#just a thought while I’m trying to do worky work

[harmonictechnicality]

there’s this wild misconception that if you’re into choral music, that it’s all religious stuff.

but let me tell you something. Carmina Burana is like two hours of angsty smut. Like it sounds like the perspective of an emo teenager that just had sex for the first time.

Choral music is so unhinged I fucking love it.

[yateez]

5 Steps to Get Her Back: 1. Where Things Went Wrong

Pairing: Jongho x reader

Genre: Angst

Word count: 1.4k

Warnings: Just break up

Taglist: @sunwooyoung​, @yunsangoveryonder​ (Let me know if you want to be added :])

a/n: This is just going to be a small series with only 5 parts just to get my writing going~ 

Jongho’s eyes watch as I walk through the cafeteria to go sit next to my friend. He did not really understand his behavior towards me. He’s the one that broke up. So why did it feel like he was the one missing you and not the other way around. He purses his lips as he recalls the night when it all happened.

My legs were thrown over his. A smile plastered to my face as I watched the show we had been following together. His uninterested eyes look at me for a second before they go back to his phone. Which is when he sees a notification, indicating that he had just gotten a message from this rather cute girl in one of his class. He directly smiles at his phone naturally as he answers her.

“Jongho pay attention, the next scene is funny~” I giggle my eyes focused on the TV.

“You already watched it?” He says in a weirdly bitter tone.

“Mhh?” I raise my eyes towards him. “I mean, no but I saw some spoilers on insta.”

“Then don’t spoil me.” He rolls his eyes.

I look at him for a second not really understanding where this weird attitude was coming from. Making me miss the scene that had made me laugh earlier today when I was scrolling through instagram. Jongho has been like that lately. Acting cold towards me, uninterested and rejecting me. My eyebrows knit together as this feeling of insecurity comes back to me. I slowly bring my legs back to me, getting away from my boyfriend who’s eyes are back on his phone. Now, my insecurity and sadness is replaced with anger.

“It doesn’t really matter anyway, you’re not even watching..” I mumble sounding clearly annoyed.

“I am watching.” His eyes still on his phone.

“Whatever.”

“Why are you being like that?” He finally looks up after sending a final text.

“Why am I being like that?” I emphases on the “I”, because it felt like I was missing something. “I’m trying to spend some time with you because I missed you after working like crazy for finals and you’re on your phone speaking to me like I’m an actual bother to you. I’m not being anything, you’re the one acting weird.”

“Well, I’m sorry.” It’s so sarcastic it’s breaks my heart. “I am extremely tired because of finals too. You wanted to spend time with me but you didn’t really ask me what I wanted to do.” My heart breaks one more time. That’s what sucks about the heart. It doesn’t actually physically break, so this heart breaking feeling can be endured more than once in such short period of times.

“You didn’t want to spend time with me?” I ask in a smaller voice.

“I’m just tired Y/N.” He sighs.

“Well I’m sorry I’m bothering you..” It was my own living room and I felt so uncomfortable. I wanted to disappear into a hole at his words. “I hadn’t seen you in a while I just thought—“

“Next time, instead of thinking, you could just ask me.” He stops me in my words making me raise my eyebrows. Since when did Jongho become such an rude asshole. His droopy eyes barely acknowledging me.

“Jongho..” A small silence installs itself between us when his phone pings again.

I look at him answer as fast as he could, and even could see the smallest smile drawn on his lips. The top of the conversation labeled with the name “Yebin”. Nothing in him was trying to hide how happy he was to answer that girl’s message. I swallow thickly as I feel myself wanting to cry. I could feel it. That feeling when your person is slipping through your fingers and it’s too late for you to get them back. Jongho has been slipping through my fingers and little by little, there was nothing I could do anymore to keep him.

“Jongho.” I finally speak up again after the silence starts to kill me. He looks up at me and raises an eyebrow at my eyes that were starting to twinkle due to the tears that threatened to come out. “Is this working out?” My hear breaks once again tonight as those words come out of my mouth. I knew that if I said those words, it would definitely trigger something that would break us for good.

“I don’t know Y/N..” He says as he tries to avoid my eyes.

“You should know though..” My voice is extremely quiet.

“I don’t think it is.” He simply says.

After that, I just quietly asked him to leave. No other words came out of his mouth as he stepped out of my apartment. Yet, today when he sees me just laughing with my friends as if the break up had not happened two weeks ago, he wishes he could see me smile at him like that.

“Dude, stop staring..” Wooyoung sighs at his roommates desperate look. “You broke up, you fucked up. Either own it or go back and ask her. But staring at her every time you see her out and about is just creepy.” Jongho purses his lips together as he looks down at his food.

“Go back?”

“There’s nothing more attractive than a man that recognizes his mistakes. Just be 100% honest with her and ask her for a second chance.” San shrugs as if this was not easier said than done.

“She knows I was talking to someone else though.. It’s basically like cheating..”

“Mhh, not really. I mean.. it’s definitely breaking her trust.. I don’t know it depends on what she thinks cheating is. Were you flirting with that girl while you were still with her?” Wooyoung asks as he shoves more food into his mouth.

“I mean, we texted a decent amount. I don’t know about flirting…”

“But you guys had sex after you broke up with Y/N? Right?”

“Yeah..”

“So I mean.. You guys had to be flirting a bit prior to that for it to happen.” He concludes making Jongho sigh heavily. “Why did you do that in the first place if it’s making you that fucking miserable now?”

“I guess I didn’t realize how happy she made me? I don’t know.. I started talking to this girl and she felt new from Y/N. So I thought maybe Y/N.. like things had gone out with her, but.. I was just being selfish.. Ugh this is so fucking dumb!” He throws his head back as he let’s himself slide down in his chair.

“You don’t even have a valid excuse wow.” San says sounding disappointed.

“No I don’t.. I have no excuse to tell her. Even if I did ask her to take me back, she looks like she moved on so fast. Why did she move on so fast?” He says his heart pinching at my very unbothered behavior.

“That’s because you’ve been treating her like shit the last month of your relationship. That’s when she actually had a hard time. The break up was official two weeks ago but really the relationship died earlier. So of course she’s better now.” Wooyoung says bluntly, and he was not wrong.

“Thanks..”

“Y/N’s my friend too! I saw the whole thing, you’re the one that fucked up.”

“I know!” He almost screams at Wooyoung making me turn my head at the familiar face. San smiles at me and waves cutely. Wooyoung gives me a huge smile and I completely avoid the eyes of the third person. His heart breaks at my eyes completely skipping him, ignore him, as if he was not even there.

“She really just—“

“I know..” He hiss between his teeth at the teasing boy.

“I’ve been saying shit.” He sighs feeling a bit guilty about bringing down the younger boy. “But Jongho, you’re not a bad person. Like I said, you fucked up, but it took you a really small amount of time to realize that. Just.. talk to her. If you love her that much. The worst she can do is reject you, but it doesn’t hurt to try. Y/N is the type of person to hear you out. She’s not heartless.” Wooyoung says simply as he pats Jongho’s back.

“You’re right.. I’ll try to talk to her..”

[taetaespeaches]

hello! i absolutely love your writings so much. they’re all so s o f t and make my heart warm. can i request a seokjin x reader or yoongi x reader with “you’re an idiot, but you’re my idiot” ?

“You’re an idiot, but you’re my idiot”

Yoongi x Reader (or oc)

Word count: 2.7K

a/n: Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you’re all having a good holiday. Thank you to the anon who requested this. I hope you like it! I struggled with this one so hopefully it turned out ok.

As you entered your apartment, the dial tone resoundedthrough your ear drum as you anxiously waited to hear your boyfriend’s voicethrough the device.

Kicking your shoes off, your work bag still weighed heavy onyour shoulder. “Hey, Angel, what’s up?” The timber of Yoongi’s voice instantly madeyour body relax a little, the aching in your muscles soothing just the slightest.

“Hi, Baby,” your lips twitched into a small smile. “I’m justgetting home.” You made your way into the kitchen, plopping your work bag ontothe counter before stretching your arms up and rolling your neck from shoulderto shoulder.

“You’re just gettinghome?” What time is it?” You heardhim ask whoever he was with, more than likely Namjoon. “Baby, it’s 8:30.”

“Yeah, my fucking boss kept me late. Have I told you how muchI despise that man?” You seethed through the phone.

Yoongi chuckled. “Not today.” You could hear his smile andit melted away some of your frustration. “Turnup the bass a little on that part.”

“Well, there’s your daily reminder.” You looked around yourkitchen, noticing the previously empty fruit bowl was now full, telling youYoongi did indeed get the groceries like he told you he would.

“Yeah, that sounds good,right?” He spoke to Namjoon. “You know, all you have to do is just give methe go ahead and I’ll go in there and talk to him. Tell him how he should betreating my girl,” he joked.

“Oh, god,” you laughed, making him chuckle a bit. Grabbingan apple, you bit a big chunk out of it.

“Really, though, I’m sorry, Kid.” His sincerity made youremotions bubble up a bit. You heard him taking in a breath through his teeth signalinghis dislike of the sound him and Namjoon were working on. “That still doesn’t sound right.” You could practically see the smalldisapproving head shake that more than likely accompanied his statement.

“It’s ok,” you said through a shaky voice before clearingyour throat. “Thank you for getting the groceries, by the way.”

“Mhmm,” Yoongi hummed.

Pausing for a moment, you took a deep breath. “So, you’restill in the studio?” Your boyfriend grunted in confirmation as you heardNamjoon’s voice in the background of your call, making suggestions for the song.

“You’re not coming over tonight?” You asked, though you alreadyknew the answer. If he did make it to your place, it would be so late he’d justcrawl into bed with you and you’d be lucky if he was still there in the morningwhen you awoke.

“Huh?” Focused on his work, it took him a moment to registerwhat you asked. “Oh shit, I meant totext you. Me and Namjoon have been working on this track for hours and it’s stillnot sounding right.” Guilt seeped into his tone as he explained the situation toyou.

“Oh,” you tried to keep your voice as stable as possible. “Iget it, that’s ok.”

“I’m so sorry, Angel. I just don’t want to leave it yet.”You really did understand, but that didn’t mean that you weren’t a little letdown.

“It’s ok, Yoongi,” you assured, trying to keep your voicesteady and unaffected. Making your way to the refrigerator, you pulled it openand scanned the interior. You bit into the apple and held it to your mouth withyour teeth as you held the phone in between your ear and shoulder.

“Y/n, please don’t be mad at me,” he pleaded.

Pulling eggs and butter out of the fridge, you set them onthe counter before biting a big chunk out of the apple. “I’m not mad.” Youmumbled through your mouthful of apple, as you set the half-eaten fruit ontothe counter and made your way to the cupboard to find sugar and flour.

“You sound mad,” your boyfriend insisted.

“I’m telling you, I’m not mad at you,” you told him truthfully,grabbing the sugar and setting it on the counter.

“Ok, you’re not mad at me, but you’re upset about something.” Though you couldn’t see him,you knew he was now sitting back in his chair, no longer focused on the song.

“I’m just stressed and frustrated with work. That’s all.”Your hands were pushing around food items as you continued your search for theflour. “Really, Yoon, I understand you need to stay and finish the track. Your workis important, so just stay and finish up. You can come by when you’re done ifyou want.” Huffing, you cocked your head at the flour-less cupboard. “Just makesure you eat something,” you added. “And, stay hydrated. Water helps you focus.”

Concern was laced throughout Yoongi’s voice when heresponded, but you were too confused about your flour situation, you were hardlylistening. “Baby, my job is important but so are y—”

“Where’s the flour?” You interrupted his concern.

“The what?” Now, he was confused.

“The flour,” you deadpanned. “I told you to add it to theshopping list.”

“Flour?”

“Yes, flour. Yoongi, I need flour to bake cookies for mywork’s Christmas cookie carry-in tomorrow.” Your voice made it sound like thiswas obvious, though you quickly realized your boyfriend had no clue what youwere talking about. “I’m completely out. I have no flour in my apartment.”

“This is the first I’m hearing of this, y/n,” Yoongiinsisted, defending himself from the blame of your household being a flourlessone.

“No, it isn’t, I told you about it yesterday, Yoongi. Duringthe same conversation you said you could go to the store. Were you evenlistening?” The question came out more like an accusation.

“Yes, I was listening,” annoyance laced his tone. “Obviously I was listening, I went to thestore, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, and you didn’t get the flour.” Your reply was shortand blunt.

Aggravation building up, Yoongi let out a scoff. “I don’tremember you saying anything about cookies, y/n. Otherwise I would have gottenthe flour.”

“Yeah, so obviouslyyou weren’t listening. Otherwise, I’dhave the fucking flour in my hands right now,” you snapped back.

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t buy the fucking flour, but don’t make this bigger than it is. Are youtrying to pick a fight right now? Is that what you want?”

“No, that’s not what I want,” you said loudly, exasperated. Tensesilence pounded through the receiver, both of you waiting for the other tospeak. Sighing, you caved, breaking the quietness. “Never mind, I’m sorry. It’snot a big deal, I’ll just go get some after I get a little bit of work done.”You walked over to your workbag, pulling out a folder of paperwork that had yetto be done and had the, according to your boss, “completely attainable deadline”of two days from now.  

“Work? You’re still working?” Yoongi’s voice still showedsigns of annoyance, but the previous concern was back.

“Mhmm,” you mumbled, already turning your attention to the stackof papers. “I mean it, I’m sorry for making a big deal of nothing. Focus onyour work. Tell Namjoon I’m sorry for interrupting.” You were preparing to cutthe call off, but Yoongi wasn’t ready.

“You didn’t interrupt anything, you—” he started.

“I love you, good luck with the song.“

“Y/n,” he pleaded with you to not shut him out.

“Yoongi, everything’s fine.We’re good, ok?” He paused, letting out a sigh. “Bangtan, fighting,” you chirpedout, trying to sound cheerful, but probably failing miserably.

Knowing he would get nowhere with you over the phone, hegave up. “I love you,” he told you sadly.

“Me too,” you said softy before ending the call. You poutedas you gazed at your work. Scooping it up in one arm and grabbing the applewith the opposite hand, you made your way to the kitchen table.

It took a moment for you to focus on the work in front ofyou, your mind on Yoongi and how badly you wanted him to be with you.Eventually, however, you pushed your thoughts of your boyfriend to the back ofyour mind, settling into the paperwork.

Little did you know, as soon as you ended the call, Yoongiwas sighing with his head in his hands, rubbing his palms over his face. Namjoonquietly watched his member before putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Everything ok?” Namjoon asked his friend, prompting a groanfrom Yoongi.

“No,” he said with a humorless laugh. “I’m pretty sure she believesthat I think my work is more important than her.”

Namjoon shook his head. “She knows you don’t think that,” hesaid with a laugh. “Everyone knows youlove that girl more than anything. Y/n knows that too. She’s just understandingof the pressure we’re all under.” Namjoon nodded at his own words. “Which is agood thing, by the way.”  

With a sigh, Yoongi nodded. “Can we finish this up in themorning?” He asked as he leaned forward, rubbing his palms against the tops ofhis thighs as he prepared to stand up.

Namjoon nodded as Yoongi stood, Namjoon following suit. “Yeah,we could both use some sleep anyway.” Both the men grabbed their jackets beforepulling them on and exiting the studio.

… … .

Your eyelids started fluttering shut as you tried to keepfocus on your work. Stretching your arms above your head, you yawned andgroaned loudly. Reaching for your phone, you tapped on the screen to displayyour lock screen—a cute picture of Yoongi flashing his gummy smile, you nuzzledinto his neck. You remembered the moment fondly, the both of you cuddled up onyour couch, some movie neither of you were paying attention to playing in thebackground. He wanted to take a picture of you both, but instead of cooperatingyou had started planting soft kisses to his neck, making him squeal cutely andburst into fits of giggles while playfully whining for you to stop.

You smiled at the sweet memory before reading the time displayedon the screen. 9:20 pm. Shit, youthought, realizing you hadn’t even been working for an hour and you werealready falling asleep. “Fuck,” you said to yourself, remembering you had to goget flour and bake cookies still.

Standing, you walked towards the front door, pulling on somesneakers that didn’t go with your work clothes at all. Fuck it. Slipping into your coat, you reached for your keys as yougrabbed the door knob when suddenly, the door shoved opened, slamming into yourknee.

“What the hell—” Yoongi peered from behind the door to seeyour hunched over form. “Shit, y/n,are you ok?” A grocery bag dropped to the floor next to your feet just beforetwo hands tentatively found your sides. Your boyfriend crouched down to look upat your face, his concerned features entering your plane of vision. His eyesscanned your face and then your body. “Where did I hurt you?” Noticing your handsholding your knee, he reached for your hands. “Your knee?”

Not waiting for your answer, he placed himself under yourshoulder as helped you sit on the bench that sat next to the door. Kneeling infront of you, he gently pressed kisses to your knee cap, whispering “I’m sorry”repeatedly between pecks.

“Yoongi, it’s fine, it doesn’t even hurt anymore,” youinsisted to no avail as he persisted in his apologies. “Yoon,” you placed yourhands on his head, threading your fingers through his hair, gently shoving hishead up from your knee. “I’m ok,” you told him, looking into his apologeticeyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, pouting at you.

Shaking your head at him, you smiled softly. “What are you doinghome already, Baby?” Sighing, he placed his hands on your thigh, resting hischin on the knee, opposite to the “injured” one.

