#try to write a little what if meta...and BOOM ended up with one-shot....

[codicesandflora]

What if it wasn’t as simple as Crowley convincing Aziraphale to run away with him to Alpha Centauri? What if when God made Aziraphale the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, She also bound him to Earth so he could never abandon his duties? He could still travel to Heaven or Hell, but he could never exist in any other place physically aside from Earth.

So, imagine if Crowley had actually persuaded Aziraphale to at least look at Alpha Centauri to see what he thought of it. Crowley would navigate them through the stars, remembering his role in creating them.

And when they arrive, Crowley finds a planet like Earth. And it’s beautiful, reminding him of Eden in a wonderful, alien way.

But then Crowley turns around and is horrified to see that his angel has collapsed.

And he isn’t moving.

--------

So somehow I ended up writing a fic for this....XD Let me apologize in advance....

Edit: Here is a link for it on AO3 for anyone who would prefer to read it there: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19983193

Ensnared

“It’s a big universe. Even if all this ends up in a puddle of burning goo, we could go off together.”

“Go off together?”

Crowley held his breath, not that that meant much to a demon.

Aziraphale could be infuriatingly stubborn at times. Especially when it really mattered. It was as if Divine Will blinded him to truths right in front of his face. But Crowley also knew the angel well enough to know when Aziraphale was opening himself up to wavering.

And just now, it had been there in Aziraphale’s voice. This was Crowley’s one chance. He could not screw this up.

He walked back toward the angel, his movements deliberate yet gentle, his hands held out.

“Just...come with me. Just for a moment. Let me show you what it’s like out there, and then we can come right back, if you want to. Please, angel.”

Crowley made sure to keep his voice soft as he approached. It was like trying to not startle a dove into flying away. Which was, in essence, what he was doing. Eventually, he was standing face to face with Aziraphale. The angel was looking up at him with hope shining in his eyes. Hope mixed with disbelief. Probably disbelief that someone would offer this to him.

This made Crowley angrier than he had ever been, and it took every ounce of willpower he had to keep his rage hidden. Anger could so easily be misread. And that was something he could not afford right now.

Acting on what he hoped were good instincts, Crowley dared to reach down and take one of Aziraphale’s hands into his. The angel flinched slightly, but did not pull his hand away. Instead, he curled his fingers around Crowley’s.

“Crowley…” he breathed.

Meanwhile, Crowley was struggling to remember what words were for. The feel of that soft, warm hand in his was shoving knowledge right out of his mind.

Hoping that movement would re-activate some of his brain cells, he guided Aziraphale out from underneath the bandstand. The angel still hadn’t let go of his hand, and the fingers were shaking. Crowley recognized the gesture. He’d seen it first-hand in countries that were stricken by famine. He had memories of people clutching brittle crusts of bread with both fear and reverence.

And this is what Aziraphale was doing. The angel was starving for even the smallest crumbs of tenderness toward him and was terrified that he was reading what was happening between them all wrong.

It was then that Crowley realized that he had been wrong. This made even more furious than he had been a few seconds ago.

‘Oh angel, why do you let them do this to you? You’re a being of love. And those bastards in Heaven sneer at you, hoping you’ll wither away alone while they bask in Grace.’

‘They don’t deserve your sacrifices.’

‘They never did.’

Once they were out in the open, Crowley whipped the sunglasses off his face while letting his wings unfurl. He jammed them into a pocket while he watched Aziraphale respond by releasing his own snow-white wings.

“Just hold onto me,” Crowley said. “And I’ll navigate. Ready?”

Aziraphale nodded, and Crowley was rewarded by a small, yet sweet smile. The demon made sure to look away so that he could concentrate on where they were going. Then with a steadying huff, he took off into the sky, Aziraphale rising alongside him.

They climbed hundreds of feet into the air before their speed increased and altered. It stopped being flight and became transference. An angel and a demon ceased to exist in the way that matter on Earth normally did. Their bodies morphed and changed as they sped out from the solar system.

Throughout this, Crowley beamed. Well, as much as one could beam while zipping across the universe as a form of energy. Stars that he had helped build sped by the same way headlights streaked beside him on the road while driving his Bentley. They brought back memories of a time when his purpose was to create, not destroy.

Eventually, he found his target and aimed for it, still aware of the angel’s hold on him.

In the blink of an eye, the journey was over. They were on a planet near the center of Alpha Centauri. Twin suns were setting down on a horizon that was a cool ripple of purple and green foliage. Crowley’s mind immediately pondered what it would be like to try to cultivate some of those plants.

“Look at it, angel,” Crowley said, raising his hands to the sky. “Look at those flowers over there. And humans think the most beautiful garden ever was Eden. If they could see this, they’d….”

Crowley suddenly stopped. It took a full second to realize what was bothering him, but once he did, a shiver went through him.

He had finally noticed that Aziraphale was no longer holding his hand. And that the angel hadn’t made a sound since they had arrived.

Crowley whirled around, his heart dropping. Aziraphale had made it here and was only a few feet away. But the angel was a crumpled heap on the ground. An unmoving heap.

Something like a squeak erupted from Crowley’s throat as he rushed over and knelt beside Aziraphale’s still form. The angel’s skin was cold, his face covered with a grey-blue pallor.

“Angel?” He grabbed Aziraphale’s arm and shook. Hard. When that didn’t work, Crowley persisted, shaking and patting Aziraphale’s face over and over. But there wasn’t even a twitch.

“Angel, what’s wrong? Wake up. Bless it, Aziraphale, wake up!”

The angel still did not respond other than to grow colder to the touch. Apparently, Aziraphale wasn’t even aware enough of his corporal form to be concerned with breathing or letting his heart beat.

Crowley, on the other hand, felt his own heart constricting, the life being squeezed out of it. Aziraphale was dying. That much was certain. Whether it was simply discorporation or actual celestial death, he couldn’t tell. And he wasn’t going to risk it either way.

Crowley reached down and gathered Aziraphale into his arms, his heart receiving another jolt of pain when the angel still did not show any signs of life. His mind had formed a hunch. A desperate hunch to be sure, but the only thing he had at the moment to stop himself from unraveling.

‘I just need to get you back to Earth. You were ok when we were there. So hang on, angel, all right? I’ll get you back. I promise.’

Crowley tightened his hold and took a deep breath. In a flash, his wings were out again and he moved, pushing himself to the limits of his brain’s ability to hold onto the memory of his and Aziraphale’s physical bodies. He longed to go faster, but he was already feeling the strain of keeping himself and Aziraphale together.

‘Please, Aziraphale…please you have to…I can’t….’

‘Please….’

In barely enough time for a star to twinkle, the two of them were back under the abandoned bandstand. Thankfully, the park was still empty, so no one was there to witness a demon folding his wings away while cradling an angel in his arms.

Crowley blinked hard and fast, his breaths catching in his throat as he waited to see if Aziraphale was still fading away.

Those breaths finally came out in quaking gasps as he watched the color return to the angel’s face, and Aziraphale’s chest begin to move again. Crowley wanted to tell him to open his eyes, but he was afraid his voice would crack the moment he attempted a single word.

Blue eyes finally appeared from behind barely open eyelids while Aziraphale’s mouth fell open with a groan.

“Dear…what…where…?”

A laugh, genuine, but still strangled came out of Crowley as he helped Aziraphale sit up.

“We’re back on Earth, angel. How are you feeling?”

Aziraphale’s brow creased as he contemplated that question. He remained silent while folding his wings away and rubbing his face. Crowley continued to keep an arm wrapped around the angel’s waist, hoping that would be enough to steady his own nerves.

“We were in Alpha Centauri, weren’t we? Why did we…?”

A look of horror suddenly appeared in Aziraphale’s eyes, his lips parting. The dread that Crowley was just starting to let go of came back in full force.

“Angel? What is it?”

“That…that is what he meant,” Aziraphale mumbled. Eyes full of regret and apology turned toward Crowley, and the demon was certain that he didn’t want to hear whatever was coming next.

“Gabriel mentioned a long time ago that Heaven’s agents can never abandon Earth once they are assigned there,” Aziraphale continued. “I don’t know why he told me that. It wasn’t as if I’d expressed any desire to leave. But I…I’m sorry, Crowley. I don’t think I can go anywhere else. Other than to the celestial plane. And well…you know what the choices are there.”

Crowley nodded. Heaven or Hell. Those were the only other two options. Neither of which had any room for an angel and a demon to stay together.

