#so instead of a marathon release of 1 chapter a week it might be more like first 1/2-> break to edit/draw ->second 1/2 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

scribblingfangirl · 3 years

Text

WITH LOVE, THE GHOSTS | Julie and the Phantoms - Part One

not my gif!

.•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•.

Author’s Note: Gah… I'm such a procrastinating butterfly. I should be writing my Billy Russo series which I'm so excited about, but I just want to be able to read it already instead of having to write first + I'm currently writing each and every chapter instead of the next one (struggles of a fanfiction writer - am I right?). So, what do I do instead? I flew from one of my obsessions to another and got inspired by this week's @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt.

Anyways... This fic will be a little to late for some of you guys, but still: Merry Christmas everyone! And if you do not celebrate Christmas I still hope you have a wonderful day and a rest of the year filled with love and happiness. You did it, you fought through it. I’m sure you had your own pair of himbo ghosts taking care of you.

word count: ~ 1k

summary (and basically background info): Y/N is Julie's & Flynn's friend who doesn’t know about the ghosts (let’s just say she believes that they’re holograms). The boys become attached to Y/N due to her kindness and positivity and do everything in their (ghostly) powers to keep her days sunny and bright, especially in winter. Or: Two times Y/N is oblivious to the boys 'paranormal' activities and the one time she notices it

prompt: Comfort in the Cold by @flashfictionfridayofficial

warnings: english is not my first language, therefore, typos

| Part Two | Part Three |

.•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•.

#1: Luke

Slowly and quietly you made your way down the stairs of the Molina household, leaving Julie's and Flynn's sleeping forms behind. Even though you had just watched multiple Christmas movies and probably eaten double your weight in popcorn, your stomach was still asking for more. As Julie knew about your habits of needing a midnight snack and since Ray repeatedly told you to make yourself at home you weren't feeling bad about stealing some small bits and pieces out of their fridge or cupboards.

Which is why you were straining your ears to hear any sounds that might indicate that you had woken up either Carlos or Ray, but you were only met with silence. Releasing the breath you were holding you hastily hopped down the last few steps down to the living room, grabbed the stair railing and used the momentum of your movement to swiftly swing yourself in the direction of the kitchen, freezing at the sight that greeted you.

A quick glance at the clock told you it was 2 a.m. and the continuous silence indicated that nobody except you was awake and around. Yet, as you hesitantly took a view steps towards the kitchen counter, pulling your blanket like a shield tighter around your body, there was a perfectly fine peanut-butter/jelly sandwich waiting for you, a smiley made out of Nutella painted onto it. Your favourite midnight snack.

A small note peaked out from under the plate and it took you some time to decipher the chicken scratch. Can't have our favourite groupie going to bed hungry!

Smiling and shaking your head, thinking that either Julie or Flynn must have sneaked out of the room sometime earlier to make you this sandwich you happily bit into it.

If you'd known that there was a brown-haired ghost with hazel eyes sitting opposite to you and watching you with a smile, the sandwich would have probably gotten stuck in your throat.

#2: Alex

Doing multiple Christmas movie marathons would be fun they said. No need to worry they said. Only Christmas cheer and joy they said. Well… long story short, even fun movies can make you bawl like a baby!

A few days after the midnight snack incident, which you completely forgot about, you were once again sitting on Julie's bed. With her and Flynn to your left and right, you had been watching different movies on her computer. Currently, however, you were only trying. Tears were blurring your vision and your sniffles were the only sounds reaching your ear.

Pressing the plushy's soul that Flynn had won you at a fair out of its body and sobbing into it, you felt Julie shift beside you and lay her head in your lap and mumbling something while Flynn was searching for a handkerchief.

"Whose idea was it again to watch this movie?" you tried to ask, but your voice came out all thick and full of emotion, so you weren't sure if they understood or heard you at all.

What you didn't know was that the boys were watching the movie, and now mostly you, with big eyes.

"Remember the day when Julie was crying in the garage and then Flynn came in crying too? Remember how I said that two girls crying are worse than one girl crying? This… this is way worse!" Luke pointed exaggeratedly at every single one of you and moved quickly out of Flynn's way when she left the room to get a box of tissues.

"Dude… they're not actually crying crying. It's just a really sad movie," Alex said and sighed quietly when he heard Reggie whisper, "Do you think that's what Willie meant when he said Caleb floods the place during movie night?"

"That's... no, okay." Shaking his head Alex moved towards the bed and sat carefully at Flynn's place to not alert you of the shift beside you. Then he gently took a paw of the plushy that you weren't currently pressing into an embrace and lifted it to wipe away your tears and free your sight.

You sniffled, too confused and full of emotion to realize what just happened and that it couldn't possibly have been Julie or Flynn, and whispered a small, "Thank you".

Alex smiled, proud of his action.

#3: Reggie

You didn't even bother to take off your shoes or wipe away the residual snow still sticking to your hair as you flopped yourself down onto your bed, groaning into your pillow. Everything was already grey, wet or at least soggy anyway. To say your day had been bad was an understatement.

It's the most wonderful time of the year With the kids jingle belling And everyone telling you be of good cheer It's the most wonderful time of the year

Confused you lifted your head and starred at your computer who apparently decided to become sentient and cheer you up.

It's the hap-happiest season of all With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings When friends come to call It's the hap-happiest season of all

The next thing that happened would forever be burned into your brain. Your favourite pen suddenly lifted itself up into the air and started to scribble down onto a nearby paper. Slowly and unsure you stood up and inched closer to your desk, but as soon as you were able to sneak a peak onto the paper the pen stopped and fell down.

Shaking your head you rubbed your eyes and turned back to your bed. "This is the weirdest lucid dream I ever had." The moment you flopped back down onto your bed you heard the familiar scratching of pen on paper again. Turning your head there it was again - the floating pen. "What?"

However, once again, as soon as you reached the desk the pen fell down, lifeless. “Alright... alright. I understand! Don’t worry, I won’t sneak a peak.”

"I am dreaming... right?" You weren't. Pinching yourself hurt, trying to breathe through a closed nose didn't work and your pointer finger would not move through the palm of your hand.

Shakily, yet weirdly motivated by the happy Christmas music still playing in the background, you picked up the note laying beside the now still pen. "Merry Christmas Y/N! Lots of love from Reggie, Alex and… Who?"

"It told you, Luke… I should just have signed for us all."

"Shut it Reg, I know my handwriting sucks."

693 notes · View notes

bramadian0336 · 3 years

Text

Black Honey- Chapter 1

A Kylo Ren/OC fanfiction

Jeyna is a scholar whose obsessed with the legend of Revan, a famous Jedi and Sith from millennia ago. She has found the first of many star maps, clues to something Revan left hidden, but her studies catch the First Order's attention. Captured and interrogated, she is expecting to be killed once she has no more information to give. Instead, she finds herself working for Kylo Ren.

Warnings: Eventual Smut/Explicit Sexual Content, Language, Mild Violence

Chapter 1

The little girl knew better than to be in this room. For the entirety of her brief life so far, she had been forbidden from entering it. Her mother had sternly enforced the rule, not even permitting her to peek beyond the doorway.

But her mother wasn’t home, having left in a hurry but promising to come back as soon as she could. The little girl had tried to behave, to play and to avoid that room that called to her. But inevitably she had been drawn to the door, her hand extending to the knob. Like magic, it turned and creaked open a few inches before she could even lay a finger on it.

And now here she stood, in the small room that was barely more than a closet. It was almost disappointing, if not for the strange object she found her gaze settling upon. It was taller than her, exotic looking.

She crept closer before giving a childish, worried glance behind her. She would be in so much trouble if her mother caught her. She should leave the room and go back to playing, she decided. Despite this thought, however, her feet stayed firmly planted. Her ears pricked as she realized she heard a light humming. Eyes widening, she instinctively knew it was coming from the object. It was shaped like a square pyramid, dark, reflective. She stretched her hand out, suddenly wanting to feel it. Would it be hot, or cold to the touch?

The instant the skin of her fingertips connected with the side, it split open, the sides folding down. She jerked backwards, dropping her hand as guilt spread through her. Now her mother would know what she had done.

Before she could process the utter terror her immature mind associated with disappointing her mother, an image was projected above the base of the object.

It was a holorecording of a man. He had dark, thick hair and intense eyes. A thin scar ran from his left eye down to his mouth, but somehow it didn’t mar his handsome face.

He looked too tired, but began speaking. The little girl listened in awe, wondering how a recorded image of a man could seem to look right at her.

“Revan. Day 134. Still nothing to show for my search,” he begins, sounding dejected.

“I’ve had nothing to do out here but contemplate my life’s decisions. Far away from the hyperspace routes, from even the most remote outer rim planet…I sometimes question how anything can exist. I fear the silent dark of the unknown regions might very well drive me insane…” The man shakes his head, his eyes stormy. The little girl wants to look away but finds she can’t tear her gaze from his. Something about him is compelling, something in her knows this is important. “Everything I have done, I’ve done to protect our civilization. The threat I have seen from outside is greater than any war we have ever faced amongst ourselves.”

The little girl hears the door to her home, and she knows her mother is back. But she doesn’t know how to stop the recording. She doesn’t want it to stop. What is the man talking about?

“Jeyna! JEYNA!?” Her mother’s panicked voice is screaming suddenly throughout the home. The girl startles and turns, confused. It is then she hears the noise, one that she cannot yet place. One day the sound of it will haunt her nightmares, almost every night.

The sound of the first bomb falling on her small village.

18 Years Later

The little girl grew into a young woman, and that young woman threw herself into her studies. Research, archives, archaeological expeditions…it allowed Jeyna to fixate on something purposeful, something that she found fascinating. It should be little surprise that her chosen area of research was Revan. The prodigal Jedi Knight, and Dark Lord of the Sith, from thousands of years before her time.

She still remembers the man’s face, the somber timbre of his voice, as if she had seen the recording just yesterday. She remembers his vague reference to a search, to some threat from outside the known galaxy. It’s a mystery she’s been working on, sponsored by various universities, for most of her adolescent and adult life. And now it has brought her here.

Dantooine - Now

Jeyna races through the cave system, stumbling on chunks of rock and narrowly avoiding hitting her head as she has to run hunched over to fit through the passage. She’s unfamiliar with her path, as it’s not the same way she had entered the ancient vault. However, it's now her only way out.

Her breath comes in ragged gasps as she forces herself to go as fast as she can through the dark maze, hoping it's leading her to light and freedom. Behind her the stormtroopers’ shouts are echoing, reverberating off the rocks and surging towards her. Her heart hammers in her chest as her mind struggles to catch up with the current situation.

The First Order is here, on the peaceful farming planet. And they’re coming after her.

Jeyna pushes herself faster when she realizes she sees daylight, the path becoming uphill quickly. The muscles of her legs burn as she climbs, eventually having to use her hands to grab at the jagged rock. It scrapes and cuts into the flesh of her palms as she scrambles upwards, the light growing stronger. She can see beams of light now ahead, coming around a corner. She’s nearly out of the cave when the stormtroopers erupt into the space behind her.

“FREEZE! STOP WHERE YOU ARE!”

The shouts of the many identical uniforms blur together, and Jeyna ignores them not out of defiance but terror. As she reaches the top of the incline, a blaster shot rips through the air and impacts a large boulder near her shoulder, showering her with fragments of stone.

She staggers, almost falling in surprise, before righting herself and lurching forward. Around the corner, and she can see it. The mouth of the cave system, dead ahead. Jeyna pushes her sore muscles to move as she sprints forward, only to falter.

The sunlight dims as stormtroopers step in front of the opening, blocking any hope of escape.

One Week Later

Are you working for the Resistance?…What does the Resistance want with the Holocron?...How did you get the Holocron to open?...What does the map lead to?... Where are the other pieces of the map?... What do you know of the Ritual of Nathema?... Who is your contact with the Resistance?...What are you trying to find?

The questions they’ve bombarded her with for days blur together in Jeyna’s mind, as sleep deprived and stressed as it is. She’s answered their questions, time and time again. She hasn’t bothered to hide anything. She isn’t a Resistance operative, after all, she’s merely a scholar. Their war doesn’t concern her.

It doesn’t matter. Still, they hurt her. They wake her from her sleep, strap her onto the cold metal board. They ask her the same questions, over and over again, as if her answers could suddenly change. They don’t bring her food, and her stomach is past grumbling. It feels hollow, burning, pained. They don’t bring water, either, allowing a med droid to supply her with IV fluids to rehydrate her. It keeps her alive but leaves her mouth and throat parched and painful from her screams.

