they might cause.

· But when you phrase a label as a neutral statement of understanding, it encourages your counterpart to be responsive. They’ll usually give a longer answer than just “yes” or “no.” And if they disagree with the label, that’s okay. You can always step back and say, “I didn’t say that was what it was. I just said it seems like that.”

· The last rule of labeling is silence. Once you’ve thrown out a label, be quiet and listen. We all have a tendency to expand on what we’ve said, to finish, “It seems like you like the way that shirt looks,” with a specific question like “Where did you get it?” But a label’s power is that it invites the other person to reveal himself.

· In basic terms, people’s emotions have two levels: the “presenting” behavior is the part above the surface you can see and hear; beneath, the “underlying” feeling is what motivates the behavior.

· Research shows that the best way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without judgment. Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate, and solution-based thoughts.

· Many of us wear fears upon fears, like layers against the cold, so getting to safety takes time.

· The first step of doing so is listing every terrible thing your counterpart could say about you, in what I call an accusation audit.

· ■ Imagine yourself in your counterpart’s situation. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas (you may well find them crazy). But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. And once they know that you are listening, they may tell you something that you can use. ■ The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open. ■ Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in. Don’t worry, the other party will fill the silence. ■ Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power. We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust. ■ List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true. ■ Remember you’re dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood. So use labels to reinforce and encourage positive perceptions and dynamics.

· But at the end of the day, “Yes” is often a meaningless answer that hides deeper objections (and “Maybe” is even worse). Pushing hard for “Yes” doesn’t get a negotiator any closer to a win; it just angers the other side.

· For good negotiators, “No” is pure gold. That negative provides a great opportunity for you and the other party to clarify what you really want by eliminating what you don’t want. “No” is a safe choice that maintains the status quo; it provides a temporary oasis of control. That’s because having protected myself, I could relax and more easily consider the possibilities. “No” is the start of the negotiation, not the end of it. We’ve been conditioned to fear the word “No.” But it is a statement of perception far more often than of fact. It seldom means, “I have considered all the facts and made a rational choice.” Instead, “No” is often a decision, frequently temporary, to maintain the status quo. Change is scary, and “No” provides a little protection from that scariness.

· This means you have to train yourself to hear “No” as something other than rejection, and respond accordingly. When someone tells you “No,” you need to rethink the word in one of its alternative—and much more real—meanings: ■ I am not yet ready to agree; ■ You are making me feel uncomfortable; ■ I do not understand; ■ I don’t think I can afford it; ■ I want something else; ■ I need more information; or ■ I want to talk it over with someone else. Then, after pausing, ask solution-based questions or simply label their effect: “What about this doesn’t work for you?” “What would you need to make it work?” “It seems like there’s something here that bothers you.” People have a need to say, “No.” So don’t just hope to hear it at some point; get them to say it early.

· There are actually three kinds of “Yes”: Counterfeit, Confirmation, and Commitment. A counterfeit “yes” is one in which your counterpart plans on saying “no” but either feels “yes” is an easier escape route or just wants to disingenuously keep the conversation going to obtain more information or some other kind of edge. A confirmation “yes” is generally innocent, a reflexive response to a black-or-white question; it’s sometimes used to lay a trap but mostly it’s just simple affirmation with no promise of action. And a commitment “yes” is the real deal; it’s a true agreement that leads to action, a “yes” at the table that ends with a signature on the contract. The commitment “yes” is what you want, but the three types sound almost the same so you have to learn how to recognize which one is being used.

· Saying “No” gives the speaker the feeling of safety, security, and control. You use a question that prompts a “No” answer, and your counterpart feels that by turning you down he has proved that he’s in the driver’s seat. Good negotiators welcome—even invite—a solid “No” to start, as a sign that the other party is engaged and thinking.

· “No” is not failure. Used strategically it’s an answer that opens the path forward.

· As you can see, “No” has a lot of skills. ■ “No” allows the real issues to be brought forth; ■ “No” protects people from making—and lets them correct—ineffective decisions; ■ “No” slows things down so that people can freely embrace their decisions and the agreements they enter into; ■ “No” helps people feel safe, secure, emotionally comfortable, and in control of their decisions; ■ “No” moves everyone’s efforts forward

· “No”—or the lack thereof—also serves as a warning, the canary in the coal mine. If despite all your efforts, the other party won’t say “No,” you’re dealing with people who are indecisive or confused or who have a hidden agenda. In cases like that you have to end the negotiation and walk away. Think of it like this: No “No” means no go.

· You provoke a “No” with this one-sentence email. Have you given up on this project? The point is that this one-sentence email encapsulates the best of “No”-oriented questions and plays on your counterpart’s natural human aversion to loss. The “No” answer the email demands offers the other party the feeling of safety and the illusion of control while encouraging them to define their position and explain it to you. Just as important, it makes the implicit threat that you will walk away on your own terms. To stop that from happening—to cut their losses and prove their power—the other party’s natural inclination is to reply immediately and disagree. No, our priorities haven’t changed. We’ve just gotten bogged down and . . . If you’re a parent, you already use this technique instinctively. What do you do when your kids won’t leave the house/park/mall? You say, “Fine. I’m leaving,” and you begin to walk away. I’m going to guess that well over half the time they yell, “No, wait!” and run to catch up. No one likes to be abandoned.

· ■ Break the habit of attempting to get people to say “yes.” Being pushed for “yes” makes people defensive. Our love of hearing “yes” makes us blind to the defensiveness we ourselves feel when someone is pushing us to say it. ■ “No” is not a failure. We have learned that “No” is the anti-“Yes” and therefore a word to be avoided at all costs. But it really often just means “Wait” or “I’m not comfortable with that.” Learn how to hear it calmly. It is not the end of the negotiation, but the beginning. ■ “Yes” is the final goal of a negotiation, but don’t aim for it at the start. Asking someone for “Yes” too quickly in a conversation—“Do you like to drink water, Mr. Smith?”—gets his guard up and paints you as an untrustworthy salesman. ■ Saying “No” makes the speaker feel safe, secure, and in control, so trigger it. By saying what they don’t want, your counterpart defines their space and gains the confidence and comfort to listen to you. That’s why “Is now a bad time to talk?” is always better than “Do you have a few minutes to talk?” ■ Sometimes the only way to get your counterpart to listen and engage with you is by forcing them into a “No.” That means intentionally mislabeling one of their emotions or desires or asking a ridiculous question—like, “It seems like you want this project to fail”—that can only be answered negatively. ■ Negotiate in their world. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. It’s not about you. ■ If a potential business partner is ignoring you, contact them with a clear and concise “No”-oriented question that suggests that you are ready to walk away. “Have you given up on this project?” works wonders.

· CNU developed what is a powerful staple in the high-stakes world of crisis negotiation, the Behavioral Change Stairway Model (BCSM). The model proposes five stages—active listening, empathy, rapport, influence, and behavioral change—that take any negotiator from listening to influencing behavior.