Aziraphale nodded slowly in return, his eyes downcast. Crowley knew that he could go back to Alpha Centauri or anywhere else in the universe he fancied, but there was no escape for Aziraphale. If the Apocalypse wasn’t stopped, the angel would have to either fight or die. Or fight and then die anyway. Crowley doubted that the armies of Heaven would care which outcome actually occurred.

Fresh rage burned Crowley from within. How could She do this to Aziraphale? Hadn’t he done enough for Her? Why couldn’t She give him even the smallest amount of mercy?

“I’m sorry.”

Crowley blinked and then turned his attention back to Aziraphale. The angel looked even more desolate than before. And the worst of it was that only part of that grief was due to being trapped on Earth.

The other part was most likely regret over disappointing someone yet again.

Crowley reached over and took Aziraphale’s hand, forcing himself to smile while stroking his thumb over the angel’s palm.

“It’s all right, angel. Where’s the fun of wandering around the galaxy when you have to do it alone? And where would I put the Bentley in a place like that? And…and the plants. I can’t leave my plants here. They’d never behave on their own.”

Aziraphale looked up, a smile twisted by unshed tears on his lips. Crowley scooted closer, slinging his other arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders.

“We’ll fix this, right? There’s got to be something we can do. Something we haven’t thought of. We just have to think.”

The peal of trumpets caused both of them to look upward. Once it had dissipated, they went back to looking into each other’s eyes, panic mirrored on their faces. That was the sound of the Antichrist setting things into motion. The Apocalypse was beginning.

Aziraphale’s lower lip quavered. “Crowley…you have to….”

Crowley clenched his jaw and gave Aziraphale’s hand a firm squeeze.

“I’m not leaving, angel. Whatever happens…I’m in it to the end.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth, probably to protest, but apparently had a sudden change of heart because he ended up just nodding instead. Then he leaned against Crowley, resting his forehead against the demon’s shoulder.

Crowley tilted his head so he could press his cheek into those white curls. The chances of them getting out of this intact were next to nothing. But he reasoned that that was still ok.

They were together. Live or die, they would do it together. That was the only thing that mattered.

#good omens #fanfic #My fic #random thoughts #ok so how did this happen? #try to write a little what if meta...and BOOM ended up with one-shot....

[darkqueenofshadows85]

Top 5 Worst Sonic Game Stories (So Far)

Greetings, mortals! Today, I'll be doing a list of my top five worst Sonic game stories so far.

Please keep in mind, this is MY OPINION! You don't need to agree with it, but please don't complain in the comments section if you happen to like any of the Sonic game stories on this list.

Disclaimer: I will be judging the following games by the plot and writing, not the gameplay.

Anyway, let us begin! ^^

5. Sonic Forces (2017)

Where to start with Sonic Forces? It had so much potential, but it was utterly wasted with stupid jokes, a poorly written story with major plotholes, and a new villain who amounts to nothing more than a one dimensional edgelord. Also, Classic Sonic is there for no reason.

4. Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal (2014)

SEGA and Sonic Team's answer to insomnia, a boring plot that shares many of the same problems as Rise of Lyric, including cheesy dialogue, unfunny "jokes", butchered characterizations, bad visual presentation, and forgettable, unimpressive music.

3. Sonic Free Riders (2010)

It's incredibly boring, the PowerPoint style cutscenes are the textbook definition of lazy, the story has very little connection to the first two Sonic Riders games, the overall tone of the "plot" feels shallow and mean-spirited, and the characters acting like a bunch of five year olds is just painful to watch.

2. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (2014)

What can I say about this game's story that hasn't been said already? Easily the worst out of the three Sonic Boom games by a long shot, Rise of Lyric bored me to death and made me cringe at the same time.

Dishonorable mentions:

• Sonic Colors (2010)

The beginning of the franchise's downfall in terms of writing and atmosphere; the plot is as barebones as it gets, and the writing is too jokey and childish for its own good.

• Sonic Generations (2011)

It has no plot really, and what little plot that DOES exist in this game is generally inoffensive, inconsequential fluff at best, but at least I found it to be more tolerable than any of the other Meta Era games to a certain extent.

• Sonic Rivals (2006) and Sonic Rivals 2 (2008)

The story in both games is kind of a hot mess; the conflict between characters comes off as kind of forced at times, and Eggman Nega as a character makes no sense. However, I do consider Sonic Rivals 2 to be the best one out of the two, as I really liked Shadow and Metal Sonic's dynamic, as well as Silver's overall characterization (which, along with his portrayal in Sonic 06, is peak Silver characterization in my opinion).

• Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice (2016)

It's slightly more tolerable than its predecessors (the improved visual presentation certainly helps), but it's still bland and forgettable.

• Team Sonic Racing (2019)

It has many of the same problems as Sonic Free Riders; generic lazy plot and PowerPoint style cutscenes. Also, the big reveal that Dodon Pa, who was previously set up to be one of the game's antagonists, was actually a good guy all along, was so poorly executed, that it isn't believable in the slightest. They were trying to pull a reverse Merlina, but failed miserably.

1. Sonic Lost World (2013)

I HATE this game. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I hate this game more than Roger Ebert hates the movie North. Everything about this game's story is an agonizing experience from beginning to end. It has THE worst writing in the entire series (and that's against some stiff competition for the Meta Era), Sonic and Tails have been butchered beyond redemption, and the Deadly Six are the most pathetic excuses for villains I've ever seen. As Sonic game stories go, Sonic Lost World is the worst of the worst. The absolute bottom of the barrel. I personally consider it to be the number one worst Sonic game story and the lowest point in Sonic's long running history next to the Sonic Boom series.

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed this top five list and I'll see you next time!! ^^

#sonic the hedgehog #top 5 list #blog post #opinion post

[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamuy chapter 261 - called it.

As the break surrounding American Thanksgiving comes to an end, I have a little more time to write this week’s meta.  Overall, I’m feeling pleased that I was able to predict the major plot point in this chapter, but it was pretty obvious.

The chapter starts off with Meiji era firefighters doing their things and Kikuta wanders back into the plot.  The fire crew fights the fire sending a crew to the rear of the brewery.

Kikuta is wandering through the building in a less smoky area.  Seeing that he’s cool and collected, I’d guess his strategy was to try to slowly cover the ground to find Asirpa. 

Usami raced off to chase Kadokura since his obsession with him seems to overpower his ability to follow Tsurumi’s orders.  Kikuta is met with the barrel of a rifle as he turns a corner to bump into the regrouped 27th.

He looks a little awkward since someone pointing a gun at you isn’t exactly a relaxing situation but the unnamed private apologizes as everyone looks at him.  Tsurumi seems pretty relaxed, Tsukishima seems resigned as he holds Asirpa and Koitio and Nikaido just blankly look at him. I like how Kikuta is able to remain calm as he greets Tsurumi, he is truly a classy man.  He simply listens to Tsurumi’s update about avoiding Hijikata or Sugimoto and that there is also a sniper on the loose.  It is then that Kikata shows some nervousness knowing that the body is that of Usami.  I think he does a great job of either acting surprised or maybe he’s honestly surprised since Usami was a great fighter, but he also knew he rushed into situations while he has always been methodical.

It looks to me that Koito and Tsukishima are both looking down towards Usami and not actually looking at Kikuta.  I think if Koito were looking at Kikuta, his gaze would be more to the left but it isn’t.  I wonder if both of them are thinking, Usami was a bit crazy thank goodness . .

The action then shifts to Ogata wondering where Vasily is as he thinks what his plan would be.  He states he’ll try to move upwind of the smoke for better visibility.  Is Ogata continuing the sniper battle?  I’m not sure, he may be just trying to avoid him.  He’s had a long evening and he’s smart enough to know when to retreat.  The fact that there is smoke, I would expect him to use his previous experience with Tanigaki and how he knew he retreated too late when Tanigaki escaped from Huci’s home.  It seems that Ogata evolves as a sniper and strategic thinker, but Vasily is just doing what he’s always done. 

We get some rare Vasily thoughts as he is looking for Ogata at the ground level.  It seems he finally figured out Ogata’s name so now we get the thought of his name.  He predicts Ogata trying to outflank him using the smoke to conceal his movement.

I dunno Vasily, Ogata already dealt with this situation with Tanigaki so I think he’ll do something unpredictable to pursue Tsurumi and the 27th from the shadows.  Face it, you are out classed.

The action returns to Sugimoto charging at Boutarou who whips his hair into his face blocking his vision.  He easily dodges his strike and grabs his rifle.  More importantly he asks Sugimoto if this will only be settled if one of them dies.

