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justimajin · 6 years ago

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Catching a Case of the Doctor Blues ⌠Part 16⌡

⇢ Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

⇢ Genre: Fluff, Comedy, Angst

↳ (4.5k) Doctor/Surgeon AU, Enemies to Lovers AU

⇢ Summary: When asked about Dr. Kim, a string of beautifully aligned words are ready spew from your lips. You could possibly go on and on about how his wonderful stubbornness wasn’t similar to talking to a brick wall, or how his observation skills were especially great in preparing your blood vessels for a drastic rupture or even how one gracious stare of his nearly had you on the verge of ripping your essential documents in half. But it seems that, perhaps, there was a lot more to Dr. Kim then what meets the eye…

⇢ Warnings: so much cuteness :’)

⇢ Moodboard Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

⇢ Updates every Tuesday - next update

Your eyes stare at the bright gleaming sign that glows out from the dark sky above you. It’s entrancing and intriguing, yet you keep wondering to yourself how on earth you had agreed to this.

The culprit has a huge smile plastered on his face, black hair styled to reveal his forehead and a clean cut royal blue dress shirt adorned. His eyes stare at the sign in amazement when they flicker over the hoard of workers lined up next to you and then finally meet your eyes.

“Oh come on!” He exclaims, “Don’t look at me like that!”

You glare at him, “This is where you wanted to take us?” Everyone with you is confused as well, mummers whispering through.

“Why not?” He walks over to you, “It’s the time to celebrate!”

“Park Jimin we’re at a bar.”

“Pshh,” He shakes his head, “It’ll be fun!” He looks behind you, “Right guys?”

“U-uh...well…” Namjoon attempts to reason, scratching his head. Chaeyoung is still staring at the sign, eyes rapidly flickering.

“Do they have any banana milk?” Jungkook raises his hand and suddenly questions, looking at you eagerly and you grimace.

Banana milk was probably the last thing they had.

“I don’t understand why I was dragged here.” Yoongi points out and Jimin pouts, but another voice speaks out.

“It does look fun!” Jin turns around, looking at everyone, “And besides, this is for my promotion and I think we should go.”

You sigh; there wasn’t much you could do at this point. Jin had finally gotten an update on his application, which had been accepted, and would soon be leaving his long-term intern position to become a doctor. For a celebration, he had suggested that everyone gather for a night out for the occasion, but of course Jimin has his own ideas with the matter.

“Fine.” You finally say, “Let’s just get in already.”

Your eyes quickly flicker over, in search of the man who had yet to arrive but Yoongi reaches over to tap you on the shoulder, “Come on. He’ll be here soon.”

You all get seated and the table is completely full at all four corners with the large number of chairs squished together. Namjoon and Jin sit together on one end, while Yoongi takes up another end. Jimin sits down with Jungkook and you are left seated next to Chaeyoung.

You assume Yoongi had saved the seat for your fellow doctor, but then a particular orange haired man with a sunny disposition arrives and immediately a giant smile is on your lips.

“Hoseok?” You instantly get up from your seat and the man charmingly smiles at you before engulfing you straight into a hug. He’s dressed in a dark green jumper and brown pants, looking considerably better than the last time you had seen him.

Hoseok greets everyone else and then sits down to Yoongi, whose energy changes right away when a gummy smile spreads across his face.

“How are you now Hoseok?” You question while Jimin brings small menus over for everyone to look through.

“I’m great!” He smiles, “I haven’t had any problems breathing lately!”

A fond smile is on your lips when he turns his attention over to Yoongi, “So what’s the special occasion for?”

Yoongi gestures over to Jin, “He isn’t an intern anymore.”

Hoseok eyes enlarge dramatically, pure joy lighting up inside him, “You’re a doctor now?!”

“Sure am.” Jin confidently says but soon he’s being engulfed into a hug by Hoseok who had rushed over to his side.

Hoseok raises his determined fisted hand with a cute pout, “I knew you could do it!” He reaches out his hand and Jin high fives it.

Jungkook sighs, “Man…I want to hurry up and be a doctor already too…”

Chaeyoung turns over to him with a smile, “Don’t worry, we can do it!” She pats him on the back and he shoots her an appreciative look.

Jimin plants himself right in between them, “Alright! Alright! Are we ordering some drinks or not?”

“I’ll take the….” Namjoon squints his eyes and they enlarge when he sees the price. His eyes go down the column, only continuing to widen before he turns to Jimin. “Why is everything here so expensive?”

“Because it has quality.” Jimin explains, hopping over to Namjoon, “Should I just order for everyone?”

“I guess.” You shrug, eyes darting around everywhere. Jimin excitedly nods, rushing over to the waiter.

“So if Jin isn’t Dr. L/N’s intern anymore…” Jungkook brings up, “Then are you internless?”

You chuckle at that, “Unfortunately so. It’s a shame that I’ll be losing such a hard worker.” You smile to Jin and he returns it.

“I’ll miss working with you.” Jin turns to Jungkook, “And you can become a doctor too. Just turn 26 first.”

Jungkook mischievously smiles, “I’ll become one by next year.”

“Is that a bet?” Jin asks but Namjoon interrupts them.

“We shouldn’t be betting in the workplace!!”

“Namjoon we’re in a bar.” Jin says and his eyes flicker for a moment.

“Oh right…”

“Wait a minute. If you’re a doctor now does that mean we’ll have two Dr. Kim’s?!” Jungkook hurriedly says.

“We actually had two Dr. Kim’s from the start…” Namjoon mumbles.

Jungkook gasps, “Now we have three Dr. Kim’s!”

“Why do you like hiring so many people with the last surname?” Hoseok questions, reaching over to pour Yoongi a glass of water.

Namjoon shrugs, “It just happened. But no one really calls me Dr. Kim anyways…”

“Tell me about it.” Jimin plops back down next to Jungkook. “By the way the drinks have been ordered and will be here soon. Does anyone know where Dr. Kim is?”

All eyes suddenly land on you, “What?”

“You usually talk to him. Where is he?” Yoongi asks and you abruptly shrug.

“How am I supposed to know?” Your tone comes off a lot harsher than you intended and even Yoongi looks surprised, but you shake your head, “He’ll be here soon enough.”

“So…” Jungkook begins when the room drops in silence, “Why don’t we just call the Kim’s by their first name.”

“That probably wouldn’t apply to me…” Namjoon says but Jin pitches through.

“I just got the title of doctor and you guys always get addressed by it.” He pouts, “I worked hard for this.”

“Maybe we should just replace Jin’s new position with Dr. Kim instead.” Jimin suggests but a protest come out of Jin.

“What?! No!,” He points an accusing finger at Jimin, “Don’t go around replacing me, I’m irreplaceable!”

Jimin scoffs, “Sureee you are.”

Jungkook scrunches up his nose. “It feels weird calling Jin Dr. Kim…” Even you nod to that, the tone not sounding quite right.

“What is Dr. Kim’s first name anyways?” Jimin asks Namjoon and everyone turns to him expectantly.

“It’s Taehyung.”

The words don’t leave Namjoon’s mouth.

He quickly walks by the crowded table in the pursuit of a chair and finally locates one after a couple of minutes. Dragging it over, his eyes immediately flicker over you and you press on your lips to keep them from smiling as you meet his gaze.

He’s dressed in a light blue dress shirt with white stripes, the tone of it considerably lighter compared to anything you’ve seen on him. He wears it casually, the buttons loosely done and his sleeves pushed back, but the most noticeable characteristic is the absence of his glasses once again.

It’s then he realizes that there isn’t enough space for him to sit beside you when you have Chaeyoung on one side and Jin on the other so he hesitates for a moment. You notice this right away and then spot available space next to Jimin; gesturing with your eyes for him to sit there. He sends you a quick apologetic look and you slightly shake your head when he opts to get seated beside Jimin.

It amazes you how you and Dr. Kim can talk without words and how no one even notices the interaction that took place.

“I’ve never seen you without glasses Dr. Kim.” Chaeyoung remarks, staring at her superior with awe.

“I only wear them at work to focus.” He adjusts himself in his seat, “Who chose the bar?”

“I did.” Jimin retorts, a smirk on his face, “By the way we were wondering if you could give the title of Dr. Kim to Jin.” Jimin says, leaning back in his chair as he awaits for an answer.

“Title?” His eyes flicker over to said man, “You can use it. It doesn’t belong to me.”

“But we can’t have two Dr. Kim’s.” Jin explains but he shakes his head.

“Just call me Taehyung then. Especially outside of work.”

“Alright Taehyung.” Jimin laces an arm around the man and he raises a suspicious brow, “I hope we can be great friends.”

Your drinks finally make there way to your table and not much is said after then as the curiosity swarms around the nature of what Jimin had exactly ordered. A lot of the drinks you weren’t familiar with either, but then everyone begins to try them and your eyes widen when you Jimin turn into a mixer to create bizarre combinations for everyone.

The drink you have isn’t so bad, you suppose, yet your cautious with it because one sip of it had already left a strong taste in your mouth and you weren’t keen on continuously indulging more of it.

Looking around the atmosphere is different but it isn’t uncomfortable. Jimin is serving everyone drinks and talking huge gulps of his own, Namjoon seems to be involved in a hearty conversation with Jin that leads to both of them laughing about something absurd, Yoongi has an iron grip on Hoseok who keeps on insisting that he was recovered enough to join in and the latter doesn’t want to budge while Jungkook attempts to know more about nature of the drinks by carefully looking through the menu with Dr. Kim’s help.

Correction. Taehyung.

Taehyung…

“Dr. L/N?” The girl next to you is on her phone, expectant eyes moving to look at you as she gets up, “Can you come with me for a second?”

You’re surprised, but you don’t suppose your doing much except for watching the commotion before you while you sip on your strange drink so you oblige. She leads you away from your group and stops in front of another table not too far away.

“Dr. L/N, I wanted to introduce you to my friends.” Chaeyoung smiles and your eyes rack over the three intimidating girls seated in a booth. They’re all gorgeous, but at the same time they look like they could take you out right there and then causing you wonder how someone as sweet as Chaeyoung was friends with them.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Jisoo.” The one with purple hair says with a smile.

The brown haired one speaks out, raising her drink, “Jennie.”

“I’m Lisa.” The blonde one says and her voice comes out much sweeter compared to her appearance.

“Chaeyoung tells us about you a lot. The doctor that helped her fit in.” Jisoo explains and you’re taken aback, voice stuttering.

“M-Me?”

“Of course Dr. L/N! You’ve helped me so much!” She sits down next to Lisa and gestures for you to join in as well.

You get into conversation with the girls, with Chaeyoung explaining about her internship at the hospital to Lisa and Jennie talking about how they’ve seen Chaeyoung struggle a lot during her college days but are happy she’s now where she wants to be.

“So what are you all doing?”

“I’m working as an office assistant for now.” Jennie says, eyes rolling, “Getting promoted doesn’t seem to be in question though.”

You nod understandably; the corporate world wasn’t the nicest when it came to female workers, “I’m switching through jobs but haven’t really gotten any calls back yet…” Lisa retorts, voice growing smaller.

That is understandable as well with how much the job market keeps declining by the year.

“I’m looking for an internship as well but not many hospitals are hiring currently.” Jisoo explains and instantly your eyes light up.

“You’re looking to be an intern?” She nods.

“What are your credentials?”

“I did my undergraduate degree and just finished medical school last year.”

“Oh,” You pause, “So you haven’t passed the examination yet?”

She shakes her head, “I just completed it but my results haven’t come in yet.”

“I see…” You nod, “Well once you get your results….I don’t mind taking you in as my intern.”

Jisoo immediately gasps and Chaeyoung looks at you in wonder, “Really Dr. L/N? You’ll take in Jisoo?”

“Well I need to talk to Namjoon about it first.” You honestly warn her, “But Jin is no longer my intern and I can always use the extra help from someone qualified.”

Jisoo smiles and thanks you while Chaeyoung launches herself towards you for a hug and you laugh when tears start to escape from her eyes. Jisoo ends up taking out tissues and handing them to her, “Sorry about this doctor, she’s been worried about me for a while now.” Jisoo apologetically says but you shake your head.

“It’s alright, and you can just call me Y/N.”

The conversation continues and for some reason you find yourself relaxing a lot more. You wonder if its because you’re constantly around the guys that having some decent girl time was never part of your day. That being said though, the conversation does take a different turn.

“He brought me flowers for our anniversary.” Jennie says, a triumph smile on her face and a collective ‘aw’ echoes through the room when you all burst out into giggles.

“What about you Y/N?” Lisa eagerly questions. “Anyone special in your life?’

“U-Uh…” You’re not sure if you should bring it up, considering Chaeyoung was with you, “There is someone…”

A loud ‘Ooh’ resonates through the girls and you shyly laugh, “Oh my gosh you’re blushing!” Chaeyoung squeals.

“What is he like??” Jennie exclaims and you smile.

“He’s hardworking and really observant.” You begin, “but he has a kind side to him and he shows it behind the scenes.”

The girls are listening to you with wide lovestruck smiles, “He also has a sense of humour. I wish I could see it more often though.” You chuckle and everyone lets out a sigh.

“What about you Chaeyoung?” Lisa questions. “Anything go on with you and that doctor?”

“That doctor?” You playfully question and she shakes her head from the furious blushing.

“I d-don’t know yet.”

“What was his name…” Jisoo narrows her eyes, “Oh! Park! Dr. Park right?”

Your eyes immediately widen and you look at her astonished to which she tries to shrink away from your gaze. “Really? Jimin?”

A grimace comes on her face from the mention and Jennie raises her voice, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m still not sure.” She looks to you, “He’s just so flirty and bold…”

A collective hum resonates through, “I know he seems like that but he’s a sweet and stable guy underneath Chaeyoung, I can assure you of that.” You say and she smiles at you.

Jisoo pumps out a fist, “We only like sweet and stable men in this household!”

“What household we’re in a bar?!” Jennie exclaims and all of you laugh but Jisoo still has a confident smile on her lips.

“Um Y/N?” A male voice suddenly breaks into the collection of female voices and even you’re surprised to see him.

“Jimin?” You ask, getting up as he appears to not meet your eyes, gaze fixated on the ground.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” He hurriedly questions, looking more nervous by the minute and you raise an eyebrow at that. You quickly wave to the girls, saying you’ll be back and they understandably nod.

Jimin looks frazzled when he abruptly drags you in the corner and starts mumbling in a hushed whisper.

“Okay so you need to promise not to kill me.“

“Jimin…” His eyes are darting back and forth and you already know what this means, “What did you do…?”

“I seriously thought it was just a fruity drink. Honestly I-“

“Jimin.” Your tone changes, “What. Did. You. Do.”

He taps his fingers against each other, “Um so….I might have of accidentally gotten Taehyung drunk…”

Your jaw drops down and you’re instantly fuming with anger, “JIMIN!”

“I’m sorry!! I didn’t know there was alcohol in it…” He mumbles but your eyes are darting everywhere.

“Where is he?” You grit out and Jimin points in the direction for you to rush over.

To be honest, saying that you’re scared is a complete understatement.

You’re petrified.

“Too bitter.” He explains, “It��s the same for alcohol, it’s too bitter for me.”

“Y/N!” Jin exclaims from across the table, “What are you doing over there?? Join us!”

You cautiously walk over and the sight before you is simple enough – Namjoon talking to Yoongi about some heated discussion, Hoseok is scrambling to find his drink as Jin watches him and laughs but then your eyes take you somewhere else and your jaw drops.

“This one doesn’t taste so bad!” A loud voice pitches through and for a second you blink, for it sounded so different you were having difficulty recognizing it.

“I found one that tastes like banana milk!!” Another voice, specifically of a young intern pitches through.

“Really?! Lemme tryyy!” The voice retorts and its then you find them in their own corner, handing each other drinks with curious looks.

“Dear god…” You whisper, leaning against the wall and they instantly turn to you with smiles.

“Dr. L/N!!” Jungkook yells, racing over to you and dragging you down to sit on the floor, “You should try this one! It tastes like banana milk!”

“Um yeah….” You put the glass he hands you down, “I don’t think so…”

Your eyes move over to someone else, completely frozen when you attempt to take in who exactly was in front of you because it surely was not Dr. Kim.

He turns over to you, a sheepish smile as his cheeks are tinted pink when he whispers in a shy voice. “Hi.”

“Hi...?” You almost want to laugh at the way he happily shuffles over to you and you are so glad that you’re getting to witness this side of him. “So Jimin tells me you’re drunk?” You raise an eyebrow.

He nods furiously, “He said the drink has strawberries.” He rocks back and forth, legs crossed, “And strawberries are sweet.” He leans over to your ear, “Like you.”

He bursts out in giggles and Jungkook laughs with him for no reason as your cheeks are colored a rose shade.

“Alright.” You get up, ushering them to follow you, “Time to put an end to this party.”

They both look at you with pleading faces and you almost feel like you’re a parent supervising her two children because you don’t budge.

If he keeps talking like this, who knows what else he’ll do.

“Come onnnnn.” He whines, a pout on his face, “I wanted to try more of them.”

“If you keep trying them then a certain person named Jimin isn’t going to make it through the night.”

“Let’s leave Jimin alive and healthy please!” A voice shouts from the other side of the room as you bring him back to the table.

Sitting then down, you attempt to collect your belongings, “What’s the rush Y/N?” Jin slurs, already drunk himself.

“I need to drop these two off home because they can’t drive.” He hums understandably and once you have your coat on, you turn to Dr. Kim.

“Give me your keys.” You reach out as a way for him to place the metallic object in your hand but he shakes his head and then suddenly you’re being whisked off his feet.

A yelp leaves your lips as you close your eyes to brace impact yet when you open them, you’ve landed in a place in front of everyone’s eyes to witness.

Right on top of his lap.

Instantly the heat rushes to you when the questionable gazes dart over, “T-That’s very funny Dr. Kim.” You feign the most fake laugh you have ever produced in your entire life.

But then his arms trace over and leave a trail of goosebumps when he nuzzles himself in your hair, “You smell like strawberries.” He lets out a giggle, “I like strawberries.” He proceeds to hug you closer to him and you are full on panicking at this point.

Everyone’s staring! Y/N do something!!

“Yes, yes I smell like a strawberry, now let me go.” You whisper the last part and wrench his arms off quickly to dust yourself off but he pouts.

You take a look around and everyone looks shocked to the point where they’re frozen.

This isn’t going to be easy to explain afterwards.

A sudden flash passes by when Dr. Kim lifts his hand and you instantly snatch the keys away from him. “Alright then! See you all later!” You squeak out, ignoring the high pitch of your voice.

The ride home is just as disastrous, with a semi-drunk Jungkook telling you he was hungry for banana milk every five seconds and you eventually having to buy some for him out of frustration. He surprisingly calms down afterwards and is no longer a thorn in your side once he waves at you and leaves to go into his own home.

“Now that that is over…” You glance at Dr. Kim, seated in the passenger seat with a huge smile watching you, “It’s time for you to go home.”

“You’re driving my car.” He shyly giggles at that and you quirk an amused look, “Oh! Oh! Also-“ He pokes at your arm to get your attention when you’re about to reverse the car. “I don’t have my house keys.”

You widen your eyes, immediately shifting the car back to park and he looks worried like a child that was going to be scolded. “You don’t have your house keys?”

He innocently shakes his head and you groan. You thought Jungkook was a headache to deal with when drunk but Dr. Kim has to prove you wrong on that.

Your mind racks around for a possible solution and eventually narrows down onto one, much to your own dislike, “Do you…” You sigh, looking at him and he curiously gazes at you, “Do you just want to stay over at my place?”

Laughter bubbles out of him when he claps his hands, “Okay!”

This is not Dr. Kim. You remind yourself. This is some childlike version of Dr. Kim that is partially insane.

The struggle of getting home is even worse with Dr. Kim as his curiosity runs wildfire when he’s drunk and you are completely exhausted answering a wide array of his wondering questions. The moment your apartment comes into view, you’re jumping for joy when you hurriedly open the door on his side and gesture for him to get out.

“Here it is.” You point to your apartment but then realize he’s actually already seen it, conveniently when you decided to drag him in…

Shuffling your keys, the door opens and he almost stumbles in but you’re quick to catch him, “Are you okay?”

“My head hurts a bit…” He whines, holding onto you when you drag him to your couch.

“Stay here, I’ll get you something for it.” You go into your kitchen and rack through the cabinets until you find your medical supplies.

“Here.” You set the tablet down with some water, “Just take it with this.”

He obediently nods and you almost want to laugh at the sudden reversal. If you had been in the same position, you would have surely thrown some type of tantrum. “Sleep here for tonight, I’ll grab you some pillows and blankets.”

“On the couchhh?” He whines, “I don’t want to!!”

You quickly come back with the supplies, “You have to sleep Dr. Kim.”

“Why do you keep saying that??” He abruptly gets up.

You start to set down the pillow and blankets, “Saying what?”

“Calling me Dr. Kim! I told everyone they could call me Taehyung!” His volume increases and it’s similar to the argument you had in Namjoon’s office.