“I went to the store,” he said through his pout. You cockedyour head at him, scrunching your eyebrows at him. “I went to get flour.”

“Yoongi, you didn’t have to that,” you told him, shaking yourhead.

“Yes, I did. I’m an idiot.” You smiled at his cute pouty lips.

Shaking your head, you leaned forward. “You’re not an idiot.Now, come here,” you told him, reaching out to hold his cheeks in your hands.He sat up on his knees so he could reach your lips with his. After a shortkiss, you pulled away, whispering, “I love you,” against his mouth.

“I love you too, Kid,” he smirked before his lips pulled upinto a wider smile, flashing you his gums as he stood up. “Are you sure you’reok?”

Nodding, you stood up as well. “What about the song?” Youasked as you pushed his coat off his shoulders and hung it up.

As you took your own jacket off, he bent down to grab thegrocery bag off the floor. “The song will still be there in the morning.” Raisingyour eyebrows in question, you stared at him. Grabbing your hand in his, hepulled it up to his lips, kissing it gently. “You do know my work isn’t more importantthan you, right?” His eyes showed genuine curiosity and worry.

“I know you don’tthink it’s more important, but I also know you have a lot of fans out there—”

“And as much as I love my fans, and I love music, and I lovemy job, I love you too. You are a priority to me. I want to be here with youright now, ok?” You nodded, flashing a small smile. You shoved at his side toget him to move, nudging him as he led you into the kitchen, still holding yourhand.

“So, I didn’t get you flour,” he told you as he dropped thebag on the counter and reluctantly let go of your hand to reach into the bag,pulling out a plastic container. “Your asshole boss doesn’t deserve your cookies,with all the work he’s been throwing at you.”

You moved to stand next to him, picking up the container,inspecting it as you moved it around in your hands. “You got me pre-packagedcookies?” Laughing, you looked at him incredulously.

“It’s still more than he deserves,” he said with a huff, poutinghis lips again as he reached into the bag again. “I also got you these,” hepushed a bouquet of tulips into your chest. “You like tulips, right? I’m notjust making shit up, am I?” He asked you, suddenly nervous.

“I love tulips,” you assured him as you took the bouquet fromhim, admiring the pretty colors of petals. “So, you didn’t get me flour, but you got me flowers?” The big grin you flashed himmade him smile shyly as he nodded. “Ok, I take it back.” his smile turned intoa frown as he looked at you confusedly. “You’re an idiot, but you’re my idiot,” you smiled, leaning into himto press a kiss to his chin.

A shy smile reappeared on Yoongi’s face as she shook hishead at you. “Thank you for those,” you gestured to the cookies with a nod ofyour head. “And these?” You held the flowers up. Yoongi took the flowers fromyou, gently laying them onto the counter before grabbing your shoulder andpulling you into him to wrap you up into a tight hug, his arms around your shoulders.“And this,” you said as you wrapped your arms around his waist and squeezed himcloser to you.

“Thank you,” hecountered. You hummed into his chest in response, questioning what he meant. “Forbeing so understanding. You have no idea how much it means to have yoursupport.” He planted a kiss to the top of your head.

You mumbled a, “love you,” into his chest as you kissed himthrough his shirt. Replying with a “love you too,” he wrapped his arms aroundyou a little tighter.

[trillhouse-lh]

Writer’s Block (Sin Adults)

> “Daaad… hey, Earth to dad.” > “Mmm,” Bobby grunted, not really paying attention as he typed away at his keyboard. At the doorway stood his daughter, wearing her usual overcoat and an irritated scowl on her face. > “Mmm?! That’s all you have to say?!” Robbie snapped. “Where the hell WERE you?!” She crossed her arms and tapped her foot as she waited for an answer… only to receive none. In fact, the man didn’t even seem to notice that she was talking to him. With a growl of frustration, she stormed across the study to her father’s chair. “HEY! Are you LISTENING?!” > “Not right now, sweetheart,” Bobby mumbled as he typed, not even glancing up from his screen for a moment. “Daddy’s worki-” Before he could finish, Robbie grabbed the back of his chair and spun him around to face her. “Hey!” > “Don’t you ‘hey’ me!” The girl barked. “You were supposed to pick me UP, you jerk!” > “Roberta Elizabeth Loud! Do NOT call your father a… wait, what time is it…?” Bobby glanced at the clock, his brow furrowing as he saw it was only 2:17 PM. “It’s… Roberta, what on Earth are you doing home this early?” > “It’s a HALF DAY, dad… we got out at NOON! I’ve been telling you all week!” Robbie shouted. “Do you have any idea how long I was waiting for you?!” As his daughter’s words sank in, Bobby’s look of confusion shifted to one of remorse. > “Oh… oh, geeze…” Bobby groaned and buried his face in his palm. He’d gotten so wrapped up in his writing that he’d completely forgotten he had to pick Robbie up from school, let alone pick her up early. “I’m sorry, sweetheart… I wasn’t-” > “You weren’t paying attention. Right,” Robbie huffed, looking away from him with a scowl. “What else is new…”

> “Robbie, I…” Bobby began, only to hang his head and sigh. “Why didn’t you call…?” > “I DID,” The girl shot back. “You didn’t answer.” Bobby cocked an eyebrow. > “You… hang on,” He said as he snatched his phone off his desk. “I never got any-” As he checked his phone, the man’s heart sank; there were fifteen missed calls. FIFTEEN, twelve of which were from his awaiting daughter… not to mention a slew of unnoticed text messages. “...Oh, shit…” He muttered. “I had it on silent...” > “OH! You had it on silent! Great!” Robbie said with a sarcastic roll of her eyes. “Never mind that I had to walk my ass all the way over here, it was just a mistake. And here I thought you were just ignoring me! Well, glad we cleared that up!” > “You WALKED? Honey, why didn’t you call Lemy?” > “Because he’s busy with job interviews all day. You know, like you TOLD him to do?!” She spat, making her father wince. “And before you ask, mom and aunt Lupa were at work.” > “I know, I know… ugh.” Bobby lifted his reading glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Robbie was right to be mad at him… he’d messed up, bad. With another sigh, he lowered his glasses and looked at his daughter apologetically. “Robbie, I’m really sorry. I was writing, and I-” > “You think that’s an excuse?!” > “No… no, of course not,” Bobby assured her. “This is my fault, simple as that. I swear, I’ll-” > “‘I’ll make it up to you’. I know,” Robbie grunted. She knew her father was being sincere, and she knew he hadn’t MEANT to brush her aside like that… he never did. > But it still stung. > “Whatever… I need some water,” Robbie said with a scoff, turning and skulking out of the room with her hands jammed into her jacket pockets. “Had a long walk, y’know?” Bobby sadly watched her go, then slumped back in his chair with a groan.

> “Nice, Bobby… nice,” The man grumbled under his breath, lightly beating his fist against the side of his head. He took a few moments to wallow in his own guilt before taking a deep breath through his nose and exhaling. He’d have to figure out a way to make things up to Robbie, but that could come later… for now, there was another matter to attend to. > Bobby frowned as he looked down at his phone. While the brunt of the missed calls had been from his daughter, there were also several from an ‘Alan’. Alan Douglas, specifically... Bobby’s literary agent, and the reason WHY he had put his phone on silent in the first place. > Alongside his many other projects, for nearly six years ‘R.J. Loud’ had been plugging away at one novel in particular: Memoirs of a Technician. Title pending. Something of a high-concept tale, told from the perspective of a lowly technician aboard an intergalactic freighter. It was one of his earliest ideas, and one he’d kept close to his heart for years… possibly even his magnum opus. Just a few weeks prior, he’d submitted his proposal to Alan. And now? Now, he was dodging the man’s calls as he continued writing his third draft. > Bobby chewed his lip, his thumb hovering anxiously over his agent’s name. Despite his best attempts to remain optimistic, he’d been through this song-and-dance far too many times before… he’d show them his finest work, work he had poured his very soul into, and time and time again it would be cast aside as though it were nothing more than rubbish. This time, he tried to tell himself, would be different. This time, his hard work would pay off. This time, people would finally be able to read the story he’d always wanted to tell. > So why was he hesitating?

> ‘Alright, Bobby… alright,’ He thought, taking a moment to collect himself. ‘Just get it over with. Whatever happens, it’s fine.’ Bobby took a deep breath and, finally, pressed down on Alan’s name to return his call. His leg bounced anxiously as he waited for the man to pick up. > [Alan Douglas speaking,] A clean and business-like voice spoke through the earpiece. > “...Hey, Alan.” Bobby said, trying his best to mask the lack of enthusiasm in his voice. “It’s me.” > [Oh, Robert! I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.] > “Yeah… I noticed. Sorry about that.” Bobby spun back around to face his computer and tried to get back to work, as though it would distract him from the bad news he no doubt was about to receive. “Well, let’s hear it.” > [You don’t sound particularly optimistic,] Alan said. His client merely gave a short, humorless laugh. > “Should I be?” He asked; Alan made a vague, indecisive noise that spoke volumes, and Bobby let out a sigh. “What’d they say?” > [Nothing, actually…] The agent said. Bobby stopped typing mid-sentence, his brow furrowing in confusion. > “Nothing…?” > [Well, no…] The man paused to clear his throat. [...That is to say, I haven’t actually spoken to a publisher yet. In fact, I only just finished looking it over today. Busy schedule, you know how it is.] > “Oh… I see.” Bobby muttered. This was somewhat unusual… usually if Alan had any feedback or suggestions he’d reach out through email. “Well, what did you think?” For a few moments Alan said nothing, seemingly mulling over his words. > [Right, well. It’s… different, to say the least,] Alan said in an unusual tone, as though forcing himself to sound supportive. [Not quite what one would expect from the genre.] Bobby slumped back in his chair and rubbed his temples, already beginning to feel a pit forming in his stomach.

> “...Is that a BAD thing, Alan?” > [No, not inherently…] The agent replied. [I just think it needs to be… REFINED a bit more before we can-] > “Look. Alan. Let’s not beat around the bush, alright?” Bobby cut in, his voice quiet and sullen. “Just give it to me straight. What did you think.” There was a heavy silence, broken only by Alan’s faint breathing; after what felt like an eternity, the man gave a deep sigh. > [Alright. To be frank, I have no idea how you expect me to sell this,] Alan said plainly. [Don’t get me wrong, it’s well-written, but-] > “But WHAT, Alan.” Bobby snarled. > [...BUT, if I’m being completely honest, it’s just… I honestly have no idea what you’re going for, here.] Alan said. [I mean, who’s this meant to appeal to, exactly?] > “It’s cerebral science fiction, Alan.” Bobby grunted, his fingers rapidly tapping against the armrest as he fought to keep himself calm. “It’s a niche genre.” > [You think I don’t know that?] Alan retorted. [There’s cerebral, and then there’s… whatever the hell THIS is. For God’s sake, you sent me over a hundred pages of a mechanic talking to himself about repairs and space economics.] > “It’s called WORLDBUILDING.” > [Rob, there’s over fifteen pages dedicated to explaining some kind of… cyber capacitor thing.] > “Cyclonic reduction capacitor,” Bobby corrected him. “It’s a crucial component of the ship’s… look, you’re only going off of three sample chapters here. In the full story-” > [Does anything change?] The man interjected. [Do things pick up? Is there any sort of call to action for our protagonist? Does anything HAPPEN in this story, Robert?] Bobby tried to answer, but all that came out was a faint croak. Suddenly, his mouth felt very dry.

> “That’s…” He began, pausing to wet his lips. “...I-it’s a character study…” He heard another deep sigh through the earpiece. > [Right… case in point.] Alan’s said. Bobby couldn’t help but find his tone similar to that of a disappointed parent. [Rob, listen. I like you. I wouldn’t keep doing this if I didn’t. But NO publisher would want to touch something like this. Hell, based on what you sent me, I doubt anyone could even get THROUGH it. There’s no hook, no sense of pacing, no structure… there’s a fine line between ‘methodical’ and ‘boring’, and you’ve crossed it in the first five pages.] Bobby grit his teeth and dug his fingers into the armrest. As much as he’d tried to prepare himself for disappointment, he hadn’t been ready to have his work critiqued so harshly. That his agent’s tone was calm and matter-of-fact, free from hostility or condescension, somehow only served to anger him further. > “...I’ve spent six years on this, Alan. Six years,” Bobby hissed. “And you’re telling me it’s BORING?” > [I’m telling you the TRUTH, Rob. You’re writing for an audience that simply doesn’t exist,] His agent replied. [I’ve told you time and time again, this isn’t what readers want. There needs to be excitement, something to capture the reader’s imagination, especially in THIS genre. You’ve done it before, Rob… you can do it again. Why not continue Sons of Dawn?] > ‘Sons of Dawn’. Bobby clicked his tongue in irritation at the mere mention of it. It had been his second novel after Voice of the Cosmos, as well as his second--and last--to be published. While the first had received a somewhat mixed reception, Sons of Dawn had proven to be a moderate success, and to this day he STILL got fan mail asking him to continue the story.

> But they had been nothing more than generic space adventure shlock to him, the sort of thing one might find in an airport convenience store. He’d slapped both together in the span of a single year for no other reason than to get his foot in the door, and while he’d initially been pleased with the unexpected success, he’d long since grown to resent his early work. Was it marketable? Yes. Was it what he wanted to write? > “...No.” > [Rob-] > “I’m not going to sit here and let YOU tell me what I should write. I’ll fucking publish it MYSELF if I have to.” > [Robert, please, be reas-] > “I think we’re done here, Alan.” Bobby said before the man could get a word in edgewise. “Goodbye.” Without another word, he ended the call. His nostrils flared with sharp, quick breaths, and it took everything he had in him not to hurl his phone across the room in anger. With a growl of frustration he haphazardly tossed the device onto the desk before leaning forward and burying his head in his hands. Rejection was one thing… he was more than used to it by now. But to have the very nature of his work torn apart so thoroughly hit far harder than he had expected and, quite frankly, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt so sick to his stomach. > “Sheesh, sounds like THAT didn’t go well.” The silence was broken by none other than Robbie, standing in the doorway with a curious expression on her face. “Turned down again, huh?” > “...How long have you been there, Robbie?” Her father asked, not so much as glancing up from the desk as he spoke. She simply shrugged and sauntered in.

> “Long enough. Been a long time since I’ve seen ya so pissed off,” The girl said calmly. She walked over to the desk, flicking a magnetically-floating model of the Enterprise and watching as it spun around in the air. “So what’d they say this time? Too emotional? Too complicated? ‘Too optimistic for the current political climate’ or whatever? That one’s always been my favorite.” Bobby sighed, removing his reading glasses and setting them aside. > “Sweetheart, please, not now.” He grumbled as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m not in the mood to-” He was cut short as Robbie leaned over his shoulder, her cheek pressing against his as she looked at his computer screen. > “‘Gerald frowned as he withdrew the... tri-conductive relay processor… from the smoking chassis of the… quasi-biotic dexometrical… hex… nani the fuck am I READING, here….?” > “Roberta, LANGUAGE,” Bobby snapped, gently pushing the girl away and minimizing the document. “Don’t you have homework to do, or something?” > “Nah, not on a half day.” Robbie replied with a shrug. “But hey, looks like you’ve got time for a break now, right? C’mon, let’s do somethin’.” > “I told you-” > “C’moooon. I’m bored.” The girl grabbed onto her father’s arm, tugging on it to try and coax him out of his seat. But the man wouldn’t budge, jerking his arm from her grasp with a huff. > “Robbie. PLEASE.” He repeated. “Not now. Go play a game or something, alright? I’m sure Lemy will be back soon-” > “I don’t WANT uncle Lemy right now,” Robbie shot back, shooting her father an annoyed scowl. “We never get to hang out any more. You’re not busy, so-” > “I. AM. Busy.” Bobby growled. His daughter fell silent, seemingly taken aback by his demeanor; He knew he was being cold towards the girl, but right now he was too worked up to deal with her. “Now, please. Go.”

> “Yare yare... you really are in a mood, aren’t you?” Robbie grumbled, her father letting out an audible sigh as she flopped into a nearby chair. “Y’know, aunt Lupa’s right… you ARE too uptight.” > “Right, because she’s SO well-adjusted…” Bobby muttered bitterly. > “Hey, at least she has a real job.” > “Writing IS a real job!” Her father snarled. Robbie scoffed and shot him a cocky smirk. > “Then how come mom’s the one paying the bills?” She joked; unfortunately, her father looked less than amused. His hand curled into a tight, trembling fist, and he had to shut his eyes and take a deep breath to calm himself. > “...BECAUSE, Robbie,” The man hissed through clenched teeth. “This whole damn industry’s run by IDIOTS that wouldn’t know a good story if it kicked them in the teeth. Now are you going to leave me alone, or-” > “Sounds to me like you’re just not a very good wri-” > “That is ENOUGH!” Bobby roared, slamming his fist against the desk as he stood from his chair. The rage in his voice was enough to silence Robbie in an instant, and the amused smirk faded from her face as he wheeled on her with fire in his eyes. “I’m not about to let a CHILD talk about me OR my work like that, ESPECIALLY not my own fucking daughter!” > “G-geeze dad, chill!” Robbie stammered as she too stood from her seat. “I was just jok-” > “I am not a fucking JOKE, Roberta, and neither is my WORK! Now I’m not going to say it again: GET. OUT! Do you UNDERSTAND me, Roberta?!” For several moments neither spoke, nor moved… Bobby stood with his arm outstretched, pointing towards the door as his chest heaved with heavy breaths.