· As you’ll soon learn, the sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually “That’s right.

· One crucial aspect of any negotiation is to figure out how your adversary arrived at his position.

· The “that’s right” breakthrough usually doesn’t come at the beginning of a negotiation. It’s invisible to the counterpart when it occurs, and they embrace what you’ve said. To them, it’s a subtle epiphany.

· Why is “you’re right” the worst answer? Consider this: Whenever someone is bothering you, and they just won’t let up, and they won’t listen to anything you have to say, what do you tell them to get them to shut up and go away? “You’re right.” It works every time. Tell people “you’re right” and they get a happy smile on their face and leave you alone for at least twenty-four hours. But you haven’t agreed to their position. You have used “you’re right” to get them to quit bothering you.

· Driving toward “that’s right” is a winning strategy in all negotiations. But hearing “you’re right” is a disaster.

· ■ Creating unconditional positive regard opens the door to changing thoughts and behaviors. Humans have an innate urge toward socially constructive behavior. The more a person feels understood, and positively affirmed in that understanding, the more likely that urge for constructive behavior will take hold. ■ “That’s right” is better than “yes.” Strive for it. Reaching “that’s right” in a negotiation creates breakthroughs. ■ Use a summary to trigger a “that’s right.” The building blocks of a good summary are a label combined with paraphrasing. Identify, rearticulate, and emotionally affirm “the world according to . . .”

· Compromise is often a “bad deal” and a key theme we’ll hit in this chapter is that “no deal is better than a bad deal.”

· We don’t compromise because it’s right; we compromise because it is easy and because it saves face. We compromise in order to say that at least we got half the pie. Distilled to its essence, we compromise to be safe. Most people in a negotiation are driven by fear or by the desire to avoid pain. Too few are driven by their actual goals. So don’t settle and—here’s a simple rule—never split the difference. Creative solutions are almost always preceded by some degree of risk, annoyance, confusion, and conflict. Accommodation and compromise produce none of that. You’ve got to embrace the hard stuff. That’s where the great deals are. And that’s what great negotiators do.

· Deadlines are often arbitrary, almost always flexible, and hardly ever trigger the consequences we think—or are told—they will. Deadlines are the bogeymen of negotiation, almost exclusively self-inflicted figments of our imagination, unnecessarily unsettling us for no good reason. The mantra we coach our clients on is, “No deal is better than a bad deal.” If that mantra can truly be internalized, and clients begin to believe they’ve got all the time they need to conduct the negotiation right, their patience becomes a formidable weapon.

· How close we were getting to their self-imposed deadline would be indicated by how specific the threats were that they issued. “Give us the money or your aunt is going to die” is an early stage threat, as the time isn’t specified. Increasing specificity on threats in any type of negotiations indicates getting closer to real consequences at a real specified time. To gauge the level of a particular threat, we’d pay attention to how many of the four questions—What? Who? When? And how?—were addressed. When people issue threats, they consciously or subconsciously create ambiguities and loopholes they fully intend to exploit. As the loopholes started to close as the week progressed, and did so over and over again in similar ways with different kidnappings, the pattern emerged.

· Deadlines cut both ways. (…) That’s the key: When the negotiation is over for one side, it’s over for the other too.

· Moore discovered that when negotiators tell their counterparts about their deadline, they get better deals. It’s true. First, by revealing your cutoff you reduce the risk of impasse. And second, when an opponent knows your deadline, he’ll get to the real deal- and concession-making more quickly. I’ve got one final point to make before we move on: Deadlines are almost never ironclad. What’s more important is engaging in the process and having a feel for how long that will take. You may see that you have more to accomplish than time will actually allow before the clock runs out.

· “If you approach a negotiation thinking that the other guy thinks like you, you’re wrong,” I say. “That’s not empathy; that’s projection.”

· The most powerful word in negotiations is “Fair.” As human beings, we’re mightily swayed by how much we feel we have been respected. People comply with agreements if they feel they’ve been treated fairly and lash out if they don’t.

· “We just want what’s fair.” Think back to the last time someone made this implicit accusation of unfairness to you, and I bet you’ll have to admit that it immediately triggered feelings of defensiveness and discomfort. These feelings are often subconscious and often lead to an irrational concession. (…) If you find yourself in this situation, the best reaction is to simply mirror the “F” that has just been lobbed at you. “Fair?” you’d respond, pausing to let the word’s power do to them as it was intended to do to you. Follow that with a label: “It seems like you’re ready to provide the evidence that supports that,” which alludes to opening their books or otherwise handing over information that will either contradict their claim to fairness or give you more data to work with than you had previously. Right away, you declaw the attack.

· The last use of the F-word is my favorite because it’s positive and constructive. It sets the stage for honest and empathetic negotiation. Here’s how I use it: Early on in a negotiation, I say, “I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times. So please stop me at any time if you feel I’m being unfair, and we’ll address it.” It’s simple and clear and sets me up as an honest dealer. With that statement, I let people know it is okay to use that word with me if they use it honestly. As a negotiator, you should strive for a reputation of being fair. Your reputation precedes you. Let it precede you in a way that paves success.

· (…) explain the sales job not as a rational argument, but as an emotional framing job. If you can get the other party to reveal their problems, pain, and unmet objectives—if you can get at what people are really buying—then you can sell them a vision of their problem that leaves your proposal as the perfect solution.

· What I am saying is that while our decisions may be largely irrational, that doesn’t mean there aren’t consistent patterns, principles, and rules behind how we act. And once you know those mental patterns, you start to see ways to influence them.

· Let me leave you with a crucial lesson about loss aversion: In a tough negotiation, it’s not enough to show the other party that you can deliver the thing they want. To get real leverage, you have to persuade them that they have something concrete to lose if the deal falls through.

· 1. ANCHOR THEIR EMOTIONS To bend your counterpart’s reality, you have to start with the basics of empathy. So start out with an accusation audit acknowledging all of their fears. By anchoring their emotions in preparation for a loss, you inflame the other side’s loss aversion so that they’ll jump at the chance to avoid it.

· 2. LET THE OTHER GUY GO FIRST . . . MOST OF THE TIME. Now, it’s clear that the benefits of anchoring emotions are great when it comes to bending your counterpart’s reality. But going first is not necessarily the best thing when it comes to negotiating price.

· The real issue is that neither side has perfect information going to the table. This often means you don’t know enough to open with confidence. That’s especially true anytime you don’t know the market value of what you are buying or selling, like with Jerry or Chandler. By letting them anchor you also might get lucky: I’ve experienced many negotiations when the other party’s first offer was higher than the closing figure I had in mind. If I’d gone first they would have agreed and I would have left with either the winner’s curse or buyer’s remorse, those gut-wrenching feelings that you’ve overpaid or undersold. That said, you’ve got to be careful when you let the other guy anchor. You have to prepare yourself psychically to withstand the first offer. If the other guy’s a pro, a shark, he’s going to go for an extreme anchor in order to bend your reality. Then, when they come back with a merely absurd offer it will seem reasonable, just like an expensive $400 iPhone seems reasonable after they mark it down from a crazy $600. The tendency to be anchored by extreme numbers is a psychological quirk known as the “anchor and adjustment” effect.