“U-Um well I-“ Suddenly the blanket falls from your hands and you’re being pinned against the wall when his hands resting on each side.

“Y/N.”

His tone drops in a deeper one at the mention of your name, no longer brimming with his innocent tone causing you to gasp. “Say it.” He commands, his entire vibe switches back into his stern one.

You can seem to look anywhere else but at his dark eyes, piercing into you when you can’t breathe properly anymore, “Ta-Tae…” A deep red blush coats your cheeks when you suck in another breath, “Tae-Taehyung.” You finally annunciate it, smiling at him but he leans in and soon the thought is completely forgotten when he presses his lips to your own.

Your eyes immediately flutter shut and you melt against him as he gently lowers himself to hold you in his arms. He tilts head to the side and presses his lips closer as he savours the moment for as long as he can. You clutch onto his shirt, trying to keep yourself steady when the strength in your own legs dissipates.

You slowly break apart and his half-lidded gaze stares at you with such adoration then you could possibly comprehend. He caresses your cheek and chuckles underneath his breath, “You finally said it properly.” He whispers, tugging you into his arms.

You can’t fathom what he even means by that but he only holds you closer to him, “Y/N.” Your name slipping off of his deep tone causes shivers to run down your spine and you can only muster the will to hum in response, “Can I stay with you tonight?”

Although hesitant with the response at first, you can’t deny the part of you that is concerned about him, “A-Alright.”

He slowly detaches from you, bringing you over to the couch where he lies down and gestures for you to join him. Once you do, he drapes the blanket over you and laces his arm around your torso as he keeps you in a protective lock. A content sigh escapes him when you move to place your head on his chest and deep unsaid words bubble out from him. “Don’t leave me Y/N.” He mumbles, eyes beginning to droop into sleep.

“I won’t.” You whisper, clutching onto him when the words sounds so broken coming from him.

“Please don’t leave me again.” He moves his hands to completely envelope you against him, “Please.”

His voice cracks at the hand and you absolutely can’t stand how he’s almost pleading with you. However, your firm answer does grant him some peaceful sleep for the night.

“I’ll always stay with you Taehyung.”

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marigoldbaker · 7 years ago

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regarding honor and honesty in the workplace (28/43)

read it on ao3!

this chapter: dumb family shenanigans. also nightmares.

from the personal files of Jenny Calendar:

Part of me isn’t entirely sure why I’m still continuing to write personal files when there’s no active case. I’ve shut down Calendar-Giles Investigations for the time being, and we won’t be needing to work any odd jobs; Lilah wired us a very large sum of money in what I guess is another of her attempts to apologize for shooting me. Only—she isn’t really sorry for trying, I don’t think, she’s sorry that she wasn’t strong enough to kill us both. I think there’s a lot of resentment involved in her having to actually pay us the money we’re owed for helping her, which makes me feel better about taking it.

I guess I just need some kind of an outlet, and recording what’s going on always comforts me a little. It’s good to have some kind of a reference regarding what kind of progress I’ve made, whether it’s professional or personal, and right now all my efforts seem Sisyphean at best. My feelings for Rupert aren’t really going anywhere, our kids are still having trouble handling the aftermath of his being shot, and no one knows where the bulk of Angel Investigations has disappeared to. It feels like the end goal is to reach the level of easy normalcy we had before Lilah entered our lives, but—selfishly, I don’t think that kind of undefined, nebulous happiness is what I want anymore. Particularly not with Rupert. I think I want to know what I have in my life.

Staying with Rupert and his kids was probably going to take some getting used to, but not really in a negative way—more like all of Jenny’s family was under the same roof for the first time ever, and she had to deal with a mixture of nervous happiness and a sense of impermanence. She wished that this could be every day, and was beginning to think it might not be too unrealistic to expect she’d always have Buffy, Dawn, and Rupert in her life. At the same time, though, being in love with Rupert felt like a major stumbling block in what could be a perfectly platonic co-parenting situation, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with that on a day-to-day basis.

Jenny made the kids dinner and served it upstairs, because no one really wanted to leave Rupert’s bedroom. Dawn and Faith had created a pillow nest on the floor with Xena and were watching some high school drama on Netflix, and a giggling Buffy was settled right next to Rupert as he complained about the copy of People she’d picked up for him from the hospital. “Really, Buffy,” he was saying, “there are plenty of other things you Americans could be occupying your time with—must you be concerned with Who Wore It Best?”

Buffy almost fell off the bed, she was laughing so hard.

Jenny coughed pointedly, shifting the dinner tray to balance it against her hip. “Anyone up for personal pizzas?” she inquired. “I can make you guys popcorn, too, if you wanna keep watching stuff.”

“Pizzas,” said Rupert reprovingly, “are not suitable for three growing girls and an invalid.”

“I’m turning nineteen in January, Dad,” said Buffy, and she and Giles both smiled a little shyly at Dad. “And you got shot, but you’re gonna be fine—that so doesn’t qualify you as an invalid.”

“See? She gets it,” said Jenny, setting the tray down on the bed in front of Buffy and Rupert. “And I made these myself, so shut up.”

“Dough and all?”

“Oh my god, am I getting the Spanish Inquisition over personal pizzas?” Jenny shoved one of the greener ones in Rupert’s direction. “I put green stuff on this one, invalid, that should suit you,” she added playfully.

“Thank you,” Rupert murmured, his hand brushing hers as he took the plate.

Jenny bit her lip and smiled, feeling fluttery and nervous as she sat down next to a very knowing Buffy. “I might pass on the pizza,” she said, and off Rupert’s reproving look, hastily added, “I’m tired! I really just want to lie here for a little and then camp out on the couch.”

“Be that as it may,” said Rupert, “it’s quite important to me that I know you’re taking care of yourself. You’ve been through a traumatic incident—”

“Yeah,” said Jenny, “you getting shot. Don’t try and take care of me when you’re supposed to be resting—”

“You guys are seriously so annoying,” said Buffy, and took one of the plates from the tray, handing it to Jenny. “Just eat, Jenny, Dad’s right. You can’t mom all of us and live off coffee.”

“Clearly you don’t know me,” said Jenny, but took a bite of pizza. “Mmm!”

Rupert, who was warily observing his own pizza, sort of poked at it, then said, “It looks very good, Jenny,” in a tone that sounded dramatically pessimistic.

“You’re such a food snob,” said Jenny, grinning.

“I’m ill,” said Rupert plaintively, “I would like soup and some soft bread, not something with grease and—and green,” but he was smiling playfully up at her as he took a bite of pizza. “This really is quite good,” he added, in the sweetly accommodating way that Jenny knew meant he didn’t like the food but he did like her.

Jenny blushed. “Yeah?”

“Is Mom blushing?” Faith was whispering loudly and very audibly to Dawn. “Turn off the episode—is Mom blushing?”

“Goodness, I believe she is,” said Rupert playfully, and reached out to lightly tap Jenny’s cheek. “That is most certainly a fetching shade of pink, my dear. Had I any idea I was capable of drawing it out, I would have complimented your cooking much sooner.”

“You are the actual worst,” Jenny informed him, smiling slightly, and relaxed back into the pillows with the pizza. “Faith, can you turn the laptop so we can all see?”

“I’ll just bring it up onto the bed,” said Faith helpfully, and did so without much warning, not even bothering to pause what they were watching. Dawn, who had been observing the screen with rapt attention, let out an indignant yelp and scrambled to follow Faith onto the bed, settling in next to Rupert as Faith set down the laptop and squeezed in by Jenny. Xena hopped up onto Jenny’s lap and made an attempt to get at the pizza; Jenny tapped her gently on the nose until she’d settled down a little.

“See, Dad?” said Buffy. “Told you a king-size was a good investment.”

“Don’t spill grease on the sheets,” said Rupert.

“Who’s the blonde?” asked Jenny.

“She’s Sarah, obviously,” said Dawn, as though Jenny should already be aware of every single Netflix high school drama ever.

“Yeah, Dawn unironically watches this,” said Faith.

“Shut up,” said Dawn, and snuggled into Rupert’s side.

Jenny set Faith up in the guest room, made sure Buffy and Dawn were doing okay in their bedrooms, did one last check-in with Rupert to see that he’d taken his painkillers, and found herself downstairs in the living room, closing the curtains and drawing up a makeshift bed on the couch. She had chosen to sleep on the couch if only to keep her own emotions in check; not telling Rupert she was in love with him was more difficult than one would expect. She didn’t want to give in and tell him about her feelings when what he really needed right now was Jenny Calendar, best friend and shoulder to lean on. It sucked for her, sure, but it was better than hurting him just because she wanted to feel better herself. She’d done that enough already.

She had turned off the lights and settled into the couch when she started becoming aware of how still and quiet it was in the living room. It was the first time she’d been alone since arriving at Rupert’s, and the first time she’d been far enough away from him that, if something happened to him, she might not get there in time. Jenny told herself she was being ridiculous, because she’d been there when Rupert had been shot and it wasn’t like she’d really been any good then.

But then that backfired, because it led to Jenny thinking about Rupert getting shot, and that pervasive, horrible image of him bleeding out was in her head again in the worst way. She knew, rationally, that he was fine, why wouldn’t he be fine, he was upstairs, alone, in the dark, recovering from being shot in the chest by someone who very clearly didn’t like being Jenny’s second priority—

“God!” she whispered, shakily, and pulled the blankets tighter around her. It took her nearly half an hour to finally fall asleep.

blood all over Buffy’s pink dress, and blood on Jenny’s hands, and the steely glint of Lilah’s smile, and the weight of Rupert’s body in her arms, and his eyes half-open and Buffy crying and then a terrible, terrible silence—

Disoriented, Jenny jerked awake. She was too drowsy to sort through the tangled mess of fear and panic and figure out the rational thing to do, and it was way too dark to go back to sleep in the deadly-silent living room when Rupert could be dead somewhere, and—she needed to see him. That was what she knew. She needed to see him and know he was okay. Stumbling a little in the darkness, Jenny made her way out of the living room and up the stairs.

The upstairs hallway was dark, but there was a dim light coming from under Rupert’s bedroom door. Jenny didn’t have enough presence of mind to knock, so she just opened it, leaning heavily on the doorframe.

Rupert looked up from his book. “Jenny,” he said, his voice softening into concern halfway through her name. “Jenny, come here, what’s wrong?”

Jenny felt like some kind of weight had been lifted, but she was still exhausted enough not to think too much about crossing the room to all but fall onto the bed next to Rupert. Awkwardly, he moved his arm to wind it around her shoulders, and she buried her face in his chest with a relieved, shaky breath.

“Here,” said Rupert, and she felt him adjust her a bit so he could pull the blanket up and over her, tucking it securely around them both.

It took Jenny five minutes to reach a place that allowed for coherent thought. She was awake, now, enough to recognize the problems that might accompany sleeping with Rupert even in the tamest sense of the word, but when he was this close, she wasn’t thinking about him bleeding out—she was just thinking about how she was an idiot for letting them be this close, which she definitely preferred. “Sorry,” she said, and curled into his side. “I just—I had a nightmare. Kinda stupid, I guess—”

“Would you like me to read to you?” Rupert shifted again, securing his arm around Jenny’s shoulders so that she was lying on one side, her cheek on his chest. If she wasn’t wrung-out and frightened, she’d probably be swooning a little about how effortlessly close they were. Really, Jenny thought, there were worse people to be madly in love with than Rupert, who was gentle and sweet and was right now offering to read her short stories. “Aesop’s,” he was saying. “I like simple fables for when I’m feeling a bit under the weather.”

“Under the—you just got shot,” Jenny scoffed tiredly, feeling a comfortable rush of fluttery infatuation—and god, now that she knew what it was, she knew that she’d felt this so many times before without knowing enough to name it. “I’d say that’s a little more than under the weather. Just don’t read me the Tortoise and the Hare and we’re good, okay?”

“Now what do you have against that one?”

“Overdone,” said Jenny. “Mainstream.”

“Oh, and you’re too cool for it, I suppose?”

“I just want something new,” said Jenny simply.

Rupert looked at her with that thoughtful expression, then squeezed her shoulder. “I can understand that,” he said finally, then began to read. Jenny wasn’t paying attention to the words, really, because resting her head on his chest like this, she could hear the steady, reassuring flutter of his heart. The way it was in tune with the cadence of his voice was comforting, like a warm blanket, and her eyes began to droop.

“Five seconds in,” she heard Rupert say, “and you’re already drifting off. I hope that’s not a comment on my storytelling abilities,” but he continued to read some story about a fox or a deer or something with complete contentment. Jenny let her eyes close all the way.

#regarding honor and honesty in the workplace #The Slow Burn Continues!

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tales-of-cs · 4 years ago

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Bachelorette of Science

Starting high school, I had no idea what career I wanted to pursue. It was only in my sophomore year, when my sister entered her first year of college as a computer science (CS) major, that I had ever considered taking a programming class. Junior year of high school, I took my first dive into the computer science field, a course titled Java programming. In a class of fourteen boys, I was one of three girls, one of whom dropped the class after a week. As a senior in college, I’m approaching my sixth year in this field, and I have dozens of computer science courses and three internships under my belt. While I’ve met many more women in my classes and in the workplace, in my experience, there’s been quite an extreme gender disparity, and a distinct “bro” culture to be observed.

Wait, Where’d Everybody Go?

Even though Endicott College is a liberal arts school, given that more and more girls are entering STEM fields, and computer science is a quickly growing field of high demand, I had expected to enter my freshman year with a large class of fellow CS majors, and at least a few other girls. And at the very beginning, I thought I was right! I walked into full classrooms of about 20 students, with at least a third of them other women. By the second semester, I realized I was too optimistic. The thing I had forgotten about CS is that the first couple courses tend to weed everyone out. I believe a large part of this is due to the material, rather than a sexist environment. I mean, binary search algorithms...? Object oriented programming? Digital signal processing?? It all sounds so dry and confusing, I even made one of those terms up and you didn’t notice. I’m just kidding, they’re all real, but you definitely believed me.

By sophomore year at Endicott, the other STEM majors had fulfilled their CSC101 requirements, and over a third of my other classmates switched majors. Class sizes had dwindled to single digits, and every new course I would find myself as yet again one of just two or three women. Currently, I am one of just five CS majors in the graduating class of 2021 at Endicott College, and the only woman.

Women Belong in the Front End

Computer science is such a large and multifaceted field, and even though there is such a small female percentage, there is still an unspoken dichotomy between male developers and female developers. The current stereotype is that men do the “heavy lifting” of development, what we call the “back end:” server maintenance, data organization, code optimization, scripting, and the like, while girls do what is called the “front end:” the end that deals with user interactions and aesthetics. Essentially, if programming were like building a house, people in the industry would assume a man’s work would be designing the blueprints, building the entire infrastructure, inspecting for vulnerability, and building new additions, while a woman’s work would be interior decorating and holding open houses.

So what, right? Technically, this rings true; there are more female front end developers than female back end devs. If it’s true, then what’s the issue? While I’d like to agree with this sentiment, the problem with this stereotype is that the common consensus is that front end development “isn’t real programming.” Front end developers memorize programming languages, work with multitudes of programming software, require years of experience, and have to keep up with ever-changing technology just like back end devs, but front end development is seen as less difficult or important than back end. As it turns out, more women entering the field wasn’t the solution, because in turn, another way to belittle our expertise was created.

Having to Prove It

Personally, this kind of gender disparity and social stigma has had real consequences in the classroom and the workplace. I feel as though I’m no matter my skill set, I always have to make up for the fact that I’m a woman. I have to prove that I’m a real programmer. I can’t be just as good as my male coworkers, I have to be better.

Subsequently, It takes a lot of courage for me to ask questions of my male superiors. I find myself worried that over time if I don’t understand right away, I’ll come off as ditsy or clueless, and they’ll discredit my entire background over one question. A fair amount of times, after I have finally summoned the courage to ask a superior for clarification, I have been patronized. On a few occasions, I’ve been laughed at, had eyes rolled at me, and given an impromptu lesson of basic material I had learned years ago.

It’s Not Just the Entry Level

At first, I thought I was mistaking the patronization I’ve experienced as sexist, when really it could be attributed to the fact that I’m just a student. I was sure they treated every new person the way they’ve treated me. A bit of reflection on my past experiences taught me that this was not the case. Not only do my male coworkers get treated with more respect, but I’ve witnessed my female supervisors and teachers receive the same treatment that I do.

My high school Java programming class was taught by a woman, who got her start decades ago when the field was even less accessible to women. On a semi-regular basis, I observed some interesting behavior from my male classmates, which included trying to correct her mid-lesson, asking her for help and then subsequently ignoring her advice, and, though I hate this term, “mansplaining” basic concepts to her.

Looking to the Future

Over time, we’ve realized that sexist behavior isn’t exclusive to the football jocks anymore, and in fact, never was. Computer science folks aren’t a nerdy subculture of kids who got picked on in high school anymore, it’s an ever-expanding field with the highest demand in the job market. Allowing this kind of sexist behavior to continue and encouraging more women to enter the field without addressing the issues within the culture will just lead to more women feeling ostracized within our own schools, workplaces, and communities.

While I have gone in depth on the sexism I’ve experienced, I don’t want it to come across as an inescapable daily experience. For every one condescending classmate, coworker, or supervisor, there have been dozens who acknowledge the stigma, and treat me and other female programmers with the same respect they do for each other. I think that as nerd culture steeps into the mainstream, and becomes more and more socially acceptable, the CS field, in turn, is becoming more diverse. In my internships and in the classroom, I’ve met a lot of great, outgoing people who are talented programmers. Gone are the days of your average antisocial IT guy who worships Star Wars. I have a lot of hope for the future of the computer science field, that with a little reform, in time, it will be a welcoming environment for everyone.

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thebestbusinesspodcast · 4 years ago

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Building Mental Fortitude for a Successful Business with Lisa Tamati

Mental fortitude is the ability to focus and find solutions amid adversity. It’s being able to get back up when you fall. As entrepreneurs, we hear about this all the time, but it’s often easier said than done. Whenever we face challenges, we have two options: fight or flight. At that moment, we need to make a choice. Will you take ownership of the situation and keep going?

In this episode, Lisa Tamati joins us to talk about how her personal life and business challenges built her grit and determination. She shares several business secrets to take your work to the next level. Mental fortitude is not just about your attitude towards challenges; it's also how you deal with your daily life routine. Lisa shares some healthy habits we need to incorporate into our lives.

If you want to be inspired to build mental fortitude, then this episode is for you!

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

Learn how to build mental fortitude through consistent action.

Discover how you can actively take ownership of your life and decisions.

Understand how to create healthy habits and routines in your daily life.

Resources

If you want to optimize your health and fitness, check out Lisa's epigenetics program.

To find out more about how Lisa and her mother defied the odds, get your copy of Relentless.

Follow Lisa on her website and Peak Wellness.

For more information about health optimization, you can follow Lisa's podcast, Pushing the Limits. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

You can contact Lisa through email ([email protected]) or find her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Episode Highlights

Building Mental Fortitude over Time

Lisa learned discipline at a young age through her father and gymnastics.

Gymnastics taught Lisa how to work hard, overcome fears, and perform in high-stress situations.

Lisa shares that wanting to please her father and prove herself capable was a big driving force in her actions.

Take Action

When we make mistakes and stumble, we get back up again.

As we keep taking action, we might fail, but there's a chance for success too.

Lisa shares how she did a little bit of everything. Although she wasn’t qualified in the usual sense to do the work, she finds ways to do them anyway.

Overcome Challenges and Obstacles

Lisa shares the hardest challenge she ever had to face was almost losing her mother to an aneurysm.

They told her to expect the worst, but Lisa refused to accept it.

She read up on everything she could about brain injuries and aneurysms to help her mother.

Listen to the full episode to hear Lisa's story!

How to Take Ownership

Lisa notes how doctors have limitations. Some work long shifts and have hundreds of patients per day.

We need to do the work and have due diligence.

Obsessively researching helped Lisa get her mother back to good health.

Take ownership of the situation and get into the details of your problems.

Lisa's Business Secrets

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is essential.

Knowing them means you find the right partners and people to cover your weaknesses.

Quit when an idea isn’t working anymore is crucial. It can be tempting but don’t keep holding on to it.

Time management means more energy throughout the day. Knowing what you need to focus on saves energy.

Building a Healthy Habit

Through epigenetics, Lisa knows when the optimal time is for exercise, intellectual work, and resting.

It's common for people to say entrepreneurs need to work harder, working over 18 hours a day.

This kind of attitude is dangerous and leads to health issues and sleep deprivation.

Resting can be just as productive as work. Understand that if you’re not stressed all the time, you can be more productive in half the amount of time.

How Nature and Nurture Helps Us

Genetics doesn’t spell our destiny. It just guides us on what we have to watch out for.

Once we know what we’re susceptible to, we can build a routine to optimize our health.

You can influence how your genes express through the actions you take and the environment you put yourself into.

