#i’ll let it slide only because it is a regional conference

[thehours2002]

barbara forgetting to put her shoes on in the abbott ep last night may be hands down the best gag of the whole season

[thebiscuiteternal]

I had an evil thought on twitter and way too many people encouraged it, SO-

“Collecting the Pieces”

Mild Horror, Family Secrets, Mental Instability, Magical Fuckups, Sangyao-lite, Nie Huaisang Doesn’t Know Yet, Jin Guangyao Is About To Know More Than He Ever Wanted To

__________

There is something wrong with Nie Huaisang.

It manifests in small signs at first.

Little things like how he would look at a person, but not at them, green eyes dull as if he wasn’t actually seeing who he was talking to. The unnaturally pale tint to his skin and the dark shadows under his eyes. The fact that his robes had gotten heavier over thr last several months, trying to hide that he was getting thinner.

The incident where he had lost consciousness in the middle of a discussion with Ouyang-furen and had only been saved from cracking his skull against the floor by the reflexes of his head disciple was… concerning. But like all of the other symptoms, it could easily be tallied up as exhaustion from lingering grief and having so much responsibility dumped onto an unprepared back.

But then...

Then there are the conversations none of them can hear. Those moments where he sits with his head slightly bowed, staring at nothing and lips moving silently.

There is something wrong with Nie Huaisang, and for those not of his sect, his presence has gone from mildly concerning to downright unnerving.

Jin Guangyao has to point out to his father more than once that they have only just averted the conflict with the previous sect leader; to bar the new one from the discussion conferences just because he seems strange would be an insult tantamount to inviting war, even if Nie Hengbai does seem to be doing all the talking for the Nie at the moment, his sect leader a quiet little shadow at his side.

He finds it a unique opportunity to observe, in fact. Everyone is so unsettled by the mere fact that Nie Huaisang converses with empty air that no one has apparently thought to find out what he is saying when he does .

The seating arrangement isn’t ideal. The only person besides his own disciples who doesn’t seem to be scared off by Nie Huaisang’s unnatural behavior is Jiang-zongzhu, who pointedly settles himself on the opposite side from Nie Hengbai and scowls at all gossipers, their host included. His height half-blocks Nie Huaisang from view.

But still, Jin Guangyao can see.

And as he watches the words fall unheard from Nie Huaisang’s mouth, he feels a chill slowly creep up his spine.

‘Da-ge, come back. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll behave. I'll be good. Please come back. Please, Da-ge…’

He is glad that his sleeves hide the involuntary clenching of his hands.

While he knows better than to completely dismiss a possibility, no matter how small the odds, his mind nonetheless rebels at the first idea to enter it. It cannot actually be Nie Mingjue's resentful ghost haunting his little brother. Even if it had been whole, if he and Xue Yang had not scattered it with the man's physical pieces, it is decidedly not Nie Huaisang that the man would be tormenting with his presence if he were capable.

Isn't it?

And yet, he cannot shake the cold in his bones.

There is something wrong with Nie Huaisang, and he will seek out the source.

---

"San-ge?"

Nie Huaisang blinks at him, eyes glassy and confused. He tilts his head questioningly like the birds he is so fond of, then slowly regains awareness of his surroundings and smiles, looking more like himself.

Jin Guangyao forcibly clamps down on a shudder. "It's good to see you, Sang-er," he says, allowing himself to adopt the regional address since they are nowhere near the judging eyes of Koi Tower. He reaches out and sweeps the younger man's hair out of his eyes, then tuts in concern. "Are you still not sleeping well?"

"Ah-" Nie Huaisang flinches and looks embarrassed at the gentle chiding. "It's… nothing, really. Busy times and too much paperwork, that's all. Can I get you anything?"

"I just need to look over some map records, if you don't mind. A handful of small sects have brought a problem to my father, and I'm afraid our own records are… a bit lacking."

The younger man simply nods, accepting the excuse at face value, and Jin Guangyao isn't sure if that says something about Nie Huaisang's state of mind, or the Jin sect's reputation for ignoring anything that isn't expenditures or debts to be collected. Either way, when Nie Huaisang reaches out to tug his sleeve, he goes willingly and tries to ignore the slightly unsteady sway to his friend's pace.

Even though the poor end to his relationship with Nie Mingjue had been loud and public enough that the whole of the Unclean Realms knew about it before the day had even ended, he is apparently still a familiar enough face that barely anyone pays him mind.

Indeed, most of their worried glances are directed towards their sect leader.

He refuses to examine the possible reasons why that might be settling sour in his stomach.

They are still a few halls and turns away from the library when Nie Huaisang lets go of his sleeve and puts a hand to his head, looking even more pale than before. Jin Guangyao catches him before he can topple into the wall and then bites his tongue when green eyes slide over him, gaze unseeing.

“Sang-er?” he asks cautiously.

Nie Huaisang’s eyes don’t clear, but he seems to still be at least halfway lucid. “I’m sorry… I don’t feel well. I think I need to stay here. You remember the rest of the way, don’t you?”

“I do, but this is no proper place for you to rest.” He leans around the corner and waves over a passing servant. “Would you assist Nie-zongzhu to his room, please?”

“Of course, of course,” the woman says in a tone that conveys she is apparently -unfortunately- used to this. “Come along,” she says, taking hold of Nie Huaisang’s hand and wrapping a steadying arm around his waist, as if guiding a lost child, and he follows her lead without complaint.

Jin Guangyao watches them go and squashes that sour feeling when it threatens to churn.

Answers.

Answers first.

---

The library he needs, he has decided, is not the primary library, the one that Nie Huaisang had been taking him to. No, he seeks out the room buried so deep in the Unclean Realms that no daylight reaches it, that he had only stumbled upon by accident back when he had been employed here.

Lighting the only lantern in the room with a flame talisman, he finds that nothing has changed since the last time he was here other than a thickening of the layer of dust.

Swallowing hard, he straightens his back and starts with the family records.

---

‘After much deliberation and testimony from the physicians and healers involved in the care of the first young master, it is the advice of the sect elders that- ’

He has relit the lantern twice, and he’s fairly sure it’s long past dinner when he sinks into a chair and slaps the open scroll down onto the table, feeling lightheaded and shaky.

A spirit-tethering.

Until he had seen the books Lan Xichen carried from the library of the Cloud Recesses, such a thing had been the stuff of fantasy stories. Even in the vaunted Lan texts, it was only described in abstract theory.

And yet there was apparently enough foundation to it that a serious proposal had been made to cast such a thing between a pair of children to keep Nie Mingjue from being torn apart by the saber he’d bonded with far too young.

He forces himself to keep reading, feeling his stomach sink with every passage.

Nie Haoran had argued viciously against the idea for two years, even offering himself as the tether, only to be shot down due to his own unstable health. He had only given in when his son had experienced his first qi deviation at eleven years of age.

Eleven years old.

Nie Huaisang would have only been five.

Jin Guangyao bites his tongue again and presses the back of his hand to his mouth to forcibly swallow back the bile that bubbles up in his throat.

The mechanics of the matter only make the horror of it even more stark. The only ones who would have been able to undo the tether would have been the brothers themselves. He finds notes, plans, all written in Nie Mingjue’s sharp-edged calligraphy, of how he would set his brother free once his own health became too compromised but before his mind was too unstable…

But he hadn’t done it.

Hadn’t been able to do it.

He’d deteriorated too quickly.

Instead...

Nausea continuing to roil in his guts like a thunder cloud, Jin Guangyao rolls up the scroll and shoves it back into place with enough force that it crumples, practically fleeing the room even though there is no monster there to escape, just-

It is indeed dark outside as he traverses the hallways, barely able to restrain himself from running.

No one answers when he knocks at Nie Huaisang’s door. He sucks in a sharp breath to ground himself, then carefully pushes it open.

The room is as stark as he remembers from his last visit. Though he knows he Lan Xichen have both offered to help, Nie Huaisang has yet to start replacing any of the possessions that his brother had burnt. There is a tray of food on the table near the bed, untouched and probably long cold.

The person he’s seeking is curled up on the bed on top of the covers, still fully dressed. Fingers twitch and scratch at his own arms as he shivers, most likely in the throes of a nightmare.

His lips are moving.

Jin Guangyao doesn’t dare read them.

He closes the door behind him and crosses the room to the bed. Nie Huaisang doesn’t react to the dip in the mattress as he sits down, nor to being pulled and shifted until the younger man’s head rests in his lap. When he gently removes the guan from his hair and begins combing out the braids, however, the fit finally eases, the anxious lines of Nie Huaisang’s face smoothing out as he calms.

Jin Guangyao closes his eyes for a moment and sighs.

He now knows what is wrong with Nie Huaisang, and he knows he is at fault.

He could lay the blame elsewhere. He wants to. The elders who’d made the proposal... Nie Haoran for allowing it... the healers who’d carried it out… It is most tempting to blame Nie Mingjue for having not undone it as soon as they were both grown.

But no. The fact of the matter is that Nie Huaisang’s condition can be laid at his feet. Had he not hastened Nie Mingjue’s death… He doesn’t regret that.

He refuses to let himself regret that.

But this…

Grief could be moved past.

Missing pieces could not.

He opens his eyes to find Nie Huaisang has shifted to curl against him, and he allows himself a small, weak smile as he begins carding his fingers through silken hair again.

He knows what is wrong with Nie Huaisang, and perhaps he can’t fix the damage already done, but there are still things he can do. Information he can find, pieces he can move or remove. He can make things easier.

“It will be alright,” he murmurs, then leans down and gently presses a kiss to the sleeping young man’s temple. The gesture makes Nie Huaisang snuggle closer in his sleep, and his own smile gains strength.  “I took care of er-gongzi before, I will be happy to take care of zongzhu now. He is my responsibility, after all.”

[hispeculiartreasure]

All We’ve Got is Time - Chapter Ten | B. B.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

AU: If They’d Survived/Post-War/Window Washer!Bucky Barnes

Rating: All Ages

Word count:  2,975

Chapter 10/24

Warnings: Just a bad word.

AN: This chapter is. . . not my favorite. Mostly because I’m a stubborn bitch and finished this up in the middle of a migraine; I apologize in advance for my less-than thorough proofreading. It’s very heavy on information, but it’s necessary to set up future chapters and I feel like it shows growth. Don’t worry, I threw in lots of fluff and cute moments for ya. Forever appreciative for those of you reading!

Also, my 1k Followers Celebration is still going on! I’ll start posting the drabbles tomorrow, requests will remain open until Sunday. Y’all are the greatest followers ever! 💕

Chapter Nine

‘All We’ve Got is Time’ Masterlist

Bucky crams two fingers into the collar of his dress shirt, tugging at it for an attempt at relief in the sweltering New York heat. Pushing open the door to the skyscraper housing the VA’s Regional Benefit Office in Manhattan, he steels himself for this meeting. There were few things he hated more than dressing up in a monkey suit. 

As soon as this is over I’m burning this tie.

The office is overflowing with men dressed almost exactly the same as him. Every seat in the waiting room is taken, presumed veterans stand elbow to elbow in what available standing room is leftover. There had to be at least 20 of them crammed into the small space. Fighting every instinct to turn tail and run from the room radiating nervous energy, Bucky politely checks in with the secretary before finding the last unoccupied spot by the window. This was a good thing. A step in the right direction. . . right?

He can’t help but inspect the window’s cleanliness, noting that the brushing technique was sloppy, leaving streaks behind. Gazing beyond the glass he imagines you working in your office today completely focused on your work. Wishing he really was watching you while he washed windows he remembers the huge smile on your face when he’d shared the news that he’d finally gotten this job counseling appointment. The thrill that lit up your eyes, the pride when you squeezed his arm. . . that was reason enough to stay put and wait.

After reading a spare newspaper entirely and watching what felt like every other person on earth walk in and out of the office, his name is finally called. He nods and steps forward to indicate that he indeed was James Barnes before following the weary man with the clipboard. 

“Carl Baines, nice to meet ya. Alright Sergeant Barnes, how can the Department of Veterans Affairs help you today?”

“I, uh, was told I could get job counseling.” Following the man’s lead, Bucky sits opposite of the man, his desk piled with paperwork between them.

“That is correct. We have a questionnaire you can fill out that will give us a sense of direction on what you have an aptitude for,” the employee was already rifling through files, opening and closing drawers before placing a stack in front of Bucky.

“Sorry - I already have an idea of a job, I just don’t know where to start. Can you help with that?”

“Oh,” he blinks. “Yeah, you’re the first person I’ve talked to in days that’s said that. Uhh. . . what’re you thinking?”

“Working with cars?” “Okay, I can steer you in the right direction. Hold on.” Swiveling his chair to the filing cabinet behind him he mutters to himself as he cards through various files. “Automotive service, here we go.” The file lands on his desk with a plop before he’s flipping through it. 

“Alright, looks like there’s lots of options. Best place to start is by picking up service manuals from manufacturers - they crank them out every year for mechanics to stay up-to-date, your local shop may have a few around. Manufacturers also usually have training courses if you agree to work for them. There’s also a lot of training conferences held if you get a job at a garage first. The library might even have a couple film rolls on auto mechanics. Looks like there are a few evening classes the public school system is offering. Another option is a private trade school where you’d stay until your training was complete. Or you could take a correspondence course, work in a shop at the same time, theory and practice together is always a good idea. Thoughts?”