· That’s not to say, “Never open.” Rules like that are easy to remember, but, like most simplistic approaches, they are not always good advice. If you’re dealing with a rookie counterpart, you might be tempted to be the shark and throw out an extreme anchor. Or if you really know the market and you’re dealing with an equally informed pro, you might offer a number just to make the negotiation go faster. Here’s my personal advice on whether or not you want to be the shark that eats a rookie counterpart. Just remember, your reputation precedes you. I’ve run into CEOs whose reputation was to always badly beat their counterpart and pretty soon no one would deal with them.

· 3. ESTABLISH A RANGE While going first rarely helps, there is one way to seem to make an offer and bend their reality in the process. That is, by alluding to a range. What I mean is this: When confronted with naming your terms or price, counter by recalling a similar deal which establishes your “ballpark,” albeit the best possible ballpark you wish to be in.

· In a recent study,4 Columbia Business School psychologists found that job applicants who named a range received significantly higher overall salaries than those who offered a number, especially if their range was a “bolstering range,” in which the low number in the range was what they actually wanted. Understand, if you offer a range (and it’s a good idea to do so) expect them to come in at the low end.

· 4. PIVOT TO NONMONETARY TERMS People get hung up on “How much?” But don’t deal with numbers in isolation. That leads to bargaining, a series of rigid positions defined by emotional views of fairness and pride. Negotiation is a more intricate and subtle dynamic than that. One of the easiest ways to bend your counterpart’s reality to your point of view is by pivoting to nonmonetary terms. After you’ve anchored them high, you can make your offer seem reasonable by offering things that aren’t important to you but could be important to them. Or if their offer is low you could ask for things that matter more to you than them. Since this is sometimes difficult, what we often do is throw out examples to start the brainstorming process.

· 5. WHEN YOU DO TALK NUMBERS, USE ODD ONES

· 6. SURPRISE WITH A GIFT You can get your counterpart into a mood of generosity by staking an extreme anchor and then, after their inevitable first rejection, offering them a wholly unrelated surprise gift. Unexpected conciliatory gestures like this are hugely effective because they introduce a dynamic called reciprocity; the other party feels the need to answer your generosity in kind. They will suddenly come up on their offer, or they’ll look to repay your kindness in the future. People feel obliged to repay debts of kindness.

· BE PLEASANTLY PERSISTENT ON NONSALARY TERMS Pleasant persistence is a kind of emotional anchoring that creates empathy with the boss and builds the right psychological environment for constructive discussion. And the more you talk about nonsalary terms, the more likely you are to hear the full range of their options. If they can’t meet your nonsalary requests, they may even counter with more money, like they did with a French-born American former student of mine. She kept asking—with a big smile—for an extra week of vacation beyond what the company normally gave. She was “French,” she said, and that’s what French people did. The hiring company was completely handcuffed on the vacation issue, but because she was so darned delightful, and because she introduced a nonmonetary variable into the notion of her value, they countered by increasing her salary offer. SALARY TERMS WITHOUT SUCCESS TERMS IS RUSSIAN ROULETTE Once you’ve negotiated a salary, make sure to define success for your position—as well as metrics for your next raise. That’s meaningful for you and free for your boss, much like giving me a magazine cover story was for the bar association. It gets you a planned raise and, by defining your success in relation to your boss’s supervision, it leads into the next step . . . SPARK THEIR INTEREST IN YOUR SUCCESS AND GAIN AN UNOFFICIAL MENTOR Remember the idea of figuring what the other side is really buying? Well, when you are selling yourself to a manager, sell yourself as more than a body for a job; sell yourself, and your success, as a way they can validate their own intelligence and broadcast it to the rest of the company. Make sure they know you’ll act as a flesh-and-blood argument for their importance. Once you’ve bent their reality to include you as their ambassador, they’ll have a stake in your success. Ask: “What does it take to be successful here?” Please notice that this question is similar to questions that are suggested by many MBA career counseling centers, yet not exactly the same. And it’s the exact wording of this question that’s critical. Students from my MBA courses who have asked this question in job interviews have actually had interviewers lean forward and say, “No one ever asked us that before.” The interviewer then gave a great and detailed answer. The key issue here is if someone gives you guidance, they will watch to see if you follow their advice. They will have a personal stake in seeing you succeed. You’ve just recruited your first unofficial mentor.

· As you work these tools into your daily life, remember the following powerful lessons: ■ All negotiations are defined by a network of subterranean desires and needs. Don’t let yourself be fooled by the surface. Once you know that the Haitian kidnappers just want party money, you will be miles better prepared. ■ Splitting the difference is wearing one black and one brown shoe, so don’t compromise. Meeting halfway often leads to bad deals for both sides. ■ Approaching deadlines entice people to rush the negotiating process and do impulsive things that are against their best interests. ■ The F-word—“Fair”—is an emotional term people usually exploit to put the other side on the defensive and gain concessions. When your counterpart drops the F-bomb, don’t get suckered into a concession. Instead, ask them to explain how you’re mistreating them. ■ You can bend your counterpart’s reality by anchoring his starting point. Before you make an offer, emotionally anchor them by saying how bad it will be. When you get to numbers, set an extreme anchor to make your “real” offer seem reasonable, or use a range to seem less aggressive. The real value of anything depends on what vantage point you’re looking at it from. ■ People will take more risks to avoid a loss than to realize a gain. Make sure your counterpart sees that there is something to lose by inaction.

· We learned that negotiation was coaxing, not overcoming; co-opting, not defeating. Most important, we learned that successful negotiation involved getting your counterpart to do the work for you and suggest your solution himself. It involved giving him the illusion of control while you, in fact, were the one defining the conversation.

· it’s really as simple as removing the hostility from the statement “You can’t leave” and turning it into a question. “What do you hope to achieve by going?”

· And all negotiation, done well, should be an information-gathering process that vests your counterpart in an outcome that serves you.

· You don’t directly persuade them to see your ideas. Instead, you ride them to your ideas. As the saying goes, the best way to ride a horse is in the direction in which it is going.

· As an old Washington Post editor named Robert Estabrook once said, “He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.”