> Robbie chewed her lower lip and averted her eyes, her face scrunching up as though she were fighting off tears, but Bobby didn’t falter; then just as he was about to shout at her again, she let out a growl of frustration and snatched the lamp from her father’s desk. She threw it with all her strength and it struck the wall with the loud CRASH of shattering glass. > “ROBERTA ELIZABETH LOUD!” > “Yeah! I know! I’m fucking grounded, what else is new?!” The girl spat, turning on her heel and storming out of the room. She paused a moment in the doorway to shoot one last glare over her shoulder. “...Asshole…” She muttered under her breath before skulking away to her room, being sure to slam the door so hard that a nearby picture crashed to the floor as well. > For some time Bobby stood there, his gaze fixed towards the door, before looking down at the broken lamp lying on the floor. Finally he groaned and slumped back into his chair. > “Fuck’s sake, Bobby…” He muttered to himself; Bobby ran his hand through his hair, sitting in silence as he let his heart rate return to normal. It wasn’t like him to get so worked up, let alone to the point of screaming at his daughter, no matter how out-of-line her comments may have been. He knew she hadn’t meant it, of course… she’d simply pushed the wrong buttons at the wrong time, and instead of handling it with maturity he’d exploded at her. Perhaps he was simply taking out his anger on her. In any case, he’d fucked up for the second time that day. > He REALLY wished Loan let him keep alcohol in the house.

> Bobby let out a deep sigh as his gaze fell upon his monitor. Six years of effort down the drain… not merely dismissed, but downright savaged. Granted, it was only one man’s opinion, but his criticism had been so thorough that even Bobby couldn’t help but dwell on his words. Now that the anger had faded, he only felt a deep sense of inadequacy. He wondered if this was how Lemy felt about his own failures… a musician that couldn’t play. A writer that couldn’t write. > Pathetic. > Bobby opened up the document again and stared at it, weighing his options. Perhaps he could salvage it… cut back on the exposition, come up with some kind of plot, some POINT to the story he was trying to tell. But perhaps that was the problem… there was no point. There never had been. The stories he wanted to tell simply weren’t what anyone else wanted to read. They were simply wasted efforts, and nothing more than that. > “...Fuck this,” Bobby muttered. He took a deep breath and closed the document, clicking ‘no’ when it asked if he wanted to save. > Back. > Right click. > Delete. > Are you sure you want to delete this folder? > Yes. > Right click. > Empty recycle bin. > ...Yes. > Once he’d done the same for his online backup, Bobby leaned away from the keyboard, withdrawing his trembling hand from the mouse. There… it was done. He wasn’t sure how he should feel… part of him wanted to laugh, part of him wanted to cry, and another part of him wanted to vomit. Instead, he sat in silence with naught the tick of his wall clock and gentle hum of the AC unit keeping him tethered to reality. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there; perhaps five minutes, perhaps thirty, perhaps an hour. It was the growl of his stomach that finally snapped him from his stupor, and it suddenly dawned on him that he hadn’t had so much as a bite to eat since breakfast.

> “...Alright.” Bobby unsteadily got to his feet. As he made for the door, he felt something crunch beneath his foot: the glass from the lamp. He’d completely forgot about it. “Thank God for slippers…” He said with a sigh of relief. > After a quick detour to the utility closet, he returned to his office and swept the brunt of the glass into a dustpan. He’d vacuum up the smaller flakes later… once he’d dumped the glass and bent remains of the lamp into the trash, he made his way down the hall towards his daughter’s bedroom. Before he could even think about food, he had to apologize for his behavior. > “Robbie…?” He called, gently knocking on the door. “Can I come in?” No response. Bobby frowned and gave another knock. “...I’m not mad,” He assured her. “I just want to talk.” > “Go away,” Came the muffled voice of his daughter from the other side. > “...I’m coming in,” He said. Robbie said nothing further as he turned the handle and stepped inside. The room was dim, but with the light from the doorway he could see his daughter lying in her bed, completely covered by her bedsheets. “Robbie… are you alright?” Again, no response. Bobby frowned and approached the bed, nearly tripping over the girl’s hastily discarded jacket in the process. “Look… I wanted to apologize,” He said softly. “You were right. I was being an asshole, and I’m sorry.” No response. The man sighed and scratched the back of his head. “Robbie, please,” He pleaded, taking hold of the blanket. “Talk to… me…?” > As he pulled the blanket aside, he found nothing more than a small pile of pillows lying beneath. He barely had a moment to process this before an attack cry rang out from behind him; he yelped in shock as his daughter leapt onto his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and wrestled him to the ground with a THUD.

> “Sorry?! You really think that’s gonna cut it?!” > “R-Robbie, get off…!” Bobby struggled in the girl’s grasp, but he was far from a strong man; Robbie easily flipped him onto his stomach and sat down on his back before he could get back to his feet. The man cried out in pain as she took his ankles under her arms and bent back his legs, putting him into a boston crab. > “Or what?! You’ll ground me?! Too late for that!” She snarled with a forced, aggressive drawl appropriate for a delinquent.“You forget to pick me up, you YELL at me, and now you expect me to just FORGIVE you? Ain’t happenin’! I ain’t forgivin’ you till you’re BEGGIN’ for it!”   > “OW! Okay, okay! Please, I-” Robbie applied more pressure, earning her an even louder whine of pain from her father. “ROBERTAAAA! PLEASE!” But the girl did not yield; knowing her, Bobby doubted she even INTENDED to until she was satisfied. If he wanted to get out of this, he’d have to play by her rules. “F-fine…!” With a grunt of effort, Bobby managed to push himself upwards. > “Whoa…?!” Robbie gasped in surprise as she found herself being lifted upwards. She may have been strong for her age, but she was still far smaller and lighter than her father; once her feet were off the ground he twisted his body, flipping her off of his back with a yelp. He grunted as her back hit the ground and, to her surprise, she quickly found herself trapped in a cradle pin. > “Now what?” Bobby asked with a cocky smirk. “Let’s see you get out of…?!” His apparent victory didn’t last long; with an amused snicker his daughter managed to slip free from his hold and the next thing he knew, he was once again on his stomach, gagging as Robbie trapped him in a chokehold. That was it: he desperately tapped her arm in submission and she released him.

> “Not bad, dad.” Robbie said with a smirk as her father gasped and panted for air. “That’s the first time you’ve pinned me in, what, two years?” > “Y-you…” Bobby managed to gasp out between breaths. “You’re way too rough, you know that…?” Robbie simply shrugged, apparently unmoved by her father’s plight. He tried to push himself up again, only to find himself pushed face-first down to the ground. > “Apologize again,” Robbie demanded. Bobby sighed. > “...I’m sorry.” > “For?” > “Everything,” Bobby muttered. “Really… I mean that. I’m sorry.” The girl narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips as she considered her father’s words, then gave a small nod. > “...Me too,” She said. Robbie climbed off his back and let him sit up, wincing as he rubbed his sore neck. “For the stuff I said… and the lamp.” > “No, it’s… ugh, hang on…” Bobby flexed his neck a bit, letting out a grunt as he heard a loud POP. “There we go… anyway…” He paused to clear his throat before continuing. “It’s alright. Given the circumstances, anyway… I’ve been a real jerk, today. It’s just…” He frowned and averted his eyes, taking a deep breath before shaking his head. “...I wasn’t mad at you. I was just… mad.” > “What happened?” Robbie asked; her father furrowed his brow, then groaned and flopped onto his back. > “What HAPPENED is that I’m a hack,” He grumbled, raising a hand to massage his temples. “Asimov, Wells, Clarke, Ellison… my whole life I’ve wanted to be like them, you know? One of the greats. Hell, I even deluded myself into thinking I COULD be. But… I was wrong.” > “Hey, don’t… don’t say that,” Robbie said softly, inching a bit closer. “I mean, you got published before, right? It could happen again.” Her father simply shook his head and gave a dry, humorless chuckle.

> “Those were rush jobs, nothing more than that.” Bobby muttered. “There was nothing special about them, hell, I barely even THOUGHT about them while I was writing them. It just... happened.” The man scowled slightly, his tone growing bitter. “...I wanted to tell stories like the ones I grew up with. To make people feel the same way I did when I read them… and the only time I came close was a complete accident. What a joke.” Robbie averted her eyes and pursed her lips in thought. > “Well… I won’t pretend to know much about writing,” She said, scooting to her father’s side before lying on the ground beside him. “But maybe that’s the problem?” > “...Eh?” Bobby pushed himself up on his elbows and looked at his daughter with a raised eyebrow. “What do you mean?” > “I mean… maybe you’re thinking too much,” The girl suggested. “You always told uncle Lemy that he was so worried about what he wanted to be that he ignored the things he was actually good at… maybe it’s the same for you?” Her father furrowed his brow in thought. “Y’know… you always were good at making things up off the top of your head. Remember those bedtime stories you used to tell me?” > “...Prince Nebula.” Bobby chuckled, a nostalgic smile crossing his face. “How could I forget?” He used to lie with his daughter at night, weaving tales of an alien prince and his quest to save the galaxy from the evil Baron Galacticus. They’d been simple, cheesy stories, made up entirely on the spot despite their ongoing narrative. But nonetheless Robbie was always eager to hear what adventures came next for the intrepid prince, and Bobby had cherished those moments above all else.

> “Well, those always meant a lot to me, soooo… I dunno…” Robbie muttered, “Maybe they could mean something to other people too?” Bobby stared at the ceiling in silence, mulling over his daughter’s words. Putting his old bedtime stories into writing was something that he’d never even considered. He still remembered them well enough, and it wasn’t as though he had anything to lose. > “Not a bad idea…” Bobby sat up with a grunt, then got to his feet. “...It’s something to consider, at least. But that can come later… right now, all I want to do is spend some time with my daughter.” > “Really…?” Robbie asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise. “But I’m grounded…” > “Tell you what,” Her father said with a grin, offering the girl his hand. “You don’t tell your mom I forgot to pick you up, and I’ll forget about the lamp… that thing was ugly, anyway. Deal?” Robbie looked at him in silence for a moment, then grinned and took his hand. > “Deal.” Her father helped her to her feet and she dusted herself off. > “Now I don’t know about you, but I could go for a burger… what do you say?” He offered. “And maybe afterwards, we could swing by the comic shop.” > “Seriously?! Damn, I should break shit more often,” Robbie said with a snicker as she followed her father out of the room, being sure to pick up her jacket along the way. > “...Don’t push your luck,” Bobby huffed, shutting the door behind them. “And watch your language, okay?”

[whateverneedsdoing]

User Experience and Measurement Lessons From Bike Sharing at the Beach

Let’s pretend for a second that the bike and scooter sharing startups have sound business models.  They’ll break even on the bikes/software/maintenance, and make money selling the route data to mapping and advertising companies or something.  Have you suspended your disbelief?  Great.  Now picture the perfect setup for customer acquisition for these startups…

It might look something like this:

A sunny day at Alki Beach in Seattle.  A jogging & biking path that goes on for 4 miles of beautiful views and people-watching.  A place where it’s really hard to find parking, there are tons of people outside, and they can’t walk all the way back to their cars in flip flops.  Where couples and families come specifically to move around in the sun, to see all the views, and to make it all the way from one end to the other and back.

People at Alki have the need for temporary bikes.  Pedestrians see folks riding colorful mobile-app-rented bikes all around them.  It’s like free advertising to a perfect target market.

This is the situation I found myself in a few weekends ago.  On a beautiful sunset walk with my wife.  Enjoying the views with tired legs and a hungry belly.  Bikers, skateboarders, and foursomes on rented rickshaws zooming by us.  We saw a number of people using bright green Limebikes, yellow Ofo bikes, and orange Spin bikes.  We parked our car and walked two miles West to a pirate-infested beach bar with bacon pizza and Adirondack chairs (no joke about the pirates).  On the way back, we wanted to pedal.  I’d used Limebike twice before, so I knew what to expect: a heavy, poorly-fitting bike that we could ride for a few miles for a dollar.  My wife was a bikeshare n00b.

Bike Sharing #ProductFail x3 Companies

So what was the #ProductFail?  Where are the lessons?  Basically everything about the user experience starting at the point where I decided I wanted us to bike back to our car.

There was a Limebike right outside our pirate beach bar.  “Perfect!” I thought, and started fiddling with my phone to unlock it.

Problem #1: “This bike no worky.”

No dice.  “OK - well let’s walk a little farther away from the car to get a bike - I think I see another Limebike way down there.”

Problem #2: Two would-be bikers interested at the same time.

Just as we made it to the bike at the end of the line, another guy was walking toward it with his friend.  We talked about it awkwardly for a minute and he decided to let me have the bike.  OK, time to try unlocking it.

Problem #3: Out of battery

Two bad bikes in a row, ouch.  

“Wait, can’t we pedal an electric bike that’s out of battery?  No.  I can’t believe this.  OK, let’s start walking back the way we came from and keep our eyes peeled, there are lots of bikes around.”

After 5 minutes of walking back the way we’d come from… “Here’s a Yellow one.  I guess I can download another app and enter my credit card info - they all work the same way, one brand’s as good as another, right?”

Wait for the download over cellular.  Open the app and create an account.  Fiddle with my credit card out on the sidewalk - you can’t get your first free ride without a credit card entered...

Problem #4: This yellow bike no worky either :-(

At this point I was wondering if I just had unbelievably bad luck, or if all of these bikes are running on such a rickety operational model and software platform, that they’re basically unsuited for busy outdoor areas.  

It also occurs to me that when there’s high rideshare bike demand, there’s a much higher chance that any idle bikes which appear to be available are actually the ones no one can get to work.

...more walking with the wife… she’s resigned to walk back, but my feet hurt and I’m more determined than ever to get a working bike to ride.

Problem #5: Third green bike no worky.

“OMG - this is a laughably bad experience.  I’m gonna blog about it.”

...more walking...

Problem #6: Vandalism.

“We don’t want a third app do we?”

“Don’t bother, it has no seat. (orange)

...more walking...

Problem #7: I use my app to unlock a bike, but someone standing nearby says it’s his.

We see a bunch of parked yellow bikes and I’m thinking “finally, these must work!”  

I unlock the first one.  But then a kid looking at the view with his family says “that’s my bike, wasn’t it already unlocked?”  But my app has the bike checked out to me…  “Oh, sorry, but my app is counting time now.”  There are four yellow bikes here and three of you, is that OK?  He agrees, and I get a sweet, sweet, ride on a heavy, poorly-fitting bike.

Problem #8: A second Ofo bike is “closed for maintenance.”

The only problem is the other yellow bike that my wife tries (after downloading the same new app to her own phone, creating an account and entering a credit card) also doesn’t work and shows an error message.

So we pretend we’re 10 again and we actually try riding two people to a bike.  I thought it was hilarious.  But, my wife can’t keep from sliding off the seat and this is a bit nuts - we don’t really want to explain a bike crash with both of us on one bike with no helmets to our kids.  We decide to walk back.

===

Building a Better Bike Sharing Product

OK - so we can all agree that was a horrible customer experience.  How could the bike share companies build better products?

Let’s follow a straightforward approach that starts with understanding users and the problems they run into, prioritizes a good user experience, and tracks success in the metrics.

Understanding users and their bike share problems:

User feedback will come in through many mechanisms, including app store reviews and twitter… but to tangibly improve our user understanding, we want to survey some small percentage of our users.  When?  All the important times: right after they’ve finished a bike ride, right after they’ve encountered a problem, and when they’ve used the app an unusually long amount of time (this indicates a problem or an uncommon use case).  And we should couple this quantitative survey work with qualitative work (e.g. tag-alongs or diary studies involving frequent bike share users, and in-person street intercepts of new users in busy bike-sharing areas like Alki Beach).  

Prioritize a good user experience and track success:

In addition to our “understand work” above, we want to log all the bad experiences we can catch (such as bike inoperable error messages), and set goals to drive down the number of users having bad experiences per day/week/month.  With a goal set to minimize bad experiences, it will be easy to prioritize fixes to problems, and we can rank those problems based on how often they are experienced X the severity of the effect on user sentiment (e.g. Net Promoter Score).

Some ways to fix the problems I encountered:

Bike inoperable product fixes: 

In all the cases that I hit bike inoperable error messages above, I was clearly, obviously “having a bad time.”  This is the equivalent of a crash or hang with most software.  I was all ready to ride a bike and pay for my ride, but I could not.

The product teams could make major improvements by doing the following:

Log all these errors by type

Goal on reducing them both in terms of raw counts and in terms of total people affected

Do follow up field research in areas where error rates are abnormally high

Goal the maintenance teams on reducing the length of time bikes are inoperable and out in the field generating bad user experiences

Help users avoid these situations in the first place by much more obviously directing them to the closest working bikes, and warning them boldly in app (both visually and audibly) about any very nearby bikes that are offline for maintenance or out of battery.

Help users who hit a bike inoperable case find a working ride as quickly as possible, and both apologize and compensate them for the bad experience to turn a negative situation into a positive if possible.

Vandalism product fixes:

A bike with a missing seat, missing front wheel, or missing chain is just another form of inoperable bike.

The product team could invest in:

Detecting missing bike components via bluetooth or RFID sensors

Treating any bike with a missing component just like an inoperable bike (with the techniques above)

Social product fixes:

People will occasionally walk around and want the same bike at the same time.  But we can both minimize these cases, and help folks navigate these cases via the product. The product team could:

Attempt to steer nearby users with the app open to different nearby bikes

Institute rules about scanning bikes that are still on someone else’s clock - buzzing both phones and asking the current bike holder if they’re willing to release the bike to someone new or not.