Which is a logical statement before he kicks Sugimoto in the face.  But Sugimoto can’t be stopped as he hits him in the face with the butt of his rifle and he falls to the ground as he draws his rifle ready to kill Boutarou since he’s immortal so it means that he won’t be the one to die when this is settled.

Very unusual for the manga, Boutarou decides to surrender.  He holds up his hands and smiles that he’s been beaten, but Sugimoto isn’t having any of that.  But then just as he fires Shiraishi deflects his shot (I think he was close enough that he wouldn’t miss.)  Oh YES!  Shiraishi indeed comes to the rescue of Boutarou.  I knew there is something between these two.

Shiraishi points out the obvious fact that Sugimoto needs to calm down and that they won’t find where Asirpa is if he’s dead.  Shiraishi, the underrated guy who is pretty intelligent!

Boutarou points out they will have to team up and Sugimoto is already walking away once he hears it was the 27th and assumes Tsukishima is the one who got her (incorrect) and he’s ready to just leave with Shiraishi.  Boutarou got some skins from Kadokura and he’s got the insider Ainu information, he thinks it is more than enough.  I love how Sugimoto thinks that because Boutarou hit him with a shovel he can’t trust him and thinks Hijikata is better (you know the man who has tried to kill you more than once) and he orders Shiraishi to come with him.  He the also assumes that Vasily will somehow protect Asirpa and that the 27th can’t escape.  

God, his logic is so flawed.  We know that Vasily is after Ogata, and Ogata only.  He doesn’t care about Asirpa and he never has for all we can tell and his inner dialogue in this chapter indicates as much.  Plus, Tsurumi always finds ways to escape so thinking a Russian sniper who doesn’t understand Japanese is going to snipe the entire 27th to protect Asirpa is - well insane.  Perhaps, the hit to the head with the shovel was too much.  Aaannnnnd the next page proves my point.

Look it is Vasily now up on a roof again asking for Ogata to come out of his hiding position.  But Ogata is no fool, he’s instead inside at a higher level with his rifle ready as he scans for Vasily.  He’s likely looking for him so that he can just move to avoid him and he’s not running outside.

Sugimoto then runs into a random guy with really weird round eyebrows, tied up.  Of course it is the fire crew that went around the back and they were tied up by the 27th who are escaping under the guise they are the fire crew!

Tsurumi drives the fire engine and Tsukishima walks off close to the viewer.

I wonder if Ogata is looking at them to determine that they are the 27th and if they have Asirpa?  It would be great if Vasily thinks he is continuing his sniper game and Ogata just follows the 27th and he’s left sitting on the roof of some building into the dawn.

Sugimoto unties the firefighters and asks were the 27th went. They don’t have any horses for obvious reasons, since the 27th stole them, but Boutarou has a solution.  Shiraishi is supporting him!  This means he ignored Sugimoto’s call to leave him behind and he’s even helping him move more quickly.  I want to know more about their relationship as characters!

And boom! Boutarou has found a Sapporo beer promotional car!  Which he can drive.  Sugimoto is of course impressed as his ability to drive a motor vehicle and there was a Sapporo Beer car, though this one is a lot fancier.

We learn that he learned to drive with Eddie Dun while hanging out with Wakayama.  The flashbash shows him wearing some cut off shorts, his arm around Dun while Wakayama holds his shoulder.  Does this confirm bisexual/pansexual Boutarou?  Considering how he acts around Shiraishi as well, perhaps.  There is also the fact that the other flashback had him in the nude when Wakayama told him to give up on the gold.  We also know Dun was running around nearly naked with the Ainu woman’s garment from Asirpa’s relative’s daughter. 

With that the chapter ends as Boutarou drives off in the direction that the 27th is headed in the beer car!  Which oddly makes me think of the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile and all the jokes that go along with that.

Conclusions from this chapter are pretty simple.

1.) Tsurumi has found an easy way to leave and is heading north with Asirpa.  Koito and Tsukishima seem distant and reflective and Kikuta is playing it calm like the 007 that he is.

2.) Vasily is continuing the sniper battle.  Does he care about Asirpa? Fuck no.  Does he care about Tsurumi? Nope.  Does he care about Ogata?  Too much.

3.) Ogata is avoiding Vasily.  But if he’s continuing the sniper battle is questionable at best.  I predict he’ll use something from his battle with Tanigaki to evade Vasily.  Either he’ll pass by in the open while Vasily thinks he behaves in a predictable fashion.  Which Vasily should know that Ogata already doesn’t act like a typical sniper so he should stop thinking that way.  Ogata doesn’t waste his effort or actions, he sniped Usami because it was the right thing to do.  It doesn’t mean he’s in the mood for more of this waste of his time as Tsurumi escapes with Asirpa.

4.) Shiraishi is the hero of the day!  He’s on a roll. He saved Sugimoto from the fire and now he saved Boutarou from Sugimoto.  He knows that Boutarou is a smart guy and as I’ve stated before, he’s there to make Sugimoto uncomfortable.  It is because of Boutarou that they are able to steal the beer car to pursue the 27th, but I predict something will prevent them.  Like they run out of gas or end up in a ditch and have to retreat and rest up before attempting to rescue Asirpa. Does this mean that ShiraBou is real?  Or are you just trolling us Noda?  Eh? Eeehhh?????? Boutarou clearly wasn’t worried wearing shorts with other men, flaunting his sexy figure.

5.) Hijikata’s group has fully retreated.  We didn’t see them in this chapter, but they are smart enough to have withdrawn versus trying to pursue the 27th or Sugimoto.

Well that is all for now. I think the 27th will successfully escape since it will have to make other groups consider how to rescue her.  I’d love for Ogata to stalk the 27th and sneak her out from Tsurumi’s grasp leaving everyone else to clash.

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #asirpa #tsurumi tokushirou #koito otonoshin #tsukishima hajime #warrant officer kikuta #ogata hyakunosuke #vasily golden kamuy #sugimoto saichi #shiraishi yoshitake #boutarou the pirate

[fuyupeach]

Could you maybe write a small fic or one shot about Ryuji finding out his s/o has a palace? The s/o is also a Persona user, but something makes her really depressed and she looses her connection with her Persona and her true self. She ends up having a palace out of depression, like Futaba, instead of evil. Maybe when she reawakens her Persona, its extremely strong? If you need any more information or ideas, feel free to message me

Here you go! I almost messaged but an idea came to me! I hope you like it, and thank you for the request! I actually imagine something similar for my Ryuji fic (wink wonk), but we’ll have to see. This was supposed to be short, but before I knew it, it hit 1.6k bjfhkj

You were trapped in your thoughts, the world around you getting murkier and murkier. There was nothing you could do, each day fading from your memory, only glimpses of concerned gazes from those around you breaking in inbetween. 

You’re useless. They don’t need you. 

Why do they need another persona user like you if they already have someone to cover ice and healing?

Why did Makoto have to protect you? Can’t even keep up with the others....

Each thought hit you harder and harder. Though you knew it wasn’t true at all, each minor mistake you made, each day of being on the sidelines in Mementos, each time you seemed to be the last in the loop chipped away at you. You gave excuses as to why you couldn’t meet with them at Le Blanc, how you had to babysit and couldn’t join them in Mementos, even shutting Ryuji out. 

Needles pricked at your skin as you walked the Shujin hallways, your thoughts making your chest ache. You feel warmth wrap around your wrist, lifting your tired eyes to a more alive golden brown pair. You hadn’t gotten much sleep lately.

“___.” Ryuji stares into your eyes, concern written all over his face. You couldn’t help but feel more guilty. You couldn’t even keep yourself together.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.” You take your arm away despite every part of your body telling you not to. 

Ryuji’s frown deepens, he doesn’t believe you. “Look, you know you can talk to me about anything that’s botherin’ you, right? This isn’t really the best place to talk about it… but I haven’t seen you anywhere else. Did we do something?”

You can’t bring yourself to look at him, black around the edges of your vision, Ryuji just barely visible in your haze. “I said I’m fine.” it comes out harsher than you would ever intend with Ryuji. 

Ryuji’s brows furrow, hand reaching out to you. “But—”

“I said I’m fine.” Your voice is louder this time. Ryuji flinches, your heart hurts so much. “Don’t touch me. Leave me alone.”

“You don’t need me anyways.”

You whisper as you walk off, and that is the last anyone sees of you for a week.