· The real beauty of calibrated questions is the fact that they offer no target for attack like statements do. Calibrated questions have the power to educate your counterpart on what the problem is rather than causing conflict by telling them what the problem is. But calibrated questions are not just random requests for comment. They have a direction: once you figure out where you want a conversation to go, you have to design the questions that will ease the conversation in that direction while letting the other guy think it’s his choice to take you there

· First off, calibrated questions avoid verbs or words like “can,” “is,” “are,” “do,” or “does.” These are closed-ended questions that can be answered with a simple “yes” or a “no.” Instead, they start with a list of words people know as reporter’s questions: “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” and “how.” Those words inspire your counterpart to think and then speak expansively.

· Having just two words to start with might not seem like a lot of ammunition, but trust me, you can use “what” and “how” to calibrate nearly any question.

· Even something as harsh as “Why did you do it?” can be calibrated to “What caused you to do it?” which takes away the emotion and makes the question less accusatory.

· Here are some other great standbys that I use in almost every negotiation, depending on the situation: ■ What about this is important to you? ■ How can I help to make this better for us? ■ How would you like me to proceed? ■ What is it that brought us into this situation? ■ How can we solve this problem? ■ What’s the objective? / What are we trying to accomplish here? ■ How am I supposed to do that?

· The implication of any well-designed calibrated question is that you want what the other guy wants but you need his intelligence to overcome the problem. This really appeals to very aggressive or egotistical counterparts.

· If you can’t control your own emotions, how can you expect to influence the emotions of another party?

· The first and most basic rule of keeping your emotional cool is to bite your tongue. Not literally, of course. But you have to keep away from knee-jerk, passionate reactions. Pause. Think. Let the passion dissipate. That allows you to collect your thoughts and be more circumspect in what you say. It also lowers your chance of saying more than you want to.

· Another simple rule is, when you are verbally assaulted, do not counterattack. Instead, disarm your counterpart by asking a calibrated question.

· The basic issue here is that when people feel that they are not in control, they adopt what psychologists call a hostage mentality. That is, in moments of conflict they react to their lack of power by either becoming extremely defensive or lashing out.

· Who has control in a conversation, the guy listening or the guy talking? The listener, of course. That’s because the talker is revealing information while the listener, if he’s trained well, is directing the conversation toward his own goals. He’s harnessing the talker’s energy for his own ends.

· As you put listener’s judo into practice, remember the following powerful lessons: ■ Don’t try to force your opponent to admit that you are right. Aggressive confrontation is the enemy of constructive negotiation. ■ Avoid questions that can be answered with “Yes” or tiny pieces of information. These require little thought and inspire the human need for reciprocity; you will be expected to give something back. ■ Ask calibrated questions that start with the words “How” or “What.” By implicitly asking the other party for help, these questions will give your counterpart an illusion of control and will inspire them to speak at length, revealing important information. ■ Don’t ask questions that start with “Why” unless you want your counterpart to defend a goal that serves you. “Why” is always an accusation, in any language. ■ Calibrate your questions to point your counterpart toward solving your problem. This will encourage them to expend their energy on devising a solution. ■ Bite your tongue. When you’re attacked in a negotiation, pause and avoid angry emotional reactions. Instead, ask your counterpart a calibrated question. ■ There is always a team on the other side. If you are not influencing those behind the table, you are vulnerable.

· “Yes” is nothing without “How.” While an agreement is nice, a contract is better, and a signed check is best. You don’t get your profits with the agreement. They come upon implementation. Success isn’t the hostage-taker saying, “Yes, we have a deal”; success comes afterward, when the freed hostage says to your face, “Thank you.”

· Calibrated “How” questions are a surefire way to keep negotiations going. They put the pressure on your counterpart to come up with answers, and to contemplate your problems when making their demands. With enough of the right “How” questions you can read and shape the negotiating environment in such a way that you’ll eventually get to the answer you want to hear. You just have to have an idea of where you want the conversation to go when you’re devising your questions. The trick to “How” questions is that, correctly used, they are gentle and graceful ways to say “No” and guide your counterpart to develop a better solution—your solution. A gentle How/No invites collaboration and leaves your counterpart with a feeling of having been treated with respect.

· As Julie did, the first and most common “No” question you’ll use is some version of “How am I supposed to do that?” (for example, “How can we raise that much?”). Your tone of voice is critical as this phrase can be delivered as either an accusation or a request for assistance. So pay attention to your voice.

· By making your counterparts articulate implementation in their own words, your carefully calibrated “How” questions will convince them that the final solution is their idea. And that’s crucial. People always make more effort to implement a solution when they think it’s theirs. That is simply human nature. That’s why negotiation is often called “the art of letting someone else have your way.”

· There are two key questions you can ask to push your counterparts to think they are defining success their way: “How will we know we’re on track?” and “How will we address things if we find we’re off track?” When they answer, you summarize their answers until you get a “That’s right.” Then you’ll know they’ve bought in. On the flip side, be wary of two telling signs that your counterpart doesn’t believe the idea is theirs. As I’ve noted, when they say, “You’re right,” it’s often a good indicator they are not vested in what is being discussed. And when you push for implementation and they say, “I’ll try,” you should get a sinking feeling in your stomach. Because this really means, “I plan to fail.” When you hear either of these, dive back in with calibrated “How” questions until they define the terms of successful implementation in their own voice. Follow up by summarizing what they have said to get a “That’s right.” Let the other side feel victory. Let them think it was their idea. Subsume your ego. Remember: “Yes” is nothing without “How.” So keep asking “How?” And succeed.

· THE 7-38-55 PERCENT RULE In two famous studies on what makes us like or dislike somebody,1 UCLA psychology professor Albert Mehrabian created the 7-38-55 rule. That is, only 7 percent of a message is based on the words while 38 percent comes from the tone of voice and 55 percent from the speaker’s body language and face.

· When someone’s tone of voice or body language does not align with the meaning of the words they say, use labels to discover the source of the incongruence.

· (…) so many pushy salesman try to trap their clients into the Commitment “Yes” that many people get very good at the Counterfeit “Yes. “ One great tool for avoiding this trap is the Rule of Three. The Rule of Three is simply getting the other guy to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation. It’s tripling the strength of whatever dynamic you’re trying to drill into at the moment. In doing so, it uncovers problems before they happen. It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.

· In a study of the components of lying,2 Harvard Business School professor Deepak Malhotra and his coauthors found that, on average, liars use more words than truth tellers and use far more third-person pronouns. They start talking about him, her, it, one, they, and their rather than I, in order to put some distance between themselves and the lie. And they discovered that liars tend to speak in more complex sentences in an attempt to win over their suspicious counterparts. It’s what W. C. Fields meant when he talked about baffling someone with bullshit. The researchers dubbed this the Pinocchio Effect because, just like Pinocchio’s nose, the number of words grew along with the lie. People who are lying are, understandably, more worried about being believed, so they work harder—too hard, as it were—at being believable.

· The more in love they are with “I,” “me,” and “my” the less important they are. Conversely, the harder it is to get a first person pronoun out of a negotiator’s mouth, the more important they are.