Through epigenetics, you can learn about what you can eat and what you should avoid, when and what you should exercise, and more!

Learn more about personalizing your routines in the full episode!

Accepting Yourself and Your Body

Often, our goals focus on the way we look and how we perform in specific sports.

We need to understand and accept that our bodies are different, and it's a reality that some sports just aren’t for us.

Being different isn’t bad. It means we have different roles to play.

Pushing your limits, in your way, helps you learn more about yourself.

Becoming stronger means facing challenges head-on.

Lisa's Advice on Building Mental Fortitude

Remember, we’re more capable than we think.

Live your life and keep working towards your big goals.

Don’t forget to rest. Recovery is an important part of working hard too!

5 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

“Having that mentality of just ‘go, go, go’ and take action, and [when you] fail and get back up again: learn from that mistake. And that resilience, I think that comes from that because you do fall on your face sometimes; and other times, you're hugely successful.”

“You have to be the one that goes and does the work, does the research, and not feel as if you don't have the right to do that because we live in a day and age where we can access the greatest minds on the planet.”

“So many people are just written off as: you've got a terminal illness, you've got cancer or you whatever the case may be, and there's no hope for you. When that is not true.”

“I used to work up until 12, 1 o'clock in the morning. I don't anymore because it's a false economy, you think you are getting more done by being an absolute hard entrepreneur working 18 hours a day, all that does is lead to health issues and problems and sleep deprivation.”

“So genetics is not your destiny - it depends on which genes are turned on and off, how they will really express and this is when your environment comes into it. So if you have a combination of knowing what your genetics are, and knowing how to optimize them, and avoid trial and error, then you'll be able to do the best with what you've got.”

About Lisa

Lisa Tamati is one of New Zealand's well-known ultramarathon runners. With over 25 years of experience as an ultra-endurance athlete, Lisa has competed in the world's most challenging endurance events. She has also led and participated in various expeditions in locations like the Gobi Desert, the Sahara Desert, and the Himalayas.

Inspired by her experiences, Lisa has written about her running journey in Running Hot and Running to Extremes. Her latest book, Relentless, recounts how she and her mother defied the odds. The book is a personal look at Lisa's mental fortitude and how she did everything to save her mother from the brink of death.

Lisa is also the host of the “Pushing the Limits” podcast, where she invites leading health experts and high-performance athletes to talk about being the best that we can be. Lisa is also a sought-after international speaker, co-founder of Running Hot Coaching and the Epigenetics and Workplace Wellness programs.

Excited for the latest releases from Lisa? You can follow her on her website, Peak Wellness, and Pushing the Limits Podcast.

You can contact Lisa through email ([email protected]) or find her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Enjoyed This Podcast?

Building mental fortitude takes time; Lisa reminds us to keep taking challenges head-on and learn from them. If you enjoyed the podcast, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends!

Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so this can inspire them to take ownership of their lives.

For episode updates, visit our website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

P.S.

Do you already have a successful business, meaning you're up, running, and paying your bills with some profit left over?

Are you interested in growing your business, automating/streamlining things, and staying one step ahead of your competition?

Visit https://www.members.bestbusinesscoach.ca/problems-we-fix/ to see if we can fix what's holding you back.

Check out this episode!

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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How to Laugh at Work The DealBook newsletter delves into a single topic or theme every weekend, providing reporting and analysis that offers a better understanding of an important issue in business. If you don’t already receive the daily newsletter, sign up here. Taking humor seriously In 2014, the behavioral scientist Jennifer Aaker invited Naomi Bagdonas to give a guest lecture as part of her Stanford business school course on “The Power of Story.” Unbeknown to many, Ms. Bagdonas, a media and strategy consultant who was completing her M.B.A. at Stanford at the time, also spent evenings and weekends performing improv at comedy clubs. Though the lecture was ostensibly about combining stories and data, with detours into factor analysis and neurochemistry, Ms. Aaker watched with delight and surprise as students laughed to the point of tears over Ms. Bagdonas’s delivery. And when the course evaluations came in, students recalled Ms. Bagdonas’s points with more clarity and detail than they did for almost any other guest speaker. If stories have power, it seemed, funny ones had something close to magic. Ms. Aaker and Ms. Bagdonas now teach a course together at Stanford called “Humor: Serious Business,” which shows aspiring executives and entrepreneurs how to leverage laughter for better relationships and business results. They’ve also distilled their findings into a new book, “Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is A Secret Weapon in Business and Life.” But can people really be taught to be funny at work? Should people be taught to be funny at work? If you explain a joke, its force disperses. The whole point of “The Office,” after all, is that it’s agony to work with a self-appointed comedian. And the framing of humor as a tool of self-advancement is somewhat unsettling, evoking the image of a sociopath calmly studying the human psyche’s soft spots to exploit them for professional gain. Humor at work is much less about wisecracks than about levity: the shared moments of lightness that propel relationships forward and balance the seriousness of labor. Levity is strikingly absent from a lot of adult life, particularly in professional settings. “On Tuesday, I did not laugh once. Not once,” a Stanford student wrote once in the “humor audit” the instructors ask students to fill out at the start of the term. Levity is a powerful bonding agent. A workplace that embraces laughter is likely one that also encourages the kind of creativity, authenticity and psychological safety that allows people to perform their best. Humor is a Trojan horse for humanity — and that, Ms. Aaker and Ms. Bagdonas argue, is the thing that knits people and organizations together. DealBook caught up with Ms. Aaker and Ms. Bagdonas over Zoom to learn more about professional levity, what comedy and sports have in common, and why a leader doesn’t have to be funny to build a team that embraces humor. The conversation has been edited and condensed. DealBook: What do people not understand about humor when they first come to your class — or open your book? Bogdanos: In the book, we break down four myths of humor. The first is the “serious business” myth, which is the idea that levity undermines the mission of your work, that you can come off as not taking your job seriously if you’re joking around. This is simply not true. Managers with a sense of humor are more motivating and admired. Their employees are more engaged. Their teams are more likely to solve a creativity challenge. There’s all this evidence around the R.O.I. of humor. And then the failure myth: People think that failing at humor is going to have these huge repercussions. We teach our students that it’s so much less about telling jokes. It’s about cultivating joy. There’s the “being funny” myth, which is that humor is about cracking jokes. Again, it’s really not about that. It’s about being more generous with your laughter. It’s about naming truths in our lives and giving a window into our humanity. And then lastly, the “born with it” myth, which is the idea that our sense of humor is either there or it’s not. In fact, it is a muscle that we can work. You make a great analogy in the book comparing the relationship between levity, humor and comedy to that between movement, exercise and competitive athletics. Bagdonas: Levity is a mind-set, an inherent state of how you approach the world. Similarly, movement is how we move through space. Minor adjustments in the way that we move, or in our mind-set around levity, have major adjustments in how we feel and how people interact with us. Humor then channels levity toward these specific goals. When you go for a run, you are using movement in a specific way. In humor, you hone levity into a specific outcome. Similarly, with comedy and with sports, there are specific moves you can make to get the outcomes you want. Comedians know exactly how to pause before the punchline, how to construct sentences, how to use the “rule of three” or contrast or exaggeration to get the outcome they want — which is, in this case, laughs. It’s just like how athletes know the exact form that they should use. That’s a good analogy. You can have a healthy, happy life as someone who exercises regularly but never crosses over into athletic competition. It sounds like it’s also fine to be a person who appreciates humor but prefers not to be the one cracking jokes. Aaker: It’s not about “trying to be funny.” That’s the Michael Scott problem. Dick Costolo, the former C.E.O. of Twitter, has said: “The easiest way to be funny is not to try — instead, just look for moments to laugh.” This isn’t about being funny. This is about being generous with laughter. You’re empowering others to use it, and showing up much more as a human — not a clown. How can leaders ensure the humor they’re encouraging is appropriate? Aaker: Many people who have used humor to good effect in the past often equate humor with their style of humor. Like, “I just threw out a joke, it didn’t land, I think it would have two years ago, therefore the world is not funny anymore.” The calculation is not that the world is humorless, per se. It’s that we need to better understand the diversity of humor styles that other people have, and better understand — through empathy more than anything else — how to better read a room and understand the dynamics of status. What’s interesting is that while trust in leadership is plunging — which is a problem for leaders who have used the same old jokes for a while — those organizations that somehow manage to maintain a high-trust environment are thriving. We know that when employees rate what characteristics inspire trust, their answers are things like, “My boss speaks like a regular person.” We’re living in a time when empathy, inclusivity and authenticity are important for all leaders. Humor is actually a secret weapon that can serve them well. So how do we keep levity alive on remote teams, when you don’t have the in-person benefits of facial expression and tone — or feel like you have much to laugh about? Bagdonas: This was such a pressing need that at the beginning of the pandemic that we created a course called “Remotely Humorous,” which is all about having humor in remote teams. Part of this is creating space for it. We need to have a norm that at the beginning of every call, we just talk like humans rather than jump right into the agenda. We talk about what just happened with our kids, or whose dog is running around in the background or what genuine mishap has happened in people’s lives due to this pandemic. Even though maintaining levity feels harder, there are also more creative ways to do it. It’s also more important than ever because the more technology-mediated our communication becomes, the easier it is to leave our humanity and our sense of humor at the door. When we’re constantly talking through machines, it’s easier to behave like one as well. When jokes aren’t funny What counts as boundary-pushing comedy to one person is downright rude to another. Here are rules for checking yourself to ensure your “material” doesn’t cause pain, according to Ms. Aaker and Ms. Bagdonas: Examine the truth. Is this observation still true or appropriate to share when the humor is removed? They offer the example of a recent Cisco hire who tweeted about having to weigh “a fatty paycheck against … hating the work.” It may have been intended as a laugh, but it essentially said that the author disliked the potential new employer. The joke failed and the offer was rescinded. Consider the pain and distance. Is it “too soon” to make a crack about a troubling recent event? Are you, the attempted jokester, not close enough to the issue to truly share the pain you’re trying to laugh about? Read the room. Are people in the mood for a laugh? Are there cultural differences, status differences or other reasons your audience might feel awkward about fielding a joke? The goal of office humor isn’t to get a laugh; it’s to make everyone in the room feel lighter and more at ease. Who to watch Steve Carell’s portrayal of Michael Scott on “The Office” is the perfect case study of how not to be funny at work. For better ideas, Ms. Aaker and Ms. Bagdonas suggest checking out these comedians instead: Sarah Cooper Before her social media lip-syncs of former President Donald J. Trump’s public statements became a pandemic-era hit, the former Google manager trained her comedic sights on meetings, email and other workplace absurdities. “Never look for what’s funny,” Ms. Cooper told Stanford students in a guest lecture. “Look for what’s true, and go from there.” Demi Adejuyigbe The comedian and writer for shows like “The Good Place” and “The Late Late Show With James Corden” finds the funny in everything, including technology’s tendency to overcomplicate our personal and professional lives. Amber Ruffin The host of “The Amber Ruffin Show” has been a writer on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” since 2014. She regularly appears with co-writer Jenny Hagel in the segment “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell,” where the two women deliver punch lines that would sound wrong coming from a straight white guy’s mouth, in any setting. What do you think? Is work better when there’s humor or should it be strictly business? Let us know: [email protected]. Source link Orbem News #laugh #Work

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onebourbon-oneshot-onetear · 4 years ago

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Aquatica

Chapter 2- Secret Origins

I do not own D.C Comics, and I only own my OC and my versions of the plots.

A few weeks have passed since I got my gear from Hank and started patrolling Gotham. At first I was just getting familiar with the layout of the city; going around from rooftop to rooftop and studying the streets and rhythm of the nights. I was never too familiar with the city since I didn't grow up in it. I never realized just how big it actually was. I mean, I have a pretty good memory and it took me almost 3 weeks to memorize the street names and where they are. That's a pretty big city. After I had the street names down I started going around and interfering with some minor crime. You know, old ladies getting their purses stolen, young kids robbing ATMs, the usual petty crimes.

I didn't think I was ready for any major crimes yet, plus I didn't want to step on anyone's toes. I was just a newbie. Who was I to come in and start trying to clean up Gotham? Besides, that was all Batman's job. I had never met him but from what I had heard he wasn't one to share his toys and I certainly didn't want to get him mad at me. Apparently he was fond of holding people off of buildings when he really didn't like them. I decided he was capable of the major stuff, and I would handle the minor crimes.

I also took this time to become attuned to my powers. Over the past year I had learned the basics and how to bend the water into whatever I needed, and I knew how to freeze it and create ice. Now I just experimented with creating knives and blades that could help me. If found that creating small daggers was easy, and I could throw them if I needed to. Due to my previous training, I was able to throw these daggers with a dangerous accuracy. I also learned that I could freeze around an object and lift it that way. This made my life easier since I don't have super strength or anything. Oh, and I also found out I can fly. Well, I can't actually fly, not like Superman or anything. My version is less flying and more surfing. You see, I can make an ice board and stand on it, then manipulate the board to fly wherever I want. Yeah, it wasn't that fun to figure out. I may or may not have tripped…off a building…and almost died. Thankfully my instincts kicked in and I made the ice board in time, or else I would have been an Evie pancake on the sidewalk. Either way, my powers were greatly improving.

One night when I was out on my patrol I overheard a woman speaking on her phone. She was standing on her balcony and I was on the roof right above her; and no, that isn't spying or being creepy, I didn't choose to overhear her. It's not my fault she was speaking really loudly. Anyway, I overheard her talking about how one of her friends had been acting strangely and not like herself. She said she worked for some space research company and she thought she was just too stressed out from all of her work. Now usually the gossip of a middle aged woman doesn't interest me, but I had this gut feeling that this wasn't just some stupid and random piece of information. I listened in on the woman's conversation a little while longer and got the name and the company the woman worked for. I decided that the next night I would go over to the woman's workplace and take a look.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I was bored. I mean, sitting on top of a building for hours on end wasn't any fun at all. I got to the company the woman mentioned yesterday at about 5. I figured that was pretty close to quitting time and I would be able to see her friend walk out of the building. Four hours later and she hadn't come out yet, or at least I hoped I hadn't missed her. I decided that I was tired of waiting and I should go do some investigating.

I ran across the roof and went in through a ventilation shaft I found. Man, for a high tech space company they sure aren't big on security, I thought to myself. I landed on a ceiling beam and walked over to a dark corner where no one would be able to see me. I crouched down with my staff in hand in case for some bizarre reason, I would need it. I looked down and four scientists were working at their desks. I saw the name plate of the woman's desk and recognized it as the friend of the woman I had overheard the night before.

While I waited in my corner I heard a noise coming from above me. The grate that I had just come in through was being taken out. Great, I'm gonna get caught. But the figure that jumped down wasn't some security guard, it was somebody in a black cape with horned ear pointer things that made up a mask. Oh, you have got to be kidding me. It was the bat. The man that every criminal in Gotham feared. Of course it would be my luck to run into him, I wonder if I could sneak away without him noticing me. Probably not, he isn't a superhero for nothing. Then I stopped and wondered what exactly he was doing here. I didn't think Batman was here just to figure out what was wrong with some woman's friend. There had to be something bigger going on here. Damn my curiosity. I decided to stay hidden behind Batman and watch the scientists some more.

The blonde male scientist got up and headed towards the door. "Remember, barbeque at my place Saturday night. You're all invited. Venus is rising early. And you know what that means." The scientists all agreed that they would be there. The scientist laughed, "You guys are animals." Oh boy, what a bunch of nerds, I thought.

I was going to leave as soon as Batman was gone. I mean, what was the point of trying to figure out what was wrong with this woman besides the fact that she is excited for party over a planets rising? I looked back down and saw the older man stand up. I think he spoke, but it sure wasn't English. It wasn't even a language that I had ever heard before. It sounded like some drunk guy trying to speak Greek. I furrowed my eyebrows, Okay…I see what the mystery might be here. They all stood up and then walked over to the wall where the shelves were lined up. I almost couldn't believe my eyes. The third scientist, who didn't look like he weighed 90 pounds soaking wet, picked up the whole shelf. Okay, either that guy has seriously been working out or there is more to this than meets the eye. The woman that I was keeping an eye on walked over to the concrete wall and pulled a hole clean through it. Did I mention the wall was concrete? Cause it was. The way she put her hand through the wall made me think it was made out of play dough instead. She grabbed some disk looking object that was black and white with gray ovals on it. She started speaking that same weird language, the guy put the shelf down, and they walked out of the room.

I looked at Batman to see what he would do, and I hoped that he wouldn't notice me. I didn't want him thinking I was like one of these people down there, which would result in me getting a batarang to the face. I liked my face the way it was thank you very much. Then, thankfully, Batman left and followed the weird people out of the building. I sat there for a minute and debated on following him out and helping in case anything happened. Then I thought about leaving. It sounds like that woman's friend isn't human anymore. Oh well, not my problem, I thought but then my conscious spoke up. I had done all of this because I wanted to help people. Maybe I could help the woman…scientist… weird alien thingy. I sighed to myself and went through the vent. I stayed a little ways behind the scientists and Batman. I wasn't quite ready for him to know I was following him. I watched as the four scientists walked all the way up the satellite dish and put their weird disk thing on top. I couldn't see what exactly it did since I was too low, but I figured it didn't do anything good. Then to my amazement, Batman spoke.

"I doubt that modification is legal." He almost growled out. Seriously, the man has a really deep voice. Before I could ponder over how a man's voice is that deep, he threw a rope with two weights on the bottom, and they wrapped themselves around the two male scientists. Dang, I hoped that it wouldn't come down to a fight.

Batman jumped over the two on the ground and went right for the female. Now let me say, I know it isn't right to judge people based on their looks, but this woman didn't look like she had thrown a punch a day in her life. But there she was, laying Batman out like he was some scrawny kid in gym class. She threw him all the way towards me, but he up righted himself and landed on his feet. I looked past him and the two scientists sucked themselves in so they were impossibly skinny so they could slip out of the ropes. Man, I wish I could do that, it would make me feel better about fitting into skinny jeans. Batman backed up and prepared himself for the fight. Then he jumped up and threw a batarang right at the woman scientist and it bounced off of her head without a scratch. The Asian scientist charged him and pushed him off the edge. I was about to make a board and fly down to catch him, but Batman pulled out a grappling hook and swung himself back onto the beam. Then out of nowhere, came Superman. Great, I am so underqualified for this kind of thing I thought.

"Need a hand?" Superman said, hovering over the ground.

Exasperated, Batman growled out "Thanks, but I can handle this." He turned back around to the oncoming scientists. I vaguely heard Superman say something about them not looking tough and I almost laughed aloud. He hasn't seen anything yet.

The three scientists, if I can even consider them human at this point, ran back towards the edge of the satellite with Batman following them. Superman looked like he was going to follow them but then he stopped and yelled while grabbing his head. I started to get worried. What could do that to the man that is practically indestructible? Then he fell down onto the beam and tumbled forward. It was probably stupid, but on instinct I grabbed my staff and ran out of my hiding space and went to go help him. Batman turned around to look at him and he saw me. I could see his eyes widened through his mask and I'm pretty sure he started to reach for his batarang. Oh boy I thought. I looked behind him and saw the older scientist reach into his jacket pocket and pull out something that was colored the same way as the disk they had earlier. He pressed a button and an alarm started blaring from somewhere. Batman looked back at me and I finally decided to say something.

"That doesn't sound good, you grab Superman and I'll cover you." He looked like he wanted to disagree (of course that's with his mask on, so who knew what he was actually thinking) but he grabbed Superman and turned around to see the three scientists jump off of the satellite. My stomach felt like it had turned to lead. There's no way they survived that jump, I thought. I didn't have time to think about it any further because the beeping started to go faster and I had a pretty good guess as to what that meant. Right before the whole structure exploded, I saw Batman use his grappling hook and try to swing down to the ground. "Geez, thanks for helping me out." I grumbled to myself. Then I realized, with the structure falling apart the hook won't have anything to hold onto. I jumped off the structure and went to make an ice sphere, big enough to hold the two of them in when I surfed on my own patch of ice.

Before I could make their sphere though, an explosion went off and Batman's grappling hook was knocked free. I threw my hand out to make a sphere that they would land in and they did. Batman looked up at me, confusion written all over his face. I surfed over to the sphere and I landed it down the hill, so none of the falling debris could hit us. I then melted the water so it could go back into my staff. I turned around and watched the building go up in flames. Then to my utter disbelief I saw three figures rise up out of the ground. "No way." I said out loud. Even from a distance I could see the three scientists were horribly mangled, but then they started to pop themselves back together. The noises of their broken necks being popped back into place sent shivers down my spine. Once they popped their bodies back together, they walked away towards the woods and the older scientist looked directly at us and did a weird tongue clicking thing and pointed at us, something that I had only seen wannabe cool kids do. I raised an eyebrow, yeah, something is definitely not right here.

I turned back to Batman and said, "Well that was interesting." And judging by the look I got, that wasn't the sentence that he wanted to hear from me. Thankfully, Superman sat up and rubbed his head, which gave me a break from the intense glare that Batman was giving me.