Put a “two people want this bike” button front and center on the apps map view.  Hitting this button could suggest the next closest bike, offer some suggestions for communication and decision-making, and have an option to randomly select a “winner” in the case that neither person is willing to defer.  Underneath the random assignment function, the team could prioritize any person who just came off a bad experience such as losing a random assignment or finding an inoperable bike recently.

Wrap-up:

Many products are a combination of physical goods, software, and operations.  Many products are used in complex social environments that can complicate usage.  Some products are local, and may perform well in terms of metrics at the top level (like across a city or a country), while still harboring very broken user experiences in lower-level locations and for a minority of users.  But any product with these attributes will hit a growth ceiling, as the bad experiences result in churn and negative word-of-mouth that creates a drag on the overall product.

Today we looked at three high-flying bike sharing companies with plenty of VC money, that are likely in this zone right now: showing positive growth and usage numbers, but perhaps also struggling with declining growth and metrics ceilings.  Thinking about your best case and worst case scenarios… doing a deeper level of understand work, and then prioritizing and thoroughly solving your top user problems can unstick your product and unlock a new round of growth.

Have a story like this?  A horrible user experience or a product with strong top-level metrics that’s slowing down or burdened by some bad user experiences?  Ping me on LinkedIn or Facebook Messenger - I’d love to hear about it.

--

- Mike    

[wrestlingisfake]

Summerslam preview

Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns - Reigns defeated Bobby Lashley on Raw to earn this match for Lesnar’s universal championship. 

The story this time is virtually unchanged from their match at Wrestlemania 34--Lesnar doesn’t respect WWE and never shows up to defend the title, Roman is the only guy that could beat him, and this is the last chance before Lesnar leaves to go back to UFC.  Technically this is the last match on Lesnar’s WWE contract, but so was the Mania match until he signed an extension.  So the fact Lesnar is already setting up a UFC title fight with Demetrious Johnson Daniel Cormier does not mean anything to this match--Lesnar could easily sign another extension, retain in Brooklyn, and drop the title in November or something.

Real talk, I am sitting out this show because I don’t want to repeat the cocktease of Roman choking at Mania, and I don’t have faith in WWE to make it up to me.  I already vented about this match extensively, but basically nothing has changed to make it seem like Roman is more likely to win than last time.  Roman hasn’t changed up his game or style, he’s just become more whiny and petulant.  Lesnar hasn’t gotten weaker--the split with Paul Heyman turned out to be a ruse, and even if Heyman does a triple-cross at the show, that’s not going to convince me to order before the show.  Roman did manage to get that “should have won” finish in the cage match at Saudi Arabia, but that super-touch-the-floor-before-the-other-guy power doesn’t really matter in a non-cage match. 

The most important wrinkle added to this match is that it’s the first time since 2015 that Lesnar has been in a title match while a Money in the Bank contract can be used against him.  We won’t know who will have the contract during this match until the Strowman/Owens match is settled, but it can be executed immediately after (or even during) this match to give a third man a chance to steal the championship.  The hype would be that instead of us being pissed when Lesnar wins again, this time when he’s all tired and stuff a second guy comes out and wrecks him.  The problem with that as an incentive to order the show is that Lesnar usually makes winning look so easy that after his matches I tend to think he could go back and clobber five more guys.  Also, my big problem with a Money in the Bank cash-in finish, to slay the dragon Roman never could, is that it leaves Roman looking weak as hell, which would be tolerable except WWE will spend another year trying to fix the mess they made, at the expense of our patience.

Ideally, Roman should just crush Lesnar in under ten minutes, with Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins (and maybe even Heyman) helping, and then they triple-powerbomb Strowman to close the show.  That would be the best move right now, to rehab Reigns and wash the bad taste of the Lesnar/Reigns saga out of our mouths.  But I am dead certain they will not do this, or even come close.  So I’m picking Lesnar to pin Roman clean, and whoever has MITB doesn’t even bother to come out, for maximum fuck-you points.

Ronda Rousey vs. Alexa Bliss

- Bliss won the Raw women’s title in part by disrupting Rousey’s own title shot, so now Rousey is after revenge and the championship. 

WWE’s in a tough spot because they want to push Rousey as an unstoppable badass and special attraction, which means she has to dominate all her matches and look like she knows what she’s doing from the start.  That limits their ability to show her the ropes in the undercard or on house shows, so they have to get creative about how they present her.  I’ve heard this match has been heavily rehearsed, which is fine, but it may indicate concerns about how quickly they can pull the trigger on a title run.  They were already perfectly happy with Bliss as a tippy-toppy woman, so they could easily stand pat with her for another 3-6 months. But given the all-women’s show coming up in October, I think they’ll want Rousey to come out on top here.

AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe - Styles is defending the WWE world championship.  If Joe wins, I believe he will be the first man to have held the WWE, TNA/Impact, and ROH world heavyweight titles.

Joe has been playing mindgames, trying to convince Styles that his title run has hurt his commitment to his family, and that his wife and kids are hoping Joe wins.  I don’t buy that AJ believes that, but I do buy that he’s furious that Joe would talk shit about his family.

According to profightdb.com, Joe and AJ have faced off at all since 2013, when they were both in TNA.  It’s pretty amazing WWE is just now getting around to this match-up, because I don’t even think they were trying to save it for a special occasion.  These guys have always worked well together, so we should be in for a treat, but on the other hand that was a long time ago, so it’ll be interesting to see what’s changed.  This is the one match that gives me second thoughts about skipping this show.

I think Joe should win, to cap off a long Styles reign and to acknowledge Joe’s underrated performance as a killer heel.  But they’ve managed to build up AJ’s credibility as a tough guy to beat, to the point where I’m actually wondering if he’ll go a full 365 days as champion, or even all the way into next year’s Wrestlemania.  So I’m not super confident Joe can win, but he’s still my pick.

Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens - Strowman’s Money in the Bank contract is at stake in this match.  They’ve been booking this feud like Owens is Wile E. Coyote constantly trying to dream up ways to get the drop on his opponent that never work, except the Roadrunner is fucking Braun Strowman so it doesn’t exactly make much sense.  For example, Owens holds a victory over Strowman because it was an escape-the-cage match and Strowman got mad threw him off the top of the cage.  I assume the idea is that Owens has a super-sneaky plan (perhaps involving Jinder Mahal) that will have us kicking ourselves if it works, but I don’t actually believe it will work.  I can see a booking direction in which Owens has the contract, but I have a really hard time seeing him winning this match.  So I’m going with Strowman to win.

Camella vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch - This is a three-way for Carmella’s Smackdown women’s title, so there can be no count-outs or disqualifications, and the first woman to score a fall on either opponent will be the champion.  Carmella won the title by ambushing Charlotte after a brutal beatdown, and then retained in a rematch.  Becky earned her spot in this match by beating Carmella.  Charlotte earned her spot in this match by...coming back, I guess?  I don’t even know anymore.

I think Becky’s fans have gone the longest without a title and they’re starting to get pretty damn nuts about it, so I would appreciate it if WWE tossed Wrestling Tumblr a bone and let us have this, if only so that we can get “Carmella deserves it more” discourse as a change of pace.  But I think the real reason this is a three-way is for the old bit where the heel is facing two babyface friends and seems to be doomed, but the faces fight each other and the heel sneaks out with a win.

Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz - All right.  Back in 2010 WWE signed Bryan and, to fuck with everybody, introduced him as a rookie being mentored by Miz.  This led to good heel heat when Miz acted like he was the true master of the two, which led to a nice pop when Bryan beat him for the US title later that year.  Then for a long time nothing happened.  Then in 2016 Bryan was retired and Miz did a worky-shooty promo on him that everybody raved about even though it didn’t set up a match.  Then nothing happened.  Then in 2018 Bryan came out of retirement, so the people who think Miz is really great decided the #1 dream match for Bryan is to finally continue this allegedly epic rivalry.

People keep acting like this is a legendary feud and I’m not sure what they see in it except that Miz yells really loud about it.  I mean, it’s good that Miz has discovered shouting but I have yet to detect a coherent point in his promos except that he’s delusional for thinking he’s the superior combatant.  (Miz may be the superior entertainer, and more likely to be wrestling in five years, but in kayfabe I don’t know what that has to do with winning this one fight.)

You’d think as a part of Bryan’s big emotional return from a career-threatening concussion, he should just win this match.  But on the other hand, Miz has a reality show they need to put over.  And more to the point, there’s still no clear indication that Bryan has renewed his WWE contract, which is supposed to expire in less than a month.  If I’m WWE, and I think Bryan could be headed to ROH to headline Madison Square Garden, I’m not putting him over at Summerslam.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins - Dolph already defended the intercontinental title against Seth in a 30-minute iron man match, but I guess that was all to set up this...regular match.  OK, then.

The big angle this time is that Rollins has always had to deal with Ziggler having Drew McIntyre in his corner, but this time Rollins has Dean Ambrose on his side, freshly returned from a triceps tear.  Unless Ambrose is just going to turn on Rollins, it’d be crazy to waste the Shield reunion heat for this match on a Ziggler win.  And if you’re going to do some kind of tease of a heel turn among the Shield, I think you should wait until later when Roman Reigns can be involved for maximum effect.  So my preference is for Rollins to win the title and celebrate with Dean.  But I’m not confident we’ll all get what want...

Harper & Rowan vs. any two of Big E & Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods - The New Day are challenging Harper and Rowan for the Smackdown tag team championship, and they probably won’t reveal which two of the three are going to wrestle until the match starts.  I don’t think WWE knows where they’re going with the Smackdown tag division, so it’s hard to pick a winner here.  Ordinarily you have to assume the two big monsters with giant hammers are the favorites, but the New Day are a hot act and should probably get back on top of the mountain.  It depends on whether they’ve got anyone else in mind to beat the Bludgeon Brothers, but I don’t think they do.......so.....New Day wins the belts.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jeff Hardy - Nakamura won the US title from Jeff last month due to interference from Randy Orton, and then Orton interfered in the rematch too, so this is another rematch.  Orton may or may not be in trouble for reports of him pulling his dick out in meetings a long time ago, so I don’t know if he’ll be running into this match or not.  I’ve also read Hardy is awfully banged up so I don’t think a title win is a great idea for him.  So Nakamura is going to retain, it’s just a question of whether it’s via a ballshot DQ or an Orton run-in.

Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin - Ugh.  Maybe Balor can remember where he left his body paint so he can turn into the demon and end this feud already.

Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel vs. Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder - This is on the pre-show.  Dallas and Axel (The B-Team) are defending the Raw tag team title against the Dawson and Wilder (The Revival).  Back when the Revival were in NXT it would be ludicrous to think they wouldn’t punch these jobbers in the mouth and dominate the tag scene for months.  But I guess the whole “no flips, just fists” mentality has nothing on midcard comedy antics.  The B-Team has momentum, and although they probably won’t in a year, for now they’re miles ahead of the Revival.  Dallas and Axel retain.

Cedric Alexander vs. Drew Gulak - Gulak is challenging for the crusierweight championship on the pre-show.  I haven’t really paid attention to the cruiserweights for months and it sounds like I haven’t missed anything.  I don’t know, I guess Cedric retains.

Andrade Almas & Zelina Vega vs. Rusev & Lana - This is also scheduled for the pre-show.  It’s a mixed tag team match, so every time one team makes a tag the other team is also required to tag to ensure that men only wrestle men and women only wrestle women.  This started a a series of Vega/Lana matches, until their men got involved.  Rusev’s sidekick Aiden English is also in the mix, although he hasn’t done Rusev and Lana much good so far.  You’d expect Almas and Vega to win to continue their push and advance the plot of whatever’s happening between Rusev and English.  But knowing WWE, nothing is for sure here.

[poopieswritings]

I just quit my job. and i have absolutely no other prospects.

i was told i don`t do enough. that I can do more. I DO ALL I FUCKING CAN. I CANNOT DO MORE. 

i know this is critcism and that i just have to learn to take it, but i told myself before going in that i would take any criticism, except for one that would say i do not work hard enough or that i can work harder. because IIIII know how much i work. like really, you`re picking at me because i don`t help to separate after scanning? what about all the other stuff i do

and then he says what were you doing friday after i left nothing was done

well i was doing something, but hey what else is new i cannot remember what!!!

part of me thinks i should gio back and take the second chance. but most of me is like... no, i am not happy there, if i go back it will just be for until i find another job aSSSAAAAPPPP.  i am not going to basically quit twice./ plus then they will obviouslt know whats up when i have to leave for interviews... i woiuld rather just quit now while it’s basicallly done and just start over. like i always do. it’s qhat i do best after all.... quitting and just abandoning things.yes.

but i am going to use this time to properly think about hwat i watnt to do with my future. maybe get a job where i know i can eventually work part time, because i think this has opened the door for me to go back to school! i think at this point its the only option. 

well I thught i would be able to take the crticism without breaking down. yes, i know i break down and “””throw a fit””” every time RISHI, but you know what, it is ebcause i knowww i am right that i do all i can. and dooo nottt try to sasay how amazing i am (i know this already) just to try to make me stay. |I feel bad enough bthat i am leaving this way. but it is already done to me, in my mind. i have bigger and bettwr things awaiting me. i just have to pull the bandaid and actually go for it!!

now to janshee: you cunt. i fucking hate you lol. you are soo fucking two faced, the most two ffaced bitch i have everrrr met. well now you must be so happy because you got my job. well... you know what, i’m happy for you that you got it. because i am not going to waste my time, now that i think of it, actively hating on you, because... I AM THE BIGGER PERSON. jealousy is a madddd cunt hunt? so... take this job and do a better fucking job than i ever did, since you think you can do it so much better.

i know that all workplaces have their positivies and negatoves, but i’m just tired of workiing with this kind of people ( u know what i i mean computer)

at the end of the day, i am the odd one out, and i know i shouldn’t let this become a thing, but it already is one. and you say you try, well i didn’t say it today btui i have noticed. but still.... you guys will always be the 3 amigos, and i will always be the 1 white girl. i used to enjoyn working with you guys, and I will always looking back on THAT time fondly. but lately.... i just don’t fuckinnggg care.i really don’t/.

i am so tired of writing right now. to me this job is just the end of a phase. it was good while it lasted, and gave me experience (MORE THAN 1 FUCKING YEAR TAHNK YOU), but.... emilie has moved on. this spirit wants more. i just want to be surrounded by people exactly like me. people who are fucking considerate of others, empathetic, and most of all i just do not want to work in a fucking office. i hate it so much, i hate working for corporations. i want to work to help people. i think this is truly my calling. but even then i worry that people-related-joibs such as special needs tech, caretakr wtvr.... these jobs also have managers and i just fucking hate it.i just want a job wherei don’t have a boss. but that’s impossibleesssss so what am i to do. i guess i will just have to suck it up. 

it hurts cause i really tried today to keep my cool. like i said, i thought i was good. i thougght i had matured. i knwo i have. but i guess this is just my first step in accepting criticism. i dind’t do as well as i thought i would,  but i can sssure you there will be more opportunities in the fturtrre where i can practice this. i hope enmxt time i won’;t fucking quit my job, but then again, i think if you’re truly happy in your job it is easy to accept crtiicism. when you;re unhappy, as i am/was, it is harder because you just want to tyell ffuuuuck youuuuu to te person over and voer again.          

[mittensmorgul]

Mandroids, Meta, and Subtext

Rewatching 2.12 (which is such a good episode on so many levels), and rambling on at @elizabethrobertajones about subtext and how it’s not some Seekrit Layer that isn’t inherently part of the text, and how we all read subtext whether we realize it or not... And somehow these two lines of thought sorta... merged together.

What follows is a loosely-cobbled-together and edited for continuity chunk of our conversation:

I'm thinking about a very old meta about reading the subtext, and how we all literally do it all the time (even in real life). We read between the lines to find meaning in everyday things ALL THE TIME. And how it's just how human brains work and not some obscure science you have to learn. There's this faulty assumption among people who read meta as if it's some obscure and mystical science that the average person doesn't do all that time. We're just like... better at explaining it, because practice.

I think some of the mystery about meta is that some folks don't trust what they believe they're seeing in the subtext, because it's been built up into some sort of secret code buried in the text, but it's just how storytelling works and always has. And meta is just us holding the curtains back and pointing it all out clearly. I wish people didn't think that only certain gifted people can pull back the curtains. We all do it, all the time, whether we realize it or not.

But the subtext isn't some obscure layer of the story that the casual viewer can't see, or that they DON'T see. They just don't spend much time or effort THINKING about it. They subconsciously react to it, allowing it to inform their feelings or reactions to what they're seeing on screen.

Take for example Ronald Resnick, and his Mandroids. He read the surface text aaaall wrong. And yet he was still mostly right, just wrong frame of reference. Just, monsters instead of mandroids, but every other detail... spot on. He was reading the wrong genre, because that was his personal leanings (the alien robot conspiracy stuff vs literal monsters). Wrong genre, Ron... but the rest of the story matches up. And all his problems arise because he started out from the wrong baseline assumption. If he'd gone in LOOKING for monsters instead of robots, he would've been 100% right.

Also, Sam read Ronald all wrong too, thinking he could keep him safe and out of trouble by crushing and utterly dismissing his theories... which only led to Ronald putting himself right in the middle of all the trouble. I love Dean's reactions through this whole episode, like, TOLD YOU SAMMY. All Ronald wanted was for someone to believe him.

