Mermay's over, but I'm not done with it! Anyway mermaid Tang Xuan Au where Tang Xuan is a octopus based mermaid and Li Ling is like a rich aristocrat. They meet when they are kids and become best friends then Tang Xuan goes away. So a few years down Li Ling is an adult and thinks he made it up till Tang Xuan shows up again. Lewis is also going to be in this idea (cause he deserves it) but I don't have an exact idea. I'm thinking sailor who was friends with Xuan and Ling when younger and also has to go away but stayed in contact with Tang Xuan
You put down Octupus!Merman!Tang Xuan, solid as octopus are know for their flexibility and adaptability, but I raise you WingedFish!merman!Tang Xuan, specifically Four Winged Flying Fish. Fast, sleek, [small,] and can perform decent feats of acrobatics when it launches itself out if the water and into the air. They use their ability to speed boost to outmanoeuvre predators, so they're agile too!
Lewis would be a legend, spread in multiple small towns and isolated villages, as a pirate who shows no mercy to other ships that cross his territory, his wrath setting ships ablaze with a terrifying plume of fire that the townsfolk can see clearly from the comforts of their beach. The screams of these tortured sailors travel with the wind from their emblazed ship, providing easy fodder to scare unruly children into doing their chores and listening to their elders.
In reality, Lewis is in a petty sibling cat-and-mousrle game with Bonnie, Lewis actually being part of the Western King's admiral fleet and trying to catch up to his Pirate!Sister before the Royal Navals find her. She smuggles herself onto pirate ships, in the hopes of joining a crew and going on bloody adventures, but since she's a bit too... Excitable... And aggressive... And bloodthirsty... The Royal Naval fleet always gets involved, and Lewis is almost always there to at least rangle her off the ship. He is fine with his sister's dreams, he just wishes they were a tad less violent so he didn't have to lose sleep over her potentially getting caught and sent to the gallows.
With that being said, Bonnie is a bit of a legend herself, among the pirates, as her figure holding a crude, hodge podge farming scythe in one hand and a ball of fire (actually a lit flask) in the other, is the omen before their ship explodes and they're left to die a slow death. She appears out of nowhere and vanishes just as abruptly too.
Then everything you said is happening between our two boys, with the added spice that Li Ling goes off to find his friend, with the idea to find this Legend and join his crew, so that there will be no rules stopping them and no eyes and ears reporting back to his family. Of course, he hops on his Best Friend's™ ship, Lewis, not realising that this man is the Legend and Lewis can only keep a poker face and act like this Fire Fist legend is someone he's met rather than himself.
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oh and I also don’t have hot water
I didn’t notice that one, because I am Confined To My Blanket Pile and too cold to move from it to explore things like kitchen sinks
but I was texting with a downstairs neighbor, who says her heat has been fine, but hot water is out for the whole building
to reiterate. the city declared a “cold emergency” and closed schools yesterday because it was too cold. it is That Cold. I first called building maintenance 16 hours ago expressing concern that my heat wasn’t working in a cold-emergency and they blew me off, and I’m still waiting on a heat fix
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So there are some perks to living in a tourist destination. There are a lot of detractors mostly that you cannot shoot the tourists because you rely on them for your income but you have a semi captive audience with no context for any of the bullshit you spew. You can tell these people anything and they will believe you, the trusted friendly local. Now this is a very much Spider-Man situation where Great Power begets Great Audacity and even worse Responsibility.
My buddy goes on a run and when hes done there is a bar near a creek. So he wades into the creek because the day is hot and the water is cold.
Tourists ask what hes up to, with his running stuff he didn't want wet piled on the shore and him very obviously cooling off in the water. He says he's fishing.
But now here is why I am telling you this story. The universe occasionally aligns in such a way that we get to really really fuck with people and their perception of said universe. The opportunities do not come often and when they come you must seize the day. This is what my buddy did.
So this Creek runs through town and as a result of the highway and neighborhoods and culverts and roads it does not have a great salmon run. It's a short Creek the headwaters are only a few miles from the ocean it never had a great salmon run to begin with. But there are salmon.