"What happened?" Superman groaned out. Batman helped him out. "You tell me." he said. Superman looked at him, and it seemed as if he was struggling to find the right words. "I don't know. I saw images, just so intense. And then…well, that's all I remember."

Batman turned to look back at the burning building. "Obviously, they didn't want to leave evidence behind."

I decided to stay silent throughout this whole conversation. I figured the less attention I drew to myself, the better.

"What's this all about?" Superman asked.

Batman glanced at me like he didn't want to say anything in front of me. Superman followed his glance and I guess he finally noticed me. "Ummm, Bats. Who's this?"

"Funny, I was wondering the same thing. She just appeared after you went down. Then she floated us down to the ground in what appeared to be ice." Now I had both superheroes looking at me. One curiously, and the other was just straight glaring.

I nervously chuckled and rubbed the back of my neck, a habit I often do when I'm nervous. "Well, my name is Evelyn Lowry, but I go by Evie." They both looked at me like they wanted more information, which is pretty fair I guess. I mean, I did just make a giant ice ball. They deserved some answers. "I have the ability to manipulate water and ice, hence the giant ice sphere that I put you two in."

Batman stepped forward, which made me very nervous. "That doesn't explain why you showed up here tonight. For all we know, you could have caused Superman to collapse like that." I just looked right back at him. Did he not hear me say that I could only control water and ice? Now I was starting to get annoyed.

"Well unless he saw images of some nice rivers or frozen over lakes, then it wasn't me." I sarcastically replied back to him. Great Evie, annoy the really strong guy who could break me like a toothpick, cause that's just a great plan. Before Batman could do anything, Superman stepped in.

"Why are you here?" he asked in a much gentler tone than Batman did.

I looked at both of them. "I was out in Gotham the other night when I heard a lady talk about how her friend wasn't answering her phone calls and was acting all weird. At first I didn't think anything of it but I had a feeling it was important. I found out where the lady was working and I decided to follow up. That's why I was here tonight." I glanced between the two of them and said, "Believe me, I didn't expect for all of this to happen." The two men glanced between each other and then back at me. Superman was the first to speak.

"Well, considering you were here for the whole thing, I think you deserve some answers." Superman looked back at Batman. I'm pretty sure Batman's head was going to pop off, that's how angry he looked. "Oh come on Bats. I know you don't trust people, but she did just help us. And I think if she wanted to hurt us she would have tried already. She just saw everything we saw, she should get answers too." I was about to say how 'she' has a name but I figured I didn't want a batarang sticking out of my forehead.

Batman looked back at me and sighed. "Over the past few months, I've detected several security breaches in our global deep-space monitoring network." He said in his seriously deep voice.

"And no one's claimed responsibility?" Superman asked.

"No. There's more to this than meets the eye." He said before glancing at me, as if I had something to do with this. He kept glaring at me like he could see all my secrets. Who knows? Maybe the world's greatest detective could do that. Maybe Batman was actually Sherlock Holmes, I mean, he already had the deep voice down. Now he just needs a magnifying glass and a deerstalker.

"I'd like to stay and look into it, but I'm expected back in Metropolis." Superman said, getting ready to fly off.

"Another key to the city?" Batman said. That's funny, it almost sounded like Batman was making a joke. Maybe he isn't as dark and mysterious as everyone thought. Then I looked him over. Between the mask and the all dark and grey outfit, I figured I was wrong.

Superman just looked at him and handed him a watch. "Here. It's a signal watch. Call if you need any more help." He turned away from Batman and looked at me. "It was nice meeting you Evie, if you need help, just ask us." Pshh yeah, like Batman ever wants to talk to me ever again I thought to myself. Either way I gave him a small smile and said thanks. With that, Superman jumped up and flew away. Now let the awkwardness begin. It was just me and Batman standing in the middle of this clearing with a burning building behind us. Batman pocketed the watch and turned to me. I just let him stare at me as I examined my boots. Maybe it was childish not to look at him, but I didn't really care. I felt like such an amateur after being in the presence of both Superman and Batman.

"Did you say you were in Gotham?" At first I thought he had gone crazy and was talking to himself. Was he seriously talking to me? I looked up and saw that he was staring right at me.

"Umm, yeah." I quietly said. Batman thought for a second.

"I haven't seen you before."

Well, I am pretty new to this whole thing, but I wasn't about to tell him that. Gaining courage I looked up at him and said, "Maybe I'm just that good at sneaking around."

He looked at me for a second, analyzing every part of me. "No one is that good." I took that as my dismissal. I looked back at the building, and turned back towards Batman.

"Well, if you need anything, you should be able to figure out where to find me." I started walking away when I stopped and turned back. "Not that I think you need help or anything, I was just being nice. Obviously you don't need help from me. Not that I can't do important stuff, it's just you're so good at what you do and you probably have better resources than I do and all of that, plus Gotham is your city so you definitely know what you're doing. Well, I guess Gotham isn't really your city, not that you don't take care of it like it was your city!" Crap. I was rambling. I felt my cheeks go red and I mumbled, "I'm just gonna go now." I turned around, made an ice disk, and flew back home. And I didn't see a man dressed as a bat for the rest of the night.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The next morning I woke up later in the morning than I usually do. After my little adventure at the satellite I came back to Gotham and went on my usual patrol. I stopped some guy from robbing a young woman, but then he ran, and let me tell you, that guy could have been a sprinter in the Olympics. I had to have run over 2 miles before I caught him, and by the time the early hours of morning came, I was exhausted. When I woke up at 11, I helped myself to a bowl of cereal and turned on the news. The news was showing some protesters yelling about some missiles or nuclear stuff. I was too enthralled in my cereal to pay too much attention. I finally looked up when I heard Superman talking. So that must have been where he had to be last night. He started talking about upholding truth and justice for all of the world. Man, he's like a real life super boy scout.

I finished my cereal and decided to go and get ready for the day. I wanted to try looking over what exactly that space research company did. After five whole hours of looking, I found absolutely nothing. The only thing I found was the address for an old warehouse the company owned. Looking at the clock, I saw that it was almost time for me to go out on my patrol. I figured that this lead was better than anything else I had, and decided that that was where I was going to go tonight.

I arrived at the warehouse just after sundown. I picked the lock on the door and walked in. Inside was dozens of old computers and discs lying on the different desks. I decided to go further into the building and see if I could find anything. After fifteen minutes of searching, I heard a noise in the front of the room. Thinking it was those weird scientists from last night, I made an ice dagger in my one hand and unfolded my staff with the other, and crept towards the front. That's when I saw the familiar cape and horned mask that Batman always wore. Oh, you have got to be kidding me. I was about to put my ice dagger away when a batarang flew right past my hiding place and imbedded itself into the desk next to me.

I jumped up and looked at him. "Do you mind not impaling my face with one of those things? I kind of like it that way it is." I practically shouted at him. He squinted his eyes at me and I could tell he was not happy to see me.

"What are you doing here?" He literally growled at me.

"Following a lead. What are you doing here?" I sassed right back at him.

He ignored my question. "You don't belong here. You're just a kid. Go home." He tried to walk right past me but I stepped in front of him.

"For you information, I'm not a kid, I'm 24 thanks. Second, I do belong here. Last night I watched three people jump from 6 stories and walk away, after they literally put themselves back together. I think I deserve some answers." My mind registered what I had just said and my eyes widened. I honestly prepared myself for a punch in the face from Batman, but instead he looked at me and pressed his lips together.

"Fine. You can stay. Just don't get in my way. And after this case, you go back to stopping petty crime. Got it?" he retorted.

I was surprised he was letting me stay with him. He had quite the reputation of doing things by himself. "Fine, I'll stay out of your way." I told him. This time I let him walk past me and to the desk I was standing right in front of. I looked on the desk and saw that it had another disk like what the scientists had with them last night. Before we could do anything with the disk, we heard a door open. Batman looked at me.

"Did you bring anyone with you?"

I shook my head. "Did you?" I asked him. He just gave me an exasperated look before going over and looking towards the door. I followed him and saw the old scientist and the woman scientist from yesterday walking out of a room. After making sure they had left, we looked at each other, knowing that we had to go see what was in the room. We both jumped down and headed towards the door, him in front of me. He opened the door and shined his flashlight in. At first it looked like a normal room with a filing cabinet and desk, but then as he moved the beam of light closer to the right, I realized that this room was actually terrifying. In the right corner were these weird red and purple pod things. And even creepier, there were people inside of the pods.

"Cause that isn't creepy or anything." I said to Batman. He ignored me and handed me the flashlight. He pulled out his batarang and cut the pod open. Inside that pod was the body of the old man scientist we had seen earlier. If this is the real old man, then what is that thing out there? "Is he alive?" I asked Batman.

He checked for the man's pulse, and the man started stirring. That's when I heard the growling. My eyes widened and I looked over at Batman. I shined the light over to where I heard the growling and I saw a dog. It wasn't that big of a dog, but it looked like it could do some damage if it got ahold of you. "Nice doggy?" I asked it. Then it attacked me. It jumped onto my body and sent me sprawling back towards the wall. The flashlight flew out of my hand and I tried pushing the dog off of me. It kept trying to bite my face off but I finally was able to get my feet under it and I kicked it off. Batman ran over to me and grabbed my arm and yanked me up onto my feet. The dog hit the desk, but it landed on its feet.

"Don't just stand there!" Batman yelled at me. Oh, right, I have super powers. As the dog started walking back towards us, Batman jumped up and swung himself over to the top of the wall while I made a disk under my feet and floated up to as high as he was. At first the dog just stood at the base of the wall growling, and I thought we had it beat…that is until it started walking up on the wall. Not only was it walking on the wall, but it changed its form. It wasn't just a dog anymore, it looked like the discs the fake scientists had yesterday. It was white and black with spots of red on it.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." I said. The dog jumped up and hit Batman off of the pipe he was perched on. He looked like he would land okay, but then he hit his head on the way down. I quickly used my staff to make an ice platform for him to land on. He landed on my platform and I lowered it to the ground. Apparently the alien dog monster thing didn't like me doing that, so it jumped up at me and knocked me all the way down to the ground. The concrete ground. That was really hard. And hurt. A lot. Groaning I rolled over to see the dog make claws with his paw and swing it at me. He got ahold of me and threw me back, through a window and into a shelf, which proceeded to fall right on top of me. I picked my head up and saw the dog advancing on Batman. I tried to get up, but I felt a sharp pain in my head, and everything went black.

When I started to come around, the first thing I heard was an annoying beeping sound. I heard someone say 'no', and then a huge crash. I picked my head up and saw Superman standing over Batman. "A little help over here?" I grumbled out. Superman looked over at me and his eyes widened.

"Evie!" He rushed over and lifted the shelf off of my back. I slowly stood up and started moving all of my limbs to try and get the stiffness out of my sore muscles and to make sure nothing was broken. "Evie, what are you doing here?" Superman asked me.

I was rubbing my head and replied, "I was helping Batman with the whole weird scientist thing when…oh no, Batman!" I ran over to where he was and saw that he was out cold. "Is he okay?" I asked Superman.

"I think he is, just unconscious." Superman picked Batman up, "Hold on, did you say you were helping Batman?" he asked me but before I could reply a bright light flew past the window of our building. We both turned and watched the fire ball soar past the window, and head straight for the park. I turned to Superman, "We should probably go check that out." Without a word, Superman started to fly out of the building. I picked up my staff, made a disk, and flew up next to him. We both flew over the fireball and saw that it was massive. It took up an entire intersection!

Batman started to stir, and I looked at Superman. "Here, give him to me. There's an ambulance right over there. I'll have him get looked at and you go and make sure that no one got hurt down there." I don't know where that bossy side of me came out, and I honestly thought that Superman was going to call me out on it, saying that he doesn't even know me. Instead, he just nodded, handed Batman over to me and flew down to the crash site. I took Batman over to the ambulance. "Hey! I need some help over here!" I lowered myself down to the ground and stepped off of my disc, half carrying, half dragging Batman towards the gurney.

"What happened?" the paramedic asked me.

Well you see, some weird monster alien dog attacked him and he was probably thrown through a wall. "I'm not sure, just help him." I told her. I wasn't really lying, I was unconscious myself when he was attacked. I stepped back onto my disk and flew over to the crash site. By that time, plenty of police and fire equipment had arrived on the scene. I decided to try and help put the fire out before it could spread to the buildings on the corner closest to it. I started pulling some water from my staff and I expanded it, so it was a large stream pouring on the fire. Soon the firefighters had their hoses on it as well and the fire was soon out, and a steaming giant rock was left in its place.

I tried looking around for superman but I couldn't see him anywhere. Just as I was about to go check on Batman, the rock let out even more steam and the ground started shaking. Well that isn't good, maybe it's just the ground settling and everything is going to be okay. I spoke too soon, because then something popped out of the rock. At first it looked like the leg of a praying mantis, but then the whole body followed, and it didn't look like a praying mantis anymore. Instead, well, I don't even know how to compare it to anything. Two more legs popped out and then, what I assume to be the body followed. At least the legs had a definition to it, because the body just looked like a giant red spotted blob. The front of the body looked like it had an eye on it, but I wasn't too sure. After I heard a reporter behind me ask what it was, the 'eye' of the alien narrowed and shot a laser beam right at a police car, which created an explosion. I looked up and saw Superman fly straight for the eye of the creature but he was hit with the beam and he was thrown backwards. He crash landed into a building and landed in a crater in the middle of the road. That's when pandemonium happened.

Civilians started running around screaming, police were shooting at it, and the monster stepped on a firetruck, causing another explosion. Well Evie, you wanted to help people, now's your chance. I took a deep breath and jumped on my ice disc with my staff in hand. The creature was about to step on yet another truck, but before it could let out its beam I threw up a thick wall of ice in front of the beam. At first the beam wasn't able to get through, but it started melting through my ice. I tried making the ice thick enough, but I couldn't keep up to the rate it was melting at. When the beam finally made it thorough, the force of it pushed me back. I was sent flying, but I righted myself on top of my disc and looked to see what else I could do to stop this monster.

I could see that the monster was about to shoot another beam out of itself, so I tried building the wall again, to see if I could delay the explosion so people could get out of the way. As I was building the wall, I heard the sound of an engine behind me. I looked up and saw Batman's bat-jet flying towards us. I saw missiles lower from the bottom half of the jet, and realized what he was about to do. I flew away from the monster just as Batman released the missiles. When the smoke cleared, we all saw that the missiles did nothing but piss the monster off even more, and it started shooting at Batman's jet.

Luckily he was able to weave in and out of the way before he became a pile of ashes from one of those beams. I decided that I needed to try a different strategy. I focused on trying to freeze the legs off of this thing, literally. If it couldn't walk then it would have a smaller area of destruction and it wouldn't be able to hurt as many people. Just as I started freezing the first leg, Superman flew up and started punching the creature. He was able to knock it over and land on top of it before he was blown backwards again. Just as the creature started to get up, Batman flew by and fired two more missiles at it, which again, did absolutely nothing. Then it noticed what I was doing, and literally kicked me out of the way. I landed back and rolled out of the way before it could step on me.

Just then the ground rumbled some more and more creatures came out of the rock. Great, we couldn't deal with one, now we have two more. At this point I stopped trying to stop the attacks and started working on getting people out. I used my water to lift manipulate cars and other debris out of the way so people would have a fairly cleared path to run on. Just I finished that job, I looked up saw military grade jets flying in with Batman. Finally. I mean, it's been at least 20 minutes of the three of us doing this by ourselves, you would think there would be a quicker response time for an alien attack.

It seemed as if nothing could work on this thing. The jets missiles, the armies best tanks, even Batman couldn't put a dent in this thing. All we were doing was pissing it off. Just as I had finished putting out a building fire, I heard a jet really close to where I was. I looked up and saw that it was Batman's jet hovering right above me. I flew up to its level.

The cockpit door opened and I saw Batman sitting inside. "You have exactly 10 seconds to decide if you are coming with me or not." Batman said looking at me.

"Where are we going?" I asked him, quite out of breath. "Why are we running away?"

He glared at me. "We aren't running away. The military came in, they can take their turn. I want to know why Superman flew away, and if you're willing to come with me to find out. Now you have five seconds to decide."

I just looked at him, and then looked back at the creatures. Figuring there was nothing else I could do, I folded up my staff, stepped off my ice disc, and got into the bat-jet. He closed the cockpit and flew off. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Batman spoke again. "Thanks."

I just stared at him, and seeing as I was sitting behind him, I was pretty thankful that he couldn't see the look of confusion on my face. "Ummm, what are you thanking me for?"

He turned his head so he could see me a little. "You weren't asked to go and fight those creatures. It wasn't your responsibility but you did it anyway."

I got a tiny smile on my face. "Well, seeing as I'm human, I live on this planet, and I have powers that can make a difference, I see it as my responsibility to help others. Especially in situations like that." Batman didn't say anything, but I saw his head nod and he looked straight forward again. It was silent for the rest of the trip.

After a little bit I saw that Batman had lowered the jet, and it was easier to see the ground. A trail of debris was laying there. And by debris I don't mean trash, I'm talking tanks that are ripped apart. "I think we found Superman." We landed in what looked like to be an empty hangar and we got out. We could see a giant hole in the building. Without saying anything we jumped down form the jet and walked through the hole into the building. We stood there looking around, when Batman saw an open door. He pushed the door in and we saw more of those creepy pod things. I stood by the door, not wanting to see anymore. I heard a muffled banging sound, and apparently Batman had heard it too. We followed the sound to a hallway where we saw Superman trying to punch is way through a door. I stepped forward to call out to him, but Batman put a hand on my arm. Confused, I looked up at him and he looked back at me. With a calm look on his face, he pulled a batarang out and threw it so it hit the metal right next to where Superman was punching.

"Hold it, Superman! Destroying government property isn't your style." Batman called out to him. I just stood next to him and wondered what was happening. I am in way over my head here, I thought to myself. Batman stepped forward into the room and I followed him.

"Superman, what's going on?" I asked him quietly. If he had gone crazy, I didn't want to be the one to set him off with a really loud voice.

"See for yourself." Superman said. He bent over and lifted the door off of the ground and threw it to the side. We walked into the room, and I saw that it was filled with monitors. It appeared to have different biological structures and information on them, almost like it was a hospital. I kept following the two superheroes towards the back of the room to a locked door. Superman threw it open like it was made with tissue paper and we walked in. This day kept getting weirder and weirder. There was a green, well, man I guess you could call it? He was strapped to a large machine that was connected to his arms and feet.

"Not to sound stupid, but uhhh, what is that?" I asked both men.

Superman turned around to us. "Mankind's only hope."

"Well gee, thanks for all of that information there. You'll have to give us a minute to process it all." I said to them. Did I mention I was really sarcastic? I glanced over at Batman and saw that he almost had a smirk on his face. It might be bold to say, but I think if we weren't having one of the craziest day's planet Earth had ever seen, I might have gotten a full smirk out of him.

Superman walked over to the control panel next to the green man and let him down. I took half a step back and put a hand on my staff that was hanging at my side. I have had enough aliens for one day. Superman caught the man as fell down. "He has been trying to reach to me telepathically but that stasis field interfered. When his message finally broke through, I came to rescue him."

Batman took a few steps forward and I cautiously followed him. I decided to speak up next. "What exactly is he doing here?"

The orange eyed man looked up at us, and even though his mouth didn't move, I could hear his answer plain as day. "The invasion." I heard his voice in my mind, and it was the strangest thing I had ever been through. Besides getting water powers of course. I heard his voice in my head again. "I came to warn you, but I was captured and imprisoned here. They wouldn't listen." I snorted. "Yeah, big surprise." The alien looked at me then back at Batman.

"I sense you do not trust me." I heard again, it wasn't stated as a question. "Perhaps this will help." I watched him as he changed his physique. Now he stood and looked more like a man, with a long blue high collared cape, blue shorts, and a red x going across his abdomen. Batman took a step back, but I stayed where I was. The alien took a step towards him. "I am J'onn J'onzz." He held out his hand for Batman. Geez, this guy is an alien and he still has better manners than boys I have dated I thought. Batman just glared at the man, the same way he glared at me when he first met me. Was that only 24 hours ago? Boy, has it been a long day. Superman stepped in between them.

"Don't take it personally J'onn. He doesn't trust anyone." Superman said.

"A wise policy." J'onn said. J'onn turned to me next and held out is hand. Oh, why not, I thought.

"I'm Evelyn, but everyone calls me Evie." I shook his hand. I honestly thought it was going to be cold, but instead it felt like a regular human hand, soft and warm. I gave the alien a smile and he gave a small one back. Once he let go, we all started to walk out of the building with Superman talking.

"We'll need to contact the joint chiefs right away." He was saying just as we stepped back outside through the hole in the wall. Suddenly we were blinded by spotlights, and a voice yelling at us. I looked up and saw that there was about 30 men pointing guns at us.

"You're trespassing in a restricted area." The leader said. Suddenly as I was looking at all of the men, a thought struck me. As Superman was talking with the leader I leaned towards Batman.