Jeyna twitches her limbs, restricted by the cold metal cuffs. This is the worst part of it. At least when they are done with her for a few hours, she can lay on the floor and curl into herself. But here, strapped to the board, even her head restricted into place, she can’t block out her situation or escape from the terror and pain.

The door slides open, and she is expecting more of the same men to appear. What she isn’t expecting is Kylo Ren, second in command behind only the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

A wave of relief crashes through her at his recognizable mask and dark robes.

Jeyna knows the rumors about Kylo Ren. That he is violent and ruthless, prone to literally slicing through his enemies on the battlefield and even those that anger him within the order. She doesn’t care about those rumors, though. The ones Jeyna cares about are regarding his abilities with the force.

Supposedly, he can enter someone’s mind and see everything they are trying to hold back. He can read memories and secrets like a book.

And so she doesn’t tremble in fear at his approach, but rather she feels the sweet relief that perhaps her nightmare is almost over. Of course, the logical part of her brain that is still hanging on knows that once he sees she has nothing more to offer in her mind, she will likely be killed. But at least, Jeyna reasons, this marathon of sleep deprivation, starvation, and torture can be over.

His approach, which had started with a purposeful stride, hesitates for a moment. That strange mask he wears tilts to the side, as he contemplates her. She wonders what he is thinking, if he is curious about something, as the door behind him slides shut again and he seems to just be staring at her from behind the metal.

Jeyna draws in a painful breath, waiting. He is huge, she realizes, tall and broad. There is an energy around him that even she can pick up on, heavy and thrumming. Finally, he moves again, coming to a stop in front of her. He is too tall, she attempts to crane her neck to look up at the mask. The back of her skull presses into the hard table, aching. She sees his hand twitch, and suddenly the metal holding her to the interrogation device releases. Her legs barely catch her, almost giving way when she lands on them. She has to grab on to the sides of the table behind her to steady herself on weak, strained muscles.

He turns and strides across the room, to where the metal table and chairs sit. She hasn’t even approached it during her confinement. All of her time has been spent trapped on the interrogation device or on the floor, exhausted and wishing for sleep.

To her surprise, Kylo Ren sits in one of the chairs. His mask fixes onto her face again, and he gestures slowly at the table.

“Sit,” he commands. The mask strips his voice of humanity, of emotion, making it mechanical and unkind.

She stumbles forward obediently, pulling out the chair and practically falling into it.

“I find myself interested in your studies, scholar,” he says idly, as if making pleasant conversation. “I’m going to look inside your mind to check the veracity of your prior statements.”

Jeyna nods slightly, having expected this. The feeling of relief returns, accompanied by sadness. He’ll see she’s told everything she can, and he’ll have the stormtroopers come for her. Will they give her a blaster shot to the head? Or just shove her out of an airlock?

Ren reaches forward a hand, low, hovering above the table. The palm of his black glove is up, as if waiting. “Try to not resist me. It will hurt less,” his mechanical voice says quietly.

Her eyes widen slightly in surprise at his advice, before the pressure starts in her skull. It’s like the atmosphere is suddenly too heavy, pressing down on her head from all sides. And then she feels it, she feels him. It’s as if something is inside her brain, crawling around, sliding through her thoughts.

Jeyna instantly resists on instinct, willing away the intrusion. She is met with blinding pain, throbbing and shooting and making her eyes see nothing but static.

“Don’t resist,” he orders, but she can barely hear him. She tries to obey, to give in. She accepts the pressure, the uncomfortable sense of wrongness that his presence in her mind causes. She feels tears leak out of her eyes at the sensations, but the pain dulls gradually.

When her vision comes back to her, it is swimming. The room is rotating nonsensically, and she grips the edges of the table and fights waves of nausea. Her fingers hurt from the pressure she applied trying to dig them into the metal, and she consciously releases her grip. Slowly, her vision stops spinning and she can focus her eyes again.

Kylo Ren sits across from her, silent. Waiting. She raises her eyes to his mask, and bizarrely wishes she could see his face. Even if it was hideous, even if he was twisted by the dark side like the rumors said… Jeyna would like to see one last face before her death, instead of masks.

He cocks his head slightly to the side again. “You do not work for the resistance,” he states finally.

“No. Like I told them, I don’t work for anyone,” she says, her voice coming out hoarse and frustrated.

“You are wrong,” Ren says, suddenly standing. “You work for me now.”

Jeyna is left staring after his imposing form as he strides to the door. It slides open for him to exit, and she is left alone to process what he has said.

Next chapter: https://bramadian0336.tumblr.com/post/646500010079485952/black-honey-chapter-2

Chapter Index:

https://bramadian0336.tumblr.com/post/646403464799404032/black-honey

#kylo ren fanfiction #fanfiction #star wars fanfiction #kylo ren #ben solo #knights of the old republic #darth revan #adventure #romance #slow burn #fanfic #kylo ren smut #swtor

5 notes · View notes

choices-and-voices · 3 years

Note

hi sorry if this has already been asked somewhere but im was wondering if you had any tips on how to get the best experience without having to pay ?

Hi there! Don’t worry, this question hasn’t been asked before, and I am honestly super flattered that you value my opinion enough to ask it ☺️ I’m not sure how helpful my tips will be because I don’t exactly consider myself an expert in this, but here are some things that came to mind! I’ve gone into quite a bit of detail, but if you want a quicker overview, just stick to the bold headings. Also, if any of the people reading this have good tips of their own, please lmk! I’m always learning new things about how to do this too 💕

1. This one’s a bit obvious, but still – take the opportunities that the game gives you to earn free diamonds. That means watching the bonus ads every day (5 diamonds/day), playing through chapters as often as you can (including replaying old books if there are no new releases – 2 diamonds/chapter), and watching ads at the end of book chapters for an extra diamond. Obviously, all this is a bit of a balancing act – you want to be playing Choices often enough to build up your diamonds, but not so often that it takes over your life and makes you feel frustrated, because what’s the point of it if it’s not fun anymore, y’know? So I’ve always been careful not to overdo it. Even if all you do is watch the bonus ads every day, that’s 35 diamonds/week – basically, one big diamond scene a week – which is honestly not too shabby.

2. At any one time, only play 1-2 books that you’re really invested in, and try to supplement that with another 2-3 books that you’re not really invested in or are replaying just for diamonds. As tempting as it can be to rush through every good-looking book in the app all at once, that just leads to a situation where a) you’re trying to divide your free keys between waaay too many releases, and b) there are so many demands on you for diamonds, you never get to consistently spend them on anything. So I personally think it’s best to only read a couple of good books at once, and instead of marathoning them, break them up with chapters from less-good books – this builds up your diamond stash for spending on the good books. Which leads into my next point:

3. Don’t zip through books too fast – even if most of the chapters are already released, spreading them out helps you earn more diamonds for them in the meantime. I’m really lucky to have been playing Choices for so long that almost all the books were presented to me in weekly release format – if I downloaded the app for the first time today, and saw all the fully-released books on there, I feel like I would be way too overwhelmed to play. So I reckon that, even if a book isn’t technically a weekly release for you, make it a weekly release! You might decide to play all the books you’re really invested in on a particular day when you have more free time – say, a Sunday. Then, you have Monday-Saturday every week to earn diamonds for those books, and something to look forward to at the end of it all. As for what you do with those diamonds:

4. Be smart about what you spend diamonds on. There are a couple of different components to this tip – it involves things like a) figuring out which types of purchases are worth diamonds in general, b) figuring out which types of purchases you want to prioritise in certain books, and c) planning ahead before you start playing a book chapter about where you might want to spend diamonds. To address each of those things one-by-one:

a) Figure out which types of purchases are worth diamonds in general. Off the top of my head, there are 6 main types of diamond purchases in Choices: ‘friendly’ scenes with LIs (12-25 diamonds), ‘steamy’ scenes with LIs (25-30 diamonds), scenes with your whole friendship group, collectible items (e.g. the tapestry pieces in Bloodbound, the clues in Veil of Secrets, etc.), outfits, and pets. Your mileage may vary a lot on which of these are most important to you, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. But my general advice would be to i) prioritise group scenes above LI scenes, ii) prioritise ‘friendly’ LI scenes above ‘steamy’ LI scenes, iii) avoid collectibles, and iv) go for outfits and pets only if you really like the look of them. This advice is based on the fact that, firstly, I think you get a better experience of immersion in a book if you know a bit about all the characters around MC, rather than just about one LI; secondly, ‘friendly’ LI scenes tend to tell you more about the LI than ‘steamy’ scenes, which are often 80-90% copied-and-pasted erotica despite being more expensive; thirdly, collectibles are a massive drain on diamond stores, and almost always unlock quite short, generic scenes that it’s easy to find on Tumblr or YouTube; and fourthly, both outfits and pets don’t do much except appear in the story at key moments, which can be a really nice touch but is still only needed in moderation. Of course, there are exceptions to these rules, and you might find that those exceptions are sometimes book-specific. Which leads me to Part B of this point:

b) Figure out which types of purchases you want to prioritise in certain books. It’s all well and good for me to say that group scenes are usually better than LI scenes, but when I’m playing a book with an amazing LI but a pretty meh supporting cast (*cough cough* Myra Dixon carries Baby Bump on her shoulders *cough cough*), I obviously may need to adjust my spending habits slightly. Moreover, by focusing all your diamond spending on just one main thing per book – like Myra’s romance in Baby Bump, or the party’s side-quests in Blades of Light and Shadow, or the posse in Queen B – I think you end up with a much better playing experience, because you feel like you’re seeing at least one facet of the story in-depth instead of getting a patchy surface view of lots of different facets. For the most part, the purchases you prioritise in a book can mostly depend on personal taste, but there are a few books where some background knowledge might be helpful in the decision. Four things that I think are worth flagging are that i) the ‘competition books’ (America’s Most Eligible, Queen B, Hot Couture) do require regular outfit purchases to win, although winning isn’t that much better an experience than being runner-up; ii) Veil of Secrets and Nightbound are two books where it’s worth saving 30-35 diamonds for the final chapter, because your MC is forced to leave the small-town setting if you don’t; iii) Across the Void is a book that frequently invites you to spend diamonds to save characters’ lives, but their death arcs are honestly much better-written and more sensible than their survival arcs; and iv) the It Lives series is the only one where characters can die due to an accumulation of choices you make throughout the story, so maybe it’s worth keeping some diamonds in reserve for that one. Which just leaves us with one more sub-point:

c) Plan ahead before you start playing a book chapter about where you might want to spend diamonds. I want to take this opportunity to thank whichever people in the fandom maintain the Choices wiki, because oh my gosh, they are lifesavers. For the last year or so, my response whenever a new Choices chapter is released has been to wait a few hours, Google ‘[book name] choices’, open the wiki result, and skim through to check how many diamond choices are available & how much they cost. Because all the wiki includes are the possible responses to every choice presented – it doesn’t even state the wording of the choice itself – this is a relatively spoiler-free technique that helps a lot with big picture planning. For example, you might decide not to buy an early group scene because there’s a nicer-sounding LI scene later on, and come to think of it, you should replay a few more chapters of another book first to save up the diamonds for that scene. If you don’t mind encountering just a few more spoilers before you play the chapter, you can also scout out its diamond scenes in more detail by searching the relevant book or character tags on Tumblr, or by looking for a chapter stream on YouTube. You may decide that you don’t need to buy a diamond scene if you’ve already seen it played through by someone else, or alternatively, you may decide whether or not to buy a diamond scene based on how good it looks in an existing playthrough – in either case, these techniques can help you thoughtfully ration out the diamonds you have, instead of being caught off-guard whenever a diamond choice comes up.

5. On the subject of the Choices wiki, it’s also a great way to maximise your success in books without using diamonds. Whenever there’s a ‘right’ option to a choice that gives you a better outcome later in the chapter, that’s indicated in the wiki. So with a bit of pre-reading of the wiki before you play the chapter, and/or with the wiki open on a separate screen as you play, you can get the best outcome without having to buy that outfit or bonus scene that promised you ‘an advantage.’ Obviously, your mileage may vary on whether this method is actually worth it, or whether it takes all the fun out of Choices by ‘cheating’ at the gaming aspect. I personally view Choices as more of an interactive story app than a game I’m trying to beat, so I have no issue with this method, but opinions may differ and that’s okay.

6. If you’re really feeling like a lack of diamonds is limiting your playing experience, it may be best to start out with ‘cheaper’ books until you have more diamonds stored up. In this case, I’m using ‘cheaper’ to mean books where there are fewer diamond scenes, where diamond scenes are less expensive, and/or where diamond scenes don’t play as big a role in the plot. It can be hard to identify which books fit this bill, but as a general rule, it’s more likely to be the earlier-released ones or less-popular ones. Some which I’d recommend are the first few books of the Freshman series, the #LoveHacks series, the High School Story series, the Perfect Match series, Most Wanted, The Heist: Monaco, Wishful Thinking, Bachelorette Party, and The Royal Masquerade.