Now it’s Bucky’s turn to blink. “Uhh. . .”

The man smiles apologetically and leans back in his chair. “Sorry. I understand that was a lot. We’ve been so busy, I forget to slow down sometimes. But the VA is offering to cover tuition for college or trade school up to $500 per year. Book, supplies, all of that is covered too. Plus you’ll get a cost-of-living stipend so you can focus on getting through school or training.”

Bucky nods, the idea of a future right in front of him somehow both thrilling and paralyzing. “Wow. Okay. Where’s the nearest trade school?”

“Let me check,” his finger trails down a list. “New Castle School of Trades, Pennsylvania.”

“How long would I be there?”

“Most schools are condensing their programs because of the influx of students. Maybe six months?”

Bucky is already shaking his head. “I don’t think I can be away that long.” He knows he can’t be away from you that long.

“It says here that they have a correspondence course. You’d receive assignments from instructors through the mail. You could finish in the same amount of time and only have to be there for a month of training halfway through the program. And they recommend finding a job a garage in the meantime. I have a friend who’s a mechanic and from what he says it pays to learn as much as you can as fast as you can. It takes constant studying, but you’ll be ahead of the curve if you work at the same time.”

“Okay,” Bucky stares at his hands folded in his lap, trying to think quickly. He didn’t want to be away from you, Steve, or his family for any length of time, but one month was better than six. And the sooner he could start something of his own, the better. “I think that’s the way I wanna go.”

“Let’s make it happen. Here’s an application for their school, get it in the mail as soon as possible so you can get started. Here’s a letter to attach stating that the government is covering all charges. While you’re here, I can get the paperwork started for your cost-of-living stipend.” More paperwork is pushed around the mess of a workspace as Carl pulls out a checklist. “You never enrolled for unemployment benefits, correct?”

“No, I was able to find a job pretty quick.”

He checks a box, “Okay. No dependents?”

“No.”

Another box is checked. “That combined with your service record will be about. . .” Carl slides a finger across a graph before tapping the paper twice, “$75 a month while you’re training plus an additional two months after you’re gainfully employed. Sound okay?” Bucky opens his mouth to answer but Carl didn’t give him the chance to respond. “Also if you’re looking for funds for a business or home, you’re eligible for a guaranteed loan whenever you apply, zero down with low interest. Lots of people are leaving the city and building houses on the outskirts of the city. It’s probably just a phase though. Any questions?”

“Not right now.”

“Well if you do have any, you’re welcome back anytime. We’re here to help.” Carl stands before shoving a pile of paper into his hands, simultaneously herding him toward the door. Next thing he knew Bucky was back in the waiting room that didn’t feel any less crowded. Thinking only of escape, Bucky doesn’t stop moving until he was outside the building.

Looking at the mess of paperwork he held, he sighs.

“One step at a time,” he whispers to himself, hearing your voice in his mind.

----

“How could the class sizes have grown so much since we graduated?” Bucky mumbles in Becca’s ear, pressed together in the masses of families seeking seating for the high school graduation ceremony. Baffled by the sheer number of people, he was quickly realizing the goal of everyone sitting together was futile.

The Barnes family shuffles through the crowd, searching in the chaos of the Brooklyn Stadium. Even being head-and-shoulders above most of the crowd Bucky couldn’t shake nerves ticking away in his chest. When they do find a clear bench in the stands they quickly discover the five of them don’t have a chance to fit together.

Rose gasps in dismay, “Oh, and I promised to save Robert a seat. If it was just us I’d say we could squeeze together but between when John gets here, my belly, and Robert. . .” she lays a self-conscious hand to her ever-growing midsection.

Becca gently grabs her sister’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, y’all take these seats. Bucky and I can find a spot together somewhere else. We’ll meet you afterwards.” George and Winnifred having long ago taken their seats, Rose joins them - sitting strategically to save seats for Evelyn’s beau and her own husband.

The idea of crawling over people to cram into a seat with little-to-no way to exit swiftly made Bucky’s anxiety heighten. Before Becca can move up the bleachers she catches her brother’s eye, catching the subtle tilt of his head toward the bottom of the stairs. Their remaining family being thoroughly distracted by the hubbub of the event, they weren’t noticed as they move down and away from the dull roar of the crowd several yards away from the bleachers.

“You alright?” Becca probes. Not taking his tight nod for a good enough answer she asks quietly, “Too many people?”

“Yeah. Still don’t like loud, crowded places.”

“Makes sense,” she says, more to herself than to Bucky. They stand together and people-watch, making comments about peers they recognize from their old high school days or teachers they couldn’t believe were still working 10 years later.

Before long their brother-in-law joins the family in the stands, sending a wave their way before kissing his wife on the cheek. But then a young, rail-thin young man approaches the Barneses, sheepishly accepting their warm welcome.

“That him Rose is fawning all over?” Bucky nods toward the situation. Becca cranes her neck before nodding affirmatively. “God, he looks 12 years old.”

“Bucky.”

“And he’s older than her?”

Becca narrows her eyes in his direction, “Only by two years. He’s just about finished his teaching training, should be able to start working in the fall.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t sound so unimpressed, you were the one bent out of shape about him having a good job. Teachers are in demand, you know that.”

Bucky rocks back and forth on his heels “How have I not met the kid when they’ve been dating for almost a year?”

“You only got back around the holidays.” 

“But Evelyn only brings him around the house when she knows I’m not going to be there. Why?” 

“Could be a coincidence.”

“You’ve turned into a shit liar the last few years, Becs.”

After a good-natured elbow to his ribs, Bucky’s shoulders relax ever-so-slightly.

“Evelyn’s gotten under your skin, huh?”

“I just don’t like it.” A hand makes contact with the back of his head and he jerks to face his sister, her face glowing with stern righteousness. “What was that for!”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I’m lost.” Bucky hold his hands up in surrender, not even sure what he’s surrendering to.

“As much as Evelyn doesn’t act like it, your opinion matters to her. Plus she doesn’t want you scaring him off.”

“If he scares easily he’s not good enough for her.” Bucky shifts his feet, eyes zeroing in on the gangly boy sharing a laugh with his mother.

Becca scoffs at him. “Have you seen yourself when you’re trying to be scary? Let alone when you aren’t trying? He’s a solid guy, Bucky. Give him a chance.” 

A sigh escapes Bucky before he makes an admission. “The whole family has gotten to know him. I know y’all like the kid and don’t have a problem with them getting married, but-.”

“You’re hurt that you haven’t been given that chance.” Bucky tries to protest but is quickly shushed by his sister. “I get it. You and Evelyn are too similar for your own good. Show her a little respect in her choice, give her the chance to make a good choice.”

Bucky can’t formulate a reply before the ceremony commences, the long line of graduates marching out onto the football field. The event is efficient for a such a large class - a record-breaking class at that-, even after the family cheers and whistles as Evelyn Barnes receives her diploma early on. The moment the ceremony comes to a conclusion hoards rush to their graduates on the field, whereas the Barneses hold back, waiting for Evelyn to find them.

George, Winnifred, Rose, John, and Robert gravitate to the spot where Bucky and Becca had watched with pride. 

“Well, our girl did it,” George gives a rare smile as Evelyn finally pushes through the crowd so the family converges together at the same moment.

“Congratulations, sweetheart!” Winnifred wraps her youngest in a delighted hug.

“Thanks, Mom. Hi, Rob,” Evelyn blushes deeply and accepts a kiss to the top of her capped head from her beau.

“Proud of you, Evie.” Bucky sidles up to give her a hug from the side before facing Robert, Evelyn’s panicked face causing a twinge in his heart. Becca was right. He has been too harsh on her.

“Bucky, right? I’ve heard wonderful things about you,” Robert extends a hand, delivering a surprisingly confident handshake despite the sweat developing on his brow.

“Likewise.” Bucky says with forced optimism. This is why I was a soldier and not a spy, he thinks ruefully.

----

“So you actually approve of Robert?” Even over the phone Bucky can practically see the surprise on your face.

“Can’t believe I’m saying it, but yeah. Becca gave me a whole speech before I met him, made me back off of the protective brother bit slightly.”

“Oh, only slightly?” you tease.

“Yeah. Turns out Becca was right.”

“I have a feeling I’m going to get along with her.”

His heart flutters at the idea of you anticipating, even looking forward to, meeting his family. “Anyway,” he sighs dramatically, adjusting his grip on the phone before observing New York City bustling outside the phone booth. “How was your day, Sassafras?” 

The sound of your groan crackling through the receiver triggers Bucky’s grin. “Don’t you even start with me. Between you and Anderson-”

A strange voice laced with an Irish accent abruptly enters the conversation. “Is anybody on the line?”

Bucky holds the mouthpiece away to avoid deafening you with a bark of laughter.

“Yes, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy,” you breathe with exasperation. “We just started talking.”

“Oh. I see. Well I need to call my sister, dear - with the weather getting so warm I’m worried about her and-”

“Okay, okay, we won’t be too long, I promise.” Even in your frustration you remain kind, a quality Bucky was beginning to deeply admire.

He hears a tell-tale click before you sigh. “The joys of party line service. What was I saying?”

“Something about your boss.”

“Oh yeah. He’s been in rare form this week. I’m starting to wonder why he’s the executive and I’m the typist when I’m drafting the original letters myself.”

“You have been pulling a lot of long days this week.”

“Apparently his time is better spent in the file room with the new secretary which sticks me with all the work,” you spit out bitterly. “And he gets to take credit for my flawless products, the pig. He makes my skin crawl.”

“Because he’s a corporate-climbing jerk or for another reason?”

“Well. . .” your hesitant voice hints at something else. “He’s forward and brash while being underhanded at the same time. It’s. . . unsettling.”

As Bucky opens his mouth to question further another click sounds off and the now-familiar lilt echoes back through the handset. “Is the line open now?”

“Still here, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. I’ll be off in a few minutes.”

“You can’t tie up the phone line all day, young lady.”

“We all pay for the service. Check again soon.” Bucky bites his lip to contain his amusement at your firmness. A car horn goes off for several seconds, drawing the attention of several passers-by.

In confusion you ask, “Where are you calling from?”

“Payphone outside of Steve’s.”

“You’re paying that much for this call, Bucky? Jeeze I would’ve stopped talking ages ago, I’m sorry.”

“S’alright. Worth hearing your voice. I know I sound like a lovesick teenager, but not seeing you for a few days has been hard.”

“I know. But I’ll see you tomorrow. Any news today?”

“Yeah, I got my first assignment and textbooks for my training course.”

Your squeal makes his heart grow two sizes. “How exciting! Have you looked through it?”

“Not yet. Wanted to give it a good look when I had time. Also got my stipend in the mail.”

“That’s gotta feel good. When’re you going to give your window washing team notice?”

“I dunno. Don’t wanna leave them high and dry.”

“That was a horrible pun, Barnes. But I’m sure the boys can handle it.”

“We both know that’s debatable,” he revels in your giggle. “I better go chat with Steve.”

“You still haven’t talked to him?”

Even though he knows you can’t see him, he waves a flippant hand. “Nah, but it’s Steve. It’ll be fine.”

“And you’re sure about all this?”

“Very sure.”

“Okay. Hope it goes well. Tell me all about it tomorrow?”

“See ya tomorrow, sweetheart.” Before Bucky can hang up he hears Mrs. O’Shaughnessy once again, “Well he sounds handsome.”

Your unbridled laugh sends warmth through his chest as he replaces the handset and exits the booth. A block later, Bucky knocks on Steve’s door, army rucksack over his shoulder.

“Hey Buck,” Steve greets, eyes quickly flitting from the bag, to Bucky’s hands, before meeting his gaze.

Bucky gives a smug grin, holding up the envelope with his stipend nestled inside. “Spare room still open?”

“Nope.” Panic grips Bucky, that being the last thing he expected to hear. “Never was a spare room. Been yours from the start.”

Breathing out the fear, the brunet groans. “You’re a real jerk.”

“I know. Come on in.”

Chapter Eleven

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[madamslayyy]

Damn it, Chidi! (Chidi Anagonye x Reader)

Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place) x Black! Reader

Warning: Smut (+18)

A/N: I wrote this a looooong time ago but never posted it for some reason so here we go!

EDIT: I had gifs with this but it got the post flagged even though they were approptiate so.... no gifs....

You loved Chidi more than you thought it possible to love any human. He was the sweetest, and most dedicated man you’d ever known and his passion as a lover was off the charts. Chidi was thoughtful to a fault however he was hardly what one would call a spontaneous man. So when he brought you a box of Puits d’amours, your favorite pastry, you were automatically suspicious.

“Chidi thank you, you know these are my favorite but why the sudden generosity?” You asked stuffing one of the small French delicacies in your mouth.

“Can’t a man express his love and gratitude for the woman in his life?” Chidi laughed nervously and you knew the jig was up.

“Chidi.... whatever it is you need to tell me, it’s better to rip the bandaide off now.” You could see the debate going on behind his eyes before he finally sighed in defeat.

“I have to attend an ethics conference in Vienna.”

“... Okay and....”

“It’s.... the day after tomorrow.”

“DAMN IT CHIDI!” Your best friend’s wedding was in three days and there was no way he would be back in time to attend with you so now you would watch one of the happiest days of your friends life dateless, alone, and a little bit bitter.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s last minute but I can’t miss the conference especially since I’ll be heading an in depth panel dedicated to the life and works of Kant-

“Kant? Again? Really?! Is he more important to you than your wife?” You crossed your arms.