"How many pods do you think were in that room we saw?" I asked him.

"Probably about 30." He replied. From the sound of his voice, I knew he was following my same trail of thought.

I nodded. "I was afraid of that." Knowing that a fight was coming, I pulled my staff out and extended it to its full length. I looked back up and saw the general and all the soldiers morph into giant white lumps with black and red in it, the same thing the dog was made out of earlier. I gripped my staff harder and murmured, "Here we go again."

They started shooting at us first, and we ducked behind a jeep, well, Batman, J'onn, and I did. Superman got hit and was thrown back.

"Stay down." Batman told both of us. He pulled out a batarang and threw it at the creatures, and it made a pretty big explosion that looked like it knocked a few of the creatures over. As the smoke was clearing, I looked behind Batman and saw a creature getting ready to shoot him.

"Behind you!" J'onn shouted. He then proceeded to become transparent and, like a ghost, flew through Batman to try and stop the alien from shooting at us. J'onn was hit with the beam and was sent to the ground. I made an ice dagger with my hand and threw it into, what looked like, the aliens body. I turned towards J'onn and was about to ask him if he was okay, but Batman beat me too it. J'onn let out a low groan and shook his head.

"Help me carry him." Batman told me. I quickly folded my staff and grabbed a side of J'onn's body while Batman was on the other side. "Hang on!" Batman told him. I was going to try and put a wall of ice between us and the creatures, but I didn't have too, because there was a tank in our way.

Superman was standing between the creatures and us with a tank on his back. "Get him to safety, I'll cover you." At first I was hesitant to leave him by himself to fight, but I figured that he was practically indestructible, and lifting tanks was probably only a warm-up for him. Batman and I carried J'onn to the jet and Batman put him into the seat behind him. You know, the only other seat besides Batman's? Well it doesn't look like I'll be getting out here anytime soon.

I glanced over at Batman. "Get him out of here." He glanced over at me and even through the mask, I could tell he was raising an eyebrow at me. "Seriously Bats, get him out of here. I'll stay and help Superman." At this point he fully turned towards me.

"This isn't your responsibility." He told me. I rolled my eyes at him.

"It's my responsibility now. Would you just go?" I guess he got the point, because he walked over the open cockpit and got in.

I was about to turn away when he asked, "Since when did you start calling me Bats?" I looked over my shoulder. "I figured I saved you twice now. In my book that deserves a free pass to call you whatever I want." I smirked and didn't stay to hear what he had to say to that. I ran back towards superman and started throwing ice pieces at the creatures to try and slow them down. I heard the jet engines start and then fly away. Superman looked back to make sure the jet was clear and threw the tank towards the creatures.

"Need a lift?" He asked me, holding out his hand. I was pretty tired, so I nodded and he grabbed my arm and flew us the direction the bat jet went. I was just about to close my eyes when I heard the sound of more engines. I looked up and saw that the weird creature, alien things also had jets. Great, what will they have next? Blimps? I started shooting water at two of their planes, and then I froze the water, making the aircraft too heavy to fly. It dropped to the ground, and then exploded. I started flying and followed the bat jet, since the planes seem to be focused on that. All of a sudden, one of the alien's beams hit the jet, and caught the wing on fire. Once I shot down another plane I raced over to try and help the jet, but when I flew around the corner, I saw that it was encased in a bright green glow. I looked up and there was Green Lantern, standing on the cliff and holding the jet in his ring's beam. Two jets started shooting at Green Lantern, but before anybody could do anything to try and help him, a girl with giant wings coming out of her back flew over and smashed the planes with an electrified mace. I wish I had one of those, I thought. I flew over to the edge of a cliff, close to where the bat jet was being landed by Green Lantern. I stepped off my disc and walked over to the jet. Batman was stepping out of the jet.

"Are you okay?" I asked him. I was expecting a glare from him, but then he surprised me by answering.

"I'm fine. Are you?" I didn't think he actually cared, but I decided to answer anyway.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I stood next to him and looked up at the battle that the flying heroes were fighting above us. I heard a noise behind us and I turned around. That's when I saw a falling plane heading directly toward us. "Look out!" I shouted to Batman and I pushed him out of the way of the plane. I held my hands up and summoned water from the river right behind us. I formed the water into a giant dome around me, and then froze it so it was a giant wall of ice. I could watch as the plane hit my dome, and it slipped off of the surface and fell off of the cliff onto the ground below. I melted the dome back into my staff and started coughing due to the smoke that filled my lungs. I looked around and saw that Batman was just staring at me. He walked over to me, and for some reason he looked angry.

"What exactly was that?" he growled. Great, now he is mad at me again. He had no right to be angry at me, I practically just saved his life.

"Well I think that was a giant ice dome that covered me and then caused the plane to fall off of the cliff." I sassed right back at him.

He just stared at me more. "Why did you push me out of the way? Couldn't you have just put the ice over me too?"

I hesitated before I answered. "Oh, umm well, I didn't know if the ice would hold the weight of the plane. I didn't want to take a chance of you being stuck with me." I told him, rubbing the back of my neck again. He just continued to stare at me until he saw the girl with wings shot down. We looked at her as she landed on a rocky platform, and then another woman in red boots, star bottoms, and a red halter top jumped in front of her, deflected the beams, and shot down a plane. I turned to Batman, "Who is that?" He had an eyebrow raised and he just shrugged. "Gee, thanks for all the information." I mumbled under my breath. By that time everyone had started to fly over to where we were. Well, almost everyone. I saw a red blur race up the mountain and I knew it was the Flash. He was holding a piece of Batman's jet in his arms.

"Hey Bats! I think you dropped this." He yelled over to us and stood holding it in his arms. He then looked over to the new girl (not me, thank God) and his jaw dropped. "Whoa. Where have you been all my life?" He shoved the piece of jet at Batman and fully turned towards the girl.

"Themyscira." She replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Bless you." I mumbled. I'm pretty sure Superman heard me and he sent me a small smile.

"Huh?" Flash said. He was probably wondering what exactly this chick was babbling about, just like the rest of us.

"The home of the Amazons." Hawkgirl said as she landed. Well, I guess not everyone was as confused as I was. "I always thought it was merely a legend."

"I assure you, it's as real as the ground on which we stand. I am Diana, Princess of the Amazons." Oh great, a princess I snorted to myself. I already wasn't a fan of this girl. I don't know why, but she just irked me. Maybe it was because she seemed like she was some preppy school girl, and I never got along with them. Apparently not everyone thought the same as I did.

"Pinch me, I must me dreaming." Flash dreamily said. "Ow!" Superman had elbowed him, which must have felt like being hit with a brick.

Diana continued her explanation. "Themyscira is protected by the Gods, but I could not idly stand by while the rest of the world was in danger."

Superman stepped forward. "It was lucky you showed up when you did."

"No, not luck. I telepathically summoned them." J'onn said. "The only ones I didn't have to summon was Superman, Batman, and Evie." I looked up at him when he said my name, and apparently everyone else did too. They must have been too blinded by Diana's spotlight to notice me standing right next to Batman.

I figured that I should probably say something. "Um, hey guys." Everyone continued to look at me and nobody said anything. Great, it's like the first day of school all over again. Then Green Lantern spoke up.

"Who are you?"

I cleared my throat and clasped my hands in front of my body. "My name is Evie. I was helping out earlier before you guys came. Thanks for your help, by the way." I figured if they were about to send me home I might as well thank them. To my surprise, nobody asked me to leave, they all just nodded their heads and stopped staring at me.

"Look, I'm usually pretty quick on the uptake, but would someone please tell me what the heck is going on here?" Flash asked looking so confused. I almost felt really bad for him, until I remembered that he hadn't been fighting aliens all day. Then I didn't feel as bad. We all turned to J'onn for some answers. He looked down and began to explain the entire situation at first he explained where he was from, and how Superman had found him. It seemed like he needed to find the next words to say and Superman sensed this and took the wing of Batman's jet and reattached it using his heat vision. When he came back to the circle, Diana spoke up.

"So, J'onn J'onzz, you came from Mars to warn us?" she asked. Flash and Green lantern bickered for a minute before J'onn spoke. "We first encountered them a thousand of your Earth years ago. It was a Golden Age. Our Martian Civilization was at the height of its peace and prosperity. And then…they arrived. Where they came from, no one knew, but they were determined to make our planet their own. We Martians were peaceful people, and the taking of any life was abhorrent to us. But we quickly learned the ways of war. For centuries, the battles raged on. Every trace of our once-great civilization was obliterated. We fought valiantly, but the invaders were parasites who fed on our psychic energy. As we grew weaker, they grew stronger. They even absorbed our shape-changing abilities.

Finally, a small group of Martian survivors planned one final, desperate attack. Inside their underground stronghold, we unleashed a powerful nerve gas which paralyzed them. The attack was successful, but he cost was dear. I was the only survivor, the last of my kind. I sealed up their citadel to keep them in a constant state of suspended animation. For over 500 years, I stood guard over them. But then, while I was in a hibernation cycle, astronauts from Earth unsealed the stronghold and accidentally revived the invaders."

"Wait. Those astronauts never said anything about finding life on Mars." Flash objected.

Green lantern snorted. "Some pencil pusher in Washington probably decided it should be classified information."

J'onn walked forward. "With all the Martians gone, the invaders had nothing left to feed upon, so they turned their sights to Earth. I narrowly escaped and came here to warn of the coming danger."

I quietly asked him, "J'onn, so you've been by yourself this whole time?" That sounds terrible. When I lost my parents and sister, I was so sad, but at least I wasn't the last human. I can't even begin to wonder how that feels. He merely looked at me and gave a small nod. His face was cleared of any emotion, but I could see the sadness and despair in his eyes.

He looked at Superman. "When I was held against my will, the invaders sent advance agents to disable Earth's defenses."

"That's why they sabotaged the deep-space monitoring network…so we couldn't detect their activities." Batman finally spoke up.

"We've got to stop them before it's too late." Green Lantern said.

"It may already be too late." J'onn said and he turned away.

"Well I can see that he is an optimist." I said. Flash looked over to me and chuckled.

Then we all heard a deep rumble, almost like it was a machine that was starting up. We all looked over the ridge toward the city, where the noise was coming from.

"What was that?" Diana asked.

"It's begun." J'onn ominously replied. We walked toward the edge of the cliff and watched as the thick, black smoke rose up to the sky, and lightning cracked through the clouds.

"What are they doing?" Hawkgirl asked.

"The invaders are nocturnal. They want to block out the sun so they can live in perpetual darkness." That doesn't sound so bad to me. I mean the sun is okay and all but I definitely prefer the night. That sounds perfect, besides the fact that aliens were causing this.

Flash turned to Batman. "Friends of yours?" he asked.

"It's no joke." Batman said.

Flash walked over to J'onn. "What's the big problem? Can't you just whip up another batch of that nerve gas?" It couldn't be that easy.

"Unfortunately, no. The gas can only be made from a rare Martian plant. I brought a sample with me, but it was destroyed when I was captured."

Flash chuckled nervously. "Uhh, so what's plan B?"

"We'll have to take out those factories." Diana said. As much as I wasn't really a fan of hers, I had to agree.

"It sounds like once the smoke is taken care of, we will have a much easier time dealing with them in the morning once the sun rises." I said. The mood seemed to lighten a little bit with that one glimmer of hope.

And then the mood was ruined when Green Lantern opened his mouth and looked at Diana. "Lady, this is no job for amateurs. You or the human ice cube maker over there." I'm sorry, was he seriously talking about me? I looked at him and crossed my arms just as Diana laid into him.

"We Amazons are warriors born! Want to test me?" A small part of me was glad that she had stepped up for herself. Now it was my turn.

"I don't know who you're calling an ice cube maker, green bean, but for your information my powers are plenty useful. And I was part of naval special ops. So if you really want to see what it is I can do, you should keep talking." I practically growled at him. I took a step forward and lucky for Green Lantern, Superman stepped in.

"Let's not fight among ourselves." He said stepping in between Diana, Green Lantern, and I. "John, we're going to need all the help we can get."

John, as I just learned that's what his name was, turned away and said to Diana, "Sorry…your highness." He then looked at me. "And you too, frosty." I almost lunged at him but Batman grabbed my shoulder and gave me a look that said 'please don't do anything stupid'.

"Fine. But he's asking for it." I told Batman. Green lantern then stepped forward into the middle of the little circle we had made.

"Tactically, we will have many objectives. So we'll need to split into teams." Flash rushed forward and put a hand over Diana's shoulders.

"Dibs on the Amazon." He grinned. I closed my eyes and shook my head.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The next thing I know, I am on a team with the Flash and Green Lantern. I'm pretty sure Batman had something to do with this though. In some sick and twisted way he probably thought it was funny. Flash was running on the water, Green Lantern was flying, and I was surfing right over top of the water. I had never actually tried doing that before but it was fun, especially when a wave would come up and hit the bottom of my disk because it would throw me into the air a couple feet. I wasn't really listening to what Flash and Green Lantern were talking about, I was off in my own little world, but then I heard Flash say really loud, "You are no fun."

"This isn't supposed to be fun. We've got a job to do, and we will do it better without distractions. Understood?"

"Yeah, yeah. I hear ya." Flash said

"I'll try not to get offended over here. I mean, I know my legs don't go on forever like hers do but good grief, I still hope I can turn a few heads." I yelled back over the wind whipping past my ears. Green Lantern ignored my when Flash just looked over at me and grinned. Then he ran forward and caused a wave of water to wash over me. Oh, it is so on. I grinned to myself and flew even faster to try and catch up with him. We finally saw land in the distance, and I was pretty relieved. At least our part of the plan would soon be over. We went up to a cliff so we could overlook the machine that was pumping smoke into the air.

Green Lantern crouched down and tried to tell us our plan. "That's our target. Now, listen up. Here's the plan." But before he could say another word Flash was already standing up.

"What plan? We kick their butts, right? Let's get this over with." And before either of us could stop him, he had already raced down the cliff side. Great. I looked over at Green Lantern and saw that his angry face could almost rival Batman's. Almost. We stayed where we were and decided to watch and see what Flash did. He ran down to where the tall alien walkers were and signaled for them. They noticed him and started shooting at him, but he was too quick for the beams to hit their intended target. As Flash was running away, he tripped. Yes, the idiot tripped on a rock and he landed in what looked like brown sludge. He had trouble getting out of it and I knew it was our turn to go down and save him. I glanced over at Green Lantern, then I hopped on an ice disk and flew down the cliff. I could hear Green Lantern was right behind me.

"You help Flash, and I'll make sure you guys don't get hit." I yelled back to him. I didn't give him a chance to reply before I went over to one of the creatures. I pulled out my staff, and froze over the part of its head that shot out the beams. Then when it was melting the thick ice, I flew all around throwing ice daggers and hoping I could find a weak spot. I had to go back up and refreeze the shooting hole when an idea occurred to me. I landed on the ground and made a giant ice path right where the creature was walking. The creature's feet slid apart like a deer on an ice pond. From that point I figured that it would do a lot less damage than form 40 feet up in the air. When it fell, it look like it broke. It wasn't moving and it wasn't shooting bolts from its head. I looked over to Green Lantern and saw that he had shot the leg off of another creature, just like I had. Lantern went over to get Flash out and I floated next to them.

"I hope the others are having better luck than we are." Green Lantern said. I don't know how much luckier we could get at this point, we had already taken down two monsters and nobody was hurt. I would call that good luck. I sat there and looked around for more creatures as Green Lantern chewed out Flash. I wasn't the Lantern's biggest fan, but I did think Flash deserved most of his verbal assault. Just then I saw a beam head towards Lantern.

"Look out!" I put an ice shield around us and the beam just made a small dent in it. We all looked up and saw two more of the creatures coming towards us. "Aim for the legs…that seems to be their weakness!" I called out to the boys. I saw that Lantern had created a shield around him but one of the creatures created a smoke bomb and threw it towards him. It penetrated his shield and sent him into a coughing fit and then he was unconscious on the ground.

"Evie, we have to go!" Flash called to me as he picked up Green Lantern and ran towards the woods. I decided that he was right and there wasn't much I would be able to do by myself. I followed Flash into the woods and didn't look back to see if the monsters were following us.

After running for a little while, Flash started to slow down. I stopped and landed next to him. "What's wrong?" Flash had a glazed look over his face, like he was thinking of something else.

"I'm getting a message from J'onn. He wants us back in Metropolis."

I frowned a little. "But we haven't finished our mission."

Flash just shrugged. "He says it's pretty urgent. I would just head back now." Just as he finished saying that, Green Lantern started waking up. "Wake up buddy. J'onn needs us back now." Flash said, putting Lantern on his feet and steadying him. At first I thought that he was going to argue, but he just stood and nodded his head.

"Alright then, let's go." We all flew (well Flash ran) back to Metropolis and we only stopped a couple of times to help save trapped civilians. When we got back, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Downtown Metropolis was in ruins. Buildings were on fire, people were running around stealing things, completely breaking the law, and cars were overturned. After Green Lantern helped some kids who were trapped under some concrete, we went up to the building Diana and J'onn were on.

"Sorry we're late, we had to stop and help some civilians." Green Lantern said.

"What'd you call us back for?" Flash asked her. I stood in the back and counted who was there. Why were we missing three people?

Diana walked forward and pointed to the machine in the center of town. "Superman's been captured. He's trapped somewhere inside there with Hawkgirl." As she said that, I felt my stomach sink. If they were there, then where was Batman?

"If those two are in there, then where is Batman? Wasn't he with you guys?" I asked her and J'onn. Diana didn't say anything, and it was J'onn who spoke first.

"He acted heroically…to the very end." My heart clenched when he said that. He couldn't mean that he had died, could he? I mean, I know I didn't know him that well, but I was so sad thinking that he really was gone. Tears started welling up in my eyes but I knew I couldn't let them fall. Not yet.

Flash turned around and asked, "The bat's gone?" He sounded just as upset as I felt.

Diana lifted her head up. "He was a true warrior." Oh please, you only knew him for an hour. You have no idea who he is. But did I, either? I thought for a second and figured I was more qualified to mourn him. I had only known him for about 48 hours, but at least I wasn't talking about him like we had been best friends for years. Of course, this could just be my dislike for Diana talking.

John walked towards the edge of the roof. "This is not good, definitely not good." Well no shit Sherlock. Of course this isn't good I thought bitterly. We decided that we needed to discuss a plan. After a couple minutes of arguing we finally came up with one. We all waited behind a piece of pavement that had become undone . I crouched down next to J'onn with my staff in hand. I must have tuned out, because the next thing I heard is J'onn saying that the Imperium is coming.

"The who?" Flash asked him.

"The supreme intelligence that controls these invaders. We have met before." I heard Flash asking John if he could trust the "space case" as he not so quietly put it. Geez Flash, could you whisper any louder? The man is sitting right here.

Before anyone could say anything, Green Lantern spoke up. "Okay, we're going in. Flash, create a diversion. Evie and Diana, watch my back." I looked up at Green Lantern with a raised eyebrow. He just insulted me hours before, now he wants me to watch his back?

"You want to rely on an amateur?" Diana asked him. "Yeah G.L, shouldn't I be getting you guys ice cold drinks or something?" I sarcastically asked him. I decided if the guy wasn't going to apologize, I would at least give him Hell. He looked at both of us.

"Let's move." He grumbled out. I smirked. Maybe I could guilt him into giving an apology. Flash ran over to the other side of the creature and we all flew up and over it. Flash picked up a rock and threw it, and waved his arms.

"Tag! You're it!" he said, and like the mature superhero he is, he blew a raspberry at an alien. The alien started shooting at him, but Flash ran off. As he continued to taunt the alien, he somehow was able to make it explode. He may act like a three year old, but at least he knows what he's doing I thought. The rest of us had snuck past the guards and flew up to the top of the machine, where there was a hole we could fly in.

"Where are they being held?" Green Lantern asked J'onn.

"This way." John replied and flew to the right and down a new passage. We landed and had just started walking when Flash caught up to us.

"Hope I didn't keep you." He said, I was going to say something back to him but then we heard the aliens talking. We stopped walking and pushed ourselves against the wall. J'onn peeked around and then told us to wait where we were. We all watched as he transformed into one of the aliens and ran out to talk to them. He must have said the right thing because the aliens started running, but they were running towards our direction. I gripped my staff and got ready to fight them but there was no need. Before the aliens could fully stop and look at us, J'onn sank up through the floor and put his hands through the aliens' chests. They fell to the floor with a thud and J'onn told us to go with him.

"Is it just me, or does he creep you out too?" Flash asked. I just shrugged my shoulders. Yeah, some of the things he said was weird, but we also had to remember that he wasn't from around here.

We all walked out and followed J'onn. He stopped and said "We are close now." He walked up to a wall and put his hand on it. "I sense they are somewhere beyond these walls." Diana stepped up and tried to push the wall down with her bare hands.