7. Finally, a really quick tip for making the most out of free keys – keys are used up as soon as you start a book chapter, and refresh ~every 3 hours. This means that, even if you don’t have time to play chapters every 3 hours, you should try to open the app roughly that often and just click to unlock a chapter. When you finally have time to play, you’ll have a whole lot of chapters ready to go plus another two refreshed keys, and you can power through them at whatever speed you need to fit in them into your break time or to earn diamonds for an upcoming release. Once again, this is a tip that may need to be practised in moderation, because you don’t want to be constantly interrupting your life to load up an app on your phone. But even if you just log in and unlock chapters every 6 hours, or every 12 hours, that’s still 2-4 extra chapters ready for you at the end of the day plus your two free keys.

I think that’s about all for my tips! Thanks for reading, and I hope it helped at least a bit ❤️

#playchoices #choices: stories you play #asks #asked & answered #original post

8 notes · View notes

aliciameade · 5 years

Text

Baby - Ch. 9

Title: Baby Author: aliciameade Rating: *** M *** Pairing: Stephanie Smothers/Emily Nelson Summary: That tearful kiss shared between Stephanie and Emily wasn't their first—and it certainly wasn't their last.

(Chapter 1)

Also on AO3

(You can buy me a ko-fi if you want to!)

After the hired car, commuter helicopter, and private jet, Stephanie almost expects the black Lincoln Navigator that Emily and she are led to after landing in Van Nuys. Emily allows her to enter the spacious backseat before following and like their drive to the helipad in Connecticut, she decides she’s probably supposed to keep her thoughts to herself.

Emily’s texting again but after a minute or two, she’s on a call. Stephanie’s about to let herself get a twinge annoyed that she’s still working when it’s long past business hours on the east coast until she recognizes the tone Emily is using and knows she’s called home to check on Nicky. Guilt overwhelms her; she’d been planning to call to speak to Miles when they got to wherever they were going and now it feels like she should have checked on him while they were still in flight.

She watches the conversation, hoping and waiting for a turn so she can speak to Miles (and if she doesn’t get one, she’ll call herself as planned), and after a few minutes, Emily’s telling Nicky to put Miles on the phone and she’s handing the phone to Stephanie with a smile.

“They’re having an Avengers marathon.”

“Oh, those movies are so violent,” Stephanie says with a frown as she puts the phone to her ear. “Smooch, are you there, sweetie?”

“Hi, Mom!”

It’s a relief to hear his voice even if she only said goodbye to him that morning and only for a couple of days. But that’s what being a mother is; she learned that the moment the doctor placed him on her chest in the hospital delivery room. Whether for a minute or a week, she missed her son all the same.

He fills her in on the movie marathon—they’re watching every movie in The Avengers’ world—and tells her they had noodles for dinner (Thai take-out, she learns from Emily after the call) and that tomorrow, Sean is taking them to the trampoline park. It fills her with an immense amount of dread and anxiety and she makes him promise repeatedly he will be careful, wear a helmet, and not jump from anything that is taller than his bed.

When she finally tells him she loves him and hands the phone back to Emily, she finds Emily to be watching her. She doesn’t know for how long, but she’s wearing a soft smile that makes Stephanie blush.

“He’ll be okay,” Emily says as she pockets her phone in her jacket. “We took Nicky there for his last birthday and he loved it.”

“Oh, good,” she says, only partially reassured.

“And it was a clean fracture; he was only in a cast for three weeks.”

Stephanie gasps in horror, heart in her throat, and she considers leaping from the moving vehicle to get on a plane back home. “What?!”

“I’m kidding, Steph,” Emily laughs.

She presses a hand to her chest, heart racing. “Oh, my God.”

“He’ll have fun.” Emily reaches across the space between them and takes Stephanie’s hand from her chest to interlace their fingers. “Don’t worry.”

The gesture is so thoughtful and intimate that it does nothing to help her heart slow. She suspects if the word “sorry” existed in Emily’s vocabulary, she would apologize for scaring her that way.

She nods and focuses on her breathing and the way Emily’s thumb keeps brushing back and forth over her skin to dispel the influx of worry.

“I made dinner reservations for us tomorrow.”

She looks up from their hands to see Emily watching her carefully at the topic change. It feels a bit like Emily is trying to distract her. “You did?”

“I said I’d take you on a date, didn’t I?”

Stephanie glances toward the driver who seems to pay them no mind before looking at her again. She notices the small purple mark she left low on Emily’s neck not that long ago, flushing at the memory, and nods. “And I’m looking forward to it.”

Emily smiles. “Me, too.” Then she pulls their hands up and kisses the back of Stephanie’s hand and Stephanie has the distinct understanding of what it means to swoon. “But that’s tomorrow.”

“And tonight?” Stephanie thinks her voice might be unsteady, but whether from the unexpected moment of tenderness or the possibilities of pleasures to come, she’s unsure.

“Tonight, we’re going to be lazy. I can’t wait to be in bed in sweats and drinking a beer.”

Stephanie barks a laugh, so caught off-guard by Emily’s response, and covers her mouth apologetically. “Casual Emily? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“I’ve been casual around you before,” Emily says with a hint of a smile that makes the memories of a still-sleepy Emily half-dressed in her kitchen making pancakes for their children flutter around Stephanie’s mind.

She has to take a steadying breath to try to push them away; that night and morning together had been something out of a fantasy and it was difficult to stop picturing a future with this woman once she let herself start. “Beer? Really?” she manages to stay with a calm voice.

“Everyone needs to let their hair down now and then. You should try it sometime,” Emily adds with a wink that makes Stephanie blush despite there being nothing particularly suggestive about it. If anything, Emily was telling her she was too uptight which...wouldn’t be the first time someone’s told her that. She thought she’d been doing a better job at relaxing more but maybe she needed to try harder?

“You might want to keep yours tied back tonight, though,” she quips and she bites her lip at the color that appears on Emily’s cheeks. It’s not easy to fluster Emily but apparently telling her in a not-so-subtle way she’ll have her face between Stephanie’s thighs in a few hours is one way to do it.

Emily shakes her head and goes back to her phone but she’s using it one-handed now, Stephanie’s hand still occupying her other.

~ ~

Stephanie is as unsurprised by their arrival at a luxury hotel with an Art Deco flair as she was by the private car from the airport. She’s accepted this to be the nature of the vacation she never dreamt she’d take.

Emily lets go of her hand when their driver opens the door for them and Stephanie stops herself from being disappointed by that. She’s still talking herself down from how she shouldn’t miss the contact after only a few seconds when it’s taken up again once they’re both out of the vehicle. She even holds it while giving her name to the bellhop to bring their bags from the car to the room.

She holds it while they walk from the car to the hotel’s front desk, letting it go only so she can check in, and then she takes it again to walk to the elevator.

Stephanie has half a mind to kiss her in the elevator; they’re alone in it and she’s always wanted to do something inappropriate in an elevator, but she decides to refrain. Instead, she thinks about how nice her hand fits with Emily’s and how safe and protected it makes her feel.

They exit onto the eighteenth floor and find their room near the end of the hall, which Emily opens with a keycard. She hands the extra key to Stephanie as she does so and opens the door to a suite.

She can’t stop the sound that comes out of her mouth and Emily glances at her from where she’s hanging up her purse and blazer and stepping out of her shoes. “What?” Emily says with a smirk.

“This room is insane,” she gushes before taking off to explore it. They’d entered into a living area occupied by a couch, armchair, television, and a small table and chairs. A spacious bathroom is next, complete with a whirlpool tub and shower stall that, intriguingly, is equipped with two shower heads.

The bedroom is the final room in the suite. There’s a king-sized bed in the center of it and she remembers moments ago while checking in that Emily had been asked by the attendant if she’d prefer a suite with two beds instead upon glancing at Stephanie by her side.

Emily had declined.

She’s still thinking about the two nights they’ll spend together when she senses Emily behind her; she smells her perfume and it’s the only warning she has before Emily’s arms wrap around her waist.

The embrace makes her gasp and she hears Emily chuckle in her ear before a kiss is pressed to her temple. She puts her arms over Emily’s to try to keep them there longer and she’s relieved when they don’t immediately try to let her go. In fact, they squeeze her tighter and Stephanie feels Emily’s body warm against her back.

“What were you thinking about?” Emily asks, her lips still grazing Stephanie’s skin from her ear down to her jaw.

“Spending as much time in this bed with you as I can,” she answers truthfully.

“Oh?” Emily’s breath is hot against her neck before she feels her lips, soft and wet. One of her arms slips out from under Stephanie’s and her heart starts racing when she feels Emily’s hand running down the top of her thigh to her knee, then reverse to move up along her inner thigh.

Emily doesn’t stop until Stephanie’s whimpering at the hand that fits between her legs. It’s just there, unmoving but present.

“What were you saying?” Emily breathes into her ear before biting it. “Something about needing to tie my hair back?”

Stephanie feels weak already; the release she had 35,000 feet in the air was amazing but not nearly enough for as worked up as she was. Is. She nods and feels Emily’s fingers slip into her panties to touch her. It’s lazy and slow and gentle and Stephanie feels her body starting to sag in their embrace. “Em…”

“Hmm?” Teeth nick the curve of her neck before being soothed by a tongue.

A slender finger slips inside, all the way, to make her moan before retreating to touch her again. “Please.” She’s starting too quickly to not care what she wants and is ready to accept anything Emily might want to give.

“Go on,” Emily says as she reclaims her hand to nudge Stephanie forward.

Without the contact, Stephanie’s mind is clearer. She had a specific desire when she’d managed to be flirty in the car and it snaps back into focus with a painful level of need.

She turns to walk backward. She wants to watch Emily watch her until she’s sitting on the end of the bed. Emily’s eyes are dark and her long, messy locks are already pulled back into a low ponytail and Stephanie’s thighs clench. It hadn’t been that way when they arrived in the suite and the meaning isn’t lost on her. She stops the moan that wants to escape. She doesn’t want to appear too desperate even though she’s ready to combust. Instead, she leans back to prop herself up with her arms behind her and tries to keep her mind on the fact that Emily is already willing to do what Stephanie wants.

“Take off your shirt.” She tries to sound firm as she says it. She remembers how Emily has told her to strip in the past and tries to emulate the attitude. She doesn’t know if Emily will, if she will be amenable to such a command right now, but she sees a look of curiosity pass over Emily’s face before fingers start moving to unbutton her white blouse until she’s letting it fall to the floor.

She doesn’t move, doesn’t advance toward Stephanie in any way, and she wonders if they’ve entered into some kind of mutual agreement. “And your pants,” she adds to test the waters.

They fall easily to be kicked aside.

She bites her lip at the sight, at the light pink lingerie set she’d all but ripped from Emily’s body earlier. She knows the panties are ruined; they’d been soaked before Stephanie had pulled them to the side to lick her.

“On your knees.” It comes out more like a question than she wants it to but despite past forays into shifting their dynamic—the memory of tying Emily up with her belt takes over her mind and makes it difficult to breathe—she doesn’t want to push it too far or too quickly.

Emily seems to smirk at her but she does it. Emily Nelson sinks to her knees at her request.

She exhales and reaches for the skirt of her dress to start hiking it up inch by inch until she has to tug it out from under herself. “Come here.” The power is intoxicating and she can’t stop the moan when Emily bends forward to crawl toward her on her hands and knees in nothing but a bra and panties. She looks so good Stephanie can hardly believe this is reality.

Emily stops when she reaches her and Stephanie’s legs fall open on their own as though under a spell but Emily doesn’t do anything. She’s waiting for Stephanie’s permission.

“God,” she breathes at the thought. She knows she’s so wet it’s probably soaking into the bedspread by this point. “Undress me.”

Emily smirks again and straightens on her knees to reach for the elastic around Stephanie’s hips and pull until the panties are gone. The position has them almost eye-to-eye and Emily’s stare is intense. “You like telling me what to do?” she asks.

“Is it okay?” Stephanie replies quickly.

“Do you like it?”

She nods, impatience setting in.

“Then it’s okay.”

Stephanie feels the approval in every inch of her body and with it comes renewed confidence that makes her lift her chin, feeling somehow defiant as she opens her legs again, stopping Emily before she can start ridding Stephanie of her dress as she’d requested. “Make me come with your mouth.” She swallows. “Now.”

Emily hums and Stephanie feels her hands gliding up from her ankles over her calves to her knees where they gently push them wider. “I thought you’d never ask,” Emily breathes as she leans down and Stephanie watches as her face moves between her thighs.