· Just as using Alastair’s name with the kidnapper and getting him to use it back humanized the hostage and made it less likely he would be harmed, using your own name creates the dynamic of “forced empathy.” It makes the other side see you as a person.

· Humanize yourself. Use your name to introduce yourself. Say it in a fun, friendly way. Let them enjoy the interaction, too. And get your own special price.

· We’ve found that you can usually express “No” four times before actually saying the word.

· “I’m sorry, no” is a slightly more succinct version for the fourth “No.” If delivered gently, it barely sounds negative at all. If you have to go further, of course, “No” is the last and most direct way. Verbally, it should be delivered with a downward inflection and a tone of regard; it’s not meant to be “NO!”

· If there’s one way to put off your counterpart, it’s by implying that disagreeing with you is unfair.

· There’s a critical lesson there: The art of closing a deal is staying focused to the very end. There are crucial points at the finale when you must draw on your mental discipline. Don’t think about what time the last flight leaves, or what it would be like to get home early and play golf. Do not let your mind wander. Remain focused.

· ■ Ask calibrated “How” questions, and ask them again and again. Asking “How” keeps your counterparts engaged but off balance. Answering the questions will give them the illusion of control. It will also lead them to contemplate your problems when making their demands. ■ Use “How” questions to shape the negotiating environment. You do this by using “How can I do that?” as a gentle version of “No.” This will subtly push your counterpart to search for other solutions—your solutions. And very often it will get them to bid against themselves. ■ Don’t just pay attention to the people you’re negotiating with directly; always identify the motivations of the players “behind the table.” You can do so by asking how a deal will affect everybody else and how on board they are. ■ Follow the 7-38-55 Percent Rule by paying close attention to tone of voice and body language. Incongruence between the words and nonverbal signs will show when your counterpart is lying or uncomfortable with a deal. ■ Is the “Yes” real or counterfeit? Test it with the Rule of Three: use calibrated questions, summaries, and labels to get your counterpart to reaffirm their agreement at least three times. It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction. ■ A person’s use of pronouns offers deep insights into his or her relative authority. If you’re hearing a lot of “I,” “me,” and “my,” the real power to decide probably lies elsewhere. Picking up a lot of “we,” “they,” and “them,” it’s more likely you’re dealing directly with a savvy decision maker keeping his options open. ■ Use your own name to make yourself a real person to the other side and even get your own personal discount. Humor and humanity are the best ways to break the ice and remove roadblocks.

· Any response that’s not an outright rejection of your offer means you have the edge.

· Some people are Accommodators; others—like me—are basically Assertive; and the rest are data-loving Analysts. Hollywood negotiation scenes suggest that an Assertive style is required for effective bargaining, but each of the styles can be effective. And to truly be effective you need elements from all three.

· ANALYST Analysts are methodical and diligent. They are not in a big rush. Instead, they believe that as long as they are working toward the best result in a thorough and systematic way, time is of little consequence. Their self-image is linked to minimizing mistakes. Their motto: As much time as it takes to get it right. Classic analysts prefer to work on their own and rarely deviate from their goals. They rarely show emotion, and they often use what is very close to the FM DJ Voice I talked about in Chapter 3, slow and measured with a downward inflection. However, Analysts often speak in a way that is distant and cold instead of soothing. This puts people off without them knowing it and actually limits them from putting their counterpart at ease and opening them up. Analysts pride themselves on not missing any details in their extensive preparation. They will research for two weeks to get data they might have gotten in fifteen minutes at the negotiating table, just to keep from being surprised. Analysts hate surprises. They are reserved problem solvers, and information aggregators, and are hypersensitive to reciprocity. They will give you a piece, but if they don’t get a piece in return within a certain period of time, they lose trust and will disengage. This can often seem to come out of nowhere, but remember, since they like working on things alone the fact that they are talking to you at all is, from their perspective, a concession. They will often view concessions by their counterpart as a new piece of information to be taken back and evaluated. Don’t expect immediate counterproposals from them. People like this are skeptical by nature. So asking too many questions to start is a bad idea, because they’re not going to want to answer until they understand all the implications. With them, it’s vital to be prepared. Use clear data to drive your reason; don’t ad-lib; use data comparisons to disagree and focus on the facts; warn them of issues early; and avoid surprises. Silence to them is an opportunity to think. They’re not mad at you and they’re not trying to give you a chance to talk more. If you feel they don’t see things the way you do, give them a chance to think first. Apologies have little value to them since they see the negotiation and their relationship with you as a person largely as separate things. They respond fairly well in the moment to labels. They are not quick to answer calibrated questions, or closed-ended questions when the answer is “Yes.” They may need a few days to respond. If you’re an analyst you should be worried about cutting yourself off from an essential source of data, your counterpart. The single biggest thing you can do is to smile when you speak. People will be more forthcoming with information to you as a result. Smiling can also become a habit that makes it easy for you to mask any moments you’ve been caught off guard.

· ACCOMMODATOR The most important thing to this type of negotiator is the time spent building the relationship. Accommodators think as long as there is a free-flowing continuous exchange of information time is being well spent. As long as they’re communicating, they’re happy. Their goal is to be on great terms with their counterpart. They love the win-win. Of the three types, they are most likely to build great rapport without actually accomplishing anything. Accommodators want to remain friends with their counterpart even if they can’t reach an agreement. They are very easy to talk to, extremely friendly, and have pleasant voices. They will yield a concession to appease or acquiesce and hope the other side reciprocates. If your counterparts are sociable, peace-seeking, optimistic, distractible, and poor time managers, they’re probably Accommodators. If they’re your counterpart, be sociable and friendly. Listen to them talk about their ideas and use calibrated questions focused specifically on implementation to nudge them along and find ways to translate their talk into action. Due to their tendency to be the first to activate the reciprocity cycle, they may have agreed to give you something they can’t actually deliver. Their approach to preparation can be lacking as they are much more focused on the person behind the table. They want to get to know you. They have a tremendous passion for the spirit of negotiation and what it takes not only to manage emotions but also to satisfy them. While it is very easy to disagree with an Accommodator, because they want nothing more that to hear what you have to say, uncovering their objections can be difficult. They will have identified potential problem areas beforehand and will leave those areas unaddressed out of fear of the conflict they may cause. If you have identified yourself as an Accommodator, stick to your ability to be very likable, but do not sacrifice your objections. Not only do the other two types need to hear your point of view; if you are dealing with another Accommodator they will welcome it. Also be conscious of excess chitchat: the other two types have no use for it, and if you’re sitting across the table from someone like yourself you will be prone to interactions where nothing gets done.