That's all it took for Ron to trust Dean, Dean being 100% sincere that he believed him, validation that he'd read the subtext and come to the (mostly) right conclusions. And despite the horror of his whole situation, and finding out about shapeshifters, Ronald can't stop grinning, because DAMMIT HE WAS RIGHT.

I mean, it just depends on the genre, but EVERYBODY knows how to read subtext. It's how we form opinions and interpret clues while reading a murder mystery or watching a cop drama, and why we make guesses about who the culprit might be. 

(sure some people are better at it... some are surprised when the real killer is revealed, while others are genre savvy enough to see through the red herrings)

(or they just put more focused thought into it as the story unfolded)

(and some people LIKE passively watching the story because it makes the surprise twist or the big reveal more satisfying to them if they haven’t already placed mental wagers on whodunit)

(or else someone's inherent bias led them to overlook a character as a potential suspect, or to focus on another character too hard as a suspect)

In order to correctly interpret all that subtext, you need to recognize when shows are going to be like, look at this harmless nerd, in the first 10 minutes, and then spend 20 chasing his shifty looking boss. But all of that comes from reading the subtext, whether the viewer groks that they're doing it or not. We're not doing anything particularly obscure here in writing meta about it all.

We're just trying to be objective, not going in with preconceived notions aside from an understanding of past canon, a good grip on the genre, some insight into the characters (which isn't obscure, again, but it's something WE think about far more than the average casual viewer).

In 2.12, poor Sam was so locked into his expectations, he failed to adapt when the situation changed. He just kept mocking Ronald, while Dean found a way to connect with him.

DEAN: (quietly) Look, I know this isn't going the way we wanted, SAM: (shouting) Understatement! DEAN: But if we invite the cops in right now, Ronald gets arrested, we get arrested, the shifter gets away, probably never find it again, okay? [RONALD is peering out the window, in plain view, and SAM gestures at him in exasperation.] DEAN: Ron! Out of the light! SAM: Seriously?! DEAN: Yeah, Ron's game plan was a bad plan, I mean, it was a bit of a crazy plan, but right now crazy's the only game in town, okay?

And in the middle of all this plot and character drama subtext, here comes poor old Henriksen, who's working from the wrong playbook ENTIRELY (and therefore can't even BEGIN to interpret what's really going on). He thinks he's dealing with a couple of crazed serial killers, because he has zero frame of reference to even think about "mandroids" let alone shapesifters or the supernatural. So he's come to the entirely wrong conclusions about the Winchesters (and even what genre they’re operating within :P).

Even the Winchesters get confused when the shapeshifter "plays dead" and nearly tricks them into killing an innocent woman... their little game of looking back and forth between the two identical bodies on the floor and trying to make sense of what they're seeing, nearly gets Dean killed...

And now a brief interlude for lizbob commentary that’s entirely on point (and personally amusing after discussing all of the above):

elizabethrobertajones I think this episode might be a wee bit meta :D

mittensmorgul EDLUND!!!

(/interlude)

All the while the Winchesters are distracted by this whole other thing going on outside the bank with Victor and the SWAT team, but they power their way through that by (as they often do) blending in with expectations (disguising themselves behind fake badges and bravado. ACTING!)

I don’t think Ben Edlund ever imagined I’d use this episode as a lesson in pointing out the text, the subtext, and why not every reading is equally valid OBJECTIVELY, while at the same time, multiple readings are possible but they are not inherently equivalent.

Victor Henriksen is the “casual viewer” in this metaphor, if that wasn’t clear. He thinks he has the facts, but he’s surprised over and over even when he thinks he’s got the Winchesters pinned down.

Ronald Resnick at least sees more of the big picture, more of the truth of what’s going on. Sure, he’s working from the wrong baseline assumption and has no idea how to implement what he believes he knows correctly. He doesn’t understand that when he discarded Dean’s silver blade down the trash bin that he’d essentially put their only weapon against the monster out of reach. He’d charged in with the mistaken belief that he was the only one who could even SEE there was a problem, let alone have a plan to stop it. All because Sam tried to convince him that his entire theory was wrong.

Sam and Dean understood it was a shapeshifter all along (based on Ronald’s evidence that he’d misinterpreted as mandroids), and in order to keep him safe and out of the way, Sam believed that dismissing Ron’s theories entirely and playing Authority Figure was the best way to go about this, while Dean was rather incredulous about this tactic:

DEAN: Man, that has got to be the kicker, straight up. I mean, you tell that poor son of a bitch that-- what did you say, remand the tapes that he copied? Classified evidence of an ongoing investigation? (Laughs) That's messed up. SAM: (sitting down to watch the tape) What are you, pissed at me or something? DEAN: Nah, I just think it's a little creepy how good of a Fed you are. I mean, come on, we could have at least thrown the guy a bone. He did some pretty good legwork here. SAM: Mandroid? DEAN: Except for the Mandroid part. I liked him. He's not that different from you or me. People think we're crazy. SAM: Yeah, except he's not a hunter, Dean. He's just a guy who stumbled onto something real. If he were to go up against this thing he'd get torn apart. Better to stay in the dark, and stay alive.

But of course Ronald wasn’t going to stay in the dark. He’d seen too much, he was personally invested because the “mandroid” had hurt his friend Juan. He couldn’t let it go, and Sam’s dismissal of him-- instead of making him back off like Sam had hoped-- had only served to push him harder to find answers, to prove his theory and vindicate his friend. Sam failed to recognize Ron’s personal investment in all of this, much to Dean’s disbelief... Explaining the context to Ron DID eventually work, and it’s how Dean gained his trust, but it was already too late for Ron. His failure to understand the same signs Sam and Dean saw for what they really were eventually led to his own death. His lack of understanding of how things work (stay away from the windows, keep out of the light, etc.) got him shot by the feds staking out the building from outside.

(have I mentioned just how meta this episode is?)

Meanwhile, Sam and Dean DID understand the situation correctly, and had formulated a workable plan for resolving all of it in their usual idiom, but their earlier missteps with Ronald made those previous plans unworkable. They’re hampered at every turn (Ronald disposes of Dean’s silver knife, then they have to hobble Sam’s ability to help with the hunt by securing him in the vault with all the other people in the bank because Sam was still resisting working with Ronald. Unlike Dean, Sam didn’t want to even take the effort to win Ronald’s trust, didn’t want to adapt their plans to take out the shapeshifter to include Ronald and had dismissed even the possibility of Ron being able to understand the situation if presented with a few small pieces of truth, even when it was clear that they were far beyond the point of keeping Ronald out of it and safe...)

But explaining that one small detail he’d got wrong in his construction of his Mandroid theory would likely have been enough to convince Ronald to stay out of it from the start. Sam and Dean could’ve infiltrated the bank, killed the shifter, and been out without anyone being the wiser or the swat team having been brought in. (But that would’ve been a rather boring episode to watch, even without being able to apply this sort of meta-level thinking to it :P)

Just flat-out putting everything into the surface text and having the characters just say everything that’s otherwise conveyed through the subtext would’ve been the equivalent of that. IT MAKES FOR TERRIBLE AND BORING STORYTELLING. It’s not engaging at all, because there’s zero subtlety to it. So to the argument that if the subtext was really important to the story, why would they “hide” it in the subtext instead of being obvious about it... yeah. It would be boring as hell. The whole story would feel “flat” because it would require absolutely no mental interaction with the text at all, and in good, engaging storytelling, at least SOME active participation is required of the consumer.

This is how I see it, character by character:

Victor: entirely misinterprets the subtext because he thinks he’s in a cop drama when he’s actually in a horror genre show

Ron: reads the subtext, but has the wrong context and therefore isn’t able to come to the correct conclusions or formulate a viable plan

Sam: Knows exactly what the subtext is saying, but fails at reading Ron (as a character) and his motivations correctly, therefore inadvertently setting the entire plot in motion, but his mistaken assumptions about Ron lead to a lot of complications (culminating in Ron’s death by misadventure)

Dean: Gets the subtext entirely, understands that all Ron wanted was to be heard, understood, and validated. Shifting that ONE MISSING PIECE of information into place for the guy could’ve saved a heck of a lot of trauma (and an innocent guy’s life). Because of all the outside situations affecting and changing in real time around him, Dean adapts his plan but he’s still at the mercy of the narrative (the Victor Henriksen level of the story). He can’t just... override the blatant textual stuff. He’s got to work within that framework still, blend in, and sneak out the back door in disguise.

Me: Sits here wondering if this is still too obscure for people to understand.

BONUS MATERIAL:

2.13 is pretty much about the same thing... seeing one thing but expecting something else. It's a ghost, but even the ghost thinks its an angel, and the expectation of the people he "chose" was also ANGEL so that's what they chose to believe. The “angel” was always only just poor old Father Gregory who didn't understand how to move on. And the WISH for it to be a real angel was strong enough that Sam and the other "victims" couldn't (or didn't want to) see the truth. They’d been willing to commit murder in the name of their mistaken assumptions. At least Sam was willing to test Dean's theory, and not just blindly follow what he believed at the time were obvious "signs."

2.14... poor Dean is the one without proper context in this one, and he's like Exposition on How To Read Subtext as the story unfolds. Presented with problem: Sam is missing, then found covered in blood with no memories. Putting the clues together: because Dean is GOOD at reading the clues, and understanding what's "in character" for Sam, and correctly interpreting what's "not in character" as CLUES that help him eventually uncover the truth, instead of dismissing them without any other consideration because they don’t match up with his preexisting understanding.

As I’m editing this mess of metaphors, I’ve got one more to add. Looking at the story is like seeing the picture of the kid on a box of Cracker Jack. Seeing the subtext is like realizing that kid’s holding a box of Cracker Jack and wondering about the picture on THAT box... Even if you don’t realize you’ve noticed that little detail (I mean, it’s right there, and your brain sees it whether or not you choose to look at it more closely to see what it’s showing you), it doesn’t change the fact that the kid on the box is still holding that box with a picture of himself holding a box... You don’t have to acknowledge all of that, but it doesn’t change the fact it’s there, on purpose, and a part of the whole that’s just as valid as the physical box it’s printed on. To me, this post is the equivalent of me cosplaying the Cracker Jack box kid. Just bringing it all out one level further.

The entire key to reading the whole story is printed right there on the box. Sometimes it just requires a bit of turning the box over and thinking about what it’s implying to understand the whole picture.

[sweatpantshedonist]

This is a bunch of fake band names that read as a poem

Khaki pain Undome Smile Flooring Perse Brick Voyeur Sleeping bag Beautiful sunset Morning poem Hush poet Danky Cummy Tried Floppy dick 1992 Toyota Camry Beavis and butthead and loneliness Bb lonely Work is ass Work is fuck Fuck work Worky life Wage God Salary Weak Dick Boshtwish Morose bone Stupid powder All My Friends 3D Origami Time is a vapecloud Heinous925 xGodx Famous Life Life Work The Real You Fool Steve he's dumb Steve's Bong Charlie's Throne Nicole's Kid, man Jobby Perse Dumb shit Zoo porn Good soap Idiot hotdog Spicy mustard Coconut water is a healthy alternative to soda Supportive footwear Leather bag Correct postage Unwanted email Return policy Catalog Skinny fit Make-up Brand name goods Low interest loan A fucking mortgage Organic dog food Reusable bag Vinyl acoustics Pitchfork recommendation Athletic attire "Irony" "Sarcasm" Symbolic tattoo for 300 dollars designed by someone else I don't get it I'm agreeing with you Longwinded poetry Self awareness is annoying Dog shit in a plastic bag in your hand Used toilet paper in a plastic tote under my bed Goofing around Water games Pee foot Smelly sexual organ Loud financially successful drunk person Motivated individual For real tho Loss of culture Complete and utter asshole Bad sense of humor Bad close mindedness Tiny penis Tiny nut sac and balls too Favorable review Internet comments with likes Serious news article link Political anger Old people shit being put into my mouth Typing with an outraged look on your face Opinions Strong opinions Drunk opinions Fully informed opinions from someone you don't know said completely out of context Talking for more than 2 minutes about fashion Talking shop all night long yes Bad breath is such a turn off Mean people are so mean It is what it is I don't have the capacity to articulate thoughts/ I don't want to talk to you in depth because you're not my kinda guy Affordable brunch The most amazing tacos Superfood McDonald's is gross Omg I ate McDonald's last night Morning regret Mourning time McDonald's for breakfast Sit down job Performance boost Noticeable improvement Secret fetish My thoughts Taboo Free flowing ideas Projected earnings Family expectations Getting older in the face Fear of death Killing in the name of my coworker Ramon I'm an American badass Working on 2 hours of sleep is harder Trying to concentrate among excessive noise Crazy view from high atop a natural formation Extreme sport enthusiast from Southern California Leisure Free time Tomorrow is my day off Today is my Friday Words said too often Trivial observation The same same same same same Time is cyclical and I'm losing my shit Movie time HBO original series Season finale Series finale Did you see the last episode? Don't spoil it for me Making fun of stuff is good for you Status Post Tagged in whatever You can see my nuts in these pants Saggy beanie Cute flats from Macy's Leggings are v practical Futuristic designer looks Standing outside a store while the wife shops Inconsiderate volume Cute person Cutty spot Look my way Ya yer foine Ok I changed my mind What size is your head? Negi ass Big dog head Taper my jeans How much for this umbrella? Camouflage blender Scrape my face across your serrated toenails Good look Hot looks for fall Really big deal Money hole plz deposit worth Skater/tagger/hotgirlmagnet Your dog has humanlike balls Bitchy side-eye Judging ppl is wrong Why can't u just be happy? Fucking smile jeez Have a good one An autographed photo of Jerry Seinfeld Saggy jeans Tousled hair mist Stand up straight Complain aloud We went to school together Do I know u? Hey is that Jason? Damn I haven't seen u in hella days, homie Stab myself in the shin during someone's shitty performance piece Jam session Music jack off Masturbating my guitar neck I know all the scales I play in a band I do something with my life Punk reunion Reliving the glory days 47 denim jackets in one room You should have been here 4 years ago What era do you think defines your fashion? Really really genuinely cute lesbian I want you Misguided idea Jump shoes Vapid Bohemian hat Wealthy person who tips poorly Condoms suck bro White woman from stable family whose primary interest is trap music I own property in Manhattan Honking at a line of 30 cars All of my current friends in New York are white I don't have any black friends Going for a run in Times Square Shapeless couple in head to toe work out gear (feat. hopelessness) Me (feat. Weak chin and narrow shoulders) No fee apartment Life time gym membership Alan is more upset Carbon monoxide sleepover Bad breakup Hurtful text message Troubling thoughts about suicide and drugs Gun shots in the distance Ruptured dream Nostalgia and cyclical thoughts Nymphomaniac for pain Pain injection feels good Your mom is the butt of all my jokes Fast forward me Costume for penis Parasitic person Clingy butt Sofa Eater My Strange Addiction Balloon Porn Squirting frequently contains urine Urea Urethra Urshit Carbon Soft Gland Hardwood Ruffly Counting Solution Calving Solution Gem Builder Papes Analtussin Phoney Laying down Sustained 7 Icecream salad I only wear boots Child's hat I'm a size small She can't walk in heels Gift card Forced interaction Conversation about tinder during tinder date How much should we tip? Candle Do you watch Game of Thrones? That's life Gun violence advocate Little wife ass bitch Cum repository Soulless vessel of rage God damnit Son of a bitch Get upstairs Jonathan Don't make me Pay for me Cum hose dork Laughable life Deluded self Diluted mind (cuz weed) Dissolves inwarder Pun Malapropism Body Sleep Vapid pleasure Lonely Lobe

[archiveofolives]

#FantasyNovember: Top 5 Favourite Fantasy Characters (a meme 😳)

lol ladies and gentlemen (and those who have yet to make up your minds), may i present my favorite emoji, the ovo. i legit have no idea what it’s called but it represents my mood so keenly

anyway YEAH @logarithmicpanda tagged me (i’m tagging you all especially @foxyrebelle but tag me back so i can read!) more than 24h ago but traffic has been horrendous of late and work has been worky so i’m just now getting to this. i won’t go with my default answers bc panda did this with books and accepting the challenge, imma do the same so in no particular order:

1. jean tannen from the gentlemen bastards sequence by scott lynch. i just really love that he’s the point man?? like that’s probably not even the right term for it but in inception, jgl is the point man of the team and like literally he makes leo’s plans work and that’s jean for me. he’s the brawn, he’s the backup, he’s the sounding wall, and the best part is he wiggles that he’s the protector and that was actually the first thing that i really loved about him bc i love those archetypes, on top of the fact that he’s fat and big and soft and HE READS and i also love that he’s technically not the main character?? it’s the whole feeling that non-main characters don’t get as much love so w/e (i went into the sequence with locke in my mind bc of gen and locke cole from ff6 but jean just won me over)

2. sophos from the queen’s thief series by megan whalen turner. i’m just gonna paste smth from tvtropes which i wholeheartedly agree with. it’s under the trope took a level in badass: “In the fourth book, Sophos doesn’t take a level in badass, he takes several. Then he rips them to pieces with his bare hands, gnaws on them, and uses them as fuel with which to fire even more badass.” which i wholeheartedly agree with. i’d always had my eye on him since the first book bc he was presented as this insignificant, reluctant (i have a really huge soft spot for reluctant characters) tag along and then LO AND BEHOLD HE’S ACTUALLY HELLA IMPORTANT and the journey that he took from book 1 to book 4 is just 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼. like i would always love gen, my champion whiner, but sophos’ development–from this meek nobody to a calculating risk-taker with too much heart than he knows what to do with (and i love that he didn’t come through unscathed but he totally rose to the occasion, man!)–is just smth else entirely

3. jesper fahey from six of crows and crooked kingdom by leigh bardugo. it’s actually a toss up between him and nina zenik (whose kevin wada art is also my aesthetic goddamn) but i think i liked him more consistently throughout the books? but i never really adored him as much as i adored nina but ANYWAY YEAH HIM. i really liked that he was a character with a LOT of obvious flaws but then he keeps trying to make up for them and that makes him endearing to me? also i appreciate his choice of weapon, his brand of humor (he has some of my more loved lines), i do agree that he is attractive AND i’m totally into his ship with wylan. what do they call it, wysper? it had better be wysper. people might be wondering why my favorite character isn’t wylan but the thing is that he’s already a bit like sophos to me? and i want someone different.