She feels her tongue next. She’s on fire and Emily is somehow cooling and fanning the flames at the same time and Stephanie opens her legs wider, already wanting more as she moans.

“You taste so good, baby,” Emily says with a glance up at her before her tongue is back to draw circles around her clit in a way that Stephanie knows is going to make her come way too quickly. The fact that Emily can do that, knows exactly what to do to get her off because she’s done it enough times to learn, makes her stomach lurch.

“Fuck,” Stephanie moans again. It’s beginning to be difficult to hold herself up to watch but Emily looks so good with her eyes closed like she’s lost in what she’s doing. And what she’s doing is starting to grind her tongue against Stephanie and she can see almost everything and her hips twitch without her permission.

It seems to encourage Emily and Stephanie feels (and sees) her tongue move faster and she knows she’s not going to be able to stop the too-quick orgasm bearing down on her like a freight train.

“Em, God, I’m—”

Emily looks up at her again to lock their gaze and the second Stephanie tips over the edge, the moment heat begins to flood her, Stephanie sees her move and then feels the soft warmth of her tongue sliding into her body and that’s when her arms give out.

She falls back on the bed as she comes, her body clenching around Emily’s tongue again and again. It presses deeper still and fingers start rubbing her clit as though trying to get her off instead of easing her through it. It’s almost brutal in its insistence.

It works because Stephanie feels like the orgasm is endless, going far too long in a way that might be worrisome if she wasn’t almost in tears from ecstasy. Maybe it was two back to back? She can’t make sense of anything other than the immense level of pleasure throbbing in her veins.

It doesn’t stop until Emily’s tongue retreats. Her fingers don’t, however, and they’re still touching Stephanie with purpose.

“Oh, my God,” Stephanie chokes out. She’s never come so hard so quickly, not even when she made Emily fuck her at the dining table. She doesn’t know if it’s from the quick power trip or the appetizer on the jet or the fact that they are where they are, but she doesn’t care.

“Tell me to stop,” Emily says and it feels like a challenge. When Stephane glances at her, she’s licking her off her lips.

“Don’t you dare,” Stephanie groans, hips starting to rock up against Emily’s touch. “Fuck me,” she says with a gasp. The carnal need is raw and shocking; she hadn’t thought she was this desperate when they started but now she wants to rip her dress off and demand Emily ruin her. She’s never felt this way with anyone before; sex was fine. Fun. It had it moments. But this...she can’t even call it sex. It’s never just been sex with Emily. It’s more like...a revelation. “Please, fuck me.”

“I am, baby,” Emily says as her fingers press harder. “I am.” Her tongue eases inside again and Stephanie pulls her knees up to help with the angle. It works and Emily moves with her, free hand coming up to wrap around Stephanie’s thigh to push it back further until her knee is against her chest.

Stephanie pulls the other back herself and she feels as dirty as she feels sexy when she feels Emily’s tongue fucking her, now easily able to slide down into her with the angle. Her mind is blurry and pure need makes her hand reach down and knock Emily’s out of the way to rub her own clit. She wants Emily to think of nothing but what her tongue is doing.

She hears Emily moan and hopes she likes it, that she likes watching Stephanie touch herself and be this wild and demanding.

Her other hand now free, it comes up to hold Stephanie’s leg back for her. Her fingers dig into the tender flesh of Stephanie’s thighs in a way she knows will leave bruises but she doesn’t care. She’s too far gone with the need for Emily to obliterate her very soul to care.

There’s a tiny, minuscule part of her brain that thinks about the fact that there could be people in the room next door hearing this. That someone in the nearby high-rise could be watching through the uncovered window. But as soon as the thoughts register her lust twists them and it turns voyeuristic. She hopes they hear it; she wants everyone to know how good she’s being made to feel. She wants someone to see it, this beautiful woman pinning her knees to her chest to fuck the sense out of her with her beautiful, dirty mouth.

A streak of consciousness zips through her and for a heartbeat she’s mortified by her perverse thoughts and then it’s gone, driven away by Emily’s tongue curling inside her and her own fingers stroking again and again. Her free hand fists in the duvet and she forces her eyes open and lifts her head to look down to see Emily leaning over her. To see glimpses of her tongue before it disappears again.

“Fuck,” she pants and looks away. It’s too much to watch and feel. She can’t even get the words out that she’s close but Emily’s moaning like she knows, like she can feel it, and Stephanie rips her hand from herself because the only thing in the world she wants to feel when she comes is Emily’s tongue fucking her.

She can hear Emily; she’s moaning almost as much as Stephanie is and she manages to spare a thought to wondering if she’s touching herself. At some point, she’d started holding her own leg back again. “Come with me,” Stephanie begs and she tries to hold on a few more seconds but she can already feel it starting.

She hears what sounds like a hum of an agreement, some version of an, “Uh huh,” as the grip on her leg tightens and she can’t hold on any longer.

It’s so strong it’s almost painful. She swears. Moans. She feels like she could scream or cry or both. It’s still going but starting to slow when she can finally hear something other than herself and it’s Emily, and there’s no uncertainty. Emily is coming, too.

“Yes, baby,” Stephanie says, still moaning because Emily’s tongue is still slipping in and out of her and when she cracks her eyes open again, Emily’s shuddering and flushed and looks like she’s in another world.

“Fuck,” rings out the second Emily’s tongue pulls out of her and before Stephanie can process it Emily’s on top of her and her tongue, the one that just finished doing the most sinful things Stephanie’s ever experienced, is in her mouth. It’s the first time they’ve kissed since the flight.

Stephanie wraps her arms around her, clinging to her even as Emily’s rocking her hips against her. Her back is slick with sweat and Stephanie can barely keep up with the kiss. She doesn’t have her senses back in quite the right places yet and it feels messy and uncoordinated but it also feels like that doesn’t matter one bit.

“Touch me,” Emily whispers between kisses.

Stephanie has to work to get her arm between their bodies; Emily doesn’t make much room for it but her hand finds her nonetheless. The panties are gone and she wonders when Emily took them off but then she doesn’t care. Emily’s so wet and she groans as she drags her palm over her.

It makes Emily shiver and thrust against her so she holds her hand still and presses it against her. She understands what Emily’s asking for and she doesn’t mind. She maybe loves it when Emily uses her like this because it makes her feel needed. Emily’s clit is so swollen Stephanie can feel the way it drags over her palm with every roll of her hips and it makes her mouth water, but that’s not what this is about now. This is about Emily wanting to be kissing her when she comes again and Stephanie wouldn’t trade that for anything.

There are no words after Emily’s request. It’s hot and fast and rough and the way the back of her knuckles are pressing against herself by accident could yank Stephanie right over the precipice again if she’s lucky. She shifts her legs and then it settles the right way and Emily’s hips rocking into her over and over makes it feel like they’re truly fucking each other.

And they are, she knows, but it’s never been like this, not without their toy.

Cool air invades her space and she opens her eyes to see Emily above her; she’s holding herself up on straightened arms like she does when she’s using that toy. Her dark eyes are on Stephanie and her jaw works like she’s trying to say something but all that comes out is a moan before she’s collapsing to kiss her again as her body jerks and rolls into Stephanie’s.

Stephanie groans as her pleasure follows; it’s not as blinding as the others were, but she knows it will take a lot to match that intensity again.

Emily’s body is heavy over hers and she can feel how hard she’s breathing. “Oh, my God, baby.” It’s muffled between the bed and Stephanie’s shoulder. “Fuck.”

The ability to form sentences hasn’t returned to her yet so she sighs and runs her fingernails down Emily’s back, light and gentle. Her other hand is still trapped between them and she can’t help but wiggle her fingers. It makes Emily twitch a few times until she’s kissing her again in a way that Stephanie knows is intended to draw this moment to an end.

She relishes it as Emily works on detangling herself until she’s crawling higher on the bed to collapse on her stomach.

Stephanie has to turn her head up to see her; she’s still at the foot of the bed, though notably higher than they’d began and she knows it’s because Emily literally drove her up, so she pushes herself backward to be side by side.

“How are you still dressed?” Emily says with a winded smile.

Stephanie manages to shrug and find the words, “Got impatient.” She tugs at the neckline of her dress, now noticeably twisted and bothersome.

“Then take it off now,” Emily says and sits up to start pulling at Stephanie’s dress until it’s over her head and gone. Emily lays right back down as soon as she’s thrown it aside and Stephanie can’t help but smile at her. She’s so cute in her own ways.

The removal of Stephanie’s dress doesn’t appear to be for any reason other than Emily’s desire for it to be gone. She doesn’t make another advance or run her hands hungrily across the newly exposed skin. She just lays down and glances at Stephanie and returns her smile, both of them still breathing harder than usual but almost back to normal. But as content as Stephanie is to lie in bed with Emily for an indefinite length of time, her need to know what happens next gnaws at her until she breaks. She asks her question to the ceiling.

“So, do you have to go in for a meeting tonight? Or a site visit? Or…?”

“Fuck no,” Emily laughs and she hears her pat her own bare stomach absently. “I have to be somewhere at noon tomorrow, but I’ll be back before dinner.”

“Oh, that’s fine; I can entertain myself for a few hours.” Emily’s answers make her happy. They’re in for the night. No one has to be up at dawn tomorrow. Their date is tomorrow.

“I wasn’t asking for your permission.” Emily’s voice is direct enough that it makes Stephanie take pause and glance at her but the tension in the corner of her mouth betrays her attempt at dominance.

“Not now, anyway,” Stephanie retorts with confidence and she flinches hard when Emily moves but the only thing that happens is that her pillow gets yanked out from under her to drop her head to the mattress with a jolt before it’s thrown at her with a curse. She laughs into it and pushes it aside; she loves when Emily’s like this, allows her to play and play along. The mask is coming off more quickly each time they’re alone together and she hopes maybe this special and particularly intimate length of time together might get the mask retired for good.

“You’re lucky I like you,” Emily says as Stephanie sits up to put her pillow back where it belongs.

“I know,” she answers with a smile as she reaches back to unhook and remove her bra. It’s not intended to be suggestive; it’s felt weird wearing only a bra in bed—of all the things to be wearing, why continue wearing the most uncomfortable option?—but Emily’s eyes fall to her chest anyway and she’s barely braced herself by the time Emily’s moved in to take the right one into her mouth while her hand tends to the left. “God, Em…”

Emily looks up at her while she makes a show of pulling Stephanie’s nipple between her teeth and she’s barely using any pressure, just enough to hold it, but it makes Stephanie wince and moan all the same. It slips from her mouth and then she ducks to the left to swipe her tongue over the other tip before she’s sitting up and rolling out of bed to leave Stephanie dizzy and breathless.

“I’m ordering room service.” Emily walks away, stripping her bra as she goes, and disappears for a few seconds until she’s back with a small black portfolio which she tosses on the bed near Stephanie. “Decide what you want while I call for our bags.”

Stephanie’s still clearing away the sudden haze that came with Emily’s teeth on her nipple but she does remember something about leaving their luggage with a bellhop and surely they should have been delivered to them by now?

Emily sits back on the edge of what’s become traditionally “her” side of the bed when they’re sharing one. It also happens to be the one with the phone, which she picks up and presses a button on as she points at the portfolio and then at Stephanie again.

“Okay, okay,” she mumbles as she pulls it toward herself to flip it open to an extensive multi-page menu. She listens to Emily’s brief and direct half of the phone call while deciding if she wants breakfast for dinner because Eggs Benedict sounds so good right now but she could have breakfast for breakfast in the morning.

“Nelson, Emily. Our bags haven’t been delivered. No, we haven’t left since checking in. Clearly, your guy needs to knock louder because neither of us heard it. Bring them now; I’ve never had to wait so long for something so simple.” She hangs up and does a double-take when she catches Stephanie watching her. “What?”

“They tried to deliver them and we didn’t hear them knocking because—”

“Because we were fucking,” Emily finishes. It makes Stephanie blush because now that she’s not drowning in a sea of lust the concept that some poor bellhop probably heard Emily fucking the daylights out of her and saying all manner of unholy things. “They’re probably getting off to it in a bathroom somewhere right now.”

Stephanie groans and hides her face. She’s too caught up in her own embarrassment to notice Emily creeping up on her. She grabs Stephanie around her middle and yanks her across the bed with a panicked shriek until she’s sitting haphazardly in Emily’s lap.

“Don’t worry, baby,” Emily says with a grin. “I’ll answer the door when they get here. Give ‘em a nice big tip.” Her tongue presses into her cheek in a manner that is very lewd and Stephanie shoves at her dramatically.

“Don’t you dare!”