"It's no use. We'll have to find another way." Well I honestly didn't think she was going to be able to do that. The aliens may not look like they have brains, but I don't think they were too dumb. They would have a stronger defense, especially since they were keeping prisoners in there. Green Lantern tried.

"Stand back." He told Diana. He held up his arm and started making a door with his ring.

"We haven't much time left." J'onn warned us. Green Lantern finally go the door made and pushed it open. When it opened up, we saw Superman and Hawkgirl hanging upside from the ceiling and unconscious. Well that's going to give them a headache in the morning. Hawkgirl groaned, but something seemed off. Diana, Flash, and Green Lantern raced forward to try and help them, but I stayed behind with J'onn.

"Guys, something doesn't feel right here." I said. No sooner had I said it, the Superman's and Hawkgirl's eyes opened and they were blood red. I heard the door start to close up behind me, and I ran and tried to stop it, but here was no use. Little vents were created on the walls and a gas started to flow into the room. Within seconds of breathing it in, I felt like I couldn't breathe. I tried taking a deep breath but I felt like I was choking. I collapsed to the ground, and the blackness took over.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

When I woke up, my feet and hands were stuck in some dried goo. I lifted my head and looked around me. "What the hell was that stuff?" I groaned out. I had had some headaches, mostly when alcohol was involved, but this was the worst I had ever had. My brain felt like it was going to squeeze through my ears and onto the floor. Then I saw that the aliens were gathered above us.

"Earth's mightiest heroes. Welcome." The alien in the front said. At least I'm assuming it was him, these guys don't exactly have mouths.

"I'm sorry, was he just speaking English?" I asked. I looked back up and saw that the monster had changed into Senator Carter. "And this is why I hate politics, people." I said.

"Senator Carter." Superman said.

"Unfortunately, the real Carter never returned from Mars." Alien carter told us.

"And you used me to weaken Earth' defenses."

"You were so eager to cooperate." Alien Carter taunted. "Thanks to you, the humans were totally helpless against us."

At this point, Superman was straining against this goop we were stuck in. "It's not over yet." He said.

A large whole opened up in the ceiling and we could all see through to the outside, where it was all smoky and black. "Wrong again, Superman." Alien Carter said. A small spaceship was heading right for the hole that was formed in the ceiling. The craft lowered and hovered right above the aliens. "All hail the Imperium!" Alien Carter said, as he and the other aliens bowed. A ventilation shaft opened and blew steam out. When the steam cleared there was a giant purple and black blob with tentacles hanging off it floating above the ground. This must be the Imperium.

"I don't know about you guys, but I am so tired to seeing shapeless blobs today. If aliens are going to invade us, they should at least have a shape." I said. Who knew if anyone was listening, but when I get nervous, I ramble.

The king of the blob people floated forward directly in front of J'onn. "J'onn J'onzz. It's been a long time." It said. At least this one spoke English instead of the garbage the other ones spoke. It raised its tentacles up towards the air, and J'onn's goop floated up in the air and unwrapped him so he was standing in front of the Imperium. While J'onn was getting steady on his feet, two guards electrocuted him with poles. J'onn stood there groaning in pain, and we could only stand there and watch. J'onn transformed back to his original alien form, and fell to the ground. "Much better," the Imperium said. "You have defied us for centuries."

J'onn slowly lifted his head up. "And I will never bow before you or any of your kind." He somehow found enough strength to get to his feet.

The Imperium waved his tentacles. "Then we will personally see to finishing what should have been accomplished long ago…the elimination of the last Martian. The tentacles shot forward towards J'onn and literally entered his skin. You could see the tentacles climbing up through his skin into his body. The grossest one was the one that entered through his face and was slowly reaching up to his brain. J'onn was standing there screaming as his body was invaded. The tentacles retracted into the Imperium and J'onn was forced inside the blob itself. We all watched in complete disbelief at the scene before us. Through the flashes of lightning we could see J'onn struggling to get free from the giant blob, but there was no use.

At this point we were all trying to get out of our restraints and go help him. "Let go of him you filthy…" Superman started saying, but his voice was drowned out by the Imperium's.

"Yield to us, J'onn J'onzz."

"Never!" J'onn yelled back. He had more strength than I did. The second those tentacles would have entered me, I would have been done. I probably would have agreed to do anything.

"Why do you resist? Embrace this truth. After all these years, you have finally lost." The great blob king said. The next thing I know, blob king is freaking out. "You are hiding something. A secret deep in the recesses of your mind. Is this another of your Martian tricks? What are you hiding?"

"Now!" J'onn yelled. Um, I hope he isn't talking to us, because we are not in a position to do anything at the moment. An explosion sounded right behind me, and I craned my neck to see what it was. Smoke was coming off of a red pod that looked like it had a crystal or rock in it. When the smoke cleared, there was none other than Batman, standing on the pod. Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

"Bats is alive?" I asked.

"It can't be." Diana said.

"I mentally shielded him so he couldn't be detected." J'onn said. Well he could have at least told us. I was completely filled with relief after seeing that he was okay. I looked up at Batman and watched as he threw some kind of device into the pod he was on. Soon the pod wasn't red anymore, but it was blue. The blue liquid was spreading throughout the room, turning everything that was red, a nice sky blue color.

"What have you done?" Alien carter asked him. I was satisfied to hear that he sounded a little panicked.

"Reversed the ion charge." Bats said.

"The crystal, destroy it!" The Imperium said. The guards fired their beams, but they couldn't penetrate the shield surrounding the crystal. There was a sudden light that shot through the hole in the ceiling and we watched as the clouds dissipated and the blue sky was shining through. Sunlight started to pour in, and I remembered what J'onn said about the creatures being nocturnal. I grinned, they wouldn't be able to stand the sun, let alone try and fight in it. They all started retreating towards the shadows, but the unlucky ones who were stuck in the sun started bubbling and melting. Even the Imperium was starting to melt, and that gave J'onn a big enough window to push himself through and escape. He grabbed the tentacles and dragged the Imperium into the sunlight.

"You live underground and shun the light. Why? Does it burn your pale, putrid skin?" J'onn asked him. The Imperium continued to bubble and scream while he struggled to get away from the sun.

"Oooh, that's one nasty sunburn." Flash said. I pulled a disgusted face, I would hate to have to clean this mess up. Batman finally swung down and started burning off the restraints holding us down, he started with Diana.

"Ultraviolet rays, coming from the depths of space the invaders have no resistance to our sun's radiation." He explained. Superman looked up at the sun and he was able to use his heat vision. He cut off his goop and started helping the others.

"So you did find that weakness after all." Diana told him. Behind us the Imperium started yelling at his people to destroy us. Yeah, fat chance that is happening now. The guard started shooting at us, but Superman lifted a flap of the floor and lifted it up and made a makeshift shield. Superman then turned and beamed Hawkgirl and Lantern out, while Diana got Flash out. Batman came over to me next and started breaking my bonds.

"You had us scared for a minute there." I told him. He just looked at me, but I thought I could see a hint of a smile on his face. He got me out and I jumped down and started to head towards the fight.

"Evie." Batman called out. I turned around and saw that he was holding my staff. "I believe this is yours." He said. I must have dropped it when I was unconscious. I smiled up at him.

"Thanks, Bats." I said. I turned around and used my staff to vault myself up on the higher platform. I took out a couple of the creatures with my staff, and some of them I just used a good old fashioned punch. I punched one, grabbed it and threw it into some of his friends. I felt another one grab me from behind but I flipped myself backwards so that I was sitting on his shoulders, then I elbowed him right on the neck and he crumpled to the floor. I put water over them and froze their legs, so they couldn't move when they woke up. I continued to do this with whatever alien came by me and soon I had a pile of them frozen to the ground.

I looked up and saw that Green Lantern was hovering over me with an impressed look on his face. I sent him a small nod, which he returned. I looked over to see Diana with a lasso in her hand. Are you kidding me, she can throw ropes now too? She lassoed the ship and held it still in the air like it was a balloon. When the ship sent a beam her way, she had to deflect it with her bracelets, and she let the rope go. Hawkgirl flew up and smashed the front of the ship so that it stopped flying, when Diana flew up and grabbed the rope and started pulling the ship back down. While Diana was pulling, Hawkgirl flew up and continued hitting the bridge of the ship so that a giant hole formed in it. The building was starting to fall apart and I flew over to where Flash and Batman were perched on a beam. "Is it time to get out of here yet?" I asked them. Before they could answer, Superman flew by.

"Not yet, we have to get them out of here." He nodded over to where more of those red pods were. I few over there and created a large sheet of ice.

"Here, start putting a few of them on here, I'll get them out." I said. After Superman put about five people in my ice, I flew them up and out of the hole in the ceiling. Thankfully I was able to get them away far enough just as the ship exploded. We all stood up on the roof of a building and watched as the mother-ship flew out of the atmosphere.

We all looked around the city and we knew we still had a lot of work to do. After we got the people who were in the pods down onto the street so the paramedics could look after them, we started taking down the other alien forces that were scattered over the planet. After all of the alien forces were destroyed, we each said our goodbyes and went home. I was asleep before I even walked in the door, and dead to the world before I even jumped up on my bed.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

A few days later, I ran into Superman while I was out on a patrol. He asked me to meet him in an empty field that was outside of Metropolis. I agreed, and I met him the next day. Flash was with us, and we all got into a jet that kind of looked like Batman's. We flew up into orbit, and it was the coolest sight I had ever seen. I never thought I would ever go to outer space, but the view was fantastic. Earth looked so peaceful from up here and it was hard to picture the dark smoky atmosphere that had only been present a few days earlier. I looked further ahead of the ship and saw that there was a giant space station there, and we were heading right towards it.

"Is this where we are going?" I asked him. Superman only smiled and nodded. We landed and got out of the jet. The inside of the station was made of silver metal. We got into an elevator and went up to what must have been the control deck. There, there were giant windows and tons of computer monitors. Everyone was standing there. Green Lantern, Hawk Girl, Diana, J'onn, Batman, Superman and Flash. Everyone turned toward us as we entered. "Um, hey guys." I said. Everyone else smiled or gave a small wave. Except Batman, but the fact that he looked at me was a good enough greeting. Green Lantern spoke up first.

"What is this all about?"

Superman sighed and walked away from us. "I once thought I could protect the world by myself, but I was wrong. Working together, we saved the planet. And I believe that if we stayed together as a team we would be a force that could truly work for the ideals of peace and justice."

"What, like a bunch of super friends?" Flash asked.

Superman smirked, "More like a Justice League."

Flash stepped forward. "Do you have any idea how corny that sounds? But, maybe the big guy's got a point. With all of us behind it, it just might work. Count me in."

"Me too." Green Lantern said. They all looked at each other and put their hands in a pile. Hawkgirl walked over and put her hand in.

"I'm in."

Diana looked down. "My mother may not approve, but I find man's world to be intriguing. I'll gladly join." She walked in and put her hand in the pile. I realized that only left me and Bats, who I was standing next to. Everyone in the room turned and looked at us, but I feel like most of them were looking at me. I just stared at them. Was I really ready to try and join another family? Every single foster family that I had been in never really wanted me. And my family that I had made in the military betrayed me and wanted to use me as a weapon. I wasn't sure I could put my faith in another one, just to have it fall apart. Then, I felt a nudge on my arm. I looked up at Batman.

"You know, I looked you up. It doesn't look like you have anywhere else to go." He said quietly. I continued to stare at him, because I didn't know what to say. "I think this will do you some good." He took a step back and left me out in the open. I took a deep breath and considered what he said. I started this journey because I wanted to help people, and this would be the ultimate way for me to do that. I looked up at the group and grinned.

"Oh why not, I'll give you guys a shot." I smiled and walked over, and as corny as it sounds, I put my hand on top of the pile. I looked over my shoulder. "You joining the team, Bats?" I asked him.

He stopped and looked at all of us. "I'm not much of a people person, but when you need help, and you will…call me." I sent him a smile and he turned around and left.

"Understood." Superman said. "Then we are all in agreement."

"Wait, J'onn isn't here." I looked around and realized Diana was right. In my own small panicked moment, I had missed the green Martian. Superman flew up and went to look for him. I don't know what he said to him, but they both flew down a minute later with smiles on their faces. We all walked towards each other, and for the first time in years, I felt content and safe. It was time to move onto the next chapter of my life.

#Batman #dc #Bruce Wayne #Batman x Oc #Bruce Wayne x Oc #Justice League 2001 #Superhero Oc

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stvlti · 7 years ago

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11 Questions

i was tagged by @privatekururugi, @espiadimonis, and @transguynoriaki a while ago. each gave me a set of 11 questions to answer, so i will answer these 33 questions. i’m not gonna tag anyone in particular, but if you see this do feel free to have a go at any or all of these sets of 11q’s.

from @privatekururugi:

1) Do you have any specific diet you go by? (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Paleo, etc.) i used to be pescetarian, but then the deficiencies it gave me caused some pretty bad dental / gum problems, so i started eating a bit of lean chicken and pork on the side again... (yeah i know supplements exist, but even my nutrition major of a friend thought a pescetarian diet won’t yield deficiencies, and also supplements are fairly expensive. get off my case)

2&3) Do you have any siblings? If so, how close are you? nope, i’m an only child

4&5) What’s your favourite book and why? (I might want to read it lol) hmm. i still really like 1984, it was the first dystopian classic i read and the concept of Newspeak, tampering with historical authenticity on such grand scales, etc. just blew my mind. so even though i still dislike its weakass character-writing (p much anyone besides Winston has no personality, no distinct personal motives, etc), it’s got a soft spot in my heart. next to that i also liked A Clockwork Orange for the philosophical discussion of the nature of right and wrong (although in hindsight the story is a bit didactic); To Live by Yu Hua (the ill-fated episodes and tragic ends are made all the more absurd by the subtle and simply narration style, but it really is a humbling and informative experience for us readers of a different era and socioeconomic background); and of course, my favourite fable, A Little Prince.

6) Would you describe your personality as dominate or submissive overall? what the fuck kind of question is this. well i’m opinionated as heck, so i’m not submissive “personality-wise”. and that’s all i’ll say on the matter because i’m p sex-indifferent lol, if that’s what this question was trying to get at.

7) What are your dreams usually like at night? oh man. i usually don’t dream normal dreams; as in, most dreams i have is either one big adventure / story, or some bizarre situation that would have been questionable at best, fucked up at worst, in real life context. when i start dreaming about mundane everyday life problems or situations, like failing a test or being stuck with a friend i’ve cut off from my life years ago, that’s usually when i’ve got some kind of stress going on in my life.

(i’ve been trying to restart my dream journal tag actually, but i got stuck on my second entry trying to recall the specifics lol. maybe i should release entry #3 from the drafts first.)

8) Is there anything you’re currently anxious about? well, yeah. my future. my job prospects. being homeless once my parents decide to sell their house off for retirement because the housing prices are through the roof here. pick one.

9&10) Are you looking forward to Thanksgiving? Will you be contributing anything? we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving!

11) Whose your favourite Death Note character (if you have one)? Light Yagami, even though he’s a slimy fox.

from @transguynoriaki:

1. What kind of music do you listen to?

hmm, i only listen to really slow music or something dark or rock-ish, nothing in between!! muahahaha!!

okay that’s generalising it; i do love The Honey Trees and The Novembers, which are on opposite ends of the “slow” spectrum (one’s dream pop, the other’s infused with shoegaze and other distortions + some screamy vocals and loud noises at times), with Lana Del Rey and her decadent sounds smack in the middle lol. but yeah i certainly have a taste for the more atmospheric stuff, so aside from the fuzzy feelings of The Novembers’ stuff and the grandness of Lana’s string instrumentals i also like the darker chill vibes you get from The Neighbourhood, some of The Weeknd’s older stuff, etc.

and I also really enjoy MCR, Muse and the like - i.e. dramatic sounds, that’s the good shit to me haha.

i also like more conventional pop acts like Lorde... and my fave local singer, Ivana Wong, of course!

2. Do you prefer to keep your living space neat and tidy or do you like a certain amount of mess?

i do prefer order and routine in my life, sadly if i can’t do that on a structural level you think i can do that with my desk?! lol. in an alternate universe, maybe.

3. What was the first ship you remember really shipping?

hmm probably TerraxBeast Boy from CN’s Teen Titans. i was lukewarm / indifferent to other canon pairings i’ve seen in media up until that point; but i guess i was more persuaded by the storyline than their characterisations as looking back there are glaring trust issues in their relationship (and that’s an understatement)

4. Do you have a certain show or book series that holds a lot of nostalgic value for you? If so, what was it?

hmm, i guess Courage the Cowardly Dog? (i was a weird kid but shush) and Teen Titans of course. as for books, hmm... ASoUE is definitely one of the ones that just takes me back to middle school. i even bought the Beatrice letters files thingy. tbf the whole Lemony Snicket universe did teach me a lot about cryptography, which i guess if me or a friend of mine were to do an L rp and solve cases it would help a lot (*cough* not saying that’s what’s happening right now because i’ve got other stuff i’m investing my time into. i guess my friend’s gonna make themselves scarce as well hahaha *cue Mariah Carey’s i can’t read gif except it’s L*)

5. What is your favorite type of food?

Italian and Japanese are my fave cuisines! i guess that means i love richly-flavoured foods and creamy stuff. ooh, love those sauces.

6. Was there ever a fad or activity from your childhood that you could never understand or get into?

i wasn’t a gamer at all. we didn’t own a single console and i wasn’t allowed to get a handheld. the most i had was a Tamagotchi. so i guess it’s not so much i never got that ‘fad’, just that i was never given the opportunity to discover the really good games. i’ve only ever played a bit of Mario Kart or Cooking Mama on my cousin’s NDS so yeah. didn’t see the appeal in the more light-hearted games like that.

(now that i’ve played Undertale i’m kinda wanting to explore more PC games though. i heard Papers Please is good, and PJ (@kickthepj)’s been recommending Hyper Light Drifter a lot, and the art looks amazing, so yeah... too broke to get them though... and even if i had the money and time to play them i’d be allocating it towards other stuff you know?)

7. What’s your favorite time of day?

well i got 2 fave time periods. the first one’s the witching hours between midnight and early morning, when the world is quiet and you could do anything and nobody would know. the other one is early morning, just after sunrise, and the air is clear and slightly chilly, and it’s also really quiet but you can just hear the birds tweeting somewhere.

i’m more likely to be awake for the first time period described here though... ._.

8. What’s your favorite type flower and why?

hmm i'm not really a flower person. i’m just gonna steal Luke’s answer and say cactus flowers haha (well i do like cacti, they’re some of my favourite plants; i even named my IG/Twitter and Pokemon Go usernames after the plant; also some of you might remember that i had a pet cactus for 8 months)

9. What’s your favorite cliché/trope in fiction?

lovers running out of time...

10. Did/do you do any extracurricular activities when you were in school and what were they?

(wow Luke that’s a lot on your resume!)

i did bits and bobs throughout school, but perhaps my longest commitment was my Clarinet lessons. started when i was in Year 2, carried on until i obtained a Pass in Grade 8 ABRSM certificate in Year 10. i had to quit and give up on a diploma there because i was starting the IB diploma programme in Year 11...

this commitment is only rivalled by the dance classes i took. i did ballet from a young age until i was about 12~13, quitting just before en pointe shoes were introduced; i had also been in Chinese dance lessons from Year 1, so after quitting ballet i just focused on that until Year 10 as well (again, quitting to focus on my full-time diploma).

i also did Taekwondo as a child and obtained a black belt qualification by age 12. i quit once i did though, because again i couldn’t afford to juggle so many commitments the older i got and the more demanding my studies became.

perhaps the proudest extracurricular i’ve done is in my senior years of high school: i started and chaired the student committee as the editor in-chief for the school’s first student-ran and seasonal (now monthly) publication. it’s not student-ran either anymore because i guess the kids that came after the classes of 2014, 2015, and 2016 just dgaf about slightly more demanding extracurriculars that require organisation as long as they can earn their credits elsewhere (yes i’m salty, i’m allowed to be okay, it was my brainchild but apparently kids these days don’t care about having their voices heard if it means having to negotiate diplomacy with the adults in charge. god, how do they expect to survive in uni or in a workplace?)

11. What’s your favorite piece of work that you’ve ever created and what about it do you love so much?

hmm. i think for sure the prose poem i wrote about Light’s death in the anime. idk, the flow and the imagery is just a good concentrated example of what i could be capable of given the right tone and context. (of course, i’ve been trying hard to branch out in genres and forms, so that sort of language isn’t always applicable. but yeah, it remains my fave as a showcase of my best writing abilities ^_^)

and from @espiadimonis:

1.If you could have one piece of death note merchandise of any kind, what would it be?

oh man! i’ve been pining after the Hot Topic official DN poker card deck for quite some time! i’ve checked Blue Banana while i was in the UK, but it’s not available there, and it’s not at Tokyo Toys either (they do sell a DN playing card deck, but it’s a lot cheaper in design :/)

2.What’s your favourite 3D animated movie?

does Lego Batman count? if not, then i guess Zootopia.