One such fish brushes past my buddy's leg. Immediately he knees the fish like he is juggling a soccer ball and pops it out of the water, then slaps it out of the air on to the shore.
This is dumb luck. He could not do this again if he spent years training. Noodling (catching fish with your hands) is a thing that is legal to do with salmon but it is so much harder than literally every other way to catch salmon, including grabbing them with a garbage can. What he just managed is the kind of thing that should make you want to grab the fish and swing it around your head like a stripper with her panties off.
But,
He has an audience.
This is the opportunity offered by the universe.
He plays it cool.
He puts on dead pan straight face on and wades up to shore to grab his fish and nod to the tourists. Someone asks something and he assures them this is the standard way to get a quick dinner here. The tour guide has caught up with his group. He looks at my buddy and his fish and the general lack of fishing accoutrement. Without missing a beat, the guide backs up every ounce of bullshit out of my buddys mouth because if there is one true fraternity it is locals bullshitting stupid tourists.
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The mattress company I worked for the first time no longer exists. It was long ago eaten and assimilated by a bigger company. But when I started it was an incredibly intense five weeks of training. I was told I was extremely lucky to be selected, and I was. From a pool of a hundred applicants only fifteen of us made the cut to entering the training program.
The course covered how to talk to customers, how to ask open ended questions, how to close a sale, and product knowledge. I learned a lot, and truthfully my greatest takeaway was a lot of social scripts that I could use in other areas of my life.
We also had a midterm exam and a final. Both included a roleplay element with a trainer and a written portion. They told us when we started that the course was challenging but it was still a shock to come in after the midterm and realize half the class had failed.
I was named valedictorian of training- a dubious honor as it meant I’d done the best in the class, but popular lore had it that valedictorians struggled the most on the sales floor. Lo, I struggled.
Not because I wasn’t good. I was. But because my manager set out to systematically destroy my self esteem. Every sale, every interaction I had was scrutinized and criticized.
If I sold a bed with protectors, moveable base, and pillows he’d ask why I hadn’t managed to sell pillow protectors too. His first trainee had thrived on being challenged and he’d never bothered to learn a different way to coach.
It was wretched. My performance started strong but nosedived after a few weeks with him. My trainer, a man I loathed for stonewalling me in my interview, came in to inform me I was on new hire probation. If I couldn’t get my sales numbers up I’d be let go.
His actual phrasing was, “When you have a bandaid do you like to rip it off or pull it slowly?”
Since it was eminently obvious why he was visiting and because I thought it was condescending I sweetly informed him that I liked to soak my bandaids in hot water so they come off on their own.
He was briefly startled at this derailing but then got on with the bad news. I signed some forms stating that I understood my job was in peril.
I went home furious. I thought long and hard about why I wasn’t succeeding and how frustrated I was with my manager. I came in the next day and my anger had crystallized into a cold sharp edge.
My manager opened his mouth to address the probation and I snapped, “Just leave me alone. Go in the back if I have a sale. If you must address a serious issue then you will give me praise on two things I did right and present it as a compliment sandwich. Otherwise just say good job and shut up. Your constant nitpicking just makes me anxious and I do worse. Back off.” Belated and begrudging I added, “Please.”
He raised his eyebrows in dim surprise but I’d gauged him well. He backed off. Dutifully he’d meander into the back when I had a sale and praised me when I closed it. I resented knowing it was only because I’d demanded complimented but they still boosted me up. My numbers skyrocketed, I landed my first split king sale, and I exited probation with flying colors.
The trainer came back in to congratulate my manager for turning things around. To my gratification he gave me credit for setting him straight and said I’d taught him a different way to lead. My manager would often genuinely praise that moment when I’d stood up to him, impressed with my stubborn refusal to fail and my insight into what would help.
My biggest takeaway from the whole thing was just that people need positive reinforcement to succeed. Praise people for doing a good job. If you’re ever in a position where you need to criticize someone put it in a compliment sandwich instead of just saying the negative.
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