“Maybe they’ll join us for a threesome. Do you want me to ask? Or would you only like that if it was a woman? It could be a woman, I guess, but men are usually the ones who—”

“No threesomes!” Stephanie interrupts. “No, thank you. And...please don’t suck his dick for bringing our bags to us? That’s just his job.”

Emily’s hand strokes up and down Stephanie’s forearm a few times and it makes her shudder in disgust. “So, a hand job then?”

“Emily!”

“What’s wrong, baby?” Emily laughs. “Don’t want me touching someone else?”

Stephanie’s heart stops at the question. It’s so direct and even though she knows they’re both being playful and dramatic, it’s very, very loaded and Emily seems to be expecting an answer.

A distant but determined knock on the door saves her from having to lie and Emily kisses her soundly before guiding her off her lap and back onto the bed. She watches her step into the bathroom and return wearing a white bathrobe which she ties on her way into the other room.

Stephanie’s heart explodes in a fit of panicked relief at her exit. That had been way too close, way too entrapping and she didn’t want to ruin this trip before it’s barely begun by saying something stupid. She hears a quiet exchange between Emily and a man and then the loud click of the door being closed and deadbolted. Emily returns with their two bags in one hand and a garment bag over her shoulder. She sets Stephanie’s on the open luggage rack sitting in a corner before tossing hers a few feet away to land on the floor near the bed. The garment bag, presumably holding things Emily cares about, gets hung up in the closet.

When she returns she makes it a point to wipe her chin and Stephanie’s seen her do it enough times that it sparks instant recognition. It’s accompanied by a wink.

“Screw you,” Stephanie grumbles much to Emily’s delight if her laughter is anything to judge by and she refocuses on the forgotten menu. She’s just grateful she’s not being pressed to answer Emily’s recent question.

~ ~

They eat dinner in matching hotel bathrobes sitting in bed. It had been a quick debate between the table and bed but Emily’s desire to be lazy won out without resistance from Stephanie. She didn’t really care where they ate as long as it was together.

Stephanie had stared, wide-eyed, as Emily placed their order. She repeated Stephanie’s first, some type of Asian chicken salad before rattling off her own. It started with a cheeseburger which didn’t surprise Stephanie given Emily’s earlier declaration about being lazy and drinking beer, but then it kept going. Fries. A vanilla milkshake. An order of pork dumplings because Stephanie’s salad made her want Chinese food. A slice of cheesecake—two slices of cheesecake once Stephanie got her attention to ask for one, too. A six-pack of Stella Artois on ice.

“Are you seriously going to eat all that?” Stephanie asks incredulously once they’ve balanced the trays and plates of food around them on the bed where they sit.

“Dennis is paying for it, so who cares?” The beer is the first thing she’d grabbed upon its arrival and she opens Stephanie’s for her before opening one for herself. “Cheers.”

“What are we toasting?” Stephanie says before tapping her bottle to Emily’s.

“The Seven Deadly Sins.”

Stephanie freezes at that, beer not yet to her lips. “What?”

“The Seven Deadly Sins,” she repeats. “Pride: the bullshit I do for a living,” she starts counting on her fingers. Greed: this trip. Lust…” She looks at Stephanie and doesn’t expand on it; she doesn’t need to. “Gluttony.” She gestures at the unnecessary amount of food around them. “Wrath, which will be me tomorrow. Sloth, a.k.a. lying in this bed drinking this beer.”

She doesn’t continue and Stephanie’s well-aware of the one sin missing from the list. It’s her biggest as of late, tied only with lust. “And envy?” she dares.

Emily looks at her. “And envy.” There’s a beat of silence and then Emily drinks so Stephanie follows suit in relief that that conversation is over. “Find a movie on the TV,” she says with a brighter tone. “No porn, though.”

“No?” Stephanie laughs, still a little unnerved by the conversation as she finds the television remote.

“Hotel porn is shit. We can make our own later.” She winks when she says it and Stephanie almost knocks over the beer she’s setting on the nightstand.

“What?!”

“It’ll be a hundred times hotter. We can sell it and become millionaires. Maybe I can finally pay off my fucking mortgage. Cheers to that, too.”

Stephanie stares at her in shock waiting for her to break but she doesn’t. She reaches for a French fry and bites it in half. “I think you’re joking, but…” She can’t quite bring herself to just agree because what if Emily is serious about that? In any capacity? With or without the commercialization? She could never do that; what would Miles think when he finds out when he’s older? Or his friends? She can see a 16-year-old Miles and his high school buddies at a friend’s house and one of them pulling up a video their older brother found of her and Emily on the Internet and—

“We’re not making a sex tape,” Emily says with an amused snort that breaks Stephanie’s horrible daydream. “I can’t have that kind of publicity.”

Stephanie deflates in relief and then she’s embarrassed when she notices it’s sullied with a hint of disappointment. The concept is brand new; she’d never considered such a thing, but right now, it seems like it could be interesting. “Oh. Okay.”

She feels Emily watching her and tries to look busy with her salad by stabbing her fork into it a few times before shoveling a stack of lettuce and spinach into her mouth.

“Oh...my...God.” It’s the same tone Emily took with her when she found out about Stephanie’s major lapse in judgment with her late half-brother.

“What?” She says it like Emily’s crazy, mouth half-full and face warm.

“You want to make a sex tape!”

Panic fills her but it’s the kind of panic she knows will explode into laughter and teasing, and maybe kissing. “I never said that!” It wasn’t a lie; she absolutely did not say those words.

“Oh, you just did, you pervert!”

She knows Emily is playing but it ruffles her all the same, maybe because she kind of thinks she maybe is, a little bit. “I’m not a pervert!”

“The brotherfucker wants to make a sex tape.” Emily’s looking at her with annoyingly beautiful wide eyes as though Stephanie's managed to scandalize her.

“Don’t call me that.”

“But you did. You fucked your brother.”

She feels the shame creep up the back of her neck that she’s spent the better part of the last two years putting behind her. “Half-brother. It was a momentary lapse in judgment. It’s not like we grew up together. We didn’t even know each other when it happened.”

“And what about all the other times it happened?”

She squirms at that and tries to hide her discomfort in another bite of salad. She’d never told Emily her sexual affair with Chris had continued beyond the first time but it seemed as though Emily saw right through that omission.

Emily doesn’t press that detail further. “I’ll think about it,” she says instead. “But we’d need rules. I think I trust you, but I wouldn’t survive something like that leaking.”

She flushes at that, at Emily reconsidering something because she’d [correctly] assumed Stephanie might be into it, but it’s her statement that she thinks she trusts her that digs deeper. She’s always assumed Emily didn’t trust anyone at all. She puts down her salad and reaches for her beer to take a drink and try to calm down. The last thing she needs in her ongoing battle to keep a tight lead on the reins of her feelings for Emily is Emily doing thoughtful things for her (sexual or otherwise) and saying she trusts her. “Deal,” she says. It’s non-committal at best since Emily hadn’t agreed to it to begin with.

She tries to change the topic by pulling up the pay-per-view movies on the television, scrolling through them until she settles on some late-90s romantic comedy that earns a snort of amusement and distaste from Emily. It works, and the dangerous topics are moved to the back seat in favor of commentary on the cheesy romance on screen and silence while they eat and drink. It’s an easy type of quiet that settles between them; there’s no verbal sparring or Emily needling Stephanie for a laugh. And when they clear off the bed to go to sleep, the robes come off and the kissing returns.

It’s the same kissing they’d shared on the plane before Stephanie had slid to her knees. It’s slow and warm, and the desperation she so often feels with Emily isn’t there. There’s no need to rush because someone may come home or interrupt them and no one has to leave. It’s a rarity for them to be in bed together and not be at the mercy of a sexual need demanding to be quenched. That has already happened, at least for today, and though Emily’s tongue on her lips and in her mouth makes her pulse race she clings to the comfort that comes with simply lying in bed with Emily as they slowly kiss. She knows there will be more tomorrow, or perhaps later tonight, but for now, this is enough.

She cannot stop the thought, however, that eventually none of this is going to feel like enough, not the laughs or the kissing or even the sex, because she knows she’s going to need more and she knows she’s not going to get it.

~ ~

Chapter 10

#a simple favor #stephanie smothers #emily nelson #murder moms #fanfic #asf fic

94 notes · View notes

secondgenerationnerd · 7 years

Text

Broken Arrow pt. 1

Author’s note: So this Fic was inspired by the song by Daughtry of the same name. I will post the next chapter in the next day or so. Love you *evil laugh because of the fic

Rating: M for swearing and suggested intimacy

“Subject name: Lian Alice Nguyen-Harper. Age: 17 years, 9 months. Species: Human. Race: Mixed; Caucasian, and Asian. Powers: None. Disabilities: None. Height: 1.68 meters. Weight: 85. 28 kilograms,” Irey’s voice is cold and detached. Lian wonders how long she’s been awake. Jai gives her a look from the control center that tells her it’s been at least 36 hours since his sister has slept. Lian reties her ponytail, making a mental note to slip something into Irey’s food at lunch. These monthly assessments are hell on the speedster,” Testing: Reaction time, facial recognition, agility, and reflexes. The test is comprised of five levels at one-minute intervals. Is the subject ready?”

“Ready to go,” Lian says, checking her quiver one last time. The arrows are different than her normal ones. They’re specially designed by Jai for these tests. Lian takes her place. She takes a deep breath in like her father taught her. When the first hologram comes at her, she releases it along with an arrow.

The first round is easy, just hitting targets as they run at her. It takes nothing for her to draw the bow and fire arrow after arrow.

The second and third rounds are similar, only faster and adding weapons (short range at level two, long range at level three). Lian flips and slides around the room. She might not be an acrobat like Mar’i but she can hold her own in the field.

In the fourth level, they introduce civilians. Lian fires an arrow into the neck of a bad guy, narrowly avoiding the old woman in front of him. A little harder, but she’s got this.

At the last level, the holograms change into people she knows. Well, heroes and villains. If the report wasn’t going to the league, she would totally shoot the Damian hologram in the ass. The timer on the clock tells her she has 5 seconds left. The last hologram comes at her. Lian freezes. It’s her mother. Well, Cheshire, but there’s no difference really. The time runs out just as the hologram thrusts its fake blade through her chest. Lian exhales.

“Test has ended,” Irey begins reciting the data for the camera, while Jai jumps down and walks towards her. He removes the sticky patches on her skin that have been sending her vitals to his laptop.

“You ok, babe?” He asks. Lian nods,” The computer was on randomize. I didn’t ken- “

“It’s ok,” Lian assures him. Ok, it’s not, but he doesn’t need to know that. She nods at Irey, who’s turned the camera off and is now typing on her laptop,” How worried should I be?”

“We have one more round of tests on Mar’i and Jon to run. Then we’re done ‘til next month.” Jai’s arm wraps itself around her waist.

“You two have a break anytime soon?” They’re both still watching Irey, whose face is blank as she reviews the footage and makes notes.

“Yeah. Here in like two minutes.”

“Good. I might go find Batjerk and tell him he needs to spend some time with his girlfriend.”

“I will never get over the fact that Damian Wayne is dating my sister.” Jai shakes his head.

“I don’t think anyone is over the fact that we’re dating.” Lian points out,” I know Uncle Jason isn’t.”

Jai groans,” You know, most boyfriends only have to worry about their girlfriends’ dads. Not their psychopathic, gun loving godfathers.”

Lian laughs at this. She stands up on her tiptoes to kiss him,” Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

Jai smiles at the kiss, pulling her closer to his chest and holding the back of her head with one hand. Lian’s missed this. Missed him. They saw each other every weekend when their team would meet up at their tower, but the days in between were typically hell. Lian pushes the bad thoughts from her head, burying her hands in his hair, trying to deepen the kiss,

Of course, Damian chooses that moment to walk in. Lian and Jai breakaway, more annoyed at being interrupted than embarrassed at being caught. Jai grumbles under his breath-something about their teammates and cockblocking. Damian raises an eyebrow at them,” Really?”

“I’ve caught you and Irey doing worse things,” Lian says to her co-leader. It’s true. A few weeks ago, she’d walked into Irey’s room to ask her friend a question. To say they were in a compromising would be an understatement. Lian’s not sure who was angrier- Damian or Irey. Well, maybe Irey because the speedster had dropped her in the ocean about a mile from the tower.

“Because you refuse to knock on the door before entering a room,” Damian replies simply,” Mar’i also wanted me to inform you that lunch is ready.”

He walks over to Irey. The resident super genius doesn’t look up as her boyfriend slides his arms around her, but her fingers pause in their typing. Lian smiles at her friends. Despite his assholeishness, Damian is always sweet with Irey. He’s the only one who can pull her away from her work when the others have tried everything. Actually, now that she thinks about it, Irey’s the only one that can pull Damian from his work.