----

“I’m telling you,” Ryuji says from Akira’s couch. “Something isn’t right. She won’t open up for anyone, won’t answer our calls, nothing.”

“You’re right…” Ann bites her lip nervously as she prepares to say what she thinks next, “You… you don’t think she has a palace, do you? I just can’t help but think of how similar this was to Futaba.” She looks around at everyone.

“She didn’t seem desperate to break away from what’s bothering her like I was though,” Futaba says silently, eyes on the ground as she sits on Akira’s bed in one of her complex positions. “Mona did say all the emotion needed to be was enough to change their cognition, so anything’s possible, right?”

“I’ll.. I’ll check.” Ryuji says, hands slightly shaky as he opens the Navi app. “____.”

“Palace found.”

The room is silent as they all look at each other.

----

“It’s all my fault. I’m so useless it’s no wonder no one wants me to help anymore.” You’re curled up in your bed, room dark and body weak.

That’s right.

You flinch, eyes squinting in pain as you look to see a figure that looks exactly like you. Her eyes are different, it’s golden yellow chilling you to the bone as she stares coldly down at you in the dark. She is hunched over, body oozing sloth.

No one will come for us. No one cares for us anymore. No one needs us anymore. We are nothing on our own.

She fades away from your sight, leaving you again in your abysmal mind.

----

“What is this..?” The gang looks around your palace in shock. Your palace had been hard to access given that you had cut off contact with next to everyone, but you still had a soft spot for Ryuji, giving him one answer before disappearing again.

I’m in a cold, deep dark abyss I can’t ever hope to escape from. No one needs me anymore.

Your password had been abyss, your palace practically a black hole. The shapes of the palace warped and changed, unsteady. Words, your thoughts, leapt out at them at random times, sharp and red, written on the walls. 

Ryuji couldn’t bear to see your emotions bared like this. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen this all sooner, hadn’t done something. He knows he can’t protect you from everything, especially how you feel, but he still wishes he could’ve been able to do something anyways. 

Ryuji can’t help but gasp as he sees your shadow for the first time. Your posture and the bags under your eyes hurt to see, your eyes piercing through him whenever you spoke. Your hair was a mess, the dress you wore seeming to be what weighed you down, the sleeves flowing past your unseen hands, the turtleneck looking almost as if it was constricting you, as if you didn’t deserve to speak. Your feet were bare, bruised and blue skin just barely visible from the bottom of your dress. 

When you come face to face with your shadow in your palace, it had been because you had followed her. 

Come with me, She says. We will go to where we can be alone. Where we will no longer be a hindrance to anyone else.

You take out your phone, opening the meta-nav and inputting your information.

That’s right.. Your shadow fades from your sight quivering back in place as you open your eyes to the new sight of your palace. You walk along the dark pathway, stopping when you hear a voice call out to you.

“___! Stop!” It was Ryuji, the rest of the phantom thieves running to catch up behind him. Of course, even now you were causing trouble for him. Your heart ache increases, your head pounding as you almost fall to your knees.

“I thought I told you to leave me alone…” You mutter, eyes drawn downward. “I can finally disappear. You won’t have to worry about me causing anymore trouble for you guys again.”

“But that’s it!” Ryuji yells, desperate to get his words to reach you. “We’re here ‘cause we care! You’re not a burden.” His words are so full of conviction you can’t help but stare at him in shock. “You could never be a burden to me.”

You’re almost shaken out of your stupor, subconsciously taking a step forward before a hand cold as ice grips your shoulder tightly, keeping you in place. 

“Can’t you see they’re lying? You could never be of use to them. You add nothing by joining them. Come. With. Me.” With each word her grip gets tighter, a yelp escaping you as you fall to your knees from the pain.

“Get away from her!” Ryuji runs to you, only to throw him and the others back in a cold gust of wind. An ice wall forms a dome around you, you and your shadow at the very top, layers leaving you three stories above. 

“Don’t you dare give in, ___!” Akira’s voice booms through the palace up to you, your closed eyes snapping open.

He was right. The cold hand still gripping your shoulder went ignored as you stared at your friends and love below, the conviction on their faces enough for you to rise to your feet. Despite all you did, they were still there, and no one had done that for you before. Your vision clears some more, your headache dimming.

“You’re wrong.” You turn to face your shadow, standing straight, the opposite of her. “I may not be the most unique, but clearly they see something in me if they’re here now.”

“My worth shouldn’t be dependent on others. Not even them, and definitely not you.” You feel your mask appear on your face. 

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Your persona tells you.

“Come, Aphrodite!” You rip your mask off, adrenaline pumping through you as you knock your shadow back. You clothes are still the same, black pants clinging to your legs. Your mauve top is tucked in with a bit of it untucked, balloon sleeves slim at your wrists, the turtleneck freer than it was on your shadow. Your boots are also black, the red underside visible as you leap down from the ice, landing smoothly in front of the others. You felt stronger than before. More self-assured. 

“Sorry for the hold up,” You tell them. “Let’s get this over with.”

-----

Later the next day when you’re a little less exhausted, you lay with Ryuji in his room, arms wrapped around him in his bed. You had spent enough time in your room for the time being. 

“I’m sorry for being so harsh to you earlier.” Your arms can’t help but tighten around him as you say this, face practically buried in his chest. 

“You couldn’t help it.” Ryuji’s hands rub up and down your back, soothing as ever. “I wish I could’ve helped or—or done something earlier… I was scared I might lose you.” His voice hurts to hear. Was he going to cry? Your brows furrow with guilt. “Seeing all of that in your palace… I meant what I said. You could never be a burden to me.”

Tears form in your eyes as you pull back to look at Ryuji. “I should’ve opened up about what was bothering me. I know we don’t usually keep things from each other, but I just felt so stuck. I’ll try to not hold it in until I can’t take it.”

“I’ll do the same.” Ryuji murmurs, eyes meeting yours and making you melt all over again. “I love you.”

You lean up and bring a hand to his cheek, kissing him softly.

“I love you too.”

#peach writes #ryuji sakamoto x reader #ryuji x reader #persona 5 fanfiction #persona 5 x reader #Ryuji Sakamoto #persona #persona fanfiction

[mychemicalxmen]

A sketchy-ass meta on the use of the Phantom of the Opera in the Umbrella Academy Opening Sequence

aight y’all i was a theatre kid so it’s basically my lot in life to be a nuisance. This whole medley is SUCH a lovely piece for Vanya to be playing in general. It’s melodramatic, it’s tragic, it’s full of heart and longing, but there’s still that Andrew Lloyd Webber rock edge. It sets up the tone of the show pretty well. It tells you, this song is familiar. It is a world close to our own, but it’s also something incredibly more theatrical. 

Section 1 - “The Phantom of the Opera” Part I

The softer part of this song introduces Luther. Luther is an absolute fortress, physically and mentally, but he is also introverted and sensitive. We can see this in the very first shot he appears in. And we can see the parallels here between Luther and the Beast in a Beauty and the Beast story, and therefore the parallel to Erik, AKA the Phantom. So it makes sense that Luther would be introduced with the Phantom’s main theme. These characters are cursed by some disfigurement that has forced them to shut themselves away from the world. Yet, in isolation, they have flourished into a romantic. The Luther we see here is the Luther that we mainly see when he’s with Allison. Quiet, gentle, and thoughtful. This is Erik the Composer.

Section 2 - “The Phantom of the Opera” Part II

And then we get to Diego’s part. What a change in pace. The song picks up drive and becomes more ominous, closer to the tone it has in the context of the musical, where the Phantom’s introduction is more of a warning. We catch a glimpse of Diego as a mysterious dark shape through the window, something akin to the first glimpse of the Phantom through Christine’s mirror.

And y’all? Diego literally first appears as a menacing masked man in black.

Though not an antagonist, Diego carries a lot of the chaos on the other side of the Erik coin. He strives for justice, but he isn’t too worried about the casualties along the way. He’s passionate, hot-tempered, dangerous. Just so ready to drop a chandelier on a bitch. In this same movement, we’re introduced to Allison. 

There is something about the juxtaposition of the sinister and frantic nature of the song against the vibrant, glamorous view of the red carpet that gives us a picture of Allison’s position. Like with Diego, the song functions as a warning. There is more to Allison than meets the eye. She is in complete control. This whole thing is a game to her, and she has been winning hand over fist by cheating the system. Metaphorically or literally, we get the feeling that Allison has an extreme amount of power - but for now, it is hidden behind this sparkling masquerade.