· ASSERTIVE The Assertive type believes time is money; every wasted minute is a wasted dollar. Their self-image is linked to how many things they can get accomplished in a period of time. For them, getting the solution perfect isn’t as important as getting it done. Assertives are fiery people who love winning above all else, often at the expense of others. Their colleagues and counterparts never question where they stand because they are always direct and candid. They have an aggressive communication style and they don’t worry about future interactions. Their view of business relationships is based on respect, nothing more and nothing less. Most of all, the Assertive wants to be heard. And not only do they want to be heard, but they don’t actually have the ability to listen to you until they know that you’ve heard them. They focus on their own goals rather than people. And they tell rather than ask. When you’re dealing with Assertive types, it’s best to focus on what they have to say, because once they are convinced you understand them, then and only then will they listen for your point of view. To an Assertive, every silence is an opportunity to speak more. Mirrors are a wonderful tool with this type. So are calibrated questions, labels, and summaries. The most important thing to get from an Assertive will be a “that’s right” that may come in the form of a “that’s it exactly” or “you hit it on the head.” When it comes to reciprocity, this type is of the “give an inch/take a mile” mentality. They will have figured they deserve whatever you have given them so they will be oblivious to expectations of owing something in return. They will actually simply be looking for the opportunity to receive more. If they have given some kind of concession, they are surely counting the seconds until they get something in return. If you are an Assertive, be particularly conscious of your tone. You will not intend to be overly harsh but you will often come off that way. Intentionally soften your tone and work to make it more pleasant. Use calibrated questions and labels with your counterpart since that will also make you more approachable and increase the chances for collaboration.

· The Black Swan rule is don’t treat others the way you want to be treated; treat them the way they need to be treated.

· Complementary PDF available that will help you identify your type and that of those around you. http://info .blackswanltd.com/3-types.

· Like the great ear-biting pugilist Mike Tyson once said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

· Letting your counterpart anchor first will give you a tremendous feel for him. All you need to learn is how to take the first punch.

· As the Danish folk saying goes, “You bake with the flour you have.” But anyone can learn a few tools.

· Marwan Sinaceur of INSEAD and Stanford University’s Larissa Tiedens found that expressions of anger increase a negotiator’s advantage and final take. Anger shows passion and conviction that can help sway the other side to accept less. However, by heightening your counterpart’s sensitivity to danger and fear, your anger reduces the resources they have for other cognitive activity, setting them up to make bad concessions that will likely lead to implementation problems, thus reducing your gains. Also beware: researchers have also found that disingenuous expressions of unfelt anger—you know, faking it—backfire, leading to intractable demands and destroying trust. For anger to be effective, it has to be real, the key for it is to be under control because anger also reduces our cognitive ability.

· (…) well-timed offense-taking—known as “strategic umbrage”—can wake your counterpart to the problem. In studies by Columbia University academics Daniel Ames and Abbie Wazlawek, people on the receiving end of strategic umbrage were more likely to rate themselves as overassertive, even when the counterpart didn’t think so.

· Threats delivered without anger but with “poise”—that is, confidence and self-control—are great tools. Saying, “I’m sorry that just doesn’t work for me,” with poise, works.

· Across our planet and around the universe, “Why?” makes people defensive.

· There is, however, another way to use “Why?” effectively. The idea is to employ the defensiveness the question triggers to get your counterpart to defend your position. I know it sounds weird, but it works. The basic format goes like this: When you want to flip a dubious counterpart to your side, ask them, “Why would you do that?” but in a way that the “that” favors you. Let me explain. If you are working to lure a client away from a competitor, you might say, “Why would you ever do business with me? Why would you ever change from your existing supplier? They’re great!” In these questions, the “Why?” coaxes your counterpart into working for you.

· The traditional “I” message is to use “I” to hit the pause button and step out of a bad dynamic. When you want to counteract unproductive statements from your counterpart, you can say, “I feel ___ when you ___ because ___,” and that demands a time-out from the other person. But be careful with the big “I”: You have to be mindful not to use a tone that is aggressive or creates an argument. It’s got to be cool and level.

· We’ve said previously that no deal is better than a bad deal. If you feel you can’t say “No” then you’ve taken yourself hostage. Once you’re clear on what your bottom line is, you have to be willing to walk away. Never be needy for a deal.

· Your response must always be expressed in the form of strong, yet empathic, limit-setting boundaries—that is, tough love—not as hatred or violence. Anger and other strong emotions can on rare occasions be effective. But only as calculated acts, never a personal attack. In any bare-knuckle bargaining session, the most vital principle to keep in mind is never to look at your counterpart as an enemy.

· The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is. So focus on the issue. This is one of the most basic tactics for avoiding emotional escalations.

· The Ackerman model is an offer-counteroffer method, at least on the surface. But it is a very effective system for beating the usual lackluster bargaining dynamic, which has the predictable result of meeting in the middle. The systematized and easy-to-remember process has only four steps: 1. Set your target price (your goal). 2. Set your first offer at 65 percent of your target price. 3. Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (to 85, 95, and 100 percent). 4. Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying “No” to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer. 5. When calculating the final amount, use precise, nonround numbers like, say, $37,893 rather than $38,000. It gives the number credibility and weight. 6. On your final number, throw in a nonmonetary item (that they probably don’t want) to show you’re at your limit. The genius of this system is that it incorporates the psychological tactics we’ve discussed—reciprocity, extreme anchors, loss aversion, and so on—without you needing to think about them.

· Researchers have found that people getting concessions often feel better about the bargaining process than those who are given a single firm, “fair” offer. In fact, they feel better even when they end up paying more—or receiving less—than they otherwise might.

· ■ Identify your counterpart’s negotiating style. Once you know whether they are Accommodator, Assertive, or Analyst, you’ll know the correct way to approach them. ■ Prepare, prepare, prepare. When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion; you fall to your highest level of preparation. So design an ambitious but legitimate goal and then game out the labels, calibrated questions, and responses you’ll use to get there. That way, once you’re at the bargaining table, you won’t have to wing it. ■ Get ready to take a punch. Kick-ass negotiators usually lead with an extreme anchor to knock you off your game. If you’re not ready, you’ll flee to your maximum without a fight. So prepare your dodging tactics to avoid getting sucked into the compromise trap. ■ Set boundaries, and learn to take a punch or punch back, without anger. The guy across the table is not the problem; the situation is. ■ Prepare an Ackerman plan. Before you head into the weeds of bargaining, you’ll need a plan of extreme anchor, calibrated questions, and well-defined offers. Remember: 65, 85, 95, 100 percent. Decreasing raises and ending on nonround numbers will get your counterpart to believe that he’s squeezing you for all you’re worth when you’re really getting to the number you want.

· Black Swan theory tells us that things happen that were previously thought to be impossible—or never thought of at all. This is not the same as saying that sometimes things happen against one-in-a-million odds, but rather that things never imagined do come to pass.