“What? No! Of course not but he is one of the most reknown ethics theorists of all time, I can’t just-“ Chidi never got to finish his defense because you’d walked away and slammed the bedroom door behind you.

You knew you couldn’t ask him to miss the conference just to be your date to a wedding but you’d be lying to yourself if you said it didn’t hurt. You wanted to be selfish. You wanted to forbid him from going. But knowing Chidi, if you told him not to go, he actually wouldn’t and you’d always feel guilty over it.

About 30 minutes later you heard a few soft knocks on the door followed by Chidi peaking his head through.

“May I come in?” You rolled your eyes at this.

“Of course you can, you live here.” He slowly walked in and climbed into bed, latching his arms around your thick thighs, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck.

“If you want me to stay, I’ll stay,” he murmured against your pulse. You felt you body temperature spike instantly at the intimate contact.

“Go. I know how much Kant means to you. I’ll find another date.” You said, your arms still folded across your chest.

“Really,” he said looking up at you with those big brown puppy eyes. He knew there were two things you could never say no to: his eyes and his smile.

“Mhm,” he was suddenly back at your neck but this time he was actively nipping at the skin, his hands sliding down from your waist to in between your thighs.

“Ch-Chidi,” you moaned but he was already riled up. He used one hand to slide your panties to the side, his warm fingers gently stroking your womanhood.

“Let me take care of you, love,” he grumbled, his voice deep with lust. You felt your nether regions tremble in anticipation.

His other hand found its way under your shirt and bra to tease your nipple. You gasped as he slowly entered one finger inside you. He used his thumb of the same hand to apply slight pressure to your clit. Your thighs began to tremble at even this; he always did know how to get you worked up.

“Just relax, I know you need this,” Chidi growled into your neck before switching his position so that he was hovering above you.

You mewled as he kissed down your collarbone, pulling your tank top down to reveal your sensitive breasts. He moaned while taking your left nipple into his mouth. That was one of the things that you loved most about Chidi as a lover. He was so into your body that bringing you pleasure never failed to set him on edge.

He lifted your hips to rest against his thighs and you knew immediately what he was heading for. You also knew you were tired of him being a damn tease.

“Stop playing with me Chidi and get a move on,” you moaned as he slid both your shorts and your underwear down your thighs.

“But I want to taste you,” he groaned, trailing kisses down your stomach.

“Who’s this apology for, me or you?” You giggled, causing him to sigh before pulling down his own pajama bottoms.

“Shirt too!” You quipped. Even though most people thought of Chidi as all brains, under his Poindexter exterior, he was actually all muscle, believing the investment in his health was an investment to his mind.

He complied, stripping completely before parting your legs to gaze at your glistening folds.

“How is it possible that I was lucky enough to find a woman as amazing as you,” he uttered sincerely, making your heart flutter. He was so incredibly sweet, you often thought of yourself the lucky one.

Chidi’s fingers trailed your thigh as he entered you slowly. You couldn’t help but moan at the feeling of him stretching you.

“C’mon love, open up for me. Show me you can take this,” his breathy voice gave away to his own pleasure and it felt as if the two of you were actually one.

He started off with slow, languid strokes, allowing your walls to adjust to his size then he began to pick of the pace, his hips slamming into your own. Your chest was bouncing in sync to his strokes and he leaned down to grab one brown mound in the palm of his hand, twirling your nipple between his fingers.

“Shit Chidi! It’s so fucking big,” you moaned , only causing him to drive into you faster, biting his lip as he focused on not cumming before you.

“Take it, take it. Take this dick, my love. Swallow me whole,” he groaned, gripping your sides so hard you were sure a bruise would be left in its wake. You felt tears stream down your face, the pleasure you felt consuming your whole body. And just like that, you were pushed over the edge, your orgasm wrecking itself over you suddenly.

“Chi-Chidi fuuuuuuuuuck,” you whined while he road out your orgasm, chasing his own. His thrust went impossibly deep and right when you thought you couldn’t take anymore, he exploded inside of you, his warm essence filling you to the brim.

“Forgive me...” Chidi groaned, his forehead pressed to your own as he caught his breath. You were in somewhat of a daze yourself, the euphoria from your orgasm buzzing beneath your skin.

“There’s nothing to forgive my love,”

~*~

A/N: I’m just gonna use my Everything Taglist for this just in case this is something you guys would be interested in.

@chaneajoyyy @queennanayaa @ultracrii@notsomellowmushroom@jesforpres @thehomierobbstark@thadelightfulone @amelatonin@quietstorm-73 @destinio1@wakanda-inspired @wawakanda-btch@steampunkprincess147@purple-apricots @macfizzle @caswinchester2000@marvelmaree@supersizemeplz @all-the-blog-names-were-gone @savagescorpion @ghostfacekill-monger @raysunshine78@blessingz2x2@sydneebleu @erikaintdead @amazonian-strap-queen@acceptyourselfloveyourself @kenbieeereadss @theblulife @melaninmarvel @steampunkprincess147 @kenbieeereadss

[themaskedwriter]

Electricity

A title - Electricity

A pairing - CEO!Thor x PA!Reader, Loki

Great - a crush on the boss. This couldn’t possibly end terribly… could it?

Accurate warnings - fluff. Fluffy, fluff, fluff.

A word count - 3k

CLUES 

The MCU actor who portrays Thor hails from the same homeland as the writer.

Song title inspo is big for this writer (and the title for this fic blew her mind as it was the very last song she downloaded)

This writer is writing Thor for the first time, but is more synonymous for Sebastian Stan’s characters and the occasional RPF. 

“Good morning, Mr Laufeyson,” you smiled from behind your desk as your boss’ brother wandered into the office, his usual Cheshire cat grin on his pale face, dark hair pushed away from his icy blue eyes and fair features with a consistent overuse of hair gel.

“Good morning, my dear,” he replied. “Is my idiot brother around?”

You scoffed a laugh, always humoured by the cheeky affection the brothers showed each other (and depending on the day, the genuine, extreme loathing). “He’s just on a conference call with Dr Selvig in London, he won’t be much longer I wouldn’t expect,” you informed him as Loki stepped away from your desk. “Can I get you a beverage?”

“No, no. No fuss required,” he insisted, letting his long, lean frame fall into one of the leather couches, hitching his heel on the coffee table before him and picking up an investment magazine, allowing you to get back to your work before you – getting a dinner reservation for your boss and newest conquest – you mean, date. His date. Argh.

Just then, Mr Odinson’s office door burst open and appeared the mammoth business giant, hands splayed on hips and playful smile on his lips. “Good afternoon, brother. Working hard or hardly working today?”

“The latter, of course,” Loki replied. “Selvig?”

“He’s doing some amazing work, one day you’ll appreciate his work on Convergence.”

“I was more impressed with his bare bottom proudly on display at Stonehenge,” Loki snipped, standing to his full height, almost of that of your boss who was as wide as he was tall – and by wide, you meant built like a brick outhouse, with crystal blue eyes, cropped blonde hair and muscles that seemed boundless one on top of the next. His suits straining over his shoulders and relieved at his waist. SPEND LESS TIME STARING AT HIM, you screamed to yourself. “That was some quality footage,” he chuckled as Thor bit back his own smile.

“Agreed, he lost his mind for a while there. But what do I owe the pleasure? Surely it’s not 5 o’clock somewhere already?”

“It well and truly is, brother. And if I remember correctly, ‘tis also your shout.”

“’Tis always my shout,” Thor muttered, rolling his eyes. “But I have plans tonight, I can’t be late,” Thor gave you a side-eye. “How are those dinner reservations going, by the way?”

“Right on that, boss,” you replied. “I’ve just confirmed with Le Coucou for 9pm. The driver will pick up Miss Carter on the way through, around 8:45pm. I’ve just emailed you the details, sir,” you reported, quickly hitting the ‘send’ button on the email and prying your eyes away from Mr Odinson, who was distracted unrolling his shirt sleeves, re-buttoning them and reaching for his jacket to slide over his shoulders.

“And what about you, darling? Can we interest you in a drink also?” Loki pondered.

Blushing, you replied, “I actually have a date,” you mumbled, shyly, dropping your eyes to the keyboard.

“A date?” Mr Odinson smiled. “With who? Do we know him?”

Turning a deeper shade of crimson, you were almost embarrassed with your answer. “It’s a blind date. My friend set us up. He’s in the army apparently.”

“An Army man,” Mr Odinson baulked slightly, checking his phone before he looked up with a wide, forced smile. “Sounds wonderful.”

Dejected, you tried to hide your disappointment at your boss’ reaction and went back to the work before you. Your date wasn’t until 8pm and you still had plenty to tie up before then as the brothers said goodnight to you and not to stay back too late.

—

Repeating the name the booking that your date had been booked under, you were both anxious and excited. You were a couple of minutes early but that was by your own admission – you needed a drink to ease your nerves before your mystery date arrived.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. There was a note left against this cancellation – Captain Rogers has been called off on an assignment and sends his regrets.”

Mortified, that was all you could think as you nodded, trying to hide your embarrassment. “Well, thank you,” you shrugged, not hurt but a little annoyed you found out you’d been stood up by the fucking maître d.

“May I get you a drink on the house?” the maître d asked, obviously feeling for you. “A nice Bordeaux red or a cocktail?” he continued, ushering you towards the dimly lit bar on the other side of the restaurant.

“It’s okay, I can pay,” you told him as he guided you to a stool at the bar.

“No, ma’am. It’s on me,” he motioned for the bartender to come over and instructed, “Whatever the lady wants, please, Jarvis.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis replied. “What will it be this evening, ma’am?”

“Just a glass of the house wine,” you answered, taking your phone from your handbag and trying to make yourself look less pathetic as you sat alone, stood up and only feeling marginally worse than usual.

Finding Natasha’s phone number and sending her a gentle text (scathing is what you truly wanted to send but thought better of it), you let her know that Captain Rogers had been called away and you were alone on a Friday night in New York City.

Natasha: Shit. Sorry, babe. Did you lose that reservation? I can come meet you! Clint is rolling around on the floor with the new rescue dog. I don’t stand a chance tonight.

You: No, it’s fine. I’ll just have a glass of wine and order some take out on the way home.

Putting your phone away as the glass of wine was placed before you, you thanked Jarvis and took a welcome sip. Shit, that was good. If this was the house wine, you were being spoiled.

“Any good?” a familiar voice asked you as a shadow kind of formed overhead. Looking up and spotting Mr Odinson was just adding insult to injury. This wasn’t where his date was. He took a seat with a genuine, friendly smile. “Hello, hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Of course not, sir,” you gave him a small smile.

“Where’s your date?” he asked the obvious question first, his blue eyes dancing as he ordered himself ale.

“Oh, he’s conveniently skipped the country on a mission of some sort,” you shrugged, the sting of it all starting to fade. “That’s a true first.”

“Well, he misses out,” he told you as Jarvis put his drink on the bar before him. Mr Odinson raised his glass as did you. “To Friday night’s with the boss.” You laughed as your glass joined his and he smiled again. “Are you going to stay or head out?”

“I will head home after this. It’s been a big week – shouldn’t you be thinking about Le Coucou?”

He shook his head. “No, believe it or not, I am a little too tired. My brother chewed my ear off about some family drama with our half-sister and frankly, I can’t be bothered dealing with some blonde Instagramming every aspect of our night instead of trying to enjoy it.”

“Really?”

“Really what?”

“Is that the kind of girl you were seeing?”

“I do seem have a type,” he said reluctantly. “It hasn’t worked for me though. I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment.”

“I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I always enjoyed Dr Foster.”

He gave a fond grin. “She’ll be the one that got away, I suppose,” he shrugged and took another sip. “I don’t suppose you want to stay for dinner?”

Surprised, you looked up. Sure, Mr Odinson was a great boss, and occasionally you shared a few laughs at work drinks but dining with him seemed a little… peculiar. “What, together?” you managed. Oh, yes. This should surely help this little crush you have on him.

Mr Odinson bit back a smile and leaned forward, a glint of tease in his eye. “Only if you’re happy to have dinner with the boss. I’ll pay.”

“Well, if you’re paying,” you said finally and relaxed a little as he motioned for Jarvis to get someone to get you both a table. Within a few minutes, you were at a table for two and if the candlelight made him look even better, you could cry. A bottle of expensive champagne was ordered as soon as Mr Odinson could and a terrible thought crept into your head, was this a date?!

Taking another sip of your wine, you tried to clear your head. No, of course it wasn’t. Your boss was here having drinks and coincidently, you bumped into each other. Nothing more, nothing less – it would end up a work dinner anyway with Mr Odinson travelling to the Nordic region for meetings over the few countries and you hadn’t caught up to dissect the trip with him as to yet.

“So, about next week, you’ll be flying – ” you tried.

Raising a large palm, Mr Odinson gave an amused grin. “No work tonight,” he instructed as your trap immediately snapped closed. “I’ve got the emails, I’ll be okay,” he said with a soft smile that met his cheeky, dancing eyes. You were positively swooning.

With his sudden laughter, you snapped back to reality. Oh, shit, you realised. You just sighed blissfully out loud. What kind of idiot – fuck, you were going to have to quit because of this – this crush on Mr Odinson was officially unprofessional. “I’m so sorry, Mr Odinson. I don’t know what’s coming over me.”