“what?” Jai asks as Lian snorts.

“When two workaholics fall in love,” She says with a gesture to his sister and her boyfriend. Jai laughs at his.

“So, are we ‘when two smartasses fall in love?’” They start towards the living area.

“More ‘when a smartass falls in love with a dumbass,’” Lian playfully bumps his hip with hers. Jai acts offended, trying hard not to give her the smirk that he knows drives her crazy. Lian rolls her eyes as she pushes ahead. She bites her lower lip to keep from smiling.

“Don’t forget you fell in love with this dumbass,” Jai teases.

Lian doesn’t bother answering him. Instead, she tortures him a little by pulling the elastic from her hair, letting the black locks fall down her back. She grins at the small groan Jai gives.

“You’re gonna kill me one day, Lian Harper.” Jai looks at her like she’s everything to him.

“That’s the plan,” She says with a wink. Lian enters the living area. It’s a mix of a living room, dining room, and kitchen. Her other best friend and godsister, Mar’i Grayson, sits on the kitchen counter, rubbing her leg in pain. Lian walks up to her,” Charley horse?”

“You would think being half Tamaranian would mean I do not have to deal with Earth shit like this. Perhaps that was not in the gods’ plan for me,” Mar’i grumbles. Lian smiles at her lack of contractions. Mar’i had grown up on Tamaran until she was 8 years old. Until her mother passed away and she had been sent to live with her father. She understands English far better than when she first came to earth, but some things she just couldn’t grasp.

“Here you go, Shooting Star,” Jon Kent hands Mar’i a warm towel. Mar’i takes the towel with thanks, pressing it to her upper thigh. Jon blushes and looks away. Lian rolls her eyes at this. Superman’s son has been dating Batman’s granddaughter for almost two years. He’s been sleeping with her for at least a year and a half of that (Damian tried to murder him when he found out), yet he still blushes at the drop of a hat.

Jai, Damian, and Irey join them a minute later. Lunch today seems to be leftovers and whatever sandwiches Mar’i could throw together. The team sits at the table. Irey is on one side of Lian and Jon on the other. Lian laughs at some story Jon tells them, about a mission that he and Damian had gone on years and years ago. Damian does that weird -tt- thing of his. Lian can see the smile on his face.

Irey talks about a marathon coming up. She’s more or less back to her old self- bouncing up and down in her seat, eating more than all of them combine, tightening her fiery ponytail. The life has come back to her intelligent green eyes. It’s a wonder that anyone knows she and Jai are related let alone twins. Irey’s fair and freckled complexion and short, lean body completely contradicts her brother’s tan skin and tall, muscular body. Jai’s hair is pitch black and styled messily. His warm brown eyes meet hers, grinning over leftover lo mien. Jai and Irey talk about the experiments together, switching to Korean. Neither of them realizes they do this when they talk, just the two of them. No one on the team is surprised by this, so they talk amongst themselves.

Everything in this moment is perfect.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, are they at it again?” A gruff voice asks. Mar’i and Lian both look up. Jason Todd looks at his goddaughters, leather jacket covered in soot and a burn mark across his cheek. The girls jump up, Mar’i actually flying over the table. They throw their arms around him. He hugs both of them tighter than normal. Damian gives his older brother the customary head nod. Irey and Jai smile at Jason, Irey a little easier than Jai.

“What are you doing here?” Lian asks, looking behind him,” I thought you and Dad were on that mission. Is he with you?”

Lian is so wrapped up in searching for her father that she misses the sad look Jason gives her. The others catch it though. They all recognize it and their stomachs drop. Lian moves away because her dad has hidden from her before. Just before he jumps out and hugs her. He always does this. Ever since she came back from the dead. Lian turns, a big smile on her face.

“Uncle Jay, where’s Dad?”

“Lian, what do you know about our mission?” Jason asks. He desperate to keep her from finding out what happened.

“You and Dad were responding to a level 3 threat in Bolivia.” Lian’s still looking around,” Dad said it was personal- “

“It was your mother.” Lian’s smile drops. None of her friends can tell if she’s breathing,” It was your mom, kiddo. We-we found her and tracked her to a hotel in Bolivia. There some bad people after her though. They found her there and-”

“Jason Peter Todd-Wayne,” Lian tries to keep her voice from cracking,” Where are my parents?”

“Lian…there was a fire. Your dad…he went back inside because your mom was there,” Lian’s blood goes ice cold. The room starts spinning. She’s going to throw up,” The-There weren’t any survivors. I’m so, so sorry, honey.”

Irey covers her mouth. Jai looks at Lian, trying to figure out what’s going on. Damian and Mar’i are both silent. Jon looks like he’s going to throw up. It takes Lian a minute to speak,” You’re lying.”

“Lian- “

“You’re lying to me. You’re lying. Dad’s ok,” She can’t breathe. Why can’t she breathe?

“Honey. We looked at dental records. It’s your parents,” Jason tries to hug her. Lian shoves the gunner back.

“No! No! You’re lying!” Her throat feels like it’s ripping at the scream. She slams her hands into his chest. Jason lets her,” Dad wouldn’t-he wouldn’t have left me alone! He-he said he could bring Mom home to us, t-t-t-to me! HE SAID WE COULD BE A FAMILY AGAIN!”

Her body finally gives out. She collapses on the ground, screaming. Someone’s holding her, but she isn’t sure who. She screams and screams and screams. Two days ago, she and her dad had been eating breakfast. She was telling him about some stupid biology test she had. Dad had given her a kiss and hugged her tight. Just like he always did before he left for a mission. She’d taken a moment to let him hold her. Like always. He’d told her he loved her. He called her pum’kin. She reminded him he promised to not call her that anymore. He’d laughed and sent her on her way.

Lian screams and screams and screams until her voice gives out. The moment it gives is worse. Because as soon as her voice gives out, she’s silent. All the light fades from her eyes. She lays in Jason’s arms. Unmoving. Unfeeling. Gone.

Alone.

#lian harper #roy harper #jade nguyen #cheshire #red arrow #mar'i grayson #Irey West #jai west #jason todd #jon kent #family #loss #pls don't kill me #damian wayne

16 notes · View notes

jesseneufeld · 4 years

Text

Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity

Today I’m overjoyed to announce the release of my latest, greatest, and certainly broadest attempt at a comprehensive plan to live long and live awesome: Keto For Life. The book’s official on-sale date is December 31, and—as tradition goes on Mark’s Daily Apple—I’m offering an incredible group of free bonus materials as a pre-order gift. Here’s a link where you can access your favorite online retailers to order, but know you can also visit your favorite brick and mortar bookstore to pre-order, too.

Folks, I know many of you have been here with me and the MDA community for enough years to remember how this all began with the Primal Blueprint. It’s been such an awesome journey—and one that keeps evolving in incredible ways. I genuinely feel like it’s all been leading toward this one. I’ve poured my personal experimentation and hard-gained insight into every book I’ve written, but this one feels, well, like a whole new level of inquiry and practice. Keto has kicked off not just a dietary trend the last few years but truly a whole new realm of scientific research. I’ve been knee-deep in it in writing this book, and I’ve not only delved into these revolutionary findings but have also taken the integration of keto science and Primal lifestyle principles to an entire new level. Let me tell you about it….

youtube

With ground-breaking connections for how keto and Primal principles can literally reset your biological clock, Keto For Life is a revolutionary gateway into eating and living for increased longevity and resilient vitality. With endless how-tos in every chapter, a 21-Day Biological Reset plan with multiple holistic lifestyle prompts for each and every day, and more than 80 delicious keto recipes, it’s a deeply comprehensive and fully actionable resource for living Keto For Life—and all it’s meant to be.

Longevity is about much more than just healthy eating. However, oftentimes when you’re stuck in the disease state of carbohydrate dependency, you might as well forget about other lifestyle strategies until you can escape that certain destiny of pain, suffering, accelerated aging and disease. If you’re an ancestral health enthusiast, you likely realize the amazing health awakening that comes when you upregulate your fat burning genes and get off the carb dependency train. Favorable blood test values, dropping excess body fat, and escaping the common problems of energy, mood and appetite swings are indications that your metabolic flexibility is robust. While Keto For Life dutifully cleans up some of the misconceptions, hype, and misinformation that have come with the explosive popularity of keto, I’m expanding the entire picture into “Four Pillars of Longevity.”

I’ll give you a little teaser today about each section so you’ll be eager to dive right in when your book arrives! In the Introduction, you’ll learn how hectic, high-tech modern life is becoming more and more at odds with longevity, especially the hidden costs of hyperconnectivity, destruction of meaningful social connections, and forces like consumerism, flawed and manipulative marketing messages relating to diet and medical care, and even the fitness industry’s obsession with struggle and suffer instead of a more sensible approach to exercise. You’ll learn perspective-altering insights about our actual healthspan as well as intriguing multi-plane views of aging that will revamp the way you look at your later decades—and the journey leading to them.

A new perspective shows us that aging as we know it isn’t a normal and inevitable result of chronology but actually what Dr. Art DeVany describes as “the unrepaired accumulation of routine cellular damage… a loss of cell function, loss of cell integrity, loss of the ability of stem cells to renew tissues.” Embracing this truth, you can take tremendous control over the rate at which you experience decline, instead appreciating and optimizing the variety of human “peaks” we can achieve and harness throughout our lifespans. Chronology has far less to say than we’ve given it credit for.

Pillar #1: Metabolic Flexibility

This is the best catch-all term to convey the magnificent journey of escaping carbohydrate dependency and becoming a fat-burning beast. Literally, metabolic flexibility describes the ability to burn a variety of fuel sources—not just external ingested calories, but also internal sources such as stored fat, stored glycogen and ketones manufactured in the liver as a byproduct of fat metabolism—when carb intake is low. At the highest level of sophistication, you become a “closed loop system” that can survive and even thrive without needing the constant intake of external calories and certainly without needing to adhere to any regimented macronutrient eating patterns.

In this pillar, you’ll reacquaint with the importance of a comfortable, minimally stressful step-by-step process to escape carb dependency and progress toward metabolic flexibility. As detailed in the Keto Reset Diet, you’ll execute a 21-Day Metabolism Reset, a fine-tuning period, and a 6-week nutritional ketosis period. We’ll discuss some advanced strategies for fasting and eating in a compressed time window, particularly the importance of limiting your digestive function to 12 hours. You’ll get guidance on integrating the hottest longevity superfoods and supplements, as well as help sorting through the weight loss hype around them and pinpointing the best ways to use these products.

You’ll learn some of the best long-term keto strategies, including living in what I call the “Keto Zone,” where you eat in a general keto-aligned pattern without stressing about macros, as well as incorporating days or periods where carb intake might increase beyond keto limits without you stressing about it. You’ll also learn what NOT to do with various popular keto strategies that are ill advised or overhyped, including (but not limited to) the ridiculousness of dirty keto, obsessive weekend refeeds, and cheat days.

Pillar #2: Movement and Physical Fitness

Movement and physical fitness are two distinct concepts. Together, along with preserving sharp cognition, they represent the essence of aging gracefully. In contrast, when we lose cognition and mobility, our life expectancy and quality of life plummet as we are relegated to wheelchairs, beds, and medications that limit our physical freedoms and compromise our mental well-being.

The desperate obligation to increase all forms of general everyday movement can be best handled by JFW—Just F—ing Walk! Today, many fitness and health experts assert that simply moving around more (especially avoiding the prolonged periods of stillness that are so common in the digital age) has surpassed the importance of following a structured workout routine as the top priority to be fit for life. How can this be? Because moving around all day is one of our fundamental genetic expectations for health. Our genes crave movement and are averse to stillness. In as little as 20 minutes of sitting still, we can experience impaired glucose tolerance and acute insulin resistance, along with diminished cognitive function. When prolonged periods of stillness dominate your daily routine, it can cause chemical changes in the brain that promote further inactivity. This is quantified by a lower measurement of Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)—you burn fat less efficiently at rest and consequently crave more carbohydrates for energy.

Now, because modern life is so comfortable, we also have a desperate need for ambitious fitness endeavors like Spinning, CrossFit, or even completing a half-marathon, but these goals must be only contemplated after you have established a foundation of basic everyday movement, which I detail in the book.