4. lee scoresby from his dark materials by philip pullman. YEAH I CAN LIKE SOMEONE WITH UNQUESTIONABLE MORALS altho that may not entirely be the case with lee, actually. HENIWAY, iorek was actually my first favorite character in hdm! purely on account of the fact that he’s a talking bear BUT i fell in love with lee’s charm, his swag, his sharpness and i just love that he’s this warm-hearted old cowboy who has an airship (and the only one who does! and the story of how he started flying is also the beeest) and loves lyra and supports her and he just makes me want to be a better person. like the perfect response to not all men is “yeah, lee scoresby wouldn’t.”

5. remus lupin from harry potter by j.k. rowling. LOL true story: while i was trying to come up with this list, i was supposed to end with jonathan strange from jonathan strange and mr. norrell which i’d read ages ago but i don’t read much fantasy these days until i remembered that hp is fantasy XD anyway, legit the first thing i loved about remus was the fact that he was so Done. like he was this old guy (i thought he was old bc of his hair) who just wanted to sleep but then these meddling kids came in and then the dementors so that leaves him no choice but to get up and do all the work around here bc who else would? but then i realized that this wasn’t a guy i’d heard much about (funny story, i know there’s a guy named lupin somewhere in the hp series but remember how inattentive i am to details?) which instantly made him refreshing and interesting to me bc i felt like he was someone i could properly get to know, finally? kinda weird. but yeah, it started from there and then everything followed through; i liked that he was a competent wizard and a good teacher and the mystery behind his illness was definitely another bonus until i learned that he was a werewolf and not just any werewolf but like, the werewolf everyone’s talking about? and that was disappointing but more towards myself and how predictable i’ve become even to myself -_- a lot of my favorite characters have smth to do with wolves see :|||

special mention goes to cloud strife WHO IS MY SON and loki who is a piece of shit i’ve encountered in many forms so i didn’t want to put him up there bc of that lol

[hellyeahheroes]

Characters That Need To Be In Young Justice S3, Part 1: Here Comes a New Challenger!

As The new Season of Young Justice is getting closer and closer to actually seeing the light of day, I thought of characters that would be good to see in it and, if we’ll be graced with such thing, following season. Of course what initially was supposed to be a short list simply exploded into a colossal one that will require at least few posts to cover. In this part I’ve decided to take a look not as the core cast themselves but rather characters that could in some way provide a challenge to them - be it as rival hero groups they come into conflict with for various reasons, antiheroes that supposedly have the same goals but take things too far or straight-out villains to beat. So without further delay, let us get right into it

Number Ten: Lord Havok & the Extremists

When it comes to obscure villains few things strike out like an entire supervillain team based on characters from your biggest competition. Marvel has both parodied and homaged DC multiple times with various incarnations of Squadron Supreme, while DC has the Extremists - an entire team “inspired” by iconic Marvel supervillains. They come from another world and their goal is less world domination but the extermination of heroes and domination for the protection - as their world has been destroyed, they have decided it was the heroes who were responsible. So now they aim to save another world from the same fate. By conquering it and eliminating heroes one by one.

A team of varied antagonists, at least some of which are extremely powerful, who do not play by the rules of heroes and villains game and are lead by megalomaniacal mastermind based on Doctor Doom would certainly upset the balance of power between the heroes and the Light, forcing both side to adapt or even team up to take them down before they can resume their own spy game.

Speaking of Extreme measures....

Number Nine: Manchester Black

I have mentioned it in the past that I’m not actually a fan of Superman story “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice And American Way?” or animated movie “Superman vs the Elite” it is based on. However, I can respect the villainous potential of Manchester Black. A British thug with incredible telepathic and telekinetic powers he what would happen if you gave Jean Grey power set to Frank Castle. Only, you know, British. While he usually sticks to antagonizing Superman and obsessively trying to turn him to break his vows and start killing the villains, lately he seems to have turned towards corrupting younger generation in his image. And that’s a role that would be extremely resonant in series like Young Justice. Heroes of this world already have strayed a bit too close to certain lines, especially during the second season. Seeing how the next season will likely continue diving into spy stories in superhero world, these lines might get blurry again. Even without somebody like Manchester with his twisted black and white sense of morality whispering in your ear.

While the obvious choice would have him go after Superboy, I think he would actually play a good antagonist to Miss Martian as well. Not only is she in need for a decent telepath to challenge her since I think everyone is just done with Psimon, but she had a history of going too far with her powers or using them too recklessly, something that caused her a great deal of grief. Not only that would make her a perfect target to somebody like Black but it would make him a warning sign of what lies at the end of this road and what kind of person it could turn her into.

Fun fact: Manchester was loosely based on Jenny Sparx, leader of team the Authority from Wildstorm comics, whose characters are now not only owned by DC but a part of their Universe. One of Wildstorm’s most popular stories was the Sleeper, which featured our next spot on the list

Number Eight: T.A.O

Because when the Tactically Augmented Organism looked at life, he saw only chaos and order. And humanity's denial of chaos appalled him. So he would tear it all down and fill the whole world with chaos, if only to watch mankind cling to their illusions as they burned around them...would he destroy the world at the same time? It's certainly a possibility.

T.A.O. or Tactically Augmented Organism is an interesting villain being a human basically grew in a lab and possessing both incredibly high intelligence and a compelling voice he uses to plant ideas he wants into people’s heads. He started supposedly on the good guy’s side, but have turned out to secretly been manipulating good guys and bad guys alike into starting a war among superhumans and countless destruction, just because he could. He turns out to have an extremely misanthropic worldview and likes the idea of overthrowing existing status quo in favor of chaos. He built his own villain empire just for that purpose. This all makes him perfect an antagonist in the type of story Young Justice is operating on. He could easily have started as an ally, only to turn out to try and “spice things up” between the Team and the light. Or he could be working with the latter, as he fits their “mastermind” style like a glove. He would also provide an interesting contrast for Superboy, seeing how they both were artificially created by scientists, yet turned out as total opposites.

And if we touch upon providing a contrast, let’s stay in WIldstorm corner for a moment.

Number Seven: Apollo & Midnighter

One of the advantages of jumping to a new online service is supposed to be that Young Justice can now show more LGTBQ characters. So I say, let them put their money where their mouths are and bring in one of the more popular gay couples in DC - a pair of antiheroes, Apollo and Midnighter. Due to their background, they could fit easily into the black ops feel the show is trying to have and they would also provide a contrast to the Team in a way similar, but less extreme than Black. These guys don’t play around if they have to kill a villain, they will. But they don’t actively go trying to enforce their way on others, but that would only present a dilemma to the team - can they afford to leave these two to their own devices? Or maybe they are worth having around, in case there were lines to be crossed?

We’ll stay in Wildstorm part of DC for one more group to visit.

Number Six: The DV8

Some might be surprised I’m bringing up them over Gen 13, heroic group of teenagers on the run from evil government conspiracy. But honestly, Young Justice already had a group that fits a similar niche in their Runaways. And while it would be fun to have Gen 13 around, they are, how Warren Ellis put it, kids you look at and you know they wash their teeth three times a day. Their antagonists on the other hand....

DV8 or Deviants consist of a team of 8 superpowered teenagers - Threshold, Bliss, Frostbite, Sublime, Copycat, Powerhaus, Freestyle and Evo. What makes them different from other teen supervillain teams is that these guys are mercenaries. Working for ruthless and ambitious Ivana Baiul they take on black ops mission for whoever is paying and whatever is advancing her ambitions. And that’s what makes them so appealing - because there might be situations where they will be hired to oppose the Team but in other instances, they might have to join forces towards the same goal, at least for a while. Plus some of DV8 members had shown shades of moral ambiguity so they could have a potential to turn good.

And in case somebody would say I’m crapping on Gen 13 for being heroic, let us leave Wildstorm to go take a look at another team.

Number Five: The Movement

Created by Gail Simone and Freddie Williams II, the Movement is a team of teenage superheroes who try to take on more “grounded” problems than supervillains. The movement is a team of young activists and disfranchised - Virtue, Mouse, Vengeance Moth, Tremor, Burden, Katharsis and Rainmaker -  who, to use Gail Simone’s own words  "all have reason to be mad at the system, which hasn't protected them or even tolerated them".

And this is precisely why I want them in Young Justice. Moving to a different network and being able to tackle more mature themes is a perfect opportunity to bring in the Movement. This is a team who is mad at the system, yes, but clearly idealistic and good-natured and they help people were official services cannot. This is something that I feel is often good if not outright necessary to have in stories taking so much from the spy genre’s handbook. The Team has risked and lost a lot and even did few things they might not be proud of in defense of the status quo. It’s about time somebody showed up to make them question if the status quo is actually worth all of this as it is or if they as superheroes cannot do something to also improve it. And the Movement is a perfect team to challenge them on that level instead of some unnecessary battles.

No, that we can leave to the next position on the list

Number Four: The Blood Syndicate

Young Justice was not shy of using characters from late Dwayne McDuffie’s Milestone Media imprint - that’s where they got Icon, Rocket and Static from after all. Well, how about one of their more controversial creations, even at the time. Blood Syndicate is not a team. They’re a gang. A gang of individuals who all gained superpowers in the same incident and now band together. Consisting of several characters like Wise Son, Brickhouse, DMZ, Tech-9, Dogg, Boogieman, Aquamaria, Fade, Masquerade, Flashback, Third Rail, Oro Kwai or (I kid you not) Holocaust. While a gang and very angry at everyone for what happened to them, they could easily be used to be opponents for the Team. But they also have at least some moral ambiguity and conflicting goals and dreams and at least few could potentially turn on the side of angels, while the others...well, I see no reason why Holocaust couldn’t be a big threat on his own as he was upon leaving the Syndicate in the comics, only now working with the Light.

So far there was at best some moral ambiguity connected to most if not all of the mentioned examples. How about some very heroic group next? 

Number Three: The Justice League of China

China’s attempt at beat Americans at their own game and create their own, improved version of its most well-known superheroes resulted in a team of teenagers bearing the names of Super-Man, Bat-Man, Wonder-Woman and Flash of China. They are at heart idealistic and deeply heroic, even if still rather inexperienced. That means they not only provide contrast to the Team (double than China’s other superhero team, the Great Ten, due to being teenagers themselves) but it might be very easy to set them as rivals trying to prove themselves or have them go into conflict with the Team, would one of their missions involve messing around on Chinese territory. And they also add a bit of world building as a whole, show that it’s not only the Justice League and the Light who are in the race for domination on the superhuman scene.

Let us not leave China too soon as there is a certain another character from there I wanted to bring up.

Number Two: Lady Shiva and League of Shadows

With the death of Ras Al Ghul (assuming he’s going to stay dead as, well, this is Ras we’re talking here about) it is a perfect opportunity to bring more focus on his League of Assassins and how it adapted and developed without their immortal leader. And Lady Shiva with her more extremist offshoot of the organization, the Lague of Shadow, designed to for most exists only as an urban legend might be a very good for just that. Leading more dangerous part of the League, maybe breaking out of the Light and even turning against them, trapping the Team between the two organizations. Not to mention that Shiva herself is a deadly oponnent that deserves to be able to showcase her skill in animation.

And if we’re touching on the League of Assassins

Number One: the Demon’s Fist

Lead by Ras’ granddaughter, Mara Al Ghul, Demon’s Fist is a fairly new addition to DC Universe, yet still an interesting one. A team of superpowered children - Nightstorm, Stone, Plague and Blank - kidnapped at birth, raised and trained to be assassins and servants of Ras. They never knew they were deceived nd once they found out, turned against their former master. But how could that story play in young Justice? Maybe with Ras dead, they will aid Mara in her efforts to seize grandfather’s position for herself? Or maybe they discover the League has been using them and ask the Team to help them get out? There are multiple possibilities to consider, which is what makes this team so interesting.

If there is a character who didn’t make it to the list, fear not - this is merely part one out of at least 3 DC Unvierse is rich and ripe with characters that would make a great addition to Young Justice, a single top 10 would not do them all justice. And when you look at the final two entries of this list, you can probably guess which corner of DCU we will visit next

- Admin

[multifandom-hoes]

Pressing All The Right Buttons

Member: YanAn || Pentagon

Genre: Smut, Romance, dom!YanAn, Strip Tease, Voyeurism

Short Summary: Being late from work, she came back to her jealous boyfriend that was having none of her excuses.

A/N: I FEEL BAD FOR WRITING THIS, OKAY?! I’M SORRY TT.TT

Words: 1.5k

It was another tough day at work for her; the director was making her work an extra three hours on top of her normal time. It was that time of the month; the deadlines were approaching quickly and her branch had yet to finish half of all of their projects that they started months ago. If they dared not finish what they took upon themselves, the director would fire all of them without a second thought.

Deep inside her pocket, the phone rang again, restless with missed calls and yet unread messages that went on deaf ears of the woman who was straining herself to keep conscious while drinking a cup of coffee whose count was long lost.

She had completely forgotten the romantic in-house date that she had planned to have with her dear boyfriend YanAn.

“Ah… Shit.” She cursed quietly when she made another typo. Drumming her nails on the hard desk in the office, she had finally decided to take a much-needed break and freshen herself up before collecting her things and walking out of the damned office. “I wonder how much longer it will take me to collapse if they continue to work me like a fucking horse.” She grumbled unhappily as she got into a lone taxi; she was lucky for such a miracle to happen.

Getting out her phone to check the time her eyes nearly popped out of her sockets, and the realization that she had fucked up major case had downed over her head and shoulders. She will be dead when she gets back home.

“Um, mister, could you please hurry up?” she nervously asked of the elder man that was driving, and with an unnoticeable nod of his head, the elder pressed the gas pedal, hurrying the woman home.

With twenty missed calls and even more unread messages, she did not even dare to read any of them, or call YanAn at this point, either.

She was a goner.

Pitiful excuses spun in her head the closer she got to their house, and she realised that none of them were going to work on the probably enraged man. Well, at least she had some little possibility of him being in a super duper good mood, which would make him less annoyed at her always being late. Ha. Yes, she was hoping on that smallest possibility.

Just as she wanted to bring her knuckle onto the wooden door it was ripped open from under her hand and she was pulled into the house with a force strong enough to knock a man down if sent to his face. “Where the fuck were you?” YanAn’s voice growled as he pinned her to the door, his black and white shit unbuttoned half-way, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and the black dress pants were missing a belt.

“I was worki---“

“That’s a shitty excuse.” He quickly shut her up with his own overwhelming voice. “I’m asking this again, and the excuse this time better be a better one.” His voice lowered to a deep timbre, and she shivered from his dominance. “Where. Were. You?” he left a pause between each other, obviously trying to control his rage and worry at the same time.

“I’m serious, YanAn---“ she heaved a deep breath before his hand slammed over her lips, not allowing her to speak. And though he was evidently angry at her, his grip on her face was as gentle as ever.

“Shut it.” He quickly commanded and his hand gripped her breast, squeezing it and then pinching the nipple. “Are you sure you didn’t mean to tell me that you were with that disgusting director of yours? Huh?” he sighed tiredly, his eyes directed at her breasts that were bouncing at the flick of his wrist.

Having her mouth shut because of his large hand, she could only tremble with satisfaction under him, like an obedient dog. Lightly, however, she did shake her head for a no.

“So you weren’t.” he interpreted. “That’s fine, since even if you were, I’ll be the one to satisfy you the best, anyway, right?” he questioned with eyes wide open as he stared her down, a small smirk splashing colour onto his handsome face. “Let’s go, then.”

His hand fell from her face and the other one that was fiddling with her breasts now fell to her wrist, grabbing it and dragging her behind himself, into a well-known direction of their bedroom.

“YanAn, I swear that there’s nothing between him and I. Why don’t you believe me?!” she felt frustrated with the man, it was a constant struggle to ease off his jealousy, and in complete honesty, she was getting sick and tired of his bouts.

“Of course I believe you, but the fact that as of now, you actually spend more time with him than with me is really pissing me off.” He grunted and pushed her inside the bedroom, making her stumble and stop just in front of their bed. “Now strip.” He instructed her curtly, sitting down into the leather couch in the corner of the room. “What’re you waiting for?” his brow arched up as she stood frozen in the middle of the room.

She thought for a while longer until a shy smile graced her flushed with heat features. “That’s going to be my way of saying `Sorry` for being so late.” With that, her hands started moving up and down her torso sensually, making sure to establish a solid eye-contact with the man that was observing her with eagle eyes; every move she made, be it small and unnoticeable or a complete opposite, his eyes were there, giving her his full attention.