“It’s Thor, you can call me Thor,” he told you gently. “Have some wine, you look like you need it.”

You took a deep gulp, hoping to liquid courage will soothe your nerves. A deep breath joined it and your pulse rate felt as if it was starting to regulate.

“You okay now?”

“Think so,” you managed, voice barely above a whisper.

“Good,” Thor smiled wide as the appetisers arrived.

—

As the wine helped relax you, the evening continued a lot easier for you as it continued. The meal was divine – you were suddenly glad Captain Rogers disappeared and Thor had rescued you.

As you ordered dinner, you smiled as Thor eased in his seat. Come to think of it, you don’t think you’d ever seen him anything but cool, calm and relaxed. Incredible.

“So, what are you plans for the rest of the evening?” Thor asked, nodding for the bottle of dessert wine to be left at the table. Spying your watch, you laughed.

“Uhh, bed. This is pathetically late for me on a Friday night.”

“Could I interest you in a night cap? I know this great coffee bar uptown,” he suggested.

Coffee? It was nearly 11pm yet you found yourself saying yes, and after dessert, Thor paid the bill (with a hefty tip you also noticed) and helped you slipped into your coat, taking you lightly by the arm and into the brisk New York night. His town car stopped before you both and he ushered his driver away to open the door for you before sliding in after you. You travelled in relative silence, taking in the city and Thor scaling emails on his phone. You phone occasiaonlly dinging so you knew he was sending directives that also included you but you ignored them – at midnight, you weren’t going to action anything and nor could he blame you.

A few minutes later, the car stopped before…

“This is your building,” you frowned as Thor opened the door and let you join him on the sidewalk.

“Yeah, I have the best coffee machine in the city. Come up, you’ll see.”

At this point, Thor could say to drop your panties on the street and you would likely do it. Who were you? Were was your modesty? You weren’t that drunk. A little tipsy… but as the evening continued, you were thinking, maybe… just maybe this little crush wasn’t one-sided.

Thor offered his hand and willingly you took it. He walked you into the building where he was greeted and went to the lifts. You knew he lived in the penthouse (at last check, you remembered he may have owned this building. Or his father did. You couldn’t remember now and nor did you care). Moving to the corner, Thor did the same, giving you some space before the elevator doors opened to a dimly-lit sprawling living area with floor to ceiling windows, showing off the city.

“Jesus,” you muttered as allowed you to lead him inside. “This view is incredible.”

“Well, I can’t lay claim to that,” he teased, sliding off his jacket and heading to the open-plan kitchen where you noticed his coffee machine was and he collected a couple of espresso glasses. He went to work on the coffee and you were relieved for it – you needed it to wake you up and get out of this daydream. Here you were in the living room of your gorgeous boss Mr Odin – Thor. Thor. You watched his rolled up his sleeves, spying the leather bands that were wrapped around his enormous wrists. God bless the three-piece suit. You hated vests. But not on Thor. They were made for him.

He wandered over, two glasses in hand and nodded towards the couch. “Take a seat.”

You did as instructed and he sat beside you. “I have a confession,” Thor said after a few moments of you both sipping your coffee. You looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “And I think it will affect our professional ties.”

Oh God, he was going to fucking fire you, you realised, sitting up and putting the coffee on the side table. Shit. “Have I done something wrong?”

“You?” he smiled, shaking his head. “No, you’re a wonderful assistant. In fact, I think you’re wasted as my assistant with your potential. But this is where is gets difficult. I would love to give you a promotion of sorts, but at the same time, I don’t want to lose you from my office,” he confided. “Because I believe we work exceptionally well together.”

“I don’t know where this is going.”

“I’d like to ask you something. And you can say no,” he instructed as your heart rate increased. You could feel your whole body sweating. It certainly felt like you were in the firing line. “But for the longest time, I have harboured this little, teeny crush on you and if I follow my heart, I think it may cause problems for us at work.”

He was right, it would. Stunned, you nodded. Shit, were you getting fired?! “I think I understand.”

He nodded solemnly. “If I were to ask you out, I think you would like to say yes. But I can understand if you told me to get fucked and storm out as well. I would deserve and wholeheartedly understand that.”

Nodded, you took the coffee back to use as a distraction, resting it against your lips, hiding a little, as a shy smile appeared. He looked like he was waiting for you to say something, but little did he know your brain was blended mush and words would not seem to compute. “Oh,” was all you managed.

“Have I stepped over the line?” he asked quietly. “I understand if I have.”

“No,” you somehow replied. “I think you know that I might have feelings for you also.”

“I did not know,” he admitted. “But my brother seemed to think that maybe I was missing something that was right in front of me. Of course, Loki is also full of mischief and cannot be trusted. So he could’ve set me up to be his greatest prank,” he added meekly.

Biting back a giggle, it was almost unbelievable that this beautiful man, Thor Odinson, world-renown CEO and playboy, was opening up his heart to you and all you could think of was, “yes, Yes, YES!” so when he put his cup on the table and awaited your answer, you found your voice.

“I love my job. I thrive on how hectic it is, I enjoy ensuring your work life balance is seamless.”

“It is,” he agreed.

“And I think I’m good at what I do.”

“You’re brilliant at what you do.”

“But I need more,” you paused and he raised a curious eyebrow. “I need to know that if we take this step, it won’t ruin everything.”

“It won’t – let’s just try dinner and see how it progresses.”

You gave a gentle nod. “I’d like that, Mr – ”

“Thor.”

“Thor,” you nodded, blushing a little. “Yes.”

“This seems so formal,” Thor said with a gentle grin.

“Way too formal,” you agreed and a giggle escaped.

“Then let’s take it back a notch,” he decided. “We call it a night. When I’m back from my work trip next week, we have dinner again. I’ll even cook.”

“You cook?” you asked surprised, finding yourself standing and he followed. It felt like a good time to collect your things even if you wanted to walk directly to his bedroom.

“I’m pretty good at it – you’ll see that I’m worthy,” he joked as he followed you towards the elevator. He smiled, leaning against the wall. “I’m glad we saw each other tonight. I’m sorry that I’m travelling the next week though. I’ll miss you.”

“You’ll survive,” you teased as the elevator doors opened and Thor  laughed heartily. “Thanks for tonight, Thor. It ended up being a lot more fun that what my original plans were supposed to be.”

He chuckled. “I agree,” his giant palm raised and tenderly grasped your chin. “I had a wonderful time. I’m glad we spent the evening together.”

“Yeah,” you said and his lips gently kissed your forehead.

“I don’t want to appear obtrusive.”

“Definitely not.”

The elevator door closed without you though neither of you even noticed.

[sage-nebula]

I choose Alan!

First impression:

I first became aware of Alan because someone posted a screencap of the end of one of the Ash and Alan episodes where the narrator was like, “but little did they know that the world is slowly sliding toward destruction” and the person captioned it with, “Not again, Alan” and I was like, “what do you mean ‘again’?!” So my first impression of him was that he had somehow ended the world at some previous point, and that made me go watch all the TSME episodes. (Of course, he didn’t, but this wouldn’t be the PokéAni fandom if it didn’t unjustly blame him for everything.)

Impression now:

HE’S MY VALIANT DRAGON SON AND I’LL DEFEND HIM ‘TIL MY DYING DAY.

Favorite moment:

Part of me wants to say the moment where he finally finds his voice and is able to stand up to Lysandre, given that Lysandre was his abuser and that was such a powerful moment for him.

But the more indulgent side of me says that it was the moment where he spent all of .01 seconds before he threw himself out of an aircraft, swinging down by rope in a piece of stunning animation, to go out on the ice and save Lizardon in TSME 3. Good god that was incredible.

Idea for a story:

Let’s see … in my Works in Progress folder I currently have:

- The sixth chapter of To Devour the Sun (he’s not actually in that chapter, but the story focuses on him primarily, and he’s mentioned a lot).

- Lizardon’s origin story, which is from Alan’s point-of-view and details how he found and hatched Lizardon’s egg.

- A fic where Alan, age eleven, gives a presentation at the annual League funding science conference (it has a more official name than that, I don’t remember) because Sycamore is too sick to do so, and if they don’t attend and do a good job at the conference, the lab will lose its funding. Note that Sycamore does not send Alan; Alan sends himself by enlisting Gabrielle (Sycamore’s garchomp) to cut the cord to Sycamore’s alarm clock.

- A fic where Alan, having newly become Champion, gives a speech / answers questions at his induction ceremony pertaining to what happened in the Flare arc and what his plans are for the future, showing how far he’s come in his recovery.

- A fic in my Immortality AU where Alan and Ash time travel thanks to Celebi shenanigans and interact with Sycamore during XY(&Z). Or at least, this used to be in my WIPs folder, but it was lost when my folder was mysteriously deleted a while ago, RIP. Anyway, I still have a bit of it saved in a draft, so you can have a snippet of it since all the rest was deleted:

“Alan, you can have Lizardon fly you down, can’t you?” Augustine asked, and he smiled as Alan looked over at him, eyes wide. “I saw on television that he had evolved. He should be able to carry you—maybe both of you, depending?”

Alan bit his lip, holding Augustine’s gaze for just a moment before he shook his head and turned away, facing the waterfall’s edge again. “No. I can’t call on Lizardon right now.”

Augustine frowned, his heart skipping an unpleasant beat in his chest. “Why not? Steven said he had healed after the incident in Hoenn. Was he wrong?”

“Steven?” Alan looked back, his brow scrunched in confusion, but before Augustine could answer the confusion cleared and he shook his head. “Oh, yeah—no, he was right. Lizardon recovered from that just fine.”

“Then why can’t he carry you?” Augustine asked. Alan didn’t answer, and instead shoved his hands into his coat pockets and started walking along the edge of the waterfall, down the slope that led along the bank. Ash cast a frown Augustine’s way before he turned and started to follow Alan. Augustine stared after the pair of them for a second—since when had Alan ever just walked away in the middle of a conversation like that?—before he started after himself, a knot of stress building in his chest. “Alan, what’s wrong with Lizardon?”

“Nothing’s wrong with Lizardon,” Alan said, and though he raised his voice to be heard, he didn’t look back. “Come on, there should be another path down over here.”

- A much longer fic involving an organization named Panacea that wants to take over the world, and is doing so by challenging each region’s Champion—and, further, is doing so by challenging them with people who have specifically trained to challenge them. In particular the starting fic had Alan’s antagonist, a woman named Florence, showing up in Isolé Village (where he lived the first five miserable years of his life), and Alan has to go there to chase her out. He encounters the villagers who “raised” him for the first time in seventeen years, and it goes … mmh. It goes.

And probably others, but I can’t remember them right now.

Unpopular opinion:

Oh boy, where do I begin.

- Alan deserved to win the League, full stop. I love Ash, but had Greninja beaten Lizardon it would have been the strongest show of plot armor imaginable. Mega Charizard X outclasses Battle Bond Greninja in every way, especially when ‘Zard X has Thunder Punch which, no, cannot be blocked by Water Shuriken, that is nonsense.

- Alan was not remotely responsible for what happened to Hari-san. Hari-san was able to wander off and become comatose due to Manon’s negligence as a trainer. That was in no way his fault and the fact that no one took the time to tell him that he doesn’t have to blame himself for everything is a crime.

- For that matter, Alan had every single right in the world to decide not to travel with Manon anymore, especially since she never asked to come with him in the first place, and instead just kept stalking him and ignoring his “no” until he gave in. Manon continuously ran roughshod over Alan’s boundaries, ignored his consent, argued with him when he explained his feelings in a way that completely ignored those feelings, and ultimately just had no respect for him as a person, instead only thinking about herself and what she got from their partnership (i.e. talking about how much she can learn and grow, saying she’ll get through danger as long as he protects her, et cetera). Frankly, the fact that it took so long for Alan to actually yell at her just goes to show how nice of a person he is. If it were me, I would have yelled like that back in TSME 1 (instead of just calling her annoying and continuously ditching her like he did).

- To that end, I think that Alan and Manon’s relationship as it is at the end of the series is pretty unhealthy, since Manon never once apologized or learned from any of her behavior (thus she stayed pretty static / will no doubt keep making the same mistakes again and again), and Alan now feels as if he can’t do anything that will upset her because that will make him a Horrible Awful Person Who’s Ruining Her Life. And I mean, we kind of already see this happen; in XYZ045, Alan does try to tell her that he doesn’t want to dance (and he looks seriously panicked and uncomfortable about it), but everyone, including Sycamore in a move that really disappointed me, pressures him to do it anyway. And what ends up happening? He gives in, and he’s not smiling during the dance scene, either. Honestly, that scene triggered me really badly because it brought up memories of times when my own boundaries and consent were completely railroaded—where I was explicitly told that what I wanted didn’t matter—and the resulting panic attack was so bad I got sick and had to bring it up with my therapist. Anyway, while I prefer to write their relationship post-canon as being healthy (at least with regards to Alan not giving into all of Manon’s whims), as it is in canon it has the potential to be so bad, and we’ve already seen that. It’s gross.