· Black Swans are events or pieces of knowledge that sit outside our regular expectations and therefore cannot be predicted. This is a crucial concept in negotiation. In every negotiating session, there are different kinds of information. There are those things we know, like our counterpart’s name and their offer and our experiences from other negotiations. Those are known knowns. There are those things we are certain that exist but we don’t know, like the possibility that the other side might get sick and leave us with another counterpart. Those are known unknowns and they are like poker wild cards; you know they’re out there but you don’t know who has them. But most important are those things we don’t know that we don’t know, pieces of information we’ve never imagined but that would be game changing if uncovered. Maybe our counterpart wants the deal to fail because he’s leaving for a competitor. These unknown unknowns are Black Swans.

· (…) when bits and pieces of a case don’t add up it’s usually because our frames of reference are off; they will never add up unless we break free of our expectations.

· Every case is new. We must let what we know—our known knowns—guide us but not blind us to what we do not know; we must remain flexible and adaptable to any situation; we must always retain a beginner’s mind; and we must never overvalue our experience or undervalue the informational and emotional realities served up moment by moment in whatever situation we face.

· Unless correctly interrogated, most people aren’t able to articulate the information you want.

· You have to feel for the truth behind the camouflage; you have to note the small pauses that suggest discomfort and lies. Don’t look to verify what you expect. If you do, that’s what you’ll find. Instead, you must open yourself up to the factual reality that is in front of you.

· In theory, leverage is the ability to inflict loss and withhold gain. Where does your counterpart want to gain and what do they fear losing? Discover these pieces of information, we are told, and you’ll build leverage over the other side’s perceptions, actions, and decisions. In practice, where our irrational perceptions are our reality, loss and gain are slippery notions, and it often doesn’t matter what leverage actually exists against you; what really matters is the leverage they think you have on them. That’s why I say there’s always leverage: as an essentially emotional concept, it can be manufactured whether it exists or not.

· I should note that leverage isn’t the same thing as power.

· One way to understand leverage is as a fluid that sloshes between the parties. As a negotiator you should always be aware of which side, at any given moment, feels they have the most to lose if negotiations collapse. The party who feels they have more to lose and are the most afraid of that loss has less leverage, and vice versa. To get leverage, you have to persuade your counterpart that they have something real to lose if the deal falls through.

· Positive leverage is quite simply your ability as a negotiator to provide—or withhold—things that your counterpart wants. Whenever the other side says, “I want . . .” as in, “I want to buy your car,” you have positive leverage. When they say that, you have power: you can make their desire come true; you can withhold it and thereby inflict pain; or you can use their desire to get a better deal with another party.

· Negative leverage is what most civilians picture when they hear the word “leverage.” It’s a negotiator’s ability to make his counterpart suffer. And it is based on threats: you have negative leverage if you can tell your counterpart, “If you don’t fulfill your commitment/pay your bill/etc., I will destroy your reputation.” This sort of leverage gets people’s attention because of a concept we’ve discussed: loss aversion. As effective negotiators have long known and psychologists have repeatedly proved, potential losses loom larger in the human mind than do similar gains. Getting a good deal may push us toward making a risky bet, but saving our reputation from destruction is a much stronger motivation.

· Threats can be like nuclear bombs. There will be a toxic residue that will be difficult to clean up. You have to handle the potential of negative consequences with care, or you will hurt yourself and poison or blow up the whole process. If you shove your negative leverage down your counterpart’s throat, it might be perceived as you taking away their autonomy. People will often sooner die than give up their autonomy. They’ll at least act irrationally and shut off the negotiation. A more subtle technique is to label your negative leverage and thereby make it clear without attacking. Sentences like “It seems like you strongly value the fact that you’ve always paid on time” or “It seems like you don’t care what position you are leaving me in” can really open up the negotiation process.

· NORMATIVE LEVERAGE Every person has a set of rules and a moral framework. Normative leverage is using the other party’s norms and standards to advance your position. If you can show inconsistencies between their beliefs and their actions, you have normative leverage. No one likes to look like a hypocrite.

· In any negotiation, but especially in a tense one like this, it’s not how well you speak but how well you listen that determines your success. Understanding the “other” is a precondition to be able to speak persuasively and develop options that resonate for them. There is the visible negotiation and then all the things that are hidden under the surface (the secret negotiation space wherein the Black Swans dwell).

· (…) the “paradox of power”—namely, the harder we push the more likely we are to be met with resistance. That’s why you have to use negative leverage sparingly.

· By positioning your demands within the worldview your counterpart uses to make decisions, you show them respect and that gets you attention and results. Knowing your counterpart’s religion is more than just gaining normative leverage per se. Rather, it’s gaining a holistic understanding of your counterpart’s worldview—in this case, literally a religion—and using that knowledge to inform your negotiating moves.

· ■ Review everything you hear. You will not hear everything the first time, so double-check. Compare notes with your team members. You will often discover new information that will help you advance the negotiation. ■ Use backup listeners whose only job is to listen between the lines. They will hear things you miss.

· Research by social scientists has confirmed something effective negotiators have known for ages: namely, we trust people more when we view them as being similar or familiar.

· People trust those who are in their in-group. Belonging is a primal instinct. And if you can trigger that instinct, that sense that, “Oh, we see the world the same way,” then you immediately gain influence.

· Once you know your counterpart’s religion and can visualize what he truly wants out of life, you can employ those aspirations as a way to get him to follow you.

· Research studies have shown that people respond favorably to requests made in a reasonable tone of voice and followed with a “because” reason. (…) And it didn’t matter if the reason made sense. (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I cut in line because I have to make copies?” worked great.) People just responded positively to the framework.

· While idiotic reasons worked with something simple like photocopying, on more complicated issues you can increase your effectiveness by offering reasons that reference your counterpart’s religion.

· But the moment when we’re most ready to throw our hands up and declare “They’re crazy!” is often the best moment for discovering Black Swans that transform a negotiation. It is when we hear or see something that doesn’t make sense—something “crazy”—that a crucial fork in the road is presented: push forward, even more forcefully, into that which we initially can’t process; or take the other path, the one to guaranteed failure, in which we tell ourselves that negotiating was useless anyway.

· (…) people operating with incomplete information appear crazy to those who have different information. Your job when faced with someone like this in a negotiation is to discover what they do not know and supply that information.

· Often the other side is acting on bad information, and when people have bad information they make bad choices. There’s a great computer industry term for this: GIGO—Garbage In, Garbage Out

· In any negotiation where your counterpart is acting wobbly, there exists a distinct possibility that they have things they can’t do but aren’t eager to reveal. Such constraints can make the sanest counterpart seem irrational. The other side might not be able to do something because of legal advice, or because of promises already made, or even to avoid setting a precedent. Or they may just not have the power to close the deal.

· The presence of hidden interests isn’t as rare as you might think. Your counterpart will often reject offers for reasons that have nothing to do with their merits. A client may put off buying your product so that their calendar year closes before the invoice hits, increasing his chance for a promotion. Or an employee might quit in the middle of a career-making project, just before bonus season, because he or she has learned that colleagues are making more money. For that employee, fairness is as much an interest as money. Whatever the specifics of the situation, these people are not acting irrationally. They are simply complying with needs and desires that you don’t yet understand, what the world looks like to them based on their own set of rules. Your job is to bring these Black Swans to light.