Soon enough, her clothes came off and now she stood in nothing more but her lingerie. “Well… Are you taking it off?” he asked her calmly, his ankle on top of his knee, forming a small triangle through which she saw a tent in his black dress pants.

“I’ll do it.” She answered with a heavy voice, feeling her blush going down to her neck and chest.

God, she was so embarrassed.

Bending over with her ass in his direction, she mover her lingerie away from her dripping wet pussy and inserted a digit into it, getting it in as far as she could and slowly taking it out with a loud, purposeful moan.

She heard him shift in the leather couch and though embarrassed, she managed a small smile upon his reaction. Getting the finger out of herself she got rid of the underwear completely, abandoning the thin piece of clothing in her stead as she walked to their bed.

Now that she had a clear view of YanAn’s face she sent him a gaze full of lust before inserting two digits into herself and starting to pump them.

Having her eyes off from the man, she didn’t notice him approaching and therefore when two hands grabbed her wrists, she jumped from surprise. “Now, tell me this… Did I let you pleasure yourself?” his voice was calm, but his tone was deep, signifying his obvious need of her.

“No.” she answered breathlessly, staring into his deep eyes as she was gripping at his shoulders. “I’m sorry, YanAn, honey, but---“

“Oh, let me guess. You need me inside of you?” his tone of voice was that of mockery, but she knew that if she pushed further, she would get him to succumb quickly.

“I beg of you, YanAn… Please, I need your cock inside of me; to feel you throb inside of me; to fuck me so bad I won’t be able to walk after I wake up. Please, fuck me.” She begged him with no embarrassment whatsoever, and never did her eyes leave the man’s narrowed ones.

His tongue clicked at the top of his mouth and he chuckled lightly. “You just know what gets me worked up, don’t you, Dollface?” he grunted deeply into her ear, biting at the joint of her neck and shoulder, making her moan with that action alone.

“Please show me how worked up you are.” She continued to beg, sliding her hand to his clothed member, rubbing the hard outline in his pants. “Put that cock inside of my tight pussy and fuck me.”

His smirk split his face as he undid the buttons of his pants, getting rid of the cloth in record time of a couple of seconds. The belt that was missing from the before mentioned piece of clothing suddenly appeared in his hands as he tied her own on the bed post, cutting off her means of mobilisation. “You bought this upon yourself, Doll.” He growled as his throbbing dick entered her wet core with a sound so pleasant to their ears that it nearly sent the two of them over the edge just like that.

[klrkwall]

Honey

honey. an ingredient so sweet it makes some cringe and others full of delight. honey always poured from his lips, honey always coated her body. 

so!!!! i wrote a fic with kendall hawke and my bfs vjosa ( @knightlnred ) and it was intended to be smuttier but it’s fluffy instead, oh well. 

slight nsfw under the line

“That all your mouth good for, sweet thing?”

Kendall glanced up and rested her cheek against Vjosa’s chest, taking a break from marking him over and over. “I thought my performance right there was pretty good.” She was playing oblivious, tracing the largest tattoo on his muscular arm. Vjosa’s eyes widened and the smirk wiped off his face, thinking he had offended Kendall. “It was! I was-”

“Clearly, you have higher expectations for me, I get it…” Before Vjosa could protest against her teasing remark, Hawke began to kiss slowly down his scarred torso. The old Trevelyan sighed out of relief and even arched his back a little. Just a little bit closer she’d be at his aching-

“Didn’t you have paperwork to do today?” The simple question made Vjosa burn as he glanced down at Kendall, who had paused her actions and instead just had her hand on his stomach that had lost the layer of fat over the months. He nodded his head and a kind smile came on his face as he ran his fingers through the champion’s white locks. “I don’t have to do that crap till later-”

“Nonsense, work first!”

‘Since when was work a priority for you?’ Vjosa wanted to ask, but instead he groaned as he watched the half naked champion sit up, grabbing her top and slid it over her scar littered skin.  

  It had been an hour since he had sat down to do the paperwork that the elder Trevelyan had been delaying for the past two weeks, the advisors were on his back about it. He turned his head and saw a sight that he was confident was more then capable of taking his breath away.

There was a large window in his bedroom so he could see above the trees outside, he sometimes stared at the stars hopelessly and it helped his mind travel back in time to his younger days. The champion sat on the white painted window sill and was still stripped out of her armor, but held her sharp knife in her one hand, twirling it around in slow circles. It sparked in his mind that she was always looking to protect herself, here she was stripped out of her armor and yet held one of her sharp twin knives. Her snow white hair that was always tossed up in a pun was down, and fell against her shoulders. It was greasy, she had meant to bathe hours earlier but due to their… activities, she never got around to it.

“Hawke,” Vjosa called out, snapping himself out of his trance. Kendall turned around, a cheerful smile tugging at her lips as she caught his eyes. “I’m not sucking you off until you finish that bullshit.” She teased. The ‘bullshit’ being the paperwork.

“Why are you so insistent on me finishing this work? Did you even do any sort of paperwork while you were the champion?” He asked in a teasing tone, but he was indeed curious. He was always curious, about her life before him and when she was away from him. Kendall paused to think, she took a few seconds before responding with a simple ‘nope.’

“If there was any paperwork to be done, I had Lyov do it. He’s more of the paper-worky type, you know?” Vjosa laughed loudly at that. She wasn’t entirely wrong. “He does seem to be a bit of a… prune.”

“A prune?” She repeated with a giggle.

“A prune.” He confirmed with a nod and smile. Instead of a verbal response, Kendall walked over and away from the window. She was in front of Vjosa in seconds, earning a chuckle from him. “You’re very fast, darlin’.”

“Running away from Lyov, responsibilities and demons will do that to you.” He laughed once more and she straddled him, and suddenly the paperwork was forgotten about. He noticed that she still had the knife in her hand and he glanced over. “Plan on putting me out of my misery?”

“You have Thedas’s finest woman straddling you, waking up next to you every morning and you’re in misery?” She rolled her eyes playfully and shrugged. “Can’t relate.”

“I’m joking! I would not have this any other way.”

“You sap.”

“I try my best.” He leaned his head forward and pressed a soft kiss to her collarbone that had visible purple marks from him. “So, do you plan on doing anything with that knife?” “Yeah, I plan on shoving it up your arse.” His eyebrows rose and his eyes widened at the same time, completely shocked and nervously chuckled. “Haha… Be generous with the lube please.” Kendall snickered and gently placed the knife on the table and brought both arms around Vjosa’s neck.

“I’d always be generous to you.” “How lucky am I?”

“I’d say pretty lucky.”

Vjosa chuckled. “I love you, Kendall.” A word foreign to both, one that they both had starved for. Butterflies were erupting in Kendall’s stomach, as well as Vjosa as he anxiously waited for her reply. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t said it to each other before, but it was said usually through breathy moans, said so quietly as he would slip into her and it was inaudible to her.

She placed a hand on his cheek gently. “I love you too, old man.”

[chameleonspell]

178: you

The smallest possible hour of the night, in Holamayan Monastery. In the chapel, cold incense and still bells. In the kitchen, in the alchemy lab, all swept clean and put away. In the dormitories, tired acolytes snatching a few hours' rest between the Midnight Invocation and preparations for the Blessing of the Dawn. In the library... bare feet, treading softly. Silently, even, but accompanied by a constant, urgently-whispered monologue.

"...just hope everyone's really asleep this time. They all think I've gone mad. I think I might have gone mad, too. But I have to keep talking to you, Iya, so I don't forget again. I made Viatrix remember you for a while, that's how I know I haven't lost it completely, and invented someone who never was. She remembered you getting her into the Ministry, so I know you were there, alive, not captured. But then she forgot you again, and gave me that Temple look, and said, Julan, I hope you're not going to do something crazy. She didn't say crazy, she said something else, but she meant crazy. Yeah, I know. You didn't like that word, either." He carried a scrib-oil lamp and a steaming redware cup. He put the cup down among the floor cushions in the meditation area, and began swinging the lamp along the bookshelves, searching for a volume. "Pretty sure any way you slice it, I'm gonna do something crazy, though." He found the book he was after, and placed it with the cup on the soft rugs heaped in the corner of the library, positioning the lamp nearby. After a moment's thought, he began arranging the cushions into a sort of nest shape around him. Once he was satisfied, he knelt before his equipment, cleared his throat, and addressed the empty shadows as loudly as he dared. "This is a summoning ritual. You never taught me any Conjuration, so I'm making it up. Or... I guess it could be a teleportation spell, for all I know. It's not meant to be a soul-trapping spell, because you're not dead, but... I don't care what kind of spell it is, as long as it works. You told me magic was about willpower, and desire, all the rest was just ways to focus and direct that energy. I hope you were right. I don't know much about magic, but I know a lot about wanting things." He reached into his right-hand pocket, and deposited a slightly bruised fungus onto the rug in front of him. "So," he said. "OK. First, while I was out, I got you a mushroom. The small, purple kind you like. You told me the long name once, but I wasn't listening, so you have to come and tell me again." He rolled the mushroom gently with his finger, furrowing his brow at minor signs of damage. "I remember you," he said, louder, emphasising his words to the silent darkness, and to himself. "Not everything. I can't see your face properly. I don't even have your name, except one letter: Iya. But... I still know you. I remember you. I miss you." He frowned harder, still manipulating the mushroom. "I miss your hands, and the way they move. Like you're afraid of touching things... or not touching things. And of regretting it either way, so your fingers hover in between, tying themselves in knots. I miss them in my hair. I miss them brushing mine, in the street." Taking gentle leave of the mushroom, he transferred his attention to the redware cup. "Second, I made you tea. I sweetened it. I think I finally worked out the pattern - you sweeten it when you're trying to relax, and leave it bitter when you're trying to do something difficult, like write, or get out of bed. Is it like the tragic stories, you find pain more motivating than pleasure? Or maybe you're just scared of sweetness, because you know you get addicted so easily. You shouldn't worry, though. You're stronger than you think." He took a small sip of the tea, and grimaced. "Too sweet for me, you definitely have to come drink this." Twisting the cup against the rug, he watched the bittergreen petals swirl, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "I miss your tongue. Sharp as scathecraw, but I never minded. You could make it sweet enough, when you wanted. I miss its long words, and its silences. I miss the way it gets all veering and musical sometimes, like chimes jangling in the wind, when you let it run ahead of you." From his other pocket, he drew a small scrap of fabric, folded several times around its hidden contents. He placed it gently on the rug, with the rest. "Third, I have a tooth. It's OK, you don't have to look at it. I know it's yours, but you still might be scared of it. You were always so scared of the things you thought were inside you, but... we've all got them, Iya. Anyway, it's embarrassing I kept this, so for Azura's sake come and laugh at me." His finger still rested on top of the cloth. "They say every bone is a door through the wall of the world. I never had ancestors, and I never learned those rites either, but you're not my ancestor, and you're not dead, so I'm trying it anyway. Wherever you are, this is a door, and I'm calling you through it. If that's not real magic, if it's not possible, come here and tell me to my face. Look me in the eye and tell me, because I miss your eyes the most. I miss them smiling, and crying, and filled with such... I don't know. Things you said didn't count as love. I think you're still a liar, sometimes." He pinned the tooth to the rug, shoving it into the pile until it had its own small valley. "Gods, Iya, it was you who said I needed to trust my own judgement, and not other people's, so that means it's OK for me to ignore some of the complete blighted nonsense you talk, right? Sheo-fucking-gorath! Like... that time you said only amnesia could fix us, and then right after that you said I'd turn you back into the person you were when we met! So... I mean, what am I to...? Oh, and then later, you said that person was gone forever, except by then it was a bad thing! And... and... it's not just that all this stuff doesn't make any sense, when you take it all together - although it doesn't - it's that every single time, you're using it as a reason why you're unlovable. And if that's not guarshit, I don't know what is. Come here and tell me I'm wrong. I challenge you. I summon you." He jabbed the tooth one more time, eyes narrowed, demanding a response from the shadows around him. Receiving none, he hesitated a few moments longer, then moved his hand onto the book. He ground his jaw at it, fingers jittering against the blue, gold-embossed leather. "Uh... I don't know what I expected to happen, exactly, but if the other stuff didn't work... I have one other idea. A back-up plan, kind of." He cleared his throat, and threw a swift glance towards the doorway. "They don't have any sad romance books here, I asked. As you can probably tell, it's not that kind of library. I did find this, though. Mehra says it's about love, but I don't get how. I don't think Vivec uses words the same way I do. But then neither do you, and you were always reading these with a faraway look on your face, and, well. I like it when you read me things. So, uh... I'm not as good, but I'll try. And this doesn't mean I agree with any of Vivec's guarshit, so don't start." The library had no doors, only dark archways, leading towards the chapel on one side, and the sleeping quarters on the other. Julan watched them suspiciously for for a few more seconds. Then he scrabbled between his shoulder-blades till he had a fistful of shirt, and yanked it off over his head. "Not strictly necessary, but..." His mouth quirked briefly, then with a shrug, he began removing his pants as well. "No sense chancing half measures. I mean, this IS a library. If I want to summon you, maybe I have to beat you at your own game." Opening the book, he flicked through pages of scholarly preamble to the beginning of the text itself. Took a last, nervous glance around, listening for footsteps. Then he adjusted the lamp, took the book in one hand, and began to read. "The formulas of proper Velothi magic continue in ancient tradition, but that virility is dead--" we'll see about that, you flame-brained s'wit "--by which I mean at least replaced. Truth owes its medicinal nature to the estab...lishment of the myth of justice." Azura's star, what is this crap? "Its cura...tive properties it likewise owes to the concept of... sacrifice." He broke off, and stared wildly into space. "Hey," he said, "I just remembered! You had a... you had that awful song, didn't you? About all the things some girl had to sacrifice for love. Listen, I'm not doing that, like you're some dead khan I have to kill a guar for! Because that's all death ritual, and you don't need that! I'm not cutting myself into bits for you, Iya, or throwing them away. All of me is staying right here, because you're coming back for it." He exhaled sharply, and returned to the page. His initial fervour had worn off. He read mechanically, uncomprehendingly. "This is a view prim...arily based on a pro...lific abo...lition of an implied prof...anity..." oh for fuck's sake! This is stupid, why did I think--DON'T THINK, JUST KEEP GOING. The words were stiff and awkward, catching his tongue, taunting him with his own stupidity at every stumble. He resigned himself to none of it making any sense, and forged onwards. "...seen in ceremonies, knife fighting, hunting and the exploration of the poetic." This isn't worki--SHUT UP. FOCUS. He tried fixing his mind on Iya instead, on the fragments he had shored against forgetting. "On the ritual of occasions, which comes to us from the days of the cave glow..." I have no idea what that meant, but hey, remember when you exploded your eyeballs with overpowered night eye potions in that bandit lair? And... after a while... "...seen as an act of the highest love, which is a return from the astral destiny, and the marriages between." ...he had the creeping sensation parts were almost making sense, he was just too slow to catch it. Individual words would leap out, and he'd try fixing his mind on those, on what they meant to him, regardless of what Vivec intended. But he couldn't stop to think, before the sentences moved on, dragging him with them. "To keep one's powers intact at such a stage is to allow for the existence of what can only be called a continual spirit." He tried to identify and separate out the alien echoes in his mind: what would he say to me now? What in Oblivion do you think you're doing? "Make of your love a defence against the horizon." What do you want from me? "The lover is the highest country, and a series of beliefs. He is the sacred city, bereft of a double." You know what. "The uncultivated land of monsters is the rule." Then... not even the words, but... something behind them, raw and desperate. Building, yearning, flowing through him, reaching outwards. He wasn't sure it had anything to do with the spell, but he went with it, gave himself over: all or nothing! "This scripture is directly ordered by the codes of Mephala, the origin of sex and murder, defeated only by those who take up those ideas without my intervention." It gripped him, as if by the throat. Breathing was difficult. "The religious elite is not a tendency or a correlation. They are dogma complemented by the influence of the untrustworthy sea and the governance of the stars, dominated at the centre by the sword, which is nothing without a victim to cleave unto." They all could have been watching him now, for all he knew. He couldn't tear his eyes from the words, and his ears were full of the rushing of his blood, the thundering of his heart. "This is the love of God and he would show you more, predatory, but at the same time instrumental to the will of critical harvest, a scenario by which one becomes as he is, of male and female..." Some sentences never seemed to end. His head swam, from forgetting to breathe, from the way the words jammed themselves into his subconscious and levered it open, spilling things out. Panting, he groped for the next line, the book swaying in his hand. The air he drew in was heady with energy... magic? faith? desire? Was it working, was something happening? He couldn't tell, but it filled him, forced him onwards. "Mark the norms of violence and it barely registers, suspended as it is by treaties written between the original spirits." ...mpossible invalid ritual completely impossible why must he always... "This should be seen as an opportunity, and in no way tedious, though some will give up..." NO. ...not how summoning works at all... "...for it is easier to kiss the lover than become one." fuck you it is! but... i'll take the easy way, just this once, if i-- just-- please-- ...he's completely misinterpreting the text... He couldn't tell what was out loud or in his head any more, imagination or sensation. Everything was swimming, shaking, tilting. But he was over the crest of it now, running on empty, but running downhill, words flowing unstoppably forwards. "The lower regions crawl with these souls ...ask for nothing need nothing don't force these messy desires onto... caves of shallow treasures ...how could he why would he how dare... meeting in places to testify by way of extens-- His balance went. --ion, when love He flailed forwards, lost the book and upset the lamp-- is only satisfied --the final words a neon after-image as shadows blinded him by a considerable but he was (incalculable) almost-- effo-- next: 179: i previous: 177: curses beginning: 1: numb

[zaccomstockhuman-blog]

The Accident

I wish I hadn’t told macy what to do. We were just kids, trying to get a good life for ourselves. On days when when we didn’t have much to talk about we sometimes talked about our future. I had got the idea in my head that it was the perfect job. It didn’t require ten years of college like becoming a doctor would.