- To that end, imagining them romantically is also gross. I think it speaks to the heteronormativity of this fandom that they look at a fifteen-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl (particularly one who acts like she’s eight) and think, “Hm, yes, this is true romantic love.” The maturity gap between them is palpable. Manon huffs and throws tantrums like a little kid. Alan has to watch over and take care of and protect her. Setting aside that their behavior is much more similar to that of siblings, the fact remains that they met at a stage in their lives where Manon looks to Alan for guidance and protection and Alan, however reluctantly, offers that. This sets the stage for how their relationship will continue to grow and develop. Speaking from experience, Alan’s not going to look at her one day and see a romantic interest. He’s going to still think of her as a kid. And again, I’m speaking from experience here; I know that my nephew is now almost eighteen years old, but when I think of him, I still imagine him as he was when he was a small child. I have step-cousins who are not blood related to me at all that I’ve known since they were small children, and it always blows my mind when I’m reminded that they’re now graduating high school and going off to college. I still think of them as kids, and Alan would be the same way with Manon. And even if one wanted to argue that wouldn’t stop Manon from having a precocious crush on Alan—and I agree, it wouldn’t—that doesn’t mean that Alan would (or should!) return her feelings. Again, she acts like (and in-universe is often compared to) Bonnie. She’s less mature than Ash, Serena, and Clemont, who are supposed to be her age contemporaries. Thinking that Alan would view her romantically makes him out to be really very gross, and I find it extraordinarily insulting to his character. (And again, in this case, even if you age them up it won’t work, because they met at a time when Alan had to be a caretaker for Manon. That makes it squicky.)

And before anyone comes at me — age gaps are NOT inherently bad. My own parents have a sixteen year age difference between them, so believe me, I’m NOT against age gaps as a whole. But when and how you meet (as in the context of your meeting) is important. My parents met when one was forty-six and the other was thirty. They were both adults, they had both been married and divorced before, they met on equal footing. Alan and Manon have not met at an equal footing, and they’ve met at very important developmental stages in their lives. Again, maturity is a HUGE part of it, because it’s the maturity gap that’s squickier than the age gap. If Manon had the maturity of, say, Ash I could see arguing for it, but as it stands she acts far more like Bonnie, and it’s squicky. This ship is a NOTP for me for so many reasons (including the above mentioned how Manon continuously ignores Alan’s consent and runs over his boundaries), and this is certainly one of them.

And last but not least: I know this is all blunt and harsh. I know this. But listen: In the past, when I’ve tiptoed around my feelings (either by writing very vague tags in a blank post that did not mention either Manon OR the ship by name), I’ve received hate for it. I’ve had people vagueblog me, I’ve had people send me rude messages, and I’ve had people yell at and block me for daring to politely voice my own opinions on my own posts when they brought the subject up (i.e. I made the post about something different entirely, they brought up Manon, I tried to state my opinion politely, they got mad and blocked me). So if tiptoeing around the situation and being diplomatic gets me hate anyway, why bother? I’ll be honest about how I feel, and how I feel is that I hate this ship, I think Manon should have been made to take responsibility for her behavior in canon, and her stans have made it incredibly hard for me to like her at all considering how they vilify Alan (or else just reduce him to her trophy boyfriend), constantly excuse everything she does, and resort to vagueblogging, rude messages, and yelling when they encounter anyone who doesn’t like her, no matter how polite or diplomatic they are about it. I still treat her fairly in the fics I write (i.e. I don’t vilify her, I write her as being successful in the future, et cetera), but at this point I’m done pretending outside of fic that this fandom hasn’t ruined her for me, because they absolutely have.

- I don’t think he should have immediately left on a journey again at the end of the series. I think he should have stayed at the lab instead, especially since Sycamore said that Alan was needed there. Alan should have stayed at the lab to rest, heal, and recover, and then later he should have taken the Champion challenge. That he was sent out on a journey again was super lazy writing.

- I also think that he should have been able to keep the Mega Stone and Key Stone, but repurposed into pendants by Sycamore, to give Alan a true fresh start and remove any taint that might have been on them. But that’s less important than all of the above.

Favorite relationship:

It’s a very close tie between his relationships with Lizardon and Sycamore, and an honorary mention to his relationship with Ash.

Alan and Lizardon are platonic soulmates and I love everything about their relationship. I love how Alan moves closer to Lizardon whenever he’s feeling nervous or anxious. I love how they talk to each other, and how Alan perfectly understands what Lizardon’s saying even when they just exchange looks. I love how Alan was willing to risk his life to protect Lizardon without a single thought. I love how Lizardon similarly shielded Alan during the Flare crisis to prevent him from getting hurt. I love how they respect each other so much, to the point where, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene, Alan extends his hand toward Lizardon but waits until Lizardon moves in for petting and cuddling right after they win the League. Alan doesn’t just pet Lizardon, he waits for permission before he pets and cuddles Lizardon. Alan respects consent and boundaries, and doesn’t consider himself entitled to Lizardon cuddles just because he’s Lizardon’s trainer (sorry, partner). 

Alan and Sycamore also so incredibly sweet, and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of them in canon. Sycamore is Alan’s dad in everything but blood, and there’s so much in the show to point to this … and yet somehow, not enough. But I love how supportive Sycamore is of Alan, how understanding and loving he is, and likewise how Alan will do anything to protect Sycamore, given how Sycamore saved him when he was young. They’re precious.

Finally, honorable mention is to Alan and Ash, because they helped each other so much during Kalos and I honestly love the relationship they had. So many people are tied up in the “rivalry” that was hardly that, and it saddens me so much because they’re missing such quality content. Ash managed to make Alan smile, laugh, and feel excitement and happiness at a time when he was so critically depressed that he couldn’t. Post-canon, he gave Alan a reason to keep living, which Alan says himself saved him. (He also is the one who inspired Alan to fight back at the start of the Flare crisis, on Prism Tower.) Meanwhile, Alan was someone it was okay for Ash to lose against. Ash was put on such a pedestal throughout Kalos that losing was practically deemed unacceptable, and gave him a whole damn crisis around the Snowbelle City time. But Alan and Ash met when Alan and Lizardon were a pair of Big Damn Heroes (the light of the dawn behind them and everything) saving Pikachu from Team Rocket (and protecting Ash from their attacks!). From the get-go it was acknowledged that Alan was so strong that, if Ash lost against him, it was fine. It wasn’t seen as “shocking” like when Ash lost to Shouta. Alan was someone that Ash could just have fun battling against, without something serious riding on it. They have a natural comfort around each other, familiarity like you’d expect best friends to have. I really love their relationship, too.

Favorite headcanon:

Pretty much everything in all of my post-canon fics, haha, but I’m really attached to the matching pendants I gave Alan and Lizardon for their Key Stone and Mega Stone, respectively. (Or rather, that I had Sycamore give Alan and Lizardon, haha. But same thing, really.)

[industryemissions]

Trailer in Review: Galar Region on the Map

Hello..., Everyone?

In case you aren’t up to date on the newest information in the Pokemon game series, follow the link below to the recent Pokemon Direct (published 2/27/2019).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOPVBm0sA7Q

Glorified Trailer Analysis (as if I could do better)

The year is 2019, and Nintendo, along with their development team at GameFreak, are preparing to debut their first EVER mainline installment for the Pokemon franchise on console. In order to announce this momentous occasion, Nintendo decided to set the field on their own terms using Pokemon Direct. Past use of Nintendo’s low budget press conference has been a very smart step for the company in rolling out advertising campaigns, but responses to the debut have been mixed at best. In this analysis, I’ll take a look at the tactics Nintendo rolls out and what I felt worked and did not work. 

The original Pokemon Red & Blue theme spooles up on its rusted rails to carry the viewer through a rather linear roller coaster ride they’ve seen too many times before. Ready and waiting to greet us is the one and only Tsunekazu Ishihara, CEO and President of The Pokemon Company. At first sight, his body language says stiff as his eyes glaze across the overhead prompt. Understandably, these things are essentially just Nintendo getting to control their own advertising. As long as they use his face and voice for those words, it’s a solid start to their campaign. After giving the classic “each and every player has traveled a journey uniquely theirs etc, etc,” Mr. Ishihara gives a slight bow and asks the viewer to take their first glimpse at the Galar Region. 

The music swells once more, it races from what sounds like a slight re-track of a Pokemon Revolution theme, into a breakbeat rendition of the classic Red & Blue intro theme (one with the most hyper-active bassline I’ve ever heard). The world is gorgeous and takes great advantage of the three dimensional rendering. It displays sprawling grasslands on rolling hills, frozen mountain caps, arid deserts, and urban/rural towns all rendered in what appears to be Silicon Studios’ Yebis 3 engine (the same as Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee). The same old edit style displaying cut after cut of battle footage with Pokemon new and old is rolled across the screen (Pikachu of course being one of them). The showcase of in-engine gameplay slowly closes to a blank white radial gradient screen. The soundtrack dies down leaving a lull in its place. 

Intro, the Pokemon money shot- starters. Viewers get a cutscene of the grass type chimp, Grookey, the fire type rabbit, Scorbunny and the water type lizard, Sobble. From here, the presentation is pretty par for the course. A couple of developers are there to fill gaps, then the video is closed out with Ishihara to wrap things up using that bleak, timeless charm.

Nintendo’s Good and Eh (Because Nothing is Really Bad)

Here, I would like to begin flushing out what I felt Nintendo did right and wrong. I believe there are three core areas: the use of Nintendo Direct, trailer techniques and nostalgia gimmicks.

1. Nintendo Direct Usage - Nintendo Direct, more specifically Pokemon Direct, is essentially a great marketing tool for Nintendo to debut a product and retain complete control of its presentation. I’m no expert, but I would say they probably write, stage and record the presentation entirely in-shop. Unlike major press conferences such as E3, Tokyo Game Show, PAX and others, Nintendo doesn’t need to compete with the massive dick measuring contests that are Xbox and Playstation conferences. Additionally, this gets rid of paying for stage time and presentation for people that are not directly enthusiastic fans (wasted coverage). They can also negate any symptoms of conference free radicals (lighting, sound, crowd energy, etc.). Although I do respect their minimalist approach to presentation, I’d be lying if I said I don’t enjoy a little wow factor (a guy with a flute may be a bit too artistic, though).

The video’s runtime is a quick seven minutes exactly, dedicated entirely to Sword and Shield. However, Pokemon only receive about two minutes of screentime. Now, I’m not saying the speakers are boring in the video, but they definitely don’t help with the underwhelming nature of the two minutes of rendered footage. I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure how this can be remedied other than possibly adding in a little bit of personality and energy. I understand that Nintendo wants to hit the largest market they can, but keeping things bland doesn’t help with presentation. 

2. Trailer Techniques - The trailer techniques are fairly simple, and I do feel they use Nintendo Direct as a clean introduction for presenting the trailer itself. The classic Red & Blue theme begins, followed by the fighting and running montages showcasing different arena designs and interactive environments, all of which look great. However, what was missing for me was the new generation of Pokemon.

Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield mark the debut of the eighth generation of Pokemon, and though reveal trailers rarely showcase the new generation, I couldn’t let slide a trailer that did include some Pokemon but only old. It was an interesting decision that only left me wanting more, and unfortunately, the cut including the starters didn’t satiate that desire. All due respect, I am on the side that says players need to see the starter evolutions before deciding whether I like them.

3. Nostalgia Gimmicks - This will take into account the full Pokemon Direct. Nintendo is a company of tradition. Sometimes that works for Nintendo and sometimes it does not. They use their long heritage of the Pokemon title well. There are endless amounts of dreams and perceptions within the Pokemon universe, which shows through the stream of various gameplays in the beginning of the cast. They employ the classic battle theme every trainer gets rock hard to. They address players as trainers beginning journeys all over the globe in different times and spaces. Just as they would within the Pokemon world, but is this an advantage or a hindrance for the company?

We’ve all seen Nintendo struggle to keep up within the highly competitive console gaming realm. Even though keeping a different release schedule and portable gaming in their back pocket helps, it all comes back to haunt them when they can’t seem to roll out a clean online experience in the years 2018 and 2019. The expression “my way or the highway” comes to mind when I think about the company, I personally do not see that as a good thing. I may love Nintendo’s past just as much as the next grown child, but I think it’s time they stop leaning so heavily upon their past. I’m not saying put the starters in a red Corvette and send them to Mars, but there needs to be an acceptance of the passage of time. It seems that the company is afraid to step into the future, for fear of losing their advantages within the past. 

So, What do I Think of the Presentation (Honestly, Who Cares)

I thought the whole of the presentation was well done. I do think that giving the franchise its own “Direct” warrants a bit more of a show, potentially more than seven minutes. I also think that the show did exactly what it needed to. It showed Mr. Ishihara, in all his big boss glory, talking directly to the viewers. It gave us a glimpse at what will probably be the most aesthetically pleasing Pokemon game to date. To top it off, it cut a ton of costs for Nintendo and gave them complete control over the debut of the game and the words leading into the subsequent advertising campaign. 

While I genuinely think that showing more new Pokemon would have been a good move to alleviate some of the pressure on the starters, I think that what we got suffices. This Pokemon Direct did not “wow”, but Nintendo, in my opinion, rarely does (other than with Breath of the Wild). We’ve all been down this road before, and while I think the road could use a little landscaping and some fresh flowers, Nintendo’s PR team kept expectations reasonable, and the advertising and trailer teams delivered a well written script for displaying what I hope to be a great piece of gaming. 