(there’s a reason these 2 are listed in my bio fandoms list like...)

3.What superpower would you like to have?

i used to always choose levitation / flying, but lately i’m not so sure. i’ve heard a lot of compelling arguments for other powers haha.

you know what, i’d trade for something as simple as better control of my own brain. i don’t care about mind control over others; i just want to be able to harness the best parts of my lightning fast thought processes and out-of-the-box thinking on my best days without being constantly tripped up by executive dysfunction like that on a metacognitive level.

4.Favourite piece of clothing?

my soft furry hoodie, which i’m wearing right now! <3

5.Who’s your favourite Sailor Scout?

i don’t have one, sorry! i was 4 when it aired on TV, so i don’t remember much from those years except the Sailor Moon t shirt i got courtesy of my aunt because it was all the rage back then... i’m sorry, but i have more vivid memories of Pretty Cure and Sugar Sugar Rune!

6.Do you prefer potato chips chocolate?

it is a good combo for sure! we are talking about Royce’s chocolate potato chips, right? (if you haven’t tried it get some next time you or a friend/family goes to Japan! we can buy it locally from like Citysuper or something, but i doubt they export it to any countries beyond East Asia haha)

7.What song makes you feel melancholic?

oh, Six Billion did last week. it left me feeling cold all over. an effect from the combination of the layered vocals and the instrumentals i guess. (is it in minor key? i’m sorry i can’t tell anymore, it’s been far too long since i’ve had any musical training. but if it’s in minor key it would explain why.)

there’s also some of the stuff off The Novembers’ catalogue... mostly 終わらない境界 from To (melt into), which was my daily commuting soundtrack at a time when i had brainfog on a regular basis, so yeah, anxiety and all that fun stuff :/

8.Which dn character would you invite to Spaceland(the amusement park)?

Sayu or Matsuda? they deserve a lot more than the hand canon dealt them. hmm maybe Rem too? but she wouldn’t be able to interact with a lot of the stuff there :/

9.What’s the funniest movie you ever watched?

i guess The Lego Batman Movie? i’m sorry i know i keep bringing this film up, but it’s comedic genius for a “kid’s movie”.

10.You can only choose one pokémon! Which one do you choose?

Blissey was gonna be my go to answer. she’s a tank, have you seen her? but is she really my fave mon? debatable. idk man. i really liked Vulpix/Ninetales as a kid... but dark and ghost types though!! okay i can’t choose, next question

11.What made you happy recently?

i went to another poetry event last night and i met up with a friend i haven’t seen since September :P

#tag meme #long post

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florrickandassociates · 8 years ago

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TGF Thoughts: 1x10-- Chaos

Thoughts on the season finale of TGF under the cut!

Things I’m going to miss over the hiatus: These batshit credits, the thrill of starting a new episode.

Things I’m not going to miss over the hiatus: THIS DAMN FORD COMMERCIAL THAT PLAYS DURING EVERY SINGLE BREAK, paying $6/month for All Access.

As I’d hoped, this episode was written by the Kings and directed by Robert. Robert King’s directing always elevates his episodes because he can capture everything exactly as he wants to, so I’m excited to see that he directed Chaos.

There’s been a fairly diverse list of writers and directors on TGF this season, and I hope there’s even more diversity next year. Also, get Rosemary Rodriguez to direct a season two episode (or several), will ya?

The music that opens the season finale is familiar: it’s You Were Right About Everything by Erin McKeown. A promising start. I love this song. It’s up there with my favorite songs from TGW.

The visual that opens the episode is familiar, too: Maia, nervous, the background behind her black until the lights slowly come up. When we met Maia, she was taking the bar exam. Now, she’s preparing for an evaluation in the workplace.

She sits alone in a partner’s office (I still haven’t been able to figure out which office is Adrian’s and which is Barbara’s), staring at the folder in front of her. It’s labeled with her name, and she reaches for it. She’s barely opened the folder when Adrian and Barbara walk in.

For the record: if you pause the screen on the open folder, you can see that it’s the average of her peer evaluations. You can’t see what they are, but the sheet of paper on top is labeled. Fun fact: it’s the same form template as Alicia’s peer evaluation from TGW season 2. I know this because I have Alicia’s peer evaluation form from TGW s2 screenshotted and saved on my computer and I look at it frequently.

Barbara thanks Maia for coming in early. They do evaluations with no advance notice at this firm?

“Am I being fired?” Maia asks as soon as she gets a chance to speak. Barbara and Adrian—well, mostly Adrian—seem surprised that Maia’s making this assumption. “It’s just, um, you’re both here at the same time,” she observes.

“No, this is our twice yearly progress report on associates,” Barbara explains. Again, did no one warn Maia about this in advance? The date of my first review was included in the offer letter for my job!

Barbara gives Maia her results: everyone thinks she’s smart (“Okay,” replies Maia) and they know she’s been distracted by “the business with her family.” Maia senses that there’s a “but…” on its way, so she apologizes and explains she’s tried not to let it get in the way. Barbara keeps speaking. Her family isn’t the problem (and neither, it seems, is the fact that Maia doesn’t fucking work). Her lack of boldness is. She needs to assert herself more.

I understand where this evaluation of Maia comes from, but I don’t think boldness is really her problem. The way she talks and stumbles over her words creates the impression she’s not assertive, but the things she says and the moments she chooses to speak strike me as being quite bold. I can’t remember how she was in court because we haven’t seen her in court since, like, episode 2, but within the firm, the few times I recall her working, she’s been almost inappropriately bold. She marched into Adrian’s office and asked if she was being fired in one episode; in another, she spoke up to argue against a partner about rape threats; in a third, she was the only one to directly ask Pastor Jeremiah if he had sexually assaulted a minor.

As I said, I get where this narrative comes from and why it’s tempting to play with. Maia comes off as unsure and shaky (my goodness, the way she talks!), and I don’t doubt that she’s supposed to come across as meek and afraid to speak up. I also don’t doubt that partners who rarely work with her would walk away with this impression: she does exactly what she has to do and no more. But where I would take this would be, rather than a discussion of boldness, a discussion of complacency. Her vocal tics aside, this is where I think Maia has a lot of room for improvement.

If there’s one thing we’ve seen in all aspects of Maia’s life, it’s that she’s very willing to let life happen to her. And why shouldn’t she be? Up until this year, everything’s gone her way. She’s had plenty of money, a family so perfect she has to invent drama, a girlfriend she met at age 18 and is still crazy about at age 25, a clear trajectory from private school to college to law school to a first job with a prestigious firm… it’s no wonder she expects things to work themselves out. When we met Maia in Inauguration, she was worried about being seen as entitled while having no qualms (or without recognizing) her own entitlement. Similarly, as her parents’ scandal unfolded, she kept believing what she always had, even when all the evidence pointed towards their guilt. She realized last episode that she’d, on some level, known all along and blocked out everything unpleasant.

It would make a lot of sense if that attitude spilled over into the workplace: she asserts herself when she’s threatened or feels upset by something, but otherwise she keeps her head down. That’s the kind of thing, I think, partners would notice. There’s a world of difference between an employee who does what they have to and an employee who’s engaged with their work. Maia strikes me as the former. She strikes me as someone who’s always been the person who does what they have to while following the path that’s been set for her. Now, she has to figure out what path she wants to be on. Why did she go into the law? Did she have a clear reason (helping others, being inside something that made sense to her, a fascination with the law, a particular type of law that interested her), or was it tempting because it’s what her godmother did and it’s what her significantly older girlfriend was doing and it’s a profession her parents’ peers would approve of? Now that she’s passed the bar, does she have different goals? When she can’t be complacent anymore (and she can’t be—she doesn’t have the money to fall back on anymore, and she’ll lose her job at worst or never advance at best if she doesn’t take initiative at work), what does she want? Who does she want to be?

Maia responds to the criticism by apologizing. Of course she does. Adrian calls her out on it. He advises her to choose a partner and follow them around to learn. He tells her to insist on following them around. He also suggests that she tail Diane, which seems to defeat the purpose of this whole exercise. “Hey, godmother who got me this job and my last job, can I follow you around for a day?” That would really push Maia’s comfort zone.

“Do you think that worked?” Barbara asks after Maia exits. “No,” Adrian replies. “Let’s give her two weeks,” Barbara says. Oh look at that, Maia’s the underdog now. This is definitely a Robert King episode.

They call in Lucca next. If she’s anxious, she’s not showing it. Whatever uncertainty she’s feeling—and she does seem a bit restless, as most would right before a performance review—she knows how to mask. She looks at the folder but doesn’t open it. “This is the bi-yearly review?” she asks as Barbara and Adrian walk in. (Again, do they not tell their employees these things?!)

“How’d I do?” Lucca asks. “You kicked ass,” Adrian says. And thank goodness that’s what he says, because I would’ve screamed at my screen if Lucca got a performance review anything less than stellar. Maia’s workplace performance may be underdeveloped, but Lucca’s certainly isn’t. She’s shown herself to be smart, responsible, and independent while still being a team player, as well as someone who’s not afraid to assert herself when she has something relevant to say. And, what she has to say is always relevant.

So it’s wonderful—but not surprising—to hear Adrian and Barbara give Lucca such a glowing review. Two years ago, Lucca was working as a bar attorney—a thankless job—and now she’s doing great things at a big firm that appreciates her and recognizes her talent. I’m thrilled for her!

Oh, and also Lucca has the most billable hours on the floor. In case we needed further proof that she’s great.

I said this a few weeks ago, but I want to emphasize it so I’ll say it again: Lucca doesn’t go above and beyond at work because she’s competitive. She goes above and beyond because it wouldn’t occur to her to do anything less than what she’s doing. She’s a natural at this. She’s intellectually curious, passionate, hardworking, and sharp. And when you put a person like that in an environment where they can thrive, you get associates as good as Lucca. It’s no wonder the partners valued Lucca’s opinions on Diane so much.

(I love the high angle shot of Lucca smiling. The high angle shows that people who outrank her are the ones talking, but usually, when there’s a high angle to convey a power differential, it’s used to convey bad news or put someone in their place.)

“Lucca, we don’t want to lose you. We’d like to move you to a bigger office and put you on the partner track,” Adrian says. I’M SO HAPPY FOR LUCCA!

A smile on her face, Lucca carries a file box into her soon-to-be-old office. Maia’s on her couch with her feet up. “They hate me,” Maia says. I… am not sure how we got to the point where Maia is comfortable just going into Lucca’s office and putting her feet up on her furniture and complaining about her life without asking Lucca how she’s doing. I feel like it’s pretty bold to assume you’re friends now and put your feet on someone’s furniture. But I won’t make too much of this, and I especially won’t make too much of Maia talking without asking Lucca how she’s doing because this episode makes it very clear that Maia’s willing to step up for Lucca.

“Every associate gets a mediocre review,” Lucca reassures Maia. “No, they don’t. Did you?” Maia asks. “It was mixed,” Lucca replies, with a smile that Maia might not notice but I definitely do. But Lucca’s point is accurate: most people don’t get the glowing review she did. Most people get reviews like Maia’s.

Maia invites Lucca over for dinner. Aww, friends!

The men’s room door bangs into Lucca’s office wall shortly after Maia leaves. Omg, did we really go this whole season without this gag being done to death?! Thanks, Kings! “I’m gonna miss that so much,” Lucca says to herself. LUCCA QUINN IS MY FAVORITE.

Marissa is putting post-it flags on her fingers as Jay quizzes her for her investigator license exam. She warns Jay that if the firm doesn’t want two investigators, she’ll be coming for his job. Yes, because there’s only one law firm in all of Chicago that might need an investigator.

Kurt phones for Diane. She doesn’t answer because her 10:00 is waiting. Marissa asks if Diane will talk to Adrian about her becoming an investigator. Diane is surprised by this and says she’ll follow up with him once Marissa reaches out.

Diane’s new client is Mr. Bitcoin/Piper from OITNB’s awful ex. Has Diane ever interacted with him? I thought he was another one of those people that always goes through Alicia. But Bitcoin for Dummies is such a boring episode I’ve probably blocked it from my mind completely.

Mr. Bitcoin is being framed for cyber terrorism. He explains what’s going on in tech references that Marissa understands, because Marissa knows everything about everything because investigators are magical sources of plot information.

There’s gonna be a blackout in nine hours if Diane doesn’t help Mr. Bitcoin, or something convoluted like that that necessitates taking a flash drive filled with malware to the DOJ.

The DOJ?! That means this case is now Lucca’s problem. I forgot Colin existed for a second and was wondering why Lucca would have connections at the DOJ. Probably not a good sign if I’m forgetting one of your series regulars exists, show.

Again, showing a building that says CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE does not convince me you’re inside the DOJ.

Colin and Lucca sit down for a meeting. It’s awkward. Lucca seems uncertain about whether or not their breakup was a breakup. Seemed definitive to me. She’s also brought along a shirt of his that wound up at her place. Then they turn to work matters.

Lucca passes the flash drive to Colin. She says her client found it on his computer. She does not use the word “malware” which struck me as strange the first time through since I would think you’d want to make that absolutely clear if you were giving someone a flash drive with malware on it. That said, I would also think it would be totally obvious that you don’t plug a flash drive involved in a cyber terrorism case into your computer; you give it to someone you trust who knows computers.

Colin interrupts his boss with news of the power grid attack. His boss is in the middle of a session with none other than Henry Rindell. Henry’s facing 35 years now. He is not interested in 35 years. He is also no longer interested in killing himself. Now he is interested in fleeing. Henry Rindell, Cartoon Villain: just when you think he can’t get any worse, he manages to surprise you.

Colin’s boss guesses that Lucca’s the source. Uh oh.

NO BUT WHY WOULD YOU PLUG A FLASH DRIVE CONTAINING MALWARE INTO YOUR COMPUTER AT THE DOJ

Maia talks to Diane about her review. “That’s just constructive criticism,” Diane says. She, like Lucca, thinks it’s normal. Then she remembers she had a call from Kurt and is like, sorry Maia gotta go bye! In the middle of the conversation.

But Diane doesn’t get to phone Kurt: there’s a nurse at Harbor Hospital on the line for her. She tells Diane she’s listed as Kurt’s next of kin, which can only mean bad news is about to follow. “I’m his wife,” Diane says hesitantly. The nurse puts her on hold for an excruciating second, and Diane braces herself for the worst. “Oh my God, please, please,” Diane says as she waits. Kurt’s in surgery after a car accident. Diane heads to the hospital immediately as the music that’s on the menu for one of the TGW DVDs plays.

As Diane exits in one elevator, people from the DOJ arrive to detain Lucca for introducing malware into their system. Y’all, you did that all on your own. Don’t take your own stupidity out on Lucca!

Lucca’s still all smiles as she packs up her office. Then she notices the agents. Maia notices them too, and rolls her chair into the hallway to watch.

“We’re retaining Miss Quinn as a material witness,” the AG says. “No, you’re not!” Maia tells him. Pretty sure the law doesn’t work like that, but way to be bold, Maia! “Uh, actually, I don’t know who you are, but yes, we are,” the AG says as he brushes past Maia. And, thank God, Maia doesn’t tell him her name.

“She’s gonna fuck you up,” Lucca tells the AG. Heh.

Henry knows he’s going to leave, but he can’t say goodbye, so he just gets really pushy about inviting Maia to dinner. “Be safe, please,” Henry says. And for a second, but just a second, I thought he might have feelings.

Maia listens in on the partners discussing Lucca’s detainment and barges into the meeting with information. YAY BOLD MAIA!

Diane stumbles a little every time she introduces herself as Kurt’s wife. Aww. As she waits for the nurse to direct her to Kurt, she spots a man wearing only one shoe behind a curtain. I don’t know if this is reality or Diane’s perception—I’d bet it’s the latter—but man, what an excellent way to show us what’s going through Diane’s mind. She’s thinking about the last time she was in an ER; about how she went in expecting to find Will in surgery and instead found his dead body behind a curtain. I’m emotional just thinking about it, and I’m not the one reliving it.

Luckily, Kurt is going to be fine, and Diane’s able to see him fairly quickly. He’s awake and doing fine, and of course he’s one of those sick people who thinks they know better than the doctors and can do whatever they want immediately after surgery.

Kurt explains someone else was carjacked and he was knocked down. This is vague. Kurt is mad his whole day got delayed, and Diane seems happy to hear Kurt being Kurt.

Kurt pretends to forget why he was phoning Diane earlier.

“Don’t do things that put you in the hospital, okay?” Diane cries. Kurt agrees.

And now that the immediate danger is over, Diane can check her phone. Maia’s texting her to let her know that Lucca was detained. It’s Wednesday, March 22nd. Maia’s peer review said April 10th. Hm.

“I mean, it just never stops,” Diane remarks. Nope. You’re in an episode written by Robert King, after all.

Colin’s mad at his boss for getting Lucca involved. Colin tries to resign (didn’t this happen already?) but instead he’s being promoted to deputy.

BARBARA IS IN COURT!!!! I REPEAT, BARBARA IS IN COURT!!!!!!!!!!! MORE OF THIS PLEASE!!!

Now Lucca’s being prosecuted over this. Do people really charge people based on such flimsy evidence? I feel like on this show everyone’s always being prosecuted when there’s no evidence at all.

Maia wants to help Lucca, so she kills two birds with one stone and insists on tailing Adrian.

Henry is really really really trying to get Maia to come to dinner. You’d almost think he cares about her.

He has a nice scene with Lenore, too, and yeah, for a second I truly did think Henry Rindell might have a heart.

There have been people dropping papers in the background of at least two scenes. Why?

Henry’s lawyer tells him that if he takes the 35 years, Maia will be off the hook. If he doesn’t, she’ll be prosecuted. And Henry, fucking asshole that he is, has to think about this. HE HAS TO ASK HOW MUCH TIME MAIA WOULD SERVE. FOR FUCK’S SAKE. WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THIS? YOU ARE A GUILTY OLD MAN WHO WOULD RATHER YOUR DAUGHTER SPEND TIME IN PRISON—AT THE START OF HER CAREER!!!—FOR CRIMES YOU KNOW SHE DID NOT COMMIT THAN DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR OWN ACTIONS?!?!?! What a fucking horrible person.

My favorite thing about this scene is watching Henry’s lawyer realize how horrible and selfish Henry is that he is not jumping at the chance to help his daughter. I know Maia “betrayed” him in court, but, like, that was after he tried to frame her and take down her firm and his closest friend. Henry Rindell is a real contender for the title of world's shittiest dad.

Somehow Internet Troll from 106 is involved in the cyber terrorism thing. He’ll only talk to Diane. Diane’s acquired her own Sweeney! (By which I mean an obnoxious person who will only speak to her.)

Ugh, Troll is so offensive.

Marissa shows Diane a video on YouTube (not ChummyVideo?) (Oh, ha, it is Chummy Video when Diane opens up the link). It’s security cam footage of a woman being carjacked. Kurt appears in the frame and fights the carjacker. The video is titled “Hero Saves Baby from Kidnapper” and Diane’s stunned and impressed. Of course Kurt saved a baby from a kidnapper and got hurt in the process.

Colin has to take the stand. He’s not happy, but he is truthful.

Again, WHY DID Y’ALL PUT THE FLASH DRIVE IN YOUR COMPUTER?

Adrian suggests that Colin is trying to frame Lucca because he resents her for breaking up with him. Cush said in an interview this scene reminded Lucca of what she did to Diane in the TGW finale, and I wish the episode had engaged with that idea more.

Adrian fires Mr. Bitcoin as a client after that. He tells Diane it was just an act, and Diane and Adrian both have plans for how to proceed. Both of their plans involve Troll.

Court is back in session and only Maia’s there. Adrian asks her to step in.

At first she’s a little awkward, thrown by Troll’s statements on the stand. She accomplishes what she needs, and then Dincon (the AG) starts trying to make Troll look anti-Semitic (which he is but that’s not relevant here) to make the judge—who is Jewish—biased against Troll. Maia gets angry and she gets confident and she stops speaking hesitantly. She even tells Troll to shut up! Everything she says works. This is very different than what we’ve seen from Maia before, and it’s great. Has Dincon figured out who Maia is yet, btw?

Bold!Maia is nice to see. Also, I don’t think this is Maia “trying to be bold because Adrian said to.” I think she’d have done this any day for Lucca and this just happens to also be an opportunity to prove herself and to use the partners’ criticism as extra fuel.

This goes back to my point about complacency. Maia will fight like this when she can’t be complacent because her friend’s being prosecuted. But will she fight like this on all of her cases, or will she just do what’s expected of her and nothing more? I know I’ve said this a thousand times, but questions like this (and the fact that oh my GOD is the conspiracy stuff badly written) are why I’d like to see Maia’s arc have less to do with her family and more to do with her workplace. These themes—complacency or boldness—are easier to illustrate if there’s more day-to-day. If everything we see from Maia has to be connected to something bigger, whether it be a prosecution of Lucca or her family’s scandal, how can we get a sense of her work ethic?

Henry says he’ll take the deal but he wants the night with his family. I BOUGHT IT.