Alternate take, Allison has a bit of Christine Daaé imagery here. An elegant, empowered prima donna. I’m not sure where to take this interpretation, but there is some real similarity with the costuming, the fame, and the waterfall of curly hair. These are characters who smile pretty, but whose real power lies in their voice.

Section 3 - “Angel of Music”

I shitposted once that Angel of Music introduces Klaus because Klaus is an Angel but we’re gonna put that aside for a second.

I don’t have as much paralleling for this one, but I adore hearing the first lyrics of the song - “Where in the world have you been hiding?” - with the opening shot. It seems to fit. Klaus has lots of weird little secrets (Rehab! Kidnapping! Ben! Time travel!) and, as far as the family goes, he keeps mostly to himself (save for the few times he’s had to ask Diego for help).

And this is such a rare kind of moment for Klaus, so quiet and peaceful. I think it has to be, because from a writing standpoint, it is an immediate swing to endear the audience to him. It shows us thet he’s cheerful, he’s kind, he has a sense of humor, and he’s making an honest effort to get clean! Right?

We see Luther receive the news of his father’s passing in this movement. The Phantom parallels fit better here. 

“Angel of music, guide and guardian Grant to me your ​glory Angel of music, hide no longer Secret and strange Angel”

“Angel of Music” is a song in which Christine describes the Phantom as this wonderful and wise (though secretive) guardian. It’s a song of adoration. And with Reginald gone, Luther is left without this significant guiding constant in his life. He’s lost.

Section 4 - “Think of Me”

“Think of me, think of me fondly When we’ve said goodbye. Remember me once in a while Please promise me you’ll try.”

Diego and Allison hear the news in this section. It has just hit the media. "Think of Me” is a farewell song, and it signifies Reginald’s death more than anything else. He probably left a larger-than-life legacy and will undeniably be remembered by the public. But what’s important right now is that the siblings remember their roots: their father, the Academy, each other, and what it takes to save the world.

Section 5 - “Music of the Night”

I have never read the Music of the Night lyrics typed out like that, and this lens really makes the whole thing seem like a metaphor for drugs.

First lyrics we got:

“Night time sharpens, heightens each sensation Darkness wakes and stirs imagination Silently, the senses abandon their defenses Helpless to resist the notes I write”

And later on we got:

“Floating, falling, sweet intoxication Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in To the power of the music that I write”

In the context of the musical, this is a sweet, gentle seduction into Erik’s domain. But here, musically, it’s less of an easing-in to this other world as much as it is a head-first plunge. Which tracks.

From a cinematic standpoint, boom, there’s that other shoe dropping. I as an audience member now understand what the hell this character’s about. Also, there’s something really awesome about the orchestration. I can’t describe why it seems so badass for a character to be defibrillated to the sound of electric guitars absolutely shredding on showtunes. Someone please explain it to me.

It’s so important to me that the medley ends like this because the final line in the musical uses this melody. 

“It’s over now, the music of the night.” 

And cutting it off just before the end leaves a tension hanging in the air. Vanya’s been interrupted, her spotlight literally taken away.

After she has played all of this gorgeous underscoring for all of her remaining siblings, Vanya is the only Hargreeves introduced in total silence.

So, ow. 

Anyway... this show’s soundtrack slaps. 

#tua #the umbrella academy

[willmelon]

i don’t usually do this but i feel Compelled to do a liveblog/review of Mouth Dreams so here goes

Please don’t read this if you haven’t heard the album yet as it’ll spoil Everything

(i’ll admit the idea came to me After i listened to Just a Baby so these first ones are gonna be relistened reviews)

first we got Yahoo. what can i say about this song? neil starts off Strong with incredibly sustained notes and just one phrase, in typical neil style. and he makes it work in so many different ways! honestly didn’t expect myself to get so attached so fast but that’s just the way his magic works ig. when the hoooooooos harmonise it almost brings tears to the eyes. i would love to see a group of choristers singing this with another guy on an electric keyboard. what a cold open. 9/10

of course then we go on to the titular track, the dimension of sound, the dimension of imagination, the dimension of doors. rod serling narrates the intro in his traditional monotone as the warbling twilight zone theme plays in the background. i tell ya i was actually Screaming when the track finished and he dropped the title! it may not be a song per se, sort of like Blockbuster from Mouth Moods, a ‘filler track’ if you will, but the effort in those fifty seconds cannot be ignored. it just goes to show once again how Good he is at what he does. 6.5/10

oh lawd, my favourite so far, Spongerock. reading the title i had absolutely No idea what to expect. the goofy goober song from the movie? winner takes all from band geeks? i was pleasantly surprised to find myself tapping out queen’s distinctive boom boom CLAP as the song progressed, and i was in complete Hysterics the whole way through, chanting along with the kids as the pirate encouraged me to sing louder. it’s such a beautiful fit the way they mesh together, and it’s one of those mashups that you listen to and think ‘why has nobody done this before?’ but neil is on a higher plane of existence than us and Knows where it’s at. you’re never the same after you’ve listened to Spongerock. 7.5/10

Just a Baby, where i stopped to begin this thing, is a melancholy song, which i’m not usually a fan of. i admit i don’t know the original song so i kept quiet until the last chorus or two. it’s the yang to the yin of Wow Wow from Moods, another sentence-mixer that was like a full Bop and barely gave you time to catch your breath. in Just a Baby you begin to empathise with the singer as he regales confusing times of his constant youth, including the time his mother (a train) shot a man in cold blood. it’s a powerful ballad, and it’s got a tasteful amount of justin bieber adding backing vocals to the chorus. i may have to deduct a few points cos the lyrics are gonna be hard af to remember. 7/10

ok next up we got Superkiller. this one’s totally blind! i’m. ehhhhh okay not diggin this one very much. ok that say something once line being repeated was comedy gold but talking heads are just like. kinda tuneless tbh. i’m glad he’s trying to lassoo it together with u can’t touch this but it’s kinda falling short tbh. i wouldn’t skip it but it’s not as memorable as the previous ones. 5/10

starting Get Happy. i’m not gonna lie i think i Know what this is, there are only so many options after all. i predict it’s a mix of “get dancin’” by disco-tex and the sex-o-lettes and “happy” by bahrrel williams, and i really hope that ain’t the case cos i Love the first one but despise the latter. oh well let’s see if he can pull it off. sounds like village green by the kinks so far lol uhhhh i have no idea what to make of this. okay i feel like i’m gonna like this after all. hey it’s got memorable lyrics at least! is it gonna get faster? or just more bassy? yknow maybe i was too critical at the start, but i had no idea what to expect. this is a feel-good pop song and it’s definitely making me feel happier than i was when i was listening to Superkiller. 7/10

Ribs? wtf do i expect from a song called Ribs lmao another song i’ve never heard of IH IT’S EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE TH WORLD OH YEEEEEEEEES omg i Love this song i sing it to myself when i’m walkin my dog cos his little paws click-clack on the pavement to the exact rhythm of the song omg i’m in Love! another one with odd lyrics but i think after a Lot of repeat listening i’ll be able to properly croon along to this one omg! it reminds me of Best from Mouth Silence in that they’re both about products, only instead of folgers in your cup it’s about chili’s baby back ribs omg neil you’re Perfect! how come more advertisers haven’t contacted you for a product placement deal?? 7.5/10

next we got My Mouth. welcome to? who knows let’s hit play. ooooh minor key. is this a real song? it sounds like oney singing a cover of something. oh That’s the gimmick? 2:30 long i hope there’s something else tbh cos otherwise it’s gonna get pretty thin pretty fast. mm not a fan. the weakest so far imo especially after Ribs blew me away. definitely a bad dream. 3.5/10

Aerolong don’t fail me now! okay see This is how you do a mashup. I DON’T MISS YOU BABAY AND I DO WANNA MISS A THING THAT’S GOLD!! this is just a song about saying bye to your ex lmao i love it. wish it was longer though. 6/10

Sleepin’ here we go! ok in the youtube version the first half of this song is just silence so that wasn’t fun. gee this one’s only moderately better than My Mouth i’m feeling very shortchanged. 4/10

what to expect from Aamoorree? hopefully this one’s another jam but...okay i’m likin this one. it’s Fun and isn’t trying too hard! it’s just a drunk dean martin singing about pizza pie on karaoke night, what more could you ask for lol. 6/10