“I’ll give people shots for the flu. It’s a good job.”

“Yeah I think it’s a good ide-”

“I don’t do cutting into people. I can do anything else, not people.”

“..Where do you think we could work?”

“You can be a nurse anywhere. It’s easy. “

After high school I started working as a nurse and my best friend became a paramedic.

I wish I hadn’t become a nurse, but the money was important. Everyone needs money.  

Scalding hot protected in a layer of cuneiform golden ooze. burned black, brown, and red skin, the honey-mask that was not really protecting. It stuck to the skin like glue, forcing agonizing pain until we could pry or cut or wash it off.

I think the devil lives there in the honey, you can see him if you look close enough. The devil lives there but it is lifted up on the shoulders of the father of the son of the cousin of the holy ghost, well I don’t know the basics of religion. You can really see him, I can see something in the stuff, something with a soul.

A troupe of Apologists came in yesterday. You could tell which side they were on.

Burning the thin glaze through, burning the chests of the innocent, sinful creatures. They used to move freely along the banks of rivers or roads, like rabbits.

It still tastes sweet so they don’t stop. Even when their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends say to them: “don’t let it in”, they take more in, everyone crying their fucking faces off.

~~~

A Golden light filled ball in the sky- it’s not the sun, it’s moving across the night sky at eight o clock. What could it be? Was it some sort of new weapon invented by the soviets? It was probably a dream, right? My wife woke up, tugged at my sleeve. She asked, “honey, what’s going on?”. I told her I didn’t know, but we needed to get to the basement fast. We were in the stairway next to a window when I saw the ball of light again, this time it was just about to hit the ground a block away. I thought I saw something in it. I imagined the souls of the dead collected in it. When it hit the ground they went out flying. Gravel, pavement, and dirt was shooting everywhere, then our neighbor’s house destroyed and splinters coming our way, hitting her face. She was dead. There were people watching on the street before, but now everyone was gone. Were they all dead as well? No, I saw survivors in the corner of my eye. A crowd of people walking the same direction. They were moving toward a stunning, beautiful light emanating from the impact crater. Immediately, I wanted to have a look for myself. The light was a perfect color, looking like heaven’s gates had opened up right there  in the ground. I didn’t notice the screams coming from people who had walked into the mess. That beautiful light drew me in. I didn’t notice the stuff seeping into my skin and coating half of my face and arms.

A hand grabbed my shoulder- I turned around and there was a woman who looked like she must be a paramedic. I noticed two ambulances were pulled up to the scene. How long had I been there? It would have taken atleast 20 minutes for them to get here from the hospital. The paramedic directed me into an ambulance and I sat down. The pain started. It got so bad that I collapsed and lay writhing on the floor of the ambulance.  There were about five or 6 paramedics running around the neighborhood, trying to stop people from touching that glowing stuff. No one listened to them until they started yelling or grabbing. Soon the Ambulances and a truck they borrowed from jeff were full. We sped away toward the hospital.

I spent 12 days in the hospital healing. I don’t remember much of the first four days. I was in and out of reality, passing out every time I woke up. In one weird coma dream I was back in my house, except this time I knew what was going to happen. I couldn’t move. I tried to jump in front of the piece of wood flying towards Helena. But I couldn’t. In the next dream the same thing was happening except I was licking up a bunch of that golden glowing stuff from my arms. It tasted like maple syrup infused with drugs. I woke up every once in awhile for around 2 seconds at a time, just long enough to stare at the ceiling or catch a glimpse of someone near me. The dreams kept coming, It felt like an eternity. On the third day i woke up for longer than normal, probably a full minute, long enough to talk to someone. There was a nurse there taking care of me who was very gracious and kind. Although my first impression of her was fine, the next time I woke up was different. On the fourth day of my stay at the hospital i woke up while I was being moved to make space for another person to share my room. I got a chance to have a conversation with the nurse and get a good look at her. She was a fast talker and didn’t seem to care very much about what I was saying. It got a little annoying, but being in the hospital, I was grateful to be alive and healing. I wondered why they had to move someone into my room.. It wasn’t a very big room, and the hospital would usually be half empty in a town like this. Before I could come to any conclusions or ask the nurse, I fell asleep. Over the next few days, I was awake much more often, now taking naps rather than taking “wakes”. My arms and face still hurt like hell, but the doctor told me that they were able to remove the substance from my body, so I shouldn’t have any problems with it. I tried to ask the doctor what had happened, but he didn’t reply. The nurse told me to focus on resting and healing, then set a tray of hospital food on my bedside stand. Right as she was leaving I realized who she was. I exclaimed: “hey, weren’t you a paramedic before? I remember you saved me that night , I was walking toward the light.” Her expression changed completely. She went from a fake cheery but really annoyed look to a very sincere somber expression. “ I’m not really a paramedic. “ she said. “I fill in for the paramedics now.. Most of the originals died… or are injured too badly to work.” . The room fell silent, she stood there, looking completely empty. I felt like asking another question would be pushing her too far, but this one was really urgent: “what was it that killed all those people?”.

~~~

Worki Torki the muthafucking greatest. She was an engineer and scientist known throughout the gladdasphere for her accomplishments in biological energy. Torki’s research and development could probably be considered the most influential scientific work of the past 100 years. However, Torki fell into disrepute last year when she mistakenly released a dangerous experiment she was working on for the Hukdistani government. Using the “souls” of human brains, she was able to create a completely autonomous AI, capable of accomplishing feats no species could do alone. The discovery had huge implications: the ability to use human consciousness to power machines would increase our technological ability tenfold. Her research was about halfway through, and after 5 years of work, she had been able to create a containment method for souls, involving a highly volatile palladium-infused 0.0001 degrees kelvin liquid. This liquid would later be the cause of one of the most deadly incidents in the history of the gladdasphere.

On may 5th, 2018, about 210,000 humans died after the soul AI, energy source, goo, whatever you want to call it, was accidentally released. A carbon compression chamber in the north side of Torki-sana research station was beginning to overheat at 2:00, PM. According to eyewitnesses, the foreman on that deck was enjoying a late lunch with his superior when the chamber popped, at 2:14 PM. Workers were unable to seal the gap or turn off the valve in time to save the machinery, and soon conditions were too hazardous for anyone to go inside the room. Meanwhile, the main soulcantene in the central compartment of the research station was beginning to fail. The loss of carbon supply to the central board was causing extra strain on the other compression chambers, and soon all of the carbon compression chambers had been overworked to the point of destruction. When the carbon supply was diminished too much, the entire facility broke down, and the ectoplasm inside was released in an explosion. It travelled in space along black matter currents for two days. Our military failed to deploy interception ships fast enough, and it struck earth. Initial casualties numbered in the thousands, but the real killer was the golden soul ooze. It began to be sold by criminals as a new drug - very potent and addictive. Users had a 90% chance of death, but the confusion and misinformation caused by the earth people made it so that far too many humans ingested the substance without knowing it’s effects. Ingestion would cause severe chest pain and internal bleeding, followed by an intense desire to take more, followed by an increased effect, until death.

Many sources have speculated about the causes of the accident. Some theorize that the government orchestrated it all to further their own anti-science agenda. Although this argument can be appealing, I have to be realistic. All of the evidence supporting it is far too weak and circumstantial to be considered. I agree with people who say that we should not have invaded the Hukdistan sector, but It is very unlikely that the accident was created to incite the Hukdistan war.

Worki Torki  survived the disaster and returned to the Hukdistan home planet. She was given asylum there, and protection from the Federation. She was captured on may 24th, 2019, a full year after the incident. Today she is being held in federal prison while a trial goes on to determine her fate.

Federation officials are working on creating a plan to help earth humans without alerting them to our presence.

One thing is for certain: we have learned a lot from the accident. Today, work with supernatural forces like the souls of the dead is forbidden in all federation provinces, and more detailed regulations have been placed on deep space scientific research stations.

~~~

“It was the devil” She said. “It took Macy, and it took brian, and it took so many damm people.” “ I saw him, I keep seeing him, It was the devil.”

“Lol ok” I replied.

I told her not to give me orange jell-O anymore.

[rizkadamalia-world]

22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader

Source :  https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/270486

1. Focus

“It’s been said that leadership is making important but unpopular decisions. That’s certainly a partial truth, but I think it underscores the importance of focus. To be a good leader, you cannot major in minor things, and you must be less distracted than your competition. To get the few critical things done, you must develop incredible selective ignorance. Otherwise, the trivial will drown you.”

—Tim Ferriss, bestselling author, host of The Tim Ferriss Show

Offer: Get The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss as a free audiobook with a 30-day free trial to Audiobooks.com.

2. Confidence

“A leader instills confidence and ‘followership’ by having a clear vision, showing empathy and being a strong coach. As a female leader, to be recognized I feel I have to show up with swagger and assertiveness, yet always try to maintain my Southern upbringing, which underscores kindness and generosity. The two work well together in gaining respect.”

—Barri Rafferty, CEO, Ketchum North America

3. Transparency

“I’ve never bought into the concept of ‘wearing the mask.’ As a leader, the only way I know how to engender trust and buy-in from my team and with my colleagues is to be 100 percent authentically me—open, sometimes flawed, but always passionate about our work. It has allowed me the freedom to be fully present and consistent. They know what they’re getting at all times. No surprises.”

—Keri Potts, senior director of public relations, ESPN

4. Integrity

“Our employees are a direct reflection of the values we embody as leaders. If we’re playing from a reactive and obsolete playbook of needing to be right instead of doing what’s right, then we limit the full potential of our business and lose quality talent. If you focus on becoming authentic in all your interactions, that will rub off on your business and your culture, and the rest takes care of itself.”

—Gunnar Lovelace, co-CEO and cofounder, Thrive Market

5. Inspiration

“People always say I’m a self-made man. But there is no such thing. Leaders aren’t self-made; they are driven. I arrived in America with no money or any belongings besides my gym bag, but I can’t say I came with nothing: Others gave me great inspiration and fantastic advice, and I was fueled by my beliefs and an internal drive and passion. That’s why I’m always willing to  offer motivation—to friends or strangers on Reddit. I know the power of inspiration, and if someone can stand on my shoulders to achieve greatness, I’m more than willing to help them up.”

—Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governor of California

Read This: Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger | Amazon | Indigo.ca | Barnes & Noble

6. Passion

“You must love what you do. In order to be truly successful at something, you must obsess over it and let it consume you. No matter how successful your business might become, you are never satisfied and constantly push to do something bigger, better and greater. You lead by example not because you feel like it’s what you should do, but because it is your way of life.”

—Joe Perez, cofounder, Tastemade

7. Innovation

“In any system with finite resources and infinite expansion of population—like your business, or like all of humanity—innovation is essential for not only success  but also survival. The innovators are our leaders. You cannot separate the two. Whether it is by thought, technology or organization, innovation is our only hope to solve our challenges.”

—Aubrey Marcus, founder, Onnit

8. Patience

“Patience is really courage that’s meant to test your commitment to your cause. The path to great things is always tough, but the best leaders understand when to abandon the cause and when to stay the course. If your vision is bold enough, there will be hundreds of reasons why it ‘can’t be done’ and plenty of doubters. A lot of things have to come together—external markets, competition, financing, consumer demand and always a little luck—to pull off something big.”

—Dan Brian, COO, WhipClip

9. Stoicism

“It’s inevitable: We’re going to find ourselves in some real shit situations, whether they’re costly mistakes, unexpected failures or unscrupulous enemies. Stoicism is, at its core, accepting and anticipating this in advance, so that you don’t freak out, react emotionally and aggravate things further. Train our minds, consider the worst-case scenarios and regulate our unhelpful instinctual responses—that’s how we make sure shit situations don’t turn into fatal resolutions.”

—Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle is the Way and former director of marketing, American Apparel

Offer: Get Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday as a free audiobook with a 30-day free trial to Audiobooks.com

10. Wonkiness

“Understanding the underlying numbers is the best thing I’ve done for my business. As we have a subscription-based service, the biggest impact on our bottom line was to decrease our churn rate. Being able to nudge that number from 6 percent to 4 Percent meant a 50 percent increase in the average customer’s lifetime value. We would not have known to focus on this metric without being able to accurately analyze our data.”

—Sol Orwell, cofounder, Examine.com

11. Authenticity

“It’s true that imitation is one of the greatest forms of flattery, but not when it comes to leadership—and every great leader in my life, from Mike Tomlin to Olympic ski coach Scott Rawles, led from a place of authenticity. Learn from others, read autobiographies of your favorite leaders, pick up skills along the way... but never lose your authentic voice, opinions and, ultimately, how you make decisions.”

—Jeremy Bloom, cofounder and CEO, Integrate

Read This: Fueled By Failure: Using Detours and Defeats to Power Progress by Jeremy Bloom | Amazon | eBooks.com | Barnes & Noble

12. Open-mindedness

“One of the biggest myths is that good business leaders are great visionaries with dogged determination to stick to their goals no matter what. It’s nonsense. The truth is, leaders need to keep an open mind while being flexible, and adjust if necessary. When in the startup phase of a company, planning is highly overrated and goals are not static. Your commitment should be to invest, develop and maintain great relationships.”

—Daymond John, CEO, Shark Branding and FUBU

Read This: The Power of Broke by Daymond John | Amazon | eBooks.com | Barnes & Noble

13. Decisiveness

“In high school and college, to pick up extra cash I would often referee recreational basketball games. The mentor who taught me how to officiate gave his refs one important piece of advice that translates well into the professional world: ‘Make the call fast, make the call loud and don’t look back.’ In marginal situations, a decisively made wrong call will often lead to better long-term results and a stronger team than a wishy-washy decision that turns out to be right.”

—Scott Hoffman, owner, Folio Literary Management

14. Personableness

“We all provide something unique to this world, and we can all smell when someone isn’t being real. The more you focus on genuine connections with people, and look for ways to help them—rather than just focus on what they can do for you—the more likable and personable you become. This isn’t required to be a great leader, but it is to be a respected leader, which can make all the difference in your business.”

—Lewis Howes, New York Times bestselling author of The School of Greatness

15. Empowerment

“Many of my leadership philosophies were learned as an athlete. My most successful teams didn’t always have the most talent but did have teammates with the right combination of skills, strengths and a common trust in each other. To build an ‘overachieving’ team, you need to delegate responsibility and authority. Giving away responsibilities isn’t always easy. It can actually be harder to do than completing the task yourself, but with the right project selection and support, delegating can pay off in dividends. It is how you truly find people’s capabilities and get the most out of them.”

—Shannon Pappas, senior vice president, Beachbody LIVE

16. Positivity

“In order to achieve greatness, you must create a culture of optimism. There will be many ups and downs, but the prevalence of positivity will keep the company going. But be warned: This requires fearlessness. You have to truly believe in making the impossible possible.”

—Jason Harris, CEO, Mekanism

17. Generosity

“My main goal has always been to offer the best of myself. We all grow—as a collective whole—when I’m able to build up others and help them grow as individuals.”

—Christopher Perilli, CEO, Pixel Mobb

18. Persistence

“A great leader once told me, ‘persistence beats resistance.’ And after working at Facebook, Intel and Microsoft and starting my own company, I’ve learned two major lessons: All great things take time, and you must persist no matter what. That’s what it takes to be a leader: willingness to go beyond where others will stop.”

—Noah Kagan, Chief Sumo, appsumo

Read This: How I Lost 170 Million Dollars: My Time as #30 at Facebook by Noah Kagan

19. Insightfulness

“It takes insight every day to be able to separate that which is really important from all the incoming fire. It’s like wisdom—it can be improved with time, if you’re paying attention, but it has to exist in your character. It’s inherent. When your insight is right, you look like a genius. And when your insight is wrong, you look like an idiot.”

—Raj Bhakta, founder, WhistlePig Whiskey

20. Communication

“If people aren’t aware of your expectations, and they fall short, it’s really your fault for not expressing it to them. The people I work with are in constant communication, probably to a fault. But communication is a balancing act. You might have a specific want or need, but it’s superimportant to treat work as a collaboration. We always want people to tell us their thoughts and ideas—that’s why we have all these very talented people working with us.”

—Kim Kurlanchik Russen, partner, TAO Group

21. Accountability

“It’s a lot easier to assign blame than to hold yourself accountable. But if you want to know how to do it right, learn from financial expert Larry Robbins. He wrote a genuinely humble letter to his investors about his bad judgment that caused their investments to falter. He then opened up a new fund without management and performance fees—unheard of in the hedge fund world. This is character. This is accountability. It’s not only taking responsibility; it’s taking the next step to make it right.”

—Sandra Carreon-John, senior vice president, M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment

22. Restlessness

“It takes real leadership to find the strengths within each person on your team and then be willing to look outside to plug the gaps. It’s best to believe that your team alone does not have all the answers— because if you believe that, it usually means you’re not asking all the right questions.”

—Nick Woolery, global director of marketing, Stance Socks