[hub-pub-bub]

As Bill Murray would have said in Groundhog Day, “Well, it’s martech landscape day… again.”

It has become an annual tradition at our spring MarTech conference to release an updated version of maybe the most infamous slide in marketing: the marketing technology landscape. We’re keeping that custom alive this year again.

What a crazy graphic! We nicknamed it the “Martech 5000” a couple of years ago. While I like the ring of that — kinda rhymes with the Fortune 500 and the Inc. 5000 — it’s a misnomer. Last year’s landscape already exceeded 6,829 solutions.

We’re now up to 7,040 solutions on the 2019 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic.

For perspective, here’s the growth of this project over the past 8 years:

You can still get the original 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 editions of the landscape. Collect them all!

More importantly, for this year, you can get a free Excel spreadsheet of all 7,040 solutions plus a super hi-res PDF version of the graphic (100MB) — suitable for printing wall-sized, if you’re so inclined — in exchange for giving me permission to email you about new content and events I’m doing.

A few important notes, and then I’ll provide some initial color commentary:

The team at Blue Green, who did the graphic design work for the landscape last year, stepped up to lead production for the whole effort this year, including our data research. A team of 9 people worked on this for many months! We also built on contributions from Anand Thaker in 2017 and 2018. I am deeply grateful for the magnificent work they did.

I expressly grant permission to reproduce copies of this graphic in full and “as is” in any slide presentation or website, up to a resolution of 1,600×900 pixels. (Or embed the graphic from my CDN). For higher resolutions or uses, please ask first. A backlink to this post would be greatly appreciated.

This graphic is only our personal approximation of the marketing technology space and is surely rife with errors and omissions (our apologies). It is intended only to stir discussion. You can publicly identify or clarify your company in the comments section below.

Key resources used in our research to build this graphic: CabinetM, Capterra, G2 Crowd, Google, LUMA Partners, Siftery, and TrustRadius. We used these services to discover new companies and to triangulate our categorization. As always, a debt of inspiration is owed to Terence Kawaja, the godfather of vendor LUMAscapes.

Have we reached “peak martech?” (gasp)

Ever since I started this project, the martech landscape has grown year-over-year by double or, originally, triple digits. The 2017 edition had 39% more solutions than 2016. The 2018 one had 27% more than 2017. Its growth has been slowing, a kind of law of large numbers inevitability. But when you’re talking thousands of solutions, double-digit growth is still pretty massive.

The 2019 edition, however, only grew 3%.

That’s not so much a slowing down as a flattening out, a plateau. At face value, it would seem that, indeed, we have achieved “peak martech.” (pause for dramatic effect)

Now, for those industry consolidation hawks who have been heckling me for the past 8 years, you might be tempted to declare victory at this moment. “Ah, ha — I told you so, Brinker!” But before rolling out your editorial parade, you might want to take a couple of things into consideration:

7,000 marketing technology solutions isn’t exactly a “consolidated” market. We’d have to compress the industry by an order of magnitude or two — to 700 or even 70 — before that adjective would apply.

It turns out that this isn’t so much “peak martech” as it is “peak martech landscape.”

See, there is a limit to how much time is reasonable to invest in producing this graphic. One could argue that I should have hit that limit several editions ago. But this year, having 9 people working on it for 3-4 months was as much as even I could justify (or afford).

Yet we know there’s a ton more marketing technology solutions out there. Not hypothetically speaking. I can actually point you at hundreds to thousands of martech products that aren’t on this year’s marketing technology landscape.

Let’s take a look…

Martech Beyond the Martech Landscape

These are five buckets of martech apps that are not fully represented on my landscape:

Regional martech apps

Vertical industry martech apps

Martech apps built for specific martech platform ecosystems

Martech apps build by services companies (but packaged as products)

Martech apps built with low-code/no-code citizen developer platforms

Starting with regional martech apps, I’ve been amazed over the past couple of years by the number of people who have created “national martech maps” for different countries, charting all — or as many as they can find — marketing technology companies headquartered there.

There’s the Canadian martech landscape, the Finnish martech landscape, the United Kingdom martech landscape, the Chinese martech landscape, the German martech landscape, and just released this week, the Swedish martech landscape. It’s impressive. I think of it as the Martech Olympics.

Since I’ve been so impressed with these, I’m embarrassed to say that we didn’t think to cross-reference this when we were assembling our global landscape this year until after it was off to press. We missed hundreds of regional martech companies. And that’s just considering the handful from countries with a published landscape.

Similarly, while we’ve certainly incorporated many vertical industry martech apps into our landscape, we know we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s out there — companies like LabWorthy in the dental industry or ChurchCRM, neither of which are on our landscape. Just finding these companies, without going deep in every industry ourselves, is a Herculean task.

But where things get particularly interesting to me is the explosion of martech apps that are a result of the 3 trends driving the Second Golden Age of Martech. (You can read that article, or you can also watch this 40-minute talk of mine.)

Each of these trends — the growth of platform ecosystems, the blending of software and services businesses, and the rise of citizen developer platforms — are birthing whole new galaxies of martech apps.

The major marketing suites have all embraced becoming true marketing platforms, with ever more open APIs and official marketplaces for third-party apps. Here are just a few of these martech ecosystem marketplaces, each with hundreds of apps:

Salesforce

Adobe

Oracle

HubSpot

Shopify

Microsoft

G Suite

While many of the products listed in these ecosystem marketplaces are included on our marketing technology landscape — primarily those that operate across multiple marketing platforms — there’s a growing number that are uniquely built for an individual platform’s ecosystem. They aren’t as easy to discover outside of those ecosystems, but within them, they can be apps greatly loved by those communities. And some of those communities are quite large.

As one example, check out OrgChartHub, a product built specifically for HubSpot’s platform.

For the extreme end of the ecosystem app spectrum, consider the fact that WordPress has more than 54,000 plugins that have been created for it. Each of these plugins is a kind of mini martech app. (Some of them actually have quite a bit of scale.)

I have no idea exactly how many of these aren’t on our marketing technology landscape, but mathematically, I know it’s more than 47,840.

Forget the Martech 5000. Are you ready for the Martech 50,000?

Now, I’m not saying all these martech apps and platforms are equal. There are many orders of magnitude difference in scale between a major marketing platform company like Adobe and a WordPress plug-in such as Social Warfare.

That’s not a knock against Social Warfare by any means. In fact, I just installed them on this blog, and I absolutely love their product. They don’t need to be a $120 billion public company to delight me as a customer.

Marketing technology is long, long, loooooong tail:

But all along this continuum, useful martech apps are thriving. In context, each has value and purpose — however broad or niche — to the marketers they serve. Indeed, this is one of the most compelling arguments for major marketing platforms to embrace an open ecosystem strategy: the splendid diversity of specialized apps that can flourish on that foundation.

That’s where the magic happens, where the energy and intelligence of engineering teams within platform companies is multiplied by all the energy and intelligence of hundreds or thousands of imaginative, third-party app developers. That massively distributed engine of innovation serves the myriad of needs and desires across different customers.

The blending of software and services business models is another rich source of martech apps that we’ve had a hard time cataloguing. Major consulting firms such as Deloitte, Accenture, and PwC all have their own martech products now, lending credibility to the model. But a large number of services-developed martech apps are emerging out of smaller firms too.

Blue Green, who produced this year’s landscape, is a great example with their Blue Green Analytics product. Their experience with conversion optimization engagements as a services company helped them identify a gap in the martech tool universe that they could uniquely fill. And because it plugs in to major marketing platforms, it’s easy for customers to adopt.

Finally, there’s the category of “citizen martech” — apps that non-programmers can create using low-code or no-code platforms. Airtable is one of my favorite: if you can work with a spreadsheet, you can build a martech app. Seriously.

This democratization of development in marketing technology dramatically expands the number of people who can create martech apps. As a result, a lot more martech apps are produced — even if they’re relatively small and serve a highly specialized function.

Now, you might be saying, “Yeah, Scott, but those are just little custom apps built for use within a single organization. They’re not apps available to other marketers.”

Ah, but not so fast. Because many of these low-code and no-code platforms have now created marketplaces where users can contribute — and in some cases sell — their apps to others. A great example is the Airtable Universe:

The long, long tail of martech apps just got even longer.

A Representative Sample of the Marketing Technology Industry

So, I think we can safely say we’re not at “peak martech” — even if, at least for this year, we’ve reached peak martech landscape.

The truth is that marketing and marketing technology are changing. The challenges of trying to chart all these different martech apps — and running into philosophical debates about what qualifies as an “app” in a world of tens of thousands of pieces of software that could each claim to belong in that collection — is actually a pretty good reflection of the underlying evolution of software in general.

While individual categories on the marketing technology landscape — and the larger vendors operating within each of them — continue to jockey between expansion and consolidation, all of this is happening against a backdrop of ever more apps, platforms, components, and services steadily expanding for the foreseeable future.

So this year’s marketing technology landscape is less complete than ever. But still hopefully a visceral representation of just how expansive and varied the field of martech software is.

[inher30suk]

It used to work like this, 1) decide to go on holiday 2) pick a date and 3) Just go.  And while the beginning part of that cycle is still the same, our holidaying requirements have somewhat changed since the arrival of the sprogs, we have a more stringent check-list for accommodation and the amenities we now view as essential and for us, anywhere that sells itself as being child-friendly shoots to the top of the hit list.   Happy children = happy parents = making memories to last a lifetime.

And so this year, for our first holiday as a family of four, we chose Greece.   It has everything we could all possibly want – views √, great food √, history √, culture √ and best of all, many hours of sun, sea and sand.  √, √ and more √.

Pantazi beach

Agios Nikolaos

Stoupa

A short hour’s drive away from Kalamata lies the Messinia region of the Peloponnese and this is to be our home away from home for a few days.  This region is still largely unknown to the usual Greek tourist and its recent prosperity owes much to local entrepreneur Captain Vassilis Constantakopoulos  whose vision it was to bring money and jobs into the local economy and transform it into a luxurious super resort.

The best part of all, it’s all done ethically and all the development is done with the greatest commitment to the local environment, area and traditions – a big win for Eco-luxury.  This peninsula is Costa Navarino, home to a variety of real estate developments including golf courses, luxury holiday homes, spas, conference buildings and of course 5* hotels.

Westin Costa Navarino and the Romanos are two huge sprawling luxury hotels in Navarino Dunes, a huge 130 hectares of gently rolling hills and a vast sandy beach.  The Westin Costa Navarino prides itself on catering to families and we are here with our own small people to test out this claim.

What would it look like if a child did review it?  Baby is still young enough that she doesn’t do much more than coo adorably anywhere she goes and it is the toddler Sprog whose opinion we need to canvas.

Resort entrance

Bedroom

View into the room

Kingsize bed

From the bathroom to the bedroom

Freestanding tub

The quick and efficient check-in would win the sprog’s affections as there is nothing toddlers find less interesting than standing around reception (or standing still anywhere in fact!) and so we’re all pleasantly surprised to find ourselves heading to our room in no time at all.

The room: Toddler is instantly delighted by the balcony and amuses himself for a solid 20 minutes by running in and out.. and in and out… and in and out.. thus giving us the chance to look around in a lot more detail.

We’re in a family suite and there’s oodles of room for the 4 of us.   A huuuge bed for us adults in the bedroom which is part of a larger bathroom/ bedroom room, with a lovely free standing tub in it.  You can have a privacy screen come down next to the tub, but the bathroom is quite open plan – with the toilet and shower tucked away behind 2 doors.

We have a spacious living room to really spread out and relax in, which makes such a difference considering that packing for a getaway en famille inevitably seems to involve taking your entire house with you and despite the fact that the better part of the kids’ wardrobes were in the room with us, we never felt cramped or claustrophobic. Quite an impressive feat!

And the view… you can see why the Sprog spent so much time running in and out.

  All settled in, we decide to go for a walk.  When we checked in, reception let us know that we could order a golf buggy to take us around and I scoffed.  An hour later when we’d barely covered half the resort, I’m beginning to see their point.

It’s safe to say the sprog’s eyes lit up at the sight of that waterpark – there are slides, a large splash area, bright colours and cute details that has the toddler squealing with delight.  A playground nearby is the icing on the cake for him and I’m just grateful that we found this at the end of our walk as I suspect we’ll never have been allowed to explore anywhere else.

When the tots are older and we return, there’s actually a high chance we may never clap eyes on either of them – there is so much to keep them entertained – a tennis court, basketball/ volleyball court, indoor climbing wall, bowling lanes and cinema in an American diner, an outdoor centre housing every piece of equipment you could need to go hiking, walking, swimming, surfing, yachting, snorkelling or diving.

And if that’s all a bit too energetic, serenity is to be found pool-side.  There’s a family Lagoon pool in the main area of the Westin Resort and a larger deeper pool with a waterfall a short walk away.    We’re already plotting dropping the children off at the kids club and indulging in some pool & spa time of our own!

Main adult pool

Lagoon pool

Aqua Park

Ancient Olive trees

  We’ve been away a few times now as a family but we’ve never used a Kids club, but after seeing what the on-site kids club looked like, we felt comfortable dropping them off for a few hours! I did have a slight pang at the fact that the Sprog went off willingly without a backward glance, but when there is a huge big indoor running around space, noisy toys, ride-on cars and staff willing to sing his favourite nursery rhymes, how can his boring old parents really compete?