Where Is My Mom? by the p-p-p-pooo-oo-ooo-oooool of course. i don’t recognise the other song but it’s decent. i’ve listened to slowed-down songs before (the sludgefest chipmunks albums lately) and this one’s kinda ok. not a fan of the ending but points for effort ig. 5.5/10

Fredhammer ay? might there be some peter gabriel in there? undoubtedly. yup there it is lol ok now bring in the flintstones? oh ig that’s fred durst? mm not totally feeling it so far but censoring he** was funny lmao HEY THERE’S SEINFELD i’m wheezin that was a good way to end a song, well done neil. 6.5/10

here goes Limp Wicket. i’m on the edge of my seat. and Again i’m disappointed. is this a bunch of ewoks singing some kind of star wars song? or is it jarjar? either way this is Not a good song. it probably wasn’t before he mashed it up but this wasn’t an improvement. bringing in Fredhammer didn’t help this song much at all, in fact i think it brought both songs down actually. last one was a 7/10 but i Have to dock it points now that it’s a two-parter. as for this one? i’m being generous cos the limp bizkit song was good. 1/10

Cannibals runs for 4 minutes. PLEASE don’t let this be a repeat of the last one. i get that miners can’t dig up gold every time but don’t just show up with a bunch of rocks and iron pyrites yknow i’m just gonna start. i don’t want to be angry at this album. i recognise that sound in the bg! from a cyriak vid i think. thx comin in. loooooooong drone. ugh UGH there are Too many lucid dreams on this album. starting to regret liveblogging this cos i Loved the other three mouth albums. this one’s just falling flat again and again. 3/10

here comes The Outsiders. there is NOTHING to say about this. 1.5/10

come on Johnny. okay that got a laugh out of me, not many songs start with a booing crowd like that, is that meta? wouldn’t put it past him tbh. ah i’ll give it a 5/10, for a kinda filler song it wasn’t too bad.

Closerflies, this has gotta be gold. PLEASE. intro’s goin on for a little too long...mm having never heard the original version of closer i gotta admit i thought it’d be faster, like the one used in Rollercloser in Silence. this version seems very sloppy and sluggish, especially the bassline. 3/10

Nightmovin’ i’m not expecting much OH good intro oh YES now here we go. this is a good one, it’s got clear lyrics and a catchy tune, i’m liking this one more and more by the second. cuts off weird but it’s going into the next one. so i’m gonna leave the rating out of this one and see how it is after the next one.

Whitehouse i’m holding my breath. mm it’s Good but not great tbh. criminal that the last one was half as long as this one. think i’m gonna give both of these songs a 5/10 i doubt they’ll be anyone’s favourites. the title is a nice little joke too i respect that.

Wah! what’s neil’s obsession with using wannabe as a source lmao! it’s another decent one but nothing memorable again. 5/10

Pee Wee Inc i’m expecting big things. good intro I’M IN LOVE okay this is Much better than i imagined it’d be. did he use the radio edit of feel good inc? this is a heck of a way to bring it back to the gold stuff and i wouldn’t be surprised if this is what neil’s head sounds like all the time. 7/10

on to 10,000 Spoons. not sure what to expect from the title. okay this is a Nice one i think. throwback to the likes of Just a Baby with the two songs and the sentence mixing and it’s Good. and really 10,000 spoons is So ironic anyway, don’t you think? 7/10

oh another song called Mouth Dreams? an extro? that was Weird lol ok the intro i wasn’t too keen on, def not as much as the intro, but i got to appreciate it as it went on. like Rlly appreciate it i was beginning to reflect on what a journey i’d been through tonight, especially writing it all down. felt very poetic. and then WHAM, out of nowhere, after being gone for 23 songs, all-star came Back and How! gotta give this one a 7.5/10

keep the train rolling Brithoven! i can hear faint bits of instruments in britney’s song in the back of her audio which sound like a mistake but knowing neil.......yah lmao. this song’s kinda like Promenade (Satellite Pictures at an Exhibition) from Mouth Sounds, i liked what i heard. very nice. 6.5/10

the final song. we’re gonna be hit one more time for Ain’t! and i have NO idea what i’m in for! in the hall of the mountain king eh? is this like a way of looping around to the first song of the first album with classical music? ok the snoring’s a nod to Bustin i’m sure lmao funny anyway. i thought i heard a hey now in there but i must be going nuts. wouldn’t call it a grand finale but it is what it is. 5/10

now the question that must be asked - was Mouth Dreams trying to make a point? was there a reasons so many songs were of lower-quality than previous albums? perhaps it’s just a matter of taste, or perhaps it’s as rod said back on track two, that this album is a doorway into another dimension, and the further you progress, the more mind-rattling, brain-melting concepts you come across. the album gets an average of 5.5 which is kinda disappointing. don’t think i’ll be listening to the whole thing again. thanks for reading!

#mouth dreams #neil cicierega #liveblog #review

[bigskydreaming]

@princeescaluswords tagged me in a fanfic ask meme, and I’m loling at how few of the questions I can actually answer, because I swear I’ve literally forgotten more fandoms than most people will ever have. And I’ve probably written a good couple million words of fanfic all in total....

I know with just my first fandom alone, Roswell, I was in that one writing regularly for about three years and wrote and published probably a million words between the six or so ‘big fics’ I wrote......21 Down topped out at just over 200K, my Paradise Lost trilogy was probably a little longer as I think Genesis and Exodus were both around 80K and Revelations was probably closer to 100K. Riders of the Storm was around 120K.....Passage to Dawn I never actually finished because I scrapped it halfway through and started over.....and my revised version left off at around 50K I think, but the previous version before that had gotten up to 100K......and then I honestly can’t remember the names of my other two big fics at the moment, lmfao, I just know I had one more that was an amnesia trope fic and one that was....oh! Never mind, just remembered. The Long Dark Night of the Soul was one of my shorter ones, probably somewhere between 60-80K.

But yeah, that was just my first fandom alone......but fandom was a little different then, like in the sense that nobody was really writing posts about meta or episode or character analysis......Roswell fandom existed almost entirely on various messageboards and linked sites created by the community. It was years before Ao3 of course, and while ff.net was around, Roswell was one of those fandoms that just never congregated around it......people posting Roswell fics on ff.net were the outliers, the majority of fandom was centered around sites like roswellfanatics.net, crashdown.com and my personal site/board of choice to hang out and post at, polarattraction.com. I’m pretty sure all of those sites have been defunct for years, and I wish I’d done a better job of saving some of my own fics at least, lol. But point is, the fandom was geared just towards the writing and consumption of fanfic more than anything else......so if you were writing something, it was either a fic itself, or a comment on somebody else’s fic, lol. 

Anyway, was just reviewing my various past fandoms, the ones I could remember, and thought of Dark Angel fandom, which I haven’t thought of in forever. Which is kinda funny to me, actually, considering my focus in DA fandom was pretty much exactly my focus in Batfandom - the found family feels.

LOL. Like, I was never one of the better known writers in DA fandom given that my focus was not really the same as most of fandom’s. DA fandom was largely split into two camps locked in eternal ship war - Logan/Max and Alec/Max. I had by this time ‘evolved’ to the point of looking at this and just snobbishly intoning “I do not care for the Straightness of this all and thus I choose to Abstain from the conflict” so there was that at least.....but yeah, thing was, personally, I was in Dark Angel fandom for the found family feels. Max’s eternal search for her siblings she’d been raised with but lost track of when they escaped from Manticore as children.....like that was the good stuff, that was what drew me in and kept me under lock and key until I’d banged out a good couple years’ worth of constant fic writing about her and her siblings before I moved on.

But while Max’s search for her siblings was the catalyst and central plot of the first season of Dark Angel, fandom pretty much only ever took off with the introduction of Alec in the second season, when it became an either/or choice between Alec and Logan. And with most of the second season moving away from Max’s search for her family to focus more on the larger big-picture plots, combined with the fact that most of Max’s siblings never actually made an appearance onscreen.....understandably, they didn’t end up occupying too much of a role in most of fandoms’ fics or interests.

Anyway, like I said, I churned out a shit ton of DA fanfic in a pretty short period of time....my single most popular fic was probably one about transgenics racing to find a cure when they realize they’d been genetically engineered to all ‘expire’ by a certain age, since their creators had no use for genetically engineered super-soldiers past the prime of their lives.

But my personal fave bits of writing, and the series I reeeeeeally regret not saving and wish I could find again, like, there was this one series of one-shots (ranging from a couple thousand words long to some that were about 20-30K long) written about each of Max’s siblings.....all fifteen of them, lol. Jondy’s was the first one I wrote, and one of the first things I wrote in that fandom, and then I just added new stories to that particular series up until Jack’s, the very last one a couple years later....which I THINK was the last thing I ever wrote/posted in that fandom.