· As we’ve seen, when you recognize that your counterpart is not irrational, but simply ill-informed, constrained, or obeying interests that you do not yet know, your field of movement greatly expands. And that allows you to negotiate much more effectively.

· No matter how much research you do, there’s just some information that you are not going to find out unless you sit face-to-face.

· While you have to get face time, formal business meetings, structured encounters, and planned negotiating sessions are often the least revealing kinds of face time because these are the moments when people are at their most guarded. Hunting for Black Swans is also effective during unguarded moments at the fringes, whether at meals like my client had with his Coca-Cola contact, or the brief moments of relaxation before or after formal interactions. During a typical business meeting, the first few minutes, before you actually get down to business, and the last few moments, as everyone is leaving, often tell you more about the other side than anything in between. That’s why reporters have a credo to never turn off their recorders: you always get the best stuff at the beginning and the end of an interview. Also pay close attention to your counterpart during interruptions, odd exchanges, or anything that interrupts the flow. When someone breaks ranks, people’s façades crack just a little. Simply noticing whose cracks and how others respond verbally and nonverbally can reveal a gold mine. WHEN IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE, THERE’S CENTS TO BE MADE Students often ask me whether Black Swans are specific kinds of information or any kind that helps. I always answer that they are anything that you don’t know that changes things.

· But stop and think about that. Are we really afraid of the guy across the table? I can promise you that, with very few exceptions, he’s not going to reach across and slug you. No, our sweaty palms are just an expression of physiological fear, a few trigger-happy neurons firing because of something more base: our innate human desire to get along with other members of the tribe. It’s not the guy across the table who scares us: it’s conflict itself.

· More than a little research has shown that genuine, honest conflict between people over their goals actually helps energize the problem-solving process in a collaborative way. Skilled negotiators have a talent for using conflict to keep the negotiation going without stumbling into a personal battle.

· (…) the adversary is the situation and that the person that you appear to be in conflict with is actually your partner.

· Remember, pushing hard for what you believe is not selfish. It is not bullying. It is not just helping you. Your amygdala, the part of the brain that processes fear, will try to convince you to give up, to flee, because the other guy is right, or you’re being cruel. But if you are an honest, decent person looking for a reasonable outcome, you can ignore the amygdala.

· When you ask calibrated questions, yes, you are leading your counterpart to your goals. But you are also leading them to examine and articulate what they want and why and how they can achieve it. You are demanding creativity of them, and therefore pushing them toward a collaborative solution.

· (…) don’t avoid honest, clear conflict. It will get you the best car price, the higher salary, and the largest donation. It will also save your marriage, your friendship, and your family.

· One can only be an exceptional negotiator, and a great person, by both listening and speaking clearly and empathetically; by treating counterparts—and oneself—with dignity and respect; and most of all by being honest about what one wants and what one can—and cannot—do. Every negotiation, every conversation, every moment of life, is a series of small conflicts that, managed well, can rise to creative beauty. Embrace them.

· ■ Let what you know—your known knowns—guide you but not blind you. Every case is new, so remain flexible and adaptable. Remember the Griffin bank crisis: no hostage-taker had killed a hostage on deadline, until he did. ■ Black Swans are leverage multipliers. Remember the three types of leverage: positive (the ability to give someone what they want); negative (the ability to hurt someone); and normative (using your counterpart’s norms to bring them around). ■ Work to understand the other side’s “religion.” Digging into worldviews inherently implies moving beyond the negotiating table and into the life, emotional and otherwise, of your counterpart. That’s where Black Swans live. ■ Review everything you hear from your counterpart. You will not hear everything the first time, so double-check. Compare notes with team members. Use backup listeners whose job is to listen between the lines. They will hear things you miss. ■ Exploit the similarity principle. People are more apt to concede to someone they share a cultural similarity with, so dig for what makes them tick and show that you share common ground. ■ When someone seems irrational or crazy, they most likely aren’t. Faced with this situation, search for constraints, hidden desires, and bad information. ■ Get face time with your counterpart. Ten minutes of face time often reveals more than days of research. Pay special attention to your counterpart’s verbal and nonverbal communication at unguarded moments—at the beginning and the end of the session or when someone says something out of line.

· When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion—you fall to your highest level of preparation

· SECTION I: THE GOAL Think through best/worst-case scenarios but only write down a specific goal that represents the best case.

· God knows aiming low is seductive. Self-esteem is a huge factor in negotiation, and many people set modest goals to protect it. It’s easier to claim victory when you aim low. That’s why some negotiation experts say that many people who think they have “win-win” goals really have a “wimp-win” mentality. The “wimp-win” negotiator focuses on his or her bottom line, and that’s where they end up.

· Bottom line: People who expect more (and articulate it) get more. Here are the four steps for setting your goal: ■ Set an optimistic but reasonable goal and define it clearly. ■ Write it down. ■ Discuss your goal with a colleague (this makes it harder to wimp out). ■ Carry the written goal into the negotiation.

· SECTION II: SUMMARY Summarize and write out in just a couple of sentences the known facts that have led up to the negotiation

· You must be able to summarize a situation in a way that your counterpart will respond with a “That’s right.” If they don’t, you haven’t done it right.

· SECTION III: LABELS/ACCUSATION AUDIT Prepare three to five labels to perform an accusation audit.

· SECTION IV: CALIBRATED QUESTIONS Prepare three to five calibrated questions to reveal value to you and your counterpart and identify and overcome potential deal killers.

· What are we trying to accomplish? How is that worthwhile? What’s the core issue here? How does that affect things? What’s the biggest challenge you face? How does this fit into what the objective is?

· QUESTIONS TO IDENTIFY BEHIND-THE-TABLE DEAL KILLERS When implementation happens by committee, the support of that committee is key. You’ll want to tailor your calibrated questions to identify and unearth the motivations of those behind the table, including: How does this affect the rest of your team? How on board are the people not on this call? What do your colleagues see as their main challenges in this area?

· QUESTIONS TO USE TO UNEARTH THE DEAL-KILLING ISSUES What are we up against here? What is the biggest challenge you face? How does making a deal with us affect things? What happens if you do nothing? What does doing nothing cost you? How does making this deal resonate with what your company prides itself on? It’s often very effective to ask these in groups of two or three as they are similar enough that they help your counterpart think about the same thing from different angles.

· Be ready to execute follow-up labels to their answers to your calibrated questions.

· SECTION V: NONCASH OFFERS Prepare a list of noncash items possessed by your counterpart that would be valuable. Ask yourself: “What could they give that would almost get us to do it for free?”

#Chris voss #never split the difference #non-fiction #books #quotes

0 notes