Main cocoon play area

Sleeping zones

  The only person having separation anxiety was me and I really had to nip that in the bud and so I tried to make the most of our child-free hours by going to the spa for a massage, able to relax in the knowledge that the kids were happy and looked after.

Entrance to the spa

Glamorous chandeliers

Spa garden with wild strawberries

Relaxation room

Three spa pools

Fresh fruit to nibble on

Drinks in the relaxing room

  The massage was wonderfully soothing and all the tension in my back and shoulders was well and truly eradicated but the icing on the cake were the three salt-pools that made up for a refreshing dip afterwards.  The first is the saltiest and you can only spend 10 minutes in here.  This is probably the closest I’ll get to experiencing what the Dead Sea is like and I greatly enjoyed the sensation of floating in the salt water.  The salt levels reduce with each pool with a corresponding increase in temperature to cleanse your skin and when I finally do emerge from the final pool with jacuzzi jets, it’s only because the hunger pangs are a-calling.

But to hear the full tale of all that we ate and drank, you’ll need to stay tuned for the next installment.   Spoiler alert: there will be halloumi, fresh seafood and cocktails…

We were guests of Westin Costa Navarino 

All the family go to Westin Costa Navarino, Greece It used to work like this, 1) decide to go on holiday 2) pick a date and 3) Just go.  

[shalegas34]

bizarre love triangle chapter 7

Macquarie called me into his office on Tuesday, the day before we flew.

"How much do you know about rare earths?" he wanted to know.

"Nothing," I admitted.

"I've got some old investor presentations from Asian competitors. See what you can pick out about the extraction processes. I want to know what Crownsdale's doing differently."

Macquarie's eyes sank slowly into the dark circles underneath as he spoke. Say something funny, my brain chanted. Make him laugh.

"Yeah man," my capricious mouth produced. "Porter won't know what hit her next time you talk."

"Would you take this seriously," Macquarie snapped and I spontaneously pyrolysed.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"Take it as a chance to learn something as well. You have experience in mining, right?" Well, peripherally. "Prepare a bit and you'll make a good impression."

I elected not to say anything else, but that really bummed me out for the rest of the day. Being the master of good decisions that I was, I sent my Northstar presentation to Macquarie later that afternoon, as if checking my work would help him wind down from being held hostage by a hundred conflicting deadlines.

I left at five without exchanging another word with him, feeling like the world's greatest jackass.

At least Princess Monster Truck was due for release from the vet's. I convinced Leila into giving me a lift because the place wasn't too far out of her way, but then had to carry the cage along with my stack of rare earths bedtime reading on the tram back to my apartment. I made it all the way to page 4 of the first booklet, leafing over to reveal a full-page photo of a shiny steel pressure vessel, before people started clearing the seats around me.

That night, a cat under each arm, I went through an entire bottle of wine and shoved every single one of those motherfucking investor presentations into my brain, brutally ignoring anything about corporate governance and remuneration which kept the task possible. I compiled a table of process types (some companies worked combined mining/concentrating circuits, so I classified on the latter) against cost per tonne of product, making a note of any environmental or energy-saving innovations which had been highlighted. I then grouped these by metal, and region.

I sent the whole lot to Macquarie at 10:03pm in an email titled "Everything". Drunk me thought the variety of content didn't do this subject justice, so I included a selfie of myself and Princess Monster Truck splayed on the floor with my laptop.

He replied at about midnight, congratulating me on my enlightenment and complimenting the cat's healthy appearance. Even this total lack of personal engagement wasn't enough to dampen my mood and my raging crush. 'I'll meet you at the airport at 3,' he added at the end. 'Take the morning off.'

I slept pretty well that night. It had indeed been too long since I'd dealt with my problems by drinking.

---

I was on my second train en route to the airport when Macquarie called.

"I'm emailing you my ticket," he said frantically, as one of the kids and Sydney yelled at each other in the background. "Can you check me in?"

"You're still at home?" It had just gone 2.50. There was no direct train from the east.

"I'm only twenty minutes away," he replied. A door slammed and I heard the sound of a plane flying low overhead. What?!

"But you catch the Glen Waverley train," I spluttered like an uncontrollable conspiracy theorist.

"It's cheaper to park outside the city," Macquarie said shortly. "I commute from Mount Plenty."

That was one of those new suburbs, way out north, where Monash University had recently snatched up a dirt-cheap lot of land. I was shocked, but remembered Sydney worked at Avalon; maybe this was a compromise. I doubted my reasoning.

"Got the tickets," I assured him as my phone pinged.

I waited at the gate after checking in, my leg bouncing as I examined the floor. I'd never been to Adelaide before. I was actually kind of excited.

Macquarie rushed in as the business class boarding call went out, puffing like a steam train. He'd intended to keep that pace working on the plane, but my presence was clearly too alluring (a joke). The flight degenerated into a long-overdue conversation about the past ten years.

Neither of us mentioned the wedding, but there was plenty to dive into without going there.

"Did I ever tell you, I actually got done for insider trading after the plane crash," Macquarie started it off with a light yarn. "Argued it of course. I thought I was gonna die after all. Paid the profits off to charity and they let it slide."

"Nice. Which one?" I asked.

Macquarie shrugged. "Can't remember. I let Sydney choose." He was blushing.

"How're they holding up, anyway?" Sydney hadn't checked up on me, but I'd hardly done any better.

"They say the control's therapeutic," Macquarie replied. "Don't ask me how. Sounds worse than the NYSE, the shit that goes on at Avalon."

I did find it odd and more than a bit embarrassing that Sydney had gone for reimmersion to deal with their near-death experience, while I ran away into more obscure territory with each passing day. Here I was, about to visit a mine as a hedge fund representative.

"'37 was as good a time as any to start over," Macquarie continued, looking in my eyes as he talked, which was intensely distracting in the close confines of economy. "We had Travis by then, of course, but Mattie was born in Melbourne. Wasn't easy when Sydney had so much going on, but Sally really helped us out, and I don't mean just by giving me a job. She helped us with the downpayment, and got Travis into a good school."

I stared at him. On the one hand, I was appreciating his beautiful face and my attention wasn't going anywhere, but my inner conspiracy theorist was ticking hard on the other. Macquarie had conveniently skipped over the '37 crisis, but something had obviously gone wrong for a millionaire banker to end up here. Was there another reason Macquarie accepted all of Sally's equity deals?

Get a grip, I sniped to myself. I was meant to be selling Northstar to investors. This was no time to start having doubts.

Macquarie spent the rest of the flight reminding my unreasonably disappointed ass he was married and loved his family. The painful part was that he didn't even need to spell it out; I could tell just by the way he spoke about Sydney, and gently paid the kids out, and never complained once about their housing downgrade.

I really needed to crunch out my feelings. I was convinced he could tell, though that might've just been my repertoire of reciprocation fantasies tainting my judgement. Even the thought of getting kicked out as another lovestruck secretary was mortifying (not to mention that I wanted to keep spending time together).

Luckily, landing in Adelaide cast my one-track mind to other matters (we were multi-track drifting at the very least). The weather was perfect, and skies were blue for a riverside stroll once we'd arrived in the CBD on the airport shuttle. We had about an hour to kill before our bus left at 6pm for a 12-hour redeye.

"You know," Macquarie said suddenly as we stood on the wide-curving stadium bridge, and his face was a bit red. "I don't mind everything that's happened. If our lives hadn't changed, we wouldn't have considered another kid. I wouldn't have had the chance to be friends with you again."

I couldn't even resent the 'friends' part. There were almost tears in my eyes, I swear to god.

I slept like a log on the bus thanks to my late night and the familiar motion and roar of the engine. The first couple of hours I'd spent filching tips for next week's investor presentation; though my slides looked fly, I didn't know if I was confident enough to pull it off. Macquarie disappeared down the back for a phone conference after that, so I went to sleep to stave off the boredom. When I woke at about 5, he was back beside me, murdering his laptop keyboard on email to the Sundance administrators. I was sad I'd been out for most of the trip, then remembered I was trying to get rid of my feelings.

So much for that. I was crushing harder than a Mohr's 10.

We arrived in the mining service town of Kittle Downs a smidgen late at 6.45am, after having to detour round a flash flood a bit further south.

"We're meeting Johann at 7.30," Macquarie said. "Breakfast?"

I nodded.

I got some coffee and a small, overpriced pie, and Macquarie went with a soggy egg and mayonnaise sandwich. Johann Kostler picked us up in his ute at 7.30 on the dot, and we bumped out to Northstar along a network of pitted roads as the last of the sunrise dissipated.

"That's Stokes River," Johann said, pointing out to our left at a muddy slick in the distance. "We're just out of the desert here, so this is prime real estate." He laughed. "We're building a new water treatment plant to keep it fresh."

He went on to explain how most water used in the plant ended up in tailings ponds. A small portion was recycled, and an even smaller portion discharged back into Stokes River. The existing precipitator could only handle the former, so an EPA crackdown had mandated an overhaul if the mine was to stay open.

"Tell us more about the expansion," Macquarie got right to the point.

"Of the treatment plant?" Johann was confused.

"No, of the mine," Macquarie clarified.

"We have a 70% stake in a prospect to the east, if that's what you're talking about," Johann said. We were pulling into a carpark, surrounded by a cluster of weatherboard offices. These had once been white, but everything here was now covered in a thick layer of brown dust.

"We plan on developing it," he said shortly. "I don't think we'll have problems raising capital to buy the other 30%."

The visit was surprisingly useful for my understanding. I hadn't thought I'd get much out besides an affirmation of what was in my slides, but seeing the business in the flesh let it really fall together in my head. Despite (or perhaps because of) my original line of work, I'd never gone past the loading port of a mine before, let alone into the heart of the crushing and flotation circuits. "If we developed Wattle we'd use the same plant," Johann explained. "The economics would be solid."

I was, even after everything, pretty keen on the process machinery which lined the landscape. Maybe I missed my old life more than I cared to admit. I noticed Macquarie had gone strangely quiet; perhaps he was startled to see me upbeat about something for the first time in my life.

"I'm staying to talk shop with Johann," he said once we'd found our way back to the front office. "Feel free to take the bus into town. Be back at the station by 5.30."

"Can I ask," I butted in before he could escape. "Why'd you come all this way to meet him?"

"I don't want a record," Macquarie replied simply. He scrutinised my conspiratorial expression and relaxed. "Don't worry about me,” he said, amused. “Stick with our plan for the presentation; I'll write you something about Sundance you can put on the end."

"Have you seen my slides?" I asked, secretly thirsting for him to validate me.

He shook his head. "Sorry." He didn't have to explain. "But you've seen the mine now. Just remember, this is what you’re selling. A stake in all of this.” He waved a hand over the scrappy buildings, the dusty flotation tanks, Stokes River running resolutely in the distance. “You'll be okay. See you tonight, yeah?"

"Sure," I said. "Good luck." I nodded towards Johann.

I stared out the window during the 25-minute shuttle ride back into Kittle Downs, wondering how I’d sunk to this level. All I’d wanted was a fresh new career, and my uncontrollable brain had dumped a crate of emotional baggage all over itself to start me off. The harder I tried to break out of it, the more excessive it got. Macquarie just had to look in my direction and I was having a full thirst breakdown.

However, I was multi-track drifting again soon enough. I’d just settled into the town tavern for a desensitising afternoon drink when a pair of young tradies, the splitting image of 20-year-old me, commandeered the other end of the bar and began to argue.

“Mate, I’m not going with you,” said the one on the left with the wavy black hair. “Katy hates the city.”

“The Greens are razing the place. Try moving once you have kids,” his friend said sourly.  

“Cut it out,” Black Hair replied. “The mine isn’t closing. They’re building the water plant now.”

His friend laughed raucously. “With what? They haven’t paid us in a month.”

Black Hair sighed. “They got the money.”

Something dawned on his friend, who straightened up. “Fucking hell, Bry. Really? What did you say to her?”

“Nothing!” Bry protested. “I just mentioned Katy that one time, and she hasn’t quit talking about it. You know what my mum’s like.”

[dailyaudiobible]

04/28/2017 DAB Transcript

Judges 8:18-9:21 ~ Luke 23:44-24:12 ~ Psalm 99:1-9 ~ Proverbs 14:9-10

Today is April 18th.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I'm Brian and it's good to be here with you today, next step forward, kind of turning the corner toward the end of the week and we’ve been reading about this judge named Gideon in our Old Testament reading and we’ll pick up with his story today; Judges chapter 8, verse 18 through 9:21, and we’re reading from The Voice this week.

Commentary

Let's just do a really quick recap of where we’ve been in the Old Testament. It gets so easy to get disconnected from the story and then kind of feel lost.  

So we get into Judges and hear of these people that rise up to lead God's people for a period of time, usually their lifetime, but it kind of feels like they are popping up here and there and we’re kind of lost to the connection.   Let's just quick go back and remember this guy Abram.  

Remember this guy Abram, way a long time ago, right after the New Year? Abram, who comes into a land that he didn’t know, following a God that he had just met?  Everything started there.  Abram becomes Abraham.  He has a child of promise named Isaac.  Isaac has a son named Jacob and I know I'm skipping some pieces, but he has a son named Jacob whose name becomes Israel and his children, Jacob's children literally are the children of Israel because Jacob's name is Israel.  One of those children’s name is Joseph who ends up getting trafficked as a slave into Egypt.  We followed that entire story and that is how the children of Israel got to Egypt.  