And since we only ever met about half of these characters on the show, and most of them only for an episode each, for the most part they were blank slates and the equivalent of writing OCs......and so I’ll always have a soft spot for my time in DA fandom solely because of how many people told me my version of Max’s various siblings was like, the definitive version for them and what they based their own fics or takes on her siblings on. Swoon. Like, that’s my favorite kind of compliment, especially in fanfic writing.

So that series was my Big Thing even if it wasn’t my most popular or well-known fic, and the various stories in it were weird and whimsical and largely experimental. Because part of the point of fic writing for me instead of writing original fic is its like....fanfic is often the place where I just get weird with my writing and try new things even just stylistically. See what works and what doesn’t, etc.

Anyway, kinda curious if there’s anyone out there who was in Dark Angel fandom at all to any degree, or if any of these sound familiar or if anyone remembers reading them.

Like, so Jondy was Max’s sister who we never met in canon but Max talked about often as being her favorite sibling, and her story in this series was called “Little Lightning Girl.” In it she was a stripper slash vigilante, who used her job to take note of predatory guys who then she preemptively scared away from her coworkers or ran totally out of town. I forget how it went exactly, but that one was written as though it was all her stream of consciousness, and she had to my mind a kind of chaotic, whimsical sort of nature, so there was something in there like: 

“Call me little lightning girl, for I’ve lightning in my veins. My hair is always frizzy, my steps all flicker-shimmy-shake. But when I strike, boom, clap, I’m thunder in reverse - by the time you hear the rumble, its already too late. That was you hitting the ground. Don’t hurry getting up. I can wait.”

And then Zane’s story was called “Zen and the Art of Not Breaking Your Customer’s Fucking Face (remember, its bad for business).”

Brin’s was “I Wasn’t Born Yesterday (but yesterday, I remember being very small).”

Zack’s was “Rules For When The Sky Is Falling (and this time it isn’t your fault).”

Syl’s was “The Kind of Girl You Bring Home to Meet Your Parents (when you’ve got the kind of parents that need killing).”

Ben’s was “They keep telling me I’m crazy (I say its the world that’s gone mad).”

Tinga’s was “A Storybook Kind of Princess (with a Grimm kind of happily ever after)” and Krit’s was “The Good Die Young, So Boy, You Better Be Bad.”

Kavi’s was “I Never Learned How To Play Ball (striking out comes naturally).”

Vada’s was “Chase Me To The Desert and Watch Me Live, I Bet I’ll Thrive (you better believe I was born to survive).”

And then Seth’s was “All Her Brothers’ Keeper (you keep your secrets and I’ll keep the watch).”

And though technically not escapees with the rest of them, I am anal and a completionist, so of course I had to write ones for Eva, Jack and Jace too. 

Eva’s was “Big Sisters Know Best (so when I say I’ll die for you, just say thank you and live).” 

Jace’s was “Leopards Never Change Their Spots (but why worry about my 5% leopard when I’m 10% shark). 

And Jack’s was “Shelter The Innocent (but don’t look at the boy without shelter and say that boy, he’s no good).”

Anyway, been randomly thinking about those today now. Well, not randomly since I can follow the train of thought that led me to thinking about them, but you know what I mean. Its just kinda funny to me that I do remember those particular stories so well when there’s entire other fandoms I can barely remember writing in at all. And DA fandom wasn’t even one I was in all that long, ever knew too many other people in, or like....idk. I definitely, definitely have written much more well read and frequently commented upon stories than that fairly random little series of almost-OCs, but for some reason it stuck around in my head a lot longer and a lot more clearly than a ton of other stuff.

[mittensmorgul]

4.18: The Monster At The End Of This Book. Ironic title, no?

I mean, at this point, do I even have to type anything about this episode for anyone to completely understand its place in the Big Spiral Narrative of Supernatural? To understand how complex Chuck's plans have been throughout the entire series?

And that Chuck was never, not really, ever actually on their side?

Even when he played at being the prophet Chuck who insisted he didn't want any part of the cosmic nonsense...

Chuck: Well, there's only one explanation. Obviously I'm a god. Sam: You're not a god. Chuck: How else do you explain it? I write things and then they come to life. Yeah, no, I'm definitely a god. A cruel, cruel, capricious god. The things I put you through – The physical beatings alone.

pffft... he told them flat out he's god...

CHUCK: All for what? All for the sake of literary symmetry. I toyed with your lives, your emotions, for... entertainment.

Well, yeah... that's basically what it took them until 14.20 to actually figure out, you know? But he literally said it the very first time they met.

Chuck: I am so sorry. I mean, horror is one thing, but to be forced to live bad writing... if I would have known it was real, I would have done another pass. DEAN: Chuck, you're not a god! SAM: We think you're probably just psychic. CHUCK: No. If I were psychic, you think I'd be writing? Writing is hard.

BAAAAHAHAHAHAHA

CHUCK: (reading) "Sam and Dean approached the run-down..." (sighs, makes a correction on the page) "...approached the ramshackle house with trepidation." EXT. CHUCK’S HOME – DAY DEAN and SAM get out of the IMPALA. CHUCK (v.o.): "Did they really want to learn the secrets that lay beyond that door?"

probably not, and they're probably not gonna believe you even if you tell them the god's honest truth (pffft! WRITERS LIE! MY ASS!) But we were just discussing the lengths Chuck's willing to go to for the sake of "narrative symmetry."

All of this was hilariously awful in retrospect from way back in s11, but now? NOW?! This has transcended meta. Everyone else can go home. Supernatural wins.

Knowing what we know now, this was ALL a manipulation on Chuck's part-- ALL OF IT. From letting Dean think he'd "defied prophecy," to letting Cas think he was getting away with nudging Dean in the right direction to make that happen... giving them this false sense of hope that they just might be able to win...

only to snatch it all away again by the end of the season. Because that's the story he wanted to tell. And wow.

I mean, wow.

I'd keep typing, but I'm still kinda numb and just letting my brain try to absorb this level of narrative symmetry...

I mean, just think about how I've always pointed at this episode as an example of Dean Humanity Winchester enforcing his Free Will against the universe intent on pushing him into fulfilling a specific destiny instead. The theory that Dean Winchester is the center of the universe, standing outside of it all like a force of concentrated human will in the face of Gods, which came fully to fruition at the end of s11 when he literally reunited God and the Darkness and restored balance to the cosmos, is rooted in this defiance in the face of unstoppable destiny.

But Dean has no idea from this point in the spiral narrative what the full extent of his destiny even IS yet, and he's so deep into the manipulation down the wrong road (believing Lilith must die to stop the apocalypse), that he isn't even able to see the big picture of s4 yet, let alone the bigger cosmic picture he'll understand by s14.

Yes, along one arc of the spiral, Dean's personal arc that's constantly moving toward the center and true final understanding of the big picture, this is absolutely that step forward for him in beginning to master his own will. But on the opposite spiral, the spiral of Chuck's story, it's just gotten one level bigger and more difficult to comprehend.

I think enough has already been said about just how painfully Sam has deluded himself at this point, effectively poisoned himself with demon blood to the point he can't think rationally, can't even begin to see the bigger picture yet. And enough has been said about Cas's first REAL choice to "disobey" and give Dean direct assistance when he asked for it. All of this will drive their personal arcs for years to come. But there is one part of this story that I've had questions about for years... Chuck himself.

We know, we've seen him enjoy inserting himself into his own story. And I wonder if he's ever written himself into any other versions of his story. Cas jokes to Dean in this episode, "you should've seen Luke." And heck... now I wonder if Chuck played Luke long ago... But in a more relevant scale, could it still have been Dean's own actions, the one thing Chuck honestly seemed surprised about in this episode, that made Sam and Dean into "his guys," that made the difference between him losing interest and moving on to another story or returning to tell a new version of the story of Sam and Dean and Cas against the apocalypse again? The fact that Dean truly did something that seemed to surprise him, got right up in his face, and forced Chuck to stand up:

CHUCK: That's where Lilith is. DEAN: Yeah, exactly. I need you to stop her. CHUCK: Are you insane? Lilith? I know what she's capable of, Dean. I wrote her. DEAN: All right, listen to me. You have an archangel tethered to you, okay? All you got to do is show up and boom! Lilith gets smoked. CHUCK: But I-I haven't seen that yet. Th-the story – DEAN: Chuck, you're the only shot that I've got left. CHUCK: But... I'm just a writer. DEAN: This isn't a story anymore, man. This is real! And you're in it! Now, I need you to get off your ass and fight. Come on, Chuck. CHUCK: No friggin' way. DEAN: Okay, well, then, how about this – I've got a gun in my pocket, and if you don't come with me, I'll blow your brains out. CHUCK: I thought you said I was protected by an archangel. DEAN: Well, interesting exercise. Let's see who the quicker draw is.