Turns out Mr. Bitcoin is a cyber terrorist. Surprise!

And… the blackout happens.

Lucca’s free because they caught the real hacker. She tells Colin she knows he’s not responsible. “Be careful out there, Lucca. It’s nuts,” is all he has to say in reply.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Diane says to Adrian as they watch the city, dark except for the lights on cars passing by. “I love this city,” Adrian says. They’re shot from behind, just like Adrian and Barbara at the end of 1x08. Hm.

I don’t have much to say about this scene but I like it a lot. It’s essentially Adrian and Diane talking about the law and the world and their place in it. The scene itself sums up the feeling better than I could. It’s a mission statement for the show: the law is the only constant in this new, dark time (get it? The blackout represents darkness?) and that’s why they have to use it in the good fight.

Barbara is listening in on this whole conversation. It’s not an incriminating conversation, but it’s one Barbara probably isn’t thrilled to hear taking place between her co-managing partner and the new partner he just brought on without consulting her. Plus, the song that plays over the scene starts with the lyric “now that I’ve lost everything to you/you say you want to start something new” which is pretty on the nose.

The Rindells are having a nice evening as a family (I thought Maia was supposed to have dinner with Lucca?) for once. It’s everything I’ve wanted all season! They feel like a family!

Even though Maia’s learned like a thousand times that her dad is a scumbag who was totally guilty and willing to use her as a pawn to reduce his sentence, Maia tells her dad he needs to fight instead of taking a plea. “I saw the evidence,” Henry says. “What evidence?” Maia asks. Um, the evidence that your guilty father is guilty like everyone who isn’t you can see? “Dad, I spent today thinking I was overwhelmed by evidence. But with a good argument…” Maia says, sounding like she has just discovered the law.

Also, that’s not exactly what happened. There was no evidence against Lucca because she was innocent and the DOJ was reaching to try to find the name of the firm’s client. A good argument can only take you so far, and I’m stunned that after all the progress we’ve seen Maia make, one good day in court has her preaching about the power of a good argument.

But this may just be one of those instances where I don’t think like the character. I can see Maia wanting to believe that, despite everything, her father’s still innocent. I can see her being on such a high from doing well in court she doesn’t think about the limitations of her approach, nor does she consider the risks of continuing to fight these charges. She’s got a lot to learn if she still thinks that way, but maybe I should just be quiet and admire her optimism.

“I’m guilty,” Henry admits. Maia still seems surprised. I thought she figured this out episodes ago, but okay. Still sucks to hear him admit it.

“No, Jax did,” she protests. Guys I’m trying my hardest not to scream at Maia right now. I know I have more perspective on this than she does but oh my god oh my god oh my god Maia.

Henry says it was all of them—Lenore too. Everyone knew and they paid off the SEC.

“I am so sorry to disappoint you,” Henry cries. “You never could,” Maia replies. Ugh what was the point of episode 7, then? Was that not disappointing? Also, I’m so sorry that your last words to that horrible man were most likely to reassure him that he could never disappoint you… when he damn well knew he was about to get you sentenced to five years in prison.

I guess I sort of believed Henry the first time through, too. I thought maybe he would prove himself to be slightly better than I thought he was and would take the deal to protect Maia (and because, uh, HE’S FUCKING GUILTY). NAH. Henry chooses to flee instead. Fuck him and his cartoon villain ways. I hope we don’t have to deal with him in season two. And I’m so sorry his decisions mean we all have to live with more Rindell scandal drama. Maia doesn’t deserve that shit, and neither does the audience.

(My apologies to anyone who’s enjoying this plot. Though, I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone actually express interest in this plot??? I’m sure there are people out there. And, if you’re one of them and you’ve read this far, I’d love to hear your perspective because maybe there’s something in here that’s worth appreciating.)

Diane drives Kurt home. Kurt doesn’t want to be praised for being a hero. “I represent unscrupulous people, and you save children,” Diane says. And he never takes a case where he has to support anyone who’s guilty—there’s that, too.

Kurt invites Diane to stay the night. “I love you,” he says. “I was so hurt,” Diane responds. “I know. It won’t happen again,” Kurt says, like that’s going to fix the whole thing.

For now, it does: Diane gets back into her car like she’s going to leave, but she turns off the headlines and takes Kurt’s hand. There’s still a lot of love there.

I have no problem with Diane taking Kurt back after he cheated. I still don’t believe Kurt would cheat, but I think it’s a little late to make that argument. But. I need more than “It won’t happen again” to get past this. How is that enough? I’m not Diane, so it’s not my call whether or not it’s enough for her. Still, as a viewer, this isn’t satisfactory. I don’t know why Kurt cheated. I don’t know when he cheated. I don’t know if it happened once or if it happened multiple times. I don’t know if it was just Holly. You can save babies from kidnappers and be a serial cheater. Just because I want to forget that Kurt cheated doesn’t mean “it won’t happen again” is enough for me to believe it won’t. I think he owes Diane a conversation, and I hope we get a conversation next season. Unless, of course, Diane doesn’t want one. (And if Diane doesn’t want one, I want to know for a fact that that’s why no conversation has taken place.)

I want more development of Diane and Kurt in season 2 is what I’m saying.

Lucca goes over to Maia’s for a very late dinner. “My convict!” Maia greets Lucca. “My lawyer!” Lucca replies. Awww! This is cute! More of this friendship in season 2, please.

“Looks like a soft porn movie in here,” Lucca remarks. It does. Maia has a ton of candles burning. Amy’s on her way home. They’ll all eat cold mac and cheese. And drink wine.

“To a weird three months,” Lucca toasts. I can’t hear this line without thinking about A Weird Year.

Maia shares a theory she has: For every weird three months, there are three normal months. “I mean, the world has to live in balance, right? So, my guess is, the next three months will be boring.” Good luck with that, Maia.

When Maia opens the door, thinking it’s Amy, she gets a surprise: Dincon is there to have her arrested for perjury. Aaaand that’s a wrap on season 1.

The Kings are really, really good at writing the big episodes. They always include the moments they need, the right character pairings, and the perfect balance of small moments and big moments. They’ve done this for years—this comment is nothing new. But I wish they’d learn from their mistakes.

When TGF began, it seemed to have a clear arc: Diane would deal with loss of status, a cheating husband, and a new work environment, Maia would adjust to working life and living in the shadow of a scandal, Lucca would get more to do in an environment that valued her (the pilot wasn’t as strong for Lucca as it was for Maia and Diane, admittedly), and RBK’s mission and workplace drama would drive the story forward. That’s not really what we got. Diane’s huge financial losses disappeared after only a few episodes, even though the writers could’ve gotten much more mileage out of it. Kurt’s infidelity was mentioned frequently but not explored in-depth. Diane became a full partner after a few weeks at her new firm. Diane’s relationship with Maia felt like an afterthought when it could’ve been something that brought Maia in to the core of the show. And, just in general, Diane didn’t get the meaty material I’d hoped she would. I didn’t need this to be the Diane show, but she was written as a supporting character more than a co-lead!

Maia in the workplace took a backseat to Maia with her family, and, as I think I’ve made quite clear, nothing about the arc with Maia and her family was necessary. A young woman realizing her parents are criminals is compelling enough—the world’s most predictable whodunit (all the characters you thought were scumbags are scumbags!) just took away time from learning more about Maia. After ten episodes, I barely know who Maia is, and now the show’s threatening to do a Maia-goes-to-jail arc?! To do an arc like that, I have to be invested in the character, and I have to believe the stakes.

And the workplace itself? I love RBK. I love all the characters there. I love that it’s a firm with a mission and the type of place Diane always wished LG was. And I think it would’ve made a fantastic and natural environment for most of the action of the series. We have regulars at several levels of the firm—a first year associate, a third year associate, a junior partner, two managing partners, an assistant, an investigator— with complicated relationships already established (Lucca hurt Diane in court but welcomed her to RBK; Maia is Diane’s goddaughter; Adrian wants Diane at the firm but Barbara does not). So why not focus on that and forget the conspiracy drama? Every time we got a hint of these interactions and power dynamics, it was great! But those hints were few and far between. The finale did a fantastic job of showing the firm’s hierarchy and all the relationships and how they’d developed since episode 1, but that’s no way to develop characters over time. What’s in the middle matters. Too often, these writers forget that. They have great ideas but lose track of them for most of the season, and when they return to their original ideas in a finale or a big episode, I wind up with mixed thoughts.

On the one hand, I’ll take great character moments any day. On the other hand, every time I see a great character moment that required more build-up, I get annoyed. If this was where you were going all along, why didn’t you show it earlier? If Diane was annoyed with Alicia for running for state’s attorney, why the hell didn’t the Kings write a scene about how Alicia’s campaign was affecting the firm during any of the episodes between 6x03 and 6x12? (One of many examples from TGW.) If Maia wasn’t being bold enough at work, why didn’t we see more of Maia working and failing to assert herself? If Barbara is concerned about Diane taking her spot, for fuck’s sake, why couldn’t we get more insight into who Barbara is and how she thinks? If Diane’s struggling to get back on her feet, can’t we see that struggle? If Diane and Lucca had a strained relationship, why didn’t we see them moving past that? This list of questions goes on. And on. And on.

To end on a positive note: I’m impressed with the writers for making me care as much as I do about the new(er) characters, given how much I love TGW. That most of my complaints boil down to wanting more of the many things TGF does well is a very good sign.

#The Good Fight #TGF Thoughts

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williamroy1 · 5 years ago

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smooth suspension vs. Tough suspension

tender suspension: in a gentle suspension your commercial enterprise has virtually just end up unverified. You’re capable of log in for your gmb list and also you see a “suspended” label however your listing still shows up on google and google maps. What’s passed off is that they’ve removed your capability to control the list, however the list itself remains intact. Tough suspension: you’ve virtually gotten yourself into hassle here. In a difficult suspension, your whole list has been eliminated from google. Whilst you pull up the file for it, it'll say “removed.” your handiest choice is to ask google to reinstate it. List suspension vs. Account suspension

google has separate suspensions based on the problem—list suspension and account suspensions. List suspension: the public can’t get entry to the listing anymore. The owner and managers can’t take moves on its behalf, although they can nevertheless make edits and appeal to be reinstated. If the listing is reinstated, google may even reinstate the proprietor and managers. Account suspension: if they cast off the owner’s google account: they’ll additionally dispose of all of the listings owned by way of that user. If they reinstate the proprietor’s google account, they’ll additionally reinstate the listings. In the event that they get rid of a manager’s google account: they’ll suspend the supervisor at the listings they control, but the listings themselves will be unaffected. If they reinstate the supervisor’s google account, the supervisor will mechanically regain managerial access to the listings. We currently had a case wherein certainly one of our consumer’s debts become suspended, and it turned out the cause changed into that one of the listing managers—an employee in their previous advertising and marketing corporation—had violated the guidelines. Once we eliminated that man or woman’s get admission to to the listing, the listing became reinstated. Why google suspends google my enterprise listings

i’ll get into common reasons of a suspension a bit in addition down, however there’s surely one cause google suspends listings: google wishes searchers to get the absolute exceptional search outcomes. Believe performs a large function in that, so google needs searchers to have the maximum up-to-date, accurate information. Common causes of a suspended gmb listing

neighborhood seo is all about ensuring you show up for local searches that encompass map listings. So as for that to manifest, your gmb listing desires to be 100% correct and trustworthy. Maximum of the reasons of suspended listings must do with this neighborhood consistency. Underneath are the most commonplace reasons a list gets suspended:

every other business shares your address or has the identical cope with

the cope with for your internet site is exceptional than the only to your enterprise listings

the cope with, name, or phone quantity to your listing listings, like yelp, do now not healthy the address to your gmb web page

any a part of your cope with, number one classes, business name, website, or cellphone wide variety has these days modified

you’ve brought greater key phrases into your enterprise name

your business name isn’t correct across the web

you’re a service-region enterprise that didn’t disable your bodily deal with

your deal with is digital or a p. O. Box

your business doesn’t make in-character contact with clients (like an internet shop)

your primary class is a high-chance industry that has a better level of scrutiny:

locksmiths

hvac/heating and cooling

plumbing

different domestic offerings businesses

your website listed has a forwarding url

there are multiple listings for the equal business or place

there are multiple businesses claiming to be at your deal with

these aren't the handiest reasons google suspends commercial enterprise listings, but are the maximum common causes. Discover ways to optimize your gmb list here »

what to do if your google my commercial enterprise list receives suspended

if you’ve examine all of the above and nevertheless can’t parent out why your listing/account was suspended, your next step is to attain out to google’s gmb guide. Due to the increase in suspensions, reaction instances from google had been delayed, so be conscious that resolution times are plenty longer than predicted. They will require you to send them evidence which you personal your business, and that it’s valid. This proof includes:

if your commercial enterprise as installation with a physical address, you may be required to provide an photograph of your storefront displaying each your cope with and signage on the equal time. If this is in an office building, it should consist of your suite variety. In case your commercial enterprise is installation with a physical address, you will be required to publish your enterprise license. It should have the identical address this is proven for your google my commercial enterprise profile. If your enterprise is installation with a physical address, you will be required to put up a utility bill. It should have the identical cope with that is shown on your google my business profile. In case your commercial enterprise is set up with a bodily address, you will be required to post evidence that you aren't sharing workplace area with other organizations via photographs or video. If your business is installation with a service area only, you'll be required to provide a prison file along with a enterprise license or tax file with your commercial enterprise’ data. You will be required to do away with any owners or managers out of your profile who have engaged in practices google has deemed spammy. You will be required to exchange your name on google my enterprise to reflect the call for your signage. Your opinions may be eliminated from google my commercial enterprise. A follow-up escalation to google can also get them re-instated, however it also won't. Your enterprise will also be suspended for different violations of its massive content and behavior tips. Google will no longer let you know why it is postponing your profile; you need to both name in and ask (they frequently will not let you know without delay), or attraction to be reinstated thru an online shape. You may receive an e mail lower back denying your enchantment, but clarifying which specific coverage you are in violation of. The reinstatement shape revolves around verifying that your commercial enterprise is at an address that meets google my enterprise hints. Of late, our analysts have observed a higher amount of requests for a storefront photograph whilst getting listings reinstated. It’s a great concept to have this accessible in case it’s wished for reinstatement. In case you’ve performed all the above and that doesn’t paintings (and you don’t have the budget for an corporation like ours that has a most beneficial partnership with google), you could strive your good fortune with posting your trouble on an search engine optimization discussion board like nearby search forum. If you can’t get help there and your suspension is impacting your revenue, you need to rent an corporation to address it. Gmb often asked questions

can a domestic workplace be used as a google my enterprise place? Yes, but in case your business displays a physical place there have to be outstanding signage out of doors the house demonstrating that a business is placed on the deal with and your commercial enterprise license ought to reference the deal with used for the google my commercial enterprise profile. What constitutes signage? It ought to be relatively seen and everlasting – not something that can without difficulty be removed. The signage should consist of your commercial enterprise call/emblem. Prevent a gmb suspension

first, ensure the best humans that have get right of entry to to manipulate the enterprise listing are personnel that currently paintings at the account. Cast off get admission to to any previous companies or personnel in any other case it is able to chunk you inside the rear. 2d, ensure your nap (name, deal with, phone quantity) is constant throughout the internet and your google my enterprise page is absolutely stuffed out and optimized. As for the listing itself, the nice way to repair a suspension is to avoid one within the first region with the aid of following google’s suggestions for representing your commercial enterprise:

“listings on google my enterprise can only be created for companies that either have a bodily region that customers can go to, or that journey to visit customers where they are. Creating a successful list that received’t be suspended requires warding off prohibited content, accurately reflecting your business, and complying with the rest of the guidelines beneath. We’ve provide you with a list of recommendations for local businesses to preserve excessive pleasant facts on google. Following these recommendations helps avoid commonplace problems, along with modifications in your information, or, in some cases, removal of your commercial enterprise records from google. For fine outcomes the usage of google my business:

represent your business because it’s continuously represented and identified in the real world throughout signage, stationery, and other branding. Make sure your cope with and/or service location is correct and specific. Pick the fewest variety of classes it takes to explain your average middle commercial enterprise. Brands, agencies, artists, and other on line-simplest organizations aren’t eligible for google my commercial enterprise listings. Name

your call must reflect your enterprise’ real-global name, as used constantly for your storefront, website, stationery, and as recognised to customers. As it should be representing your enterprise name facilitates customers locate your enterprise on-line. Upload additional information like address and/or provider place, commercial enterprise hours, and category inside the different sections of your business records. Your call have to directly replicate your commercial enterprise’ real-international name as used to your signage, website, stationary, and as regarded to customers. The name in your google my commercial enterprise profile have to fit the name to your signage. Such as unnecessary statistics like your target provider area, offerings, merchandise, or key phrases isn't approved. As an instance, if you have been developing a listing for a 24-hour espresso keep in downtown san francisco called shelly’s coffee, you'll enter that commercial enterprise records as:

commercial enterprise call: shelly’s espresso

deal with: 3247 poppy street, san francisco, ca 94102

hours: open 24 hours

category: espresso shop

which includes pointless information for your commercial enterprise call isn't accredited, and will result in your listing being suspended. Refer to the precise examples underneath to decide what you could and can’t include in your business call. Custom names

to pick a completely unique short name, attempt to use phrases that represent your business name, logo, location, or other description. As an instance, you can use your commercial enterprise call with your vicinity, like your town or community. Preserve your quick call simple so that you can effortlessly promote it, and customers can don't forget it. Deal with — groups that serve clients at their office

use a particular, accurate address and/or carrier vicinity to describe your enterprise region. P. O. Boxes or mailboxes placed at faraway locations are not appropriate. You should show everlasting signage out of doors of your office. Your commercial enterprise license need to have the identical cope with as your workplace location. You can't percentage office area with different businesses unless you've got individual suites inside the office which might be staffed via separate employees. Address — businesses that do not serve customers at their office

if your commercial enterprise serves clients within a particular service vicinity, you could listing simplest your carrier area to your google my commercial enterprise list. Service-area companies that only serve customers at their locations must have one page for that encompasses both the relevant workplace or vicinity and a designated carrier place. In case your commercial enterprise rents a transient, “digital” workplace at a distinctive address from your primary enterprise, do no longer create a web page for that location until it is staffed in the course of your everyday enterprise hours by using your commercial enterprise group of workers. One receptionist that handles all requires all companies indexed at that deal with does no longer rely; it have to be staffed by means of your very own team of workers. Google has now not explicitly released or showed the requirements for a service location business’ cope with. An address continues to be frequently required to confirm your google my enterprise profile. Placing your enterprise up as a provider area enterprise is a exceedingly new google my enterprise feature. Google recommends which you installation your google my commercial enterprise profile this way in case you don’t serve customers at your workplace. We don’t but realize how neighborhood p. C. Rankings may be affected by switching from showing your bodily area to showing your provider place best. Internet site and phone

provide a smartphone number that connects in your character business area as directly as feasible, or provide one website that represents your individual commercial enterprise area. Use a local cellphone quantity as opposed to relevant, name center helpline wide variety every time possible. Do now not provide telephone numbers or urls that redirect or “refer” customers to touchdown pages or phone numbers apart from those of the actual commercial enterprise, inclusive of pages created on social media web sites. Your call need to at once reflect your business’ real-global call as used in your signage, internet site, stationary, and as regarded to customers. The call on your google my enterprise profile have to suit the call in your signage. Which includes useless facts like your goal service place, offerings, merchandise, or keywords isn't always accepted. The cellphone range need to be beneath the direct control of the commercial enterprise. Extra telephone numbers can be used on google my commercial enterprise websites and different neighborhood surfaces. Enterprise hours

provide your everyday purchaser-going through hours of operation. If relevant, you can use your contemporary seasonal hours as your regular hours. You could also specify unique hours for unique days, like vacations or unique events. You ought to no longer offer hours if your region is open through appointment only. Enterprise description

your commercial enterprise description should be sincere, applicable, and useful. Your business description need to now not: be deceptive; encompass low-first-class content; encompass links; include non-public or confidential statistics or request any. Categories

classes help your customers find accurate, precise consequences for services they’re inquisitive about. A good way to maintain your enterprise data correct and stay, ensure that you:

use as few classes as viable to explain your overall core business from the provided listing. The primary class is the only that indicates up most frequently, so that you can pick the highest precedence/most correct class as the principle category

pick classes which might be as unique as possible, however representative of your major business. Do no longer use classes completely as key phrases or to describe attributes of your commercial enterprise. Do no longer use categories that pertain to different companies which can be nearby or associated, together with a enterprise physically contained within your commercial enterprise or an entity that contains your business. Looking for a local seo employer? You’re in the proper region. We’ve solved hundreds of listing problems for our clients and include gmb management as part of our seo packages, so we understand a thing or two about google’s recommendations. In short, in case you’re looking for a neighborhood search engine optimization Digital Marketing Company in Philadelphia enterprise to handle your neighborhood search engine optimization, we’re a smartphone name away.

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