Then God raised up Moses 400 years later to free this massive people from slavery in Egypt.  Then we wandered around for 40 years.  Then Moses died.  Joshua became the leader of this people, the children of Israel, and they crossed the Jordan into the promised land.  Everything was well and good.  The land was granted out and divided up among the tribes during Joshua's life.  And then Joshua died, but those who were contemporary with Joshua kept everything moving in the right direction.  But then everyone died.  Everyone who had ever been in the wilderness wandering around, everyone who had been that first generation in the promised land, they are gone. So the people don’t have a leader. That is where these judges come in.

It was a time where there wasn’t a central figure, a Joshua, a Moses. Everybody was just kind of doing what they thought was right and it didn’t take long before the mixture began and people began to worship the God's of the Canaanites or the Hittites or the Amorites.  These people that are around, they began to fall in love and mix in other religious customs and it all kind of became this leaderless group of people.  This is where the judges come in.  

Every time we come to a judge, we’re moving another generation or two later in time, so we can go through the book of Judges not realizing that we’re moving through generations of people.  Every time we come to a new judge, this is a different generation of people, and so we’re getting further and further removed from Joshua, from Moses, and we’re seeing what is happening to the people over time, over the generations.

So we get to somebody like Gideon and we’re several generations removed and the people have been in the land for a while.  Everybody who is there has grown up there.  It is all they have ever known.  And then we hear the echoes of Moses’ warnings:  “When you get there and everything is all good and you are at peace, that is where your real battle is going to be.  That is when the seduction of the false gods that you will find yourselves worshipping, that is when that is going to challenge you.”  And that is exactly what we’re seeing.  

In the Gideon story we sort of see the texture of what is going on, regional power struggles for leadership and all of this.  Gideon frees the people and actually rallies the people together in a unified mission and they want him to lead, but he doesn’t want to be their leader.  But they do revere him and he's kind of the unspoken leader, but he dies.  Forty years later he dies.  But he has a lot of kids.  Seventy kids is a lot of kids, a LOT of kids, but one of them, Abimelech, kills all of his brothers in order to become leader, in order to use the family name to gain power and we see that the people just begin to slide backward until God brings up a new leader.

There is like this forward movement and then this retreat, this forward and retreat, this ebb and flow, this back and forth that is going on that so deeply resembles our own stories.  God shows up, gives leadership, brings rescue, everything returns to normal, the slide backwards begins.  We find that we’re not so different than these people of so long ago, not in our hearts. I think that is one of the most beautiful things about reading the Bible.  It's retelling the story of life on earth.  It's retelling our story.  We find in the motivations of the people that we’re reading about the same things going on in our own lives.  And then the Bible becomes less of a religious book and one of humanity and over and over and over again we get to see where the roads lead, which allows us to choose what road we’re going to walk on.  

Then, of course, in Luke's gospel we see where that road led Jesus and we see where that road led these same people.  This story of Gideon that we’re reading, many, many, many, many, many generations later it's these same people calling for Jesus’ execution, which we witnessed today from Luke's gospel.  And we’re reminded once again that God will not surrender his people to the darkness. He will not stop coming for us. He has always come for us and Jesus is the greatest rescue of the human race ever, the only one needed.  And thank God.  

Prayer

Father, as we find our life in the stories in the scriptures and as we find the great rescue in your story, Jesus, we’re once again in awe.  Your word speaks truth into our lives and then we can listen or we can ignore, but your word is kind enough to show us where either one of those places will lead us.  So we choose to follow you and invite your Holy Spirit.  Lead us into all truth.  This is the promise and we believe this because it has been true in our lives.  You lead into truth and that is what we want.  You lead on the narrow path that leads to life.  So come, Holy Spirit, we pray in the mighty name of Jesus that you would do exactly that, lead us into all truth, lead us on the narrow path that leads to life.  We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.  

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website.  It's home base.  It's where you find out what is going on around here, so check it out.  Check out the resources that are available in the Shop. Check out the Prayer Wall.  

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com.  There is a link right on the home page.  Thank you. Thank you profoundly.  If you're using the Daily Audio Bible App, you can press the More button in the lower right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today.  I'm Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Hi Dabbers.  This is Victoria S. from Maryland and I'm calling in because I heard a message from Annette A.  And Annette, when I hear your voice, it always brings a smile on my face, even when you and Biola were reporting live from the More Conference, that just brought such a big smile to my face.  And I heard your prayer request and I heard your challenge about your son, Alex, and you made one important statement, that God had told you that he had plans for your son.  So regardless of what is going on right now, stay focused on the promise that God has told you and not the process.  Stay focused on the promise and not the process and what it comes to.  I’ll stand in agreement with you, praying and praying for your son as he is going through this little setback.  Be blessed and be encouraged, Annette.  And remember, we win.  

Good day Daily Audio Bible family.  I feel a little funny constantly calling all the time, but prayer is all that I know and all that I know to do and I think that is a good thing.  I'm going to push.  I'm going to pray until something happens.  I'm lifting up pastors.  That is where my heart is right now.  And pastor's wives.  I'm praying for you, praying for your finances.  Pastors make so many financial sacrifices.  My husband and my credit is just messed up because we had to take a lot of our own personal finances to put it back into the ministry.  We came second.  So I'm praying for your finances.  I'm praying for pastors who are pulled by God's heart to do his will, but you sometimes are alone.  I'm praying for you.  I'm lifting you up.  I'm praying for your wives, the struggle sometimes to make ends meet.  I’ve been there, not having enough food sometimes. So I'm just lifting up pastors. And I want you to please remember Pastor Gary in your prayers, that God will deliver him and set him free.  Have a wonderful day everyone.  God bless.  Bye.  

Good morning family.  This is Rachel in Houston and my heart is troubled today.  I'm behind on the Community Prayers.  I’ve been listening to them and there is just so much turmoil in marriages across our family.  It just breaks my heart.  I’ve been really praying about marriages.  I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who is actually going through a divorce and she said something and it has been on my heart and it keeps coming back and keeps coming back and I just feel like the Holy Spirit is telling me that there is somebody out here that needs to hear what she said.  I probably won't say it exactly the way she said it, but basically she said we have to forgive ourselves because Jesus would never condemn us for getting out of something that he never put us in in the first place.  I don’t know who that is for, but just know that your spirit can be renewed and the troubles in your marriage, you can overcome those as long as you follow according to what Jesus wanted you to do, what God's plan was for you.  So thirst for his will and everything else will come into play.  I don’t know who that is for, but I hope that helps someone.  And I also wanted to give a shout-out to Jeff who is doing the trek across Spain.  Our uncle…

Hi, this is Debbie from Sarasota.  I was just at the More Gathering Conference which was just a blessing to be there.  I'm calling for Matt.  I heard that your brother and his wife are pregnant and that their baby may have some complications.  Well, I'm going to pray for this baby as well as I would like everyone to pray for my daughter's baby.  She will be due in two months.  Her baby was just diagnosed with cystic hygroma and they actually told her to have an abortion, but we did not do that.  So for Matt's future niece or nephew and for my granddaughter, complete healing and a miracle for our babies.  And I know that there are a lot of women in there that have sons in jail as well as I do. I'm praying for you all and I'm praying for our sons.  God bless everyone.  Have a miracle day.  

Hello Daily Audio Bible family.  It's April 26th.  This is Stanley from Maryland.  This is a specific call for Jeff from Virginia Tech.  You prayed for the boldness and the wisdom to know how to effect change at your campus.  Let me just say to you, brother, man, that is a very honorable, noble challenge, but we have a God who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all we ask or think and so I wanted to share with you, man, a prayer and I wanted to share with you these lyrics from Rend Collective and the name of the song is called Build Your Kingdom Here, so I'm just going to quote to you the chorus and I'm going to be done.  It says build your kingdom here.  Let the darkness fear.  Show your mighty hand.  Heal our streets and land.  Set your church on fire.  Win this nation back.  Change the atmosphere.  Build your kingdom here we pray.  So I’ve been listening to this song for the past week and it has just blessed me so much and I pray this prayer and these lyrics for you and to know that God wants to build his kingdom and that if you constantly ask him and pray to him and seek him and trust in him, he will show you the pathway to go.  Amen.  Have a great rest of your day, man.  Bye.  

Hello Dabbers.  This is the first time I’ve called in and I’ve been listening since the start of this year. I find it really difficult to call in and kept putting it off because I thought I was being selfish and that I could call in later.  So anyone else who is considering calling in, it is so much better to tell yourself to call in now because otherwise it will never get done.  Today I have a prayer request for my dad and granddad who aren’t Christian and don’t know God yet.  I know God has the power to do anything, but I still doubt him sometimes.  By listening to the DAB, I have learned how praying to God is so powerful because it is God's power and love and it would be amazing if we could be united in faith and prayer to ask God to bring any non-Christian family members to God including my granddad whose called Frank and my dad who is called Trevor.  Thank you everybody for being encouraging and encouraging each other to grow in faith and hope.  Thank you. Bye,

[mosslit]

Hello poetry lovers of the Northwest! Moss presents another installment of Washington Poetry Update with Tod Marshall, poet laureate of Washington state, in honor of National Poetry Month and that eternally poetic topic: spring. Enjoy!

The poetry of April 2016

“In Just-/ spring” the world is “mud-luscious,” “puddle-wonderful” and all that sloppiness:  cummings’ poem always brings a little bit of a wry smile—mostly because of its subtle wickedness:  the goat-footed world of experience ushering the boys and girls from silly innocent games to realize (each other) and the muddy reality of, as another modernist put it, “birth, and copulation, and death” (with a big emphasis on death).    

Cheery?  That one, not so much.  And of course, since I invoked him, “April is the cruellest month” is another zinger of a poem that merges modern societal decay after a horrific war with religious allusions with vegetation ceremonies with the awful reminder that nature gives:  see these green shoots?  These new blossoms?  They’ll keep popping up every year when the air gets warm and the ground softens, from now until (let’s hope) eternity:  you, creature of seven or eight decades (if one is lucky), you got one slow slide toward decay.

Alright, I’m failing miserably—the generous editors of Moss asked me to write a springy column to announce the season, something that might alleviate the dour winter months and post-election gloom, something with Whitmanic exuberance, a celebration of the warm days to come and the chance that, at least for the month of April readers will be reveling in the blossomy embrace of poetry.

One more try:  

The daffodils are up

by the porch.

    One,

two,

      three.

I could be next.

By Robert Sund

Yes, that’s better—with an appropriate Pacific Northwest bent.  Sund’s poem is a testimony to the endurance of beauty and the possibility of blossom each of us carries to every moment.  

And new books of poems have popped up crocus-like, daffodil-like, iris-like, dandelion-like in the Pacific Northwest literary garden.  We have amazing collections from Nance Van Winckel, Chris Howell, Leija Farr, and Kevin Craft.  Bill Carty, Quentin Baker, Ben Cartwright, Ellen Welcker, Jane Wong, and Megan Snyder-Camp. I’ve read several of these collections, and I’m stunned at how much poetry-energy there is in our state, as well as how many great small presses continue to publish high-quality work.

Speaking of which, the WA 129 book project that I’ve been working on has come to, well (one last usage), blossom, to bloom, to a state of efflorescence.  Okay, done with that metaphor—the book’s been published.  I’m pleased with the selection of poems (so hard to choose!), and I’m excited to shepherd it forth—ahh, new metaphor, poems as livestock?–into the world and get to work on the digital portion of the project—look for more details on all of that soon.    

If one wants to hang with writerly types and learn about the art of poetry (and fiction and nonfiction), there are several conferences and gatherings this spring to consider:  Vashon Island, Write on the River, and The Chucanut Writers Conference, to name only a few.  And don’t forget Mighty Tieton in early fall!

My calendar is as busy like the bees, or, if you live on the east side of the state, sun-zapped Boxelder Bugs, steady as the slugs in Seattle on dewy mornings, frenzied like the chunky robins snagging unlucky worms after rain.  I’ll visit Vancouver and Port Angeles and Bellingham, Wenatchee, Vashon Island, and Goldendale.  I’ll talk to elementary students, at colleges, in bookstores; I’ll continue to write editorials for newspapers about the importance of funding the arts, the humanities, the ways that humans explore mystery, and, hopefully, connect with one another during this discordant cultural moment.  

There’s so much turmoil in our world (Tomahawks from Trump, budgetary cuts aimed at the most vulnerable, nuclear conflict—nuclear!  People are talking about nuclear weapons being used!  What is going on with the world.  And on and on).  Maybe there is a small—teeny?—amount of solace in this:  as is often the case when jeopardy and injustice seem the refrains of the day, people have turned to things near at hand, that which they can impact in a tangible way:  activism, service, the arts.  That’s a beautiful blossoming (darn, used it again), and, if there is still much trepidation for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, maybe poetry—words that matter to us—can help us find ways to speak toward those fears, of those fears, and, more importantly, allow us to share words with one another.  

Moss is an online journal of the Northwest dedicated to supporting the established, emerging, and experimental voices of the region. Find Moss at mosslit.com or on Twitter and Facebook.

Tod Marshall is the Washington State Poet Laureate for 2016-2018. Find Tod on Twitter and Facebook. The Washington State Poet Laureate program is made possible by ArtsWA and Humanities Washington.