Once your movement looks good, you can get into the genetically optimal workout pattern ala Primal Blueprint with a strategic blend of comfortably paced cardio, regular short duration, high intensity resistance workouts (weights, machines, or just bodyweight exercises like pushups), and occasional brief, all-out sprints (the ultimate Primal exercise to delay aging under the “use it or lose it” natural law.) Let’s also add what I call “play” endeavors that can feature each of the aforementioned. As you know from being a Primal enthusiast, there are massive hormonal and physiological benefits to be gained from putting your body under resistance load regularly, and opening up the throttle occasionally with all out efforts.

These activities, which have been almost completely neglected by most modern humans, give us a boost of adaptive, anti-aging hormones like human growth hormone and testosterone. Brief, intense efforts also help preserve muscle mass as you age, improving the critical longevity component of organ reserve. This is the functional capacity of your organs to perform above baseline level, one of the most fundamental ways to assess your state of health and longevity potential. This Primal approach to fitness is simple, time efficient, and within reach of everyone. It also gives you awesome protection against the accelerated demise associated with inactivity.

Unfortunately, many fitness enthusiasts follow an overly stressful approach that leads to breakdown, burnout, illness and injury. Chronic exercise leads to hormonal and immune dysfunction, and compromises metabolic flexibility—instead pushing you back in the direction of carbohydrate dependency. You’ll learn how to schedule and conduct the various workouts correctly, avoid chronic patterns, and apply an intuitive approach instead of a regimented approach to your fitness goals.

Pillar #3: Mental Flexibility

Mental flexibility makes you resilient for life in the same manner that metabolic flexibility makes you resilient enough to skip meals and maintain energy and focus. While looking after the physical vessel is essential, we must acknowledge the strength of the mind/body connection as previously discussed with the insights from Dr. Chopra and Dr. Lipton.

This section details numerous strategies to hone mental flexibility, starting with pivoting: going with the flow when facing life change. Pivoting entails knowing both when to persevere when your peak performance goals are aligned with your deep beliefs and calling to make the world a better place, and also recognizing when it’s time tone down the influence of your ego and quit when things don’t feel right in your gut.

You’ll learn how to avoid the disease state of ruminating, that is, the act of engaging in obsessive or destructive thoughts about the past or the future that cause you feel anxious, depressed, irritable, overwhelmed and downright sad. Instead, we can cultivate the esteemed skill of mindfulness—accessing a state of calm, present awareness through repetition and endurance.

Next, you’ll learn the importance of journaling, actually taking pen to paper and recording your thoughts, hopes, dreams and worries. Journaling can help you identify and correct self-limiting beliefs and behavior patterns. The specific practice of gratitude journaling, for example, has been scientifically validated to reduce stress levels, dissipate negative emotions, boost levels of the love hormone oxytocin, and activate calming parasympathetic nervous system function.

You’ll also read about learn to nurture meaningful, reciprocative interpersonal relationships—which might very well be the most powerful and important way to improve your longevity prospects in the entire book. Our genes are wired for connection, and the digital connections that are dominating modern life and coming at an extreme cost to our physical and psychological health. You’ll learn to cultivate a thriving social network, a smaller cluster of your closest family and friends, and place particular importance on the make or break health element of a loving partnership.

Pillar #4: Rest and Recovery

Optimizing your sleeping habits and environment will be the prominent focus here, but we must also consider a broad-based approach to chilling out amidst the hectic pace and constant stimulation of modern life. Strategies include disciplining your use of technology, taking frequent breaks from peak cognitive function to refresh depleted brain neurons, conducting recovery-centric workouts designed to promote relaxation and rejuvenation, and becoming competent at napping when cognitive function declines from afternoon blues. You’ll learn to pair mellow evening habits with a high energy morning routine (plenty of ideas included).

You’ll also turn your attention to proper recovery, both from fitness regimen and workplace overstimulation. You’ll learn about specially designed “Rebound Workouts” that can actually speed recovery in comparison to total rest by stimulating parasympathetic activity. And you’ll learn how to get better about focusing and prioritizing during the workday to avoid the dreaded cognitive middle gear, where you’re busy but ineffective. Finally, you’ll learn the importance of disconnecting on multiple levels to deliver profound hormonal and psychological benefits, stuff we have overlooked and disrespected with our warp speed technological progress.

21-Day Biological Clock Reset

After a comprehensive education and practical instruction about the 4 Pillars, it’s time for a transformative challenge: The 21-Day Biological Clock Reset. The reset features daily action items representing each of the Four Pillars. The journey, while short in duration, is designed to be highly focused and demanding. This is the only way to stimulate lasting lifestyle transformation and release you from the powerful pull of decades-old ingrained habits and powerful cultural forces pushing your out of a balance and stuck in carbohydrate dependency.

You’ll be exposed to a variety of strategies and concepts over the 21 days, and the idea is that you will pick and choose your favorites to integrate permanently into your lifestyle. You’ll be challenged to perform breakthrough workouts, increase daily activity, actually sit down and do stuff like a gratitude journal and create dark, mellow evenings instead of maximum screen time. It’s going to be fun, but it’s also going to be intensive, not to mention life-changing. Completing the Biological Clock Reset once a year is an excellent way to fine-tune your longevity muscles and clarify your focus amidst the constant distractions of modern life.

Recipes

But the food… Folks always want to know about the recipes. The 80+ Keto For Life recipes are a collaborative effort among numerous authors, coaches, chefs and well-known keto experts, including Dr. Cate Shanahan, Keris Marsden and Matt Whitmore of The Paleo Primer series, William Shewfelt of the carnivore diet movement, Dr. Lindsay Taylor and Layla McGowan, my co-authors on the Keto Reset Instant Pot Cookbook, Tania Teschke, author of The Bordeaux Kitchen, and more.

You’ll find everything you need for beginning, recommitting or reinvigorating your keto eating enjoyment with this diverse selection of dishes, from gourmet to quick and easy, from breakfast to beverages, snacks to side dishes and everything in between.

Let me share one today that might appeal….

Sneak Peek Recipe: Keto Cheesecake

Prep Time: 40 minutes (plus refrigeration time)

Cook Time: 60 minutes

Servings: 8

Ingredients:

FOR THE FILLING

16 ounces (453.59 g) organic cream cheese, at room temperature

2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 large egg

¼ cup powdered stevia or 1-2 tablespoons honey

FOR THE CRUST (OVEN METHOD ONLY)

1 cup (96 g) almond flour or 1 cup (128 g) coconut flour

4 tablespoons (60 g) butter, at room temperature

1–2 tablespoons powdered stevia

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

FOR THE CHOCOLATE CRUNCH TOPPING

¼ cup (34 g) macadamia nuts or assorted nuts

1 bar (3.5 ounces/100 g) dark chocolate (85% cacao or greater), broken into pieces

1 tablespoon coconut oil 2–3 tablespoons fine coconut flakes

Instructions:

Make the filling: In a large bowl, combine the cream cheese, vanilla, lemon juice, sea salt, eggs, and sweetener. Mix thoroughly with an electric mixer on low speed.

Choose between the Instant Pot Method and Oven Method and proceed as directed.

Instant Pot Method: Pour the filling into a round glass bowl or springform pan that can fit inside the Instant Pot. Cover the bowl carefully with foil. Pour 2 cups water into the Instant Pot. Place the cheesecake on the handled steam rack (or in a steamer basket accessory if you have one), and lower the cheesecake into the pot. Cook on High pressure for 25 minutes. When the Instant Pot beeps, allow the pressure to release naturally, about 15 minutes, then lift out the cheesecake.

Oven Method: Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

Make the crust: In a bowl, combine the almond flour, butter, stevia, and vanilla until well blended. Press the mixture into the bottom of an 8-inch springform pan or round glass or ceramic baking dish.

Bake until the crust darkens slightly, about 10 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes (leave the oven on). Pour the cheesecake filling mixture into the pan and smooth out the top with your hand (just kidding, use a spatula). Bake until the middle is almost firm, but not quite, about 50 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.

While the cheesecake is cooling, make the chocolate crunch topping (use for either version): In a small food processor, blend the macadamia nuts until they resemble a crumbly flour. In a double boiler or a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, melt the chocolate and coconut oil. Mix the nuts and coconut flakes into the melted chocolate.

Drizzle the topping carefully across the top of the cooked and cooled cheesecake. Refrigerate the cheesecake until the crust feels hard, 30 minutes to 1 hour. Slice and serve.

Macronutrients Per Serving:

Instant Pot Method: 323 calories; 29 grams fat; 8 grams carbohydrate; 7 grams protein

Oven Method: 459 calories; 42 grams fat; 12 grams carbohydrate; 10 grams protein

Final Thoughts

I realize that there is an overwhelming amount of content hitting us today from books, magazine articles, blogs, podcasts, YouTube and streaming media, and it’s easy for a new book to get lost in the shuffle or buried on a “read later” list. That’s why I want to reiterate what a hugely expansive and life-changing this book Keto For Life represents. My longtime writing/publishing partner Brad Kearns and I joke that we always underestimate the difficulty and duration of a book project by half, and this was no exception. Keto For Life represents an intensive project that took an entire year to complete, with devoted efforts from a sizeable team of researchers, editors, agents, publicists and publisher. It’s designed to stand proudly for years to come as an owner’s manual for longevity. I hope it can help you claim your fullest and longest life.

Now For the Keto For Life Pre-Order Bonus Gifts…

This is always my favorite part. For those who order the book early, I have a few gifts for you (available right away even though the book itself comes out 12/31/19).

Bonus Audio Summary

Enjoy a detailed overview of every section of the book to get you excited and prepared to begin your Keto For Life journey. My co-author, Brad Kearns, describes the 4 Pillars in detail.

Sneak Peek Excerpt Booklet

Read some choice excerpts to give you a feel for the comprehensive nature of the book, where you obtain a deep education and scientific rationale for the 4 Pillars, as well as get practical, step-by-step guidance to implement, and (finally) enjoy a few of the delicious 80+ recipes from the book.

$10 Discount at Primal Kitchen®

Grab some of your favorite keto-friendly products to add variety and ease to your keto cooking ventures.

That’s what I got today, and I’m thrilled to offer it up to the community where it all began and where it’s still evolving. Folks, I hope you enjoy reading the book and putting it into practice as much as Brad and I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for being here.

Reprinted from KETO FOR LIFE by Mark Sisson with Brad Kearns. Copyright @ 2019 by Mark Sisson. Photos copyright @ 2019 Jennifer May. Published by Harmony Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

The post Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

0 notes

lauramalchowblog · 4 years

Text

Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity

youtube

Pillar #1: Metabolic Flexibility

You��ll learn some of the best long-term keto strategies, including living in what I call the “Keto Zone,” where you eat in a general keto-aligned pattern without stressing about macros, as well as incorporating days or periods where carb intake might increase beyond keto limits without you stressing about it. You’ll also learn what NOT to do with various popular keto strategies that are ill advised or overhyped, including (but not limited to) the ridiculousness of dirty keto, obsessive weekend refeeds, and cheat days.

Pillar #2: Movement and Physical Fitness

Pillar #3: Mental Flexibility

Pillar #4: Rest and Recovery

21-Day Biological Clock Reset

Recipes

Let me share one today that might appeal….

Sneak Peek Recipe: Keto Cheesecake

Prep Time: 40 minutes (plus refrigeration time)

Cook Time: 60 minutes

Servings: 8

Ingredients:

FOR THE FILLING

16 ounces (453.59 g) organic cream cheese, at room temperature

2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 large egg

¼ cup powdered stevia or 1-2 tablespoons honey

FOR THE CRUST (OVEN METHOD ONLY)

1 cup (96 g) almond flour or 1 cup (128 g) coconut flour

4 tablespoons (60 g) butter, at room temperature

1–2 tablespoons powdered stevia

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

FOR THE CHOCOLATE CRUNCH TOPPING

¼ cup (34 g) macadamia nuts or assorted nuts

1 bar (3.5 ounces/100 g) dark chocolate (85% cacao or greater), broken into pieces

1 tablespoon coconut oil 2–3 tablespoons fine coconut flakes

Instructions:

Make the filling: In a large bowl, combine the cream cheese, vanilla, lemon juice, sea salt, eggs, and sweetener. Mix thoroughly with an electric mixer on low speed.

Choose between the Instant Pot Method and Oven Method and proceed as directed.

Oven Method: Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

Drizzle the topping carefully across the top of the cooked and cooled cheesecake. Refrigerate the cheesecake until the crust feels hard, 30 minutes to 1 hour. Slice and serve.

Macronutrients Per Serving:

Instant Pot Method: 323 calories; 29 grams fat; 8 grams carbohydrate; 7 grams protein

Oven Method: 459 calories; 42 grams fat; 12 grams carbohydrate; 10 grams protein

Final Thoughts

Now For the Keto For Life Pre-Order Bonus Gifts…

This is always my favorite part. For those who order the book early, I have a few gifts for you (available right away even though the book itself comes out 12/31/19).

Bonus Audio Summary

Enjoy a detailed overview of every section of the book to get you excited and prepared to begin your Keto For Life journey. My co-author, Brad Kearns, describes the 4 Pillars in detail.

Sneak Peek Excerpt Booklet

$10 Discount at Primal Kitchen®

Grab some of your favorite keto-friendly products to add variety and ease to your keto cooking ventures.

Reprinted from KETO FOR LIFE by Mark Sisson with Brad Kearns. Copyright @ 2019 by Mark Sisson. Photos copyright @ 2019 Jennifer May. Published by Harmony Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

The post Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity published first on https://venabeahan.tumblr.com

0 notes

psychotherapyconsultants · 6 years

Text

You’re Smarter Than Your Anxiety and You Can Take Back Your Life

Take back control.

Anxiety…we all feel it. Anxiety symptoms vary from general distress to sweating palms to nausea-inducing stomach cramps.

For some. it’s an uncommon visitor, a fleeting shadow beneath the door. For others, it’s the friend you let crash on your couch one night, who now refuses to leave.

Regardless of its frequency or severity in your life, anxiety has a penchant for showing up uninvited and requiring your attention. That’s why you should learn how to deal with your anxiety and its effect on your life, for when it inevitably comes knocking on your door.

Here are some tips from Coach Monique for how to deal with anxiety, so you can take back control of your life:

1. The “Delete, Delete” Technique.

In order to deal with anxiety, first reframe your thinking to be more positive. Coach Monique goes over this technique in more detail in her book, Most People Don’t Need a Therapist, They Just Need a Change. The third chapter, “When You Change Your Thoughts, You Change Your Life,” covers negative thought patterns and positive examples in using the “Delete Delete” technique.

In summary, we invite anxiety into our lives every day with the little things. Every time you fixate on an embarrassing memory or a negative aspect about yourself, you’re opening the door to anxiety and all of those uncomfortable anxiety symptoms.

But you have control over your actions, your thoughts, and feelings. So when you feel yourself starting to go down a negative path, be present and delete your bad thought. Simply say aloud or to yourself, “Delete Delete.” Imagine that your brain is a dry-erase board and you’re simply wiping the negativity away with a wet rag.

For example, the other day I was enjoying a walk when I remembered an embarrassing memory from high school. Rejection, failure, isolation. There was no obvious trigger for the memory and no reason for it being there. Nor was there anything to gain in my brain reminding me of awkward missteps and uncomfortable moments. This memory had the potential to ruin a perfectly good hike on a sunny day.

Instead of letting it do just that, I sat on the bench and said “Delete, Delete” and thought about something else. Then, a couple of American robins hopped across the grassy field in front of me, rooting worms from the mud. Within moments, I felt better and could resume my hike with no problem.

The “Delete Delete” technique allows you to take a moment for yourself and actively alter the course of your thinking.

The Scary Truth About What Happens To Your Body When You’re Stressed

2. Make Yourself Bigger.

Imagine you’re at a campground. You set your tent for the night and you’re about to start cooking dinner when a brown bear shambles through the spare tree line, snuffling for food. He’s twice your size and stubbornly hungry. You raise your arms over your head, casting a greater shadow. You jump and scream until the bear decides he’d rather steal food out of an unlocked food safe than deal with you.

Now, pretend that bear is your anxiety. Don’t let it steal your food. You bought it for you. Standing taller and acting bigger naturally tricks your brain into being more confident.

If you need an extra boost, try smiling, as well. It’ll feel weird at first, smiling for no reason. But give it a moment and you might find that you’re not faking it anymore.

These tricks tap into your physicality. Since your brain and your body are intrinsically linked, altering one affects the other. Smiling and making yourself bigger is like resetting the circuit breaker in your brain.

3. Take Deep Breaths.

Have you ever caught yourself holding your breath? Sometimes, I’ll be so transfixed on a project that I don’t notice I’m not breathing until my head is ringing louder than a brass bell. You feel ridiculous, of course — how do you forget to breathe? — but it’s more common than you think.

We’re trained to work ourselves to death. While being motivated and hard-working are valuable traits, don’t forget your well-being in the process. Take a step back, breathe deep. Relax. You don’t need more than five minutes to reset your state of mind. A poor breathing habit causes stress, muscular tension, and influences your mental-emotional state.

If you don’t think you can set time in the day to breathe deeply, there are plenty of free meditation apps that remind you to take time for yourself. Some examples are Headspace, Calm, and Stop, Breathe & Think.

4. Exercise.

The endorphins released during exercise naturally relieves tension and stress, boosts physical and mental energy, and enhances general well-being. For most people, the main issue is scheduling! You might feel discouraged by the sheer list of responsibilities on your roster, but there are easy and quick ways to pencil exercise into your life.

Try the “5 X 30 Rule”: The rule says that everyone should jog, walk, bike, or swim five times a week for thirty minutes. Maybe park your car at a distance from work and walk the rest of the way.

Remember to be patient with yourself. You shouldn’t abandon your full-time job to run a marathon tomorrow. Find the time in small things, such as taking the stairs to your office instead of the elevator or doing small interval workouts when you get out of the bed in the morning. Set daily goals, and aim for consistency rather than intensity.

The most important goal is that you set a schedule that can be implemented consistently years from now.

Red Alert Warning: ‘Hanging In There’ Is Hazardous To Your Health

5. Ask Yourself, “What’s the Source of My Anxiety?”

If you keep a journal, track your anxiety levels throughout the day. Look for a pattern.

If you don’t journal, there are other ways to track your day — for example, you can text yourself and check the time stamp before bed and then think about what happened around that time frame. Perhaps you’re in conflict with a coworker or dreading a weekly meeting.

The source of your anxiety sometimes hides in the minutia of daily life. Record parts of your day. You might surprise yourself.

This guest article originally appeared on YourTango.com: 5 Ways To Outsmart Your Anxiety (So It Stops Controlling Your Life).

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/youre-smarter-than-your-anxiety-and-you-can-take-back-your-life/

#World of Psychology

0 notes

pathtopurchase · 7 years

Text

Brain Surfing: key takeaways

“Brain Surfing” by Heather Lefevre (http://amzn.to/2xRyEEl) is a book that teaches you a lot and also brings a smile to your face. Having worked as a marketing strategist at Crispin Porter + Bogusky and several other well-regarded ad agencies, Heather had quite a wealth of experience. However, one question nagged at her. In her own words: “Why don’t I feel like an expert yet? What don’t I know that I need to learn?” With some inspiration from the book The Craftsman by Richard Sennett (the benefits of apprenticing with master craftsmen) and Stefan Sagmeister’s TED Talk (the power of taking time off and renewing oneself), Heather mailed a bunch of strategists asking them if they’d be okay having her spend a couple of weeks with them, observing them at home and work. Nine strategists, spread across the globe, agreed. Brain Surfing is a travelogue of this experience.

Here are my key takeaways from the book:

1. Jason Oke (Young & Rubicam, Hong Kong) has a 50-point check-list that he runs through when starting off on a strategy project. The check-list is a way to learn as much as possible about the brand (e.g. by looking at Google Trends, visiting retail stores), its conventions, data (e.g. how often people buy the category, how long is the purchase cycle) in a systematic way + allow room for inspiration (one of the items in his checklist is: Go for a walk, or sit still and meditate, and calm your mind.”). I guess strategists need something like this because they work on new projects all the time, so they need a quick way to get started.

Another point Jason makes is that focus groups may not generate too many insights because people are likely to be engaging only the rational part of their brain. Instead, he suggests techniques that get people to be creative (e.g. “what would it say on the brand’s tombstone?”) so that they are fully engaged. The point is: don’t conduct research that only tells you things you already know.

2. Simon Kemp (We are Social, Singapore): “We are Social is hyperaware that people rely on other people to feel a sense of belonging, to make decisions, and simply get through this thing called life. And they know that all of the tools and platforms a social media company works with are only the means to help people do more of what we are all hardwired to do already, and do it more easily.”

3. roObin Golestan (DMG, Beijing): roObin admires Jay-Z for his vision and motivation to make it to the top. [A good strategist] “stays ahead of the game, always proactive, making something from nothing.”

4. Rob Campbell (Wieden + Kennedy, Singapore): Rob has a system of having “informants” to help him understand things. He’d speak to professors, priests etc. to help him get inputs that only an insider would know.

Here is a quote of his that I liked: “I see myself at the creative end of business rather than at the business end of creativity. They may sound similar, but the difference is huge. Being at the creative end of business means you want to seek out your clients’ bigger business problems, not just their marketing and communication needs. It means you want to use creativity in broader and more interesting ways. It means you want to develop solutions that are amplified through communication rather than the solution always being communication.”

5. Phil Adams (Blonde Digital, Edinburgh): A couple of quotes:

a. ‘“It’s a really bad disease in digital to do stuff for the sake of it rather than serving a commercial purpose...It’s also a function of the fact that a lot of clients tend to brief digital agencies in a downstream sort of way. So a typical brief specifies a solution: We want a Facebook page, or we want a microsite.” To combat those impulses, he gets his team to start with the question “How can we____ so that_____.” For example, How can we influence a desired behavior so that we achieve a commercial outcome?’

b. “Digital and social are not as powerful as traditional advertising when it comes to building consumer brands, but they can solve a much greater variety of problems, and so the intellectual challenges are more varied.”

6. Suzanne Powers (Crispin Porter + Bogusky, London):

a. I loved this quote from Alex Bogusky, founder of CP+B: “Generally culture is going multiple directions at any one time. And pop-culture, specifically, is always having this conversation with itself about where to go....if you’re going to be relevant, you’re going to be somewhat controversial, because culture hasn’t really decided, okay, this is the direction now. And so, you have to be...okay with the heat that comes from being relevant.”

b. Suzanne: “What CP+B does better than anyone is attempt to articulate where things might be heading and then choose a possible future to invest in.”

On a related note, CP+B’s ads for Domino’s Pizza are well worth a watch: http://www.cpbgroup.com/work/dominos/home-for-pizza

There’s also this brilliant campaign they did for Kraft Mac and Cheese. Kraft wanted to move to healthier ingredients for the product; quite like Maggi noodles in India, Kraft Mac and Cheese has a distinctive taste that makes it unique for its customers. So they were worried about whether customers would perceive the taste to be different and therefore reject the new product. CP+B’s solution was to release the new product into the market with the required changes in ingredient labelling but no other announcements. After 3 months and 50 million boxes of the new formulation sold with practically no complaints from customers, they made the announcement.

http://www.cpbgroup.com/work/kraft-macaroni-cheese/kraft-macaroni-and-cheese-blind-taste-test

http://www.aaaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CPB-Boulder-Blind-Taste-Test-Gold.pdf

7. Kevin May (Sticks, Seattle): Kevin has this approach of bringing together people from different walks of life on a project basis in “salon sessions”. Quote: “There is a striking difference between a salon and a brainstorm: We’re not pressing to solve the problem; instead, we’re sizing up the problem, picking it up, and examining the texture and weight.” When looking back on her experience Heather feels this “strike of the eye”, intuition-oriented approach is a more realistic approach to strategy development than a step-by-step, reason-dominant approach.

8. Saher Sidhom (AMV BBDO / Forge Future Factory, London): Saher is a strategist whose M.O. is to help clients incorporate new technology into their products or services. For example, they might develop an app for Mercedes-Benz which lets customers taking a test drive see their heart rate etc. and gauge how their body reacted to the drive (this is one of the ideas that emerged in one of their hackathons, I’m not sure if they actually ended up creating a production version of this).

Quote from Saher: “The way I see it, technology is ahead of the consumer, the consumer is ahead of brands, and brands are ahead of agencies. But if agencies want to shake up that order, they have to bring these forward-thinking ideas in as added value. Brands need to know they can partner with their agencies to innovate.”

9. Brian Millar (Sense Worldwide, London):

a. In your research, seek out unusual users rather than average users (ultra-marathoners rather than average runners) so that you get inspiration rather than validation. See http://bit.ly/2xakue4

b. One of the people featured in this chapter, someone called Jacky, talks about BJ Fogg’s Behaviour model: “a behaviour happens when a person has sufficient motivation, ability, and a trigger. They must all be present at the same time for a behaviour to occur.”

b. Quote: “Any behavior becomes easier to do when it costs less, takes less time, requires less physical or mental capacity, and doesn’t feel socially deviant (like wearing a bathrobe to a dinner party would feel).”

All in all, Brain Surfing is well worth a read for anyone with at least 2-3 years of experience in marketing (I do think one needs a few years of experience in order to appreciate the ideas in the book).

0 notes