Because whether as Chuck the Prophet who claimed he hadn't seen this happening yet, or Chuck as God playing a role who arranged this plot up to a certain point and then like a game sat back and waited to see what Dean's next move would be when faced with this inevitable scenario, I think he was genuinely surprised that Dean's solution was... so entirely out of the box (thanks, Cas, you brilliant strategist, you).

And from post 14.20, I think this is why Chuck felt the need to specifically break Dean in the way he did over s13-14-- Taking Cas away from him for a time, Taking Mary from him TWICE, forcing him to choose to say yes to Michael rather than letting Lucifer win, having Michael effectively toy with Dean all season long, breaking down Dean's will. Almost as if Chuck was simply hoping to achieve a different outcome. This whole Test By God thing... that's what he's always done. And Dean is officially done with it.

He builds them up, over and over again, only to crush them with something even worse than they could've imagined, all by this long-con manipulation. For narrative symmetry, for the sake of story, for his own entertainment. That's why he's the final boss they must defeat, because as long as Chuck's in charge of the story, they're never gonna be allowed their happy ending.

Inside of 4.18, that mirror role is filled by Zachariah, completely unaware that Chuck is God, believing he's in control of the manipulation within his own limited spiral of the narrative, doing what he does best and "showing Chuck" in a vision exactly what he wanted him to see... little did he know...

and one more thing:

DEAN (more quietly, to CASTIEL): This is the guy who decides our fate? CASTIEL: He isn't deciding anything. He's a mouthpiece – a conduit for the inspired word.

The final bit of 4.18 that I expect still needs resolution as far as Chuck's reality. How much of Chuck is actually the entirety of God, or how much is just... Divine Sock Puppet the universe created to interact with itself? I am really, really looking forward to s15. THIS is my favorite thing about Supernatural. Just. All of it. It's all in this episode.

#spn 4.18 #s14 hellatus rewatch #it's spirals all the way down #if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass #spiders georg of the tnt loop #spn cosmology #the scheherazade of supernatural #dean is the center of the universe #that's what free will is #lol don't i love the sort of meta posts that start 'do i even need to type anything about this episode' #and then go on for a couple thousand words and STILL not even come close to saying everything i could about it? #yes yes i do #a gentile reminder for anyone who thinks this show is written poorly... please continue to go fuck yourselves you ignorant walnuts

[inappropriatefangirlneeds]

Gotham s5ep4 “Ruin” Personal Review

“There goes the element of surprise..”    Warning spoilers below (ahaha not this week, boy am I late, not that anyone would have missed this though, also little meta content this week)  

What I loved about the episode is that it´s the “apocalypse” and then it comes down to a crime scene investigation! I would take much more of that! Much more!  Just less of a bloodthirsty MOB. Like would they really want Zsasz hanged? The evidence was pretty clear, Jim Gordon really got no reason to lie to them, actually it would greatly benefit him if he did. Do they really not want to see the real culprit punished? I´m not a fan of lynch/mob law in general but does it make sense for the mob to want the wrong guy hanged, that way the police probably will think / claim everything is settled and call it a day, which means the real culprit is free to do that again, but then again I wonder how many people know about Zsasz and him having been a hitman, did some of them have had relatives that got into Carmine / Sal Maroni crossfire, was this partly a he´s a guilty filthy criminal *anyway* thing?  * “You don't need to smuggle in explosives when you can detonate 250 gallons of highly pressurized heating oil that's coursing through all the floors.”  Ah damn, they really had Edward Nygma do it, I kind of didn´t want them to follow that route. Also why put that running guy with bomb in there then, huh .. damn exploding herrings.  HOPE goes on and off this week:  “But whoever destroyed that building can't destroy the hope we've built. Not unless we let them.” “I told the people it was safe. I made them into a target.” “Jim, you gave 'em” “Don't tell me I gave 'em hope. They're dead.”  * It´s GOOD vs. EVIL “This city will never be what you want it to be, Jim. It's always gonna belong to the bad guys, like me.”  “People like you are always trying to own this city. But you never will.” * It´s GOOD ft. EVIL Oswald Cobblepot poses as if he was the synthesis of both those opposites: A bad guy that cares. “I lost people, too, Jim. People you lured with promises of safety and security, only to have them incinerated.”  Oswald arms the GCPD talking about working together just to take over and get his own trials and justice going. He´s claiming to provide what Jim can´t. While both Barbara Kean & Oswald Cobblepot claimed their help came no strings attached Oswald´s help does not include staying aside and letting them do their work. Although to be fair he said “Save for the one that we will cinch around the neck of the Haven bomber.” What is it with people that it always needs a couple hundred dead people that they can focus on nice things. Anyway everyone is appropriately appalled with this atrocity. They also gave all the villains some selfish reasons. OSWALD COBBLEPOT wants people and their cheers. EDWARD NYGMA wants the file of the inmate.  “I've been putting out feelers.” BARBARA KEAN is worried Sirens might be next, making her probably the least “selfish” one because she seems to care about the people that she protects and might not demand the same level of praise that Oswald does. (I know probably other things but unless canon proves me wrong I headcanon slightly differently) She feels hurt but understands Jim would suspect, even for a moment that she could be responsible for the destruction Haven. They slowly get her back on suitable for Jim Gordon to kiss track, which phu idk. I liked her and their relationship in S1,  but there´s just so much happened in between. And plenty in Barbara´s characterization I didn´t like so it´s nice to see her on a more reasonable track now but how about they just gave her an awesome relationship with Tabitha ........  Characterization questions aside I really loved that she did not and could not kill Oswald in the light of the explosion! That was a touching moment!  Also her outfit is nice, although they toned down the make up. And Jim gripping her arm during the kiss almost gives old timey movie vibes. I´m sure I don´t need to write on Babs / Oswald paralells, I assume I just can reblog better words on it from someone ..  * Also something tells me if JIM GORDON  had gotten that shoot out with VICTOR ZSASZ, that kiss would not have happened …… “Inmate number 1215 knows! Knows what???!!??!” Ha, distressed, puzzled, annoyed EDWARD NYGMA is a joy to watch. I don’t really have to say more on that. Edward snatching the blanket from the woman when walking into the GCPD makes me wonder, what would he have done if that woman hadn´t been there? Just walked in? Did he have a stupid disguise and was like, oh no wait that´s better.  He and LUCIUS FOX were a delight. Edward trying to snatch the file from him and run was wonderful! Him preening in pride when his expertise is wanted was delightful! Lucius claiming, he´ll deny having said the praise he gave Edward in the end, precious! Lucius playing him like a fiddle, and moving him with barely more than his fingertips, damn! Just that the whole thing was shot like when Ed pursued Kristen Kringle!  Their dynamic is just wonderful: “Impressive. Calculated the angle of incident to follow the trajectory through the window, into the fuel oil tanks.” “Yep. That, and the RPG case is right over there.”  * One thing that stressed me was Ed sending the Files flying around him on the rooftop. Like at that moment he didn´t yet know that the woman he saw in the window was connect to the note he put down on his hands. Even when the inmate was dead there could have been some hints in the file or who knows in hid grave. Like, no Edward! No! Go run and pick them up.  * Someone needs to do a Parallel Meta for 5x04 & 4x12  when Ed found out he hired the hit on Leslie Thompkins. * “I did not make that building go boom, Jim.”   Yeah, that´s a VICTOR ZSASZ line. Love him. * ““Hey, do you guys have any canned peaches? Man, I'd trade an arm and a leg for that right now. Not mine, somebody else's.” Food and cut off limbs, that´s another one. Love him. * And that one: “Do the math.  If I blew up a building full of people, I would have covered every inch of my body in sweet, sweet scars.  You guys want to do a strip search?” “I'd let Alvarez do it. He's handsome” * Him shooting Oswald´s head on the major poster after he said something was a great detail! * Him drinking while waiting for the bullet hail to stop as well. * I´m gonna make a post about the Gunman magazine that fell on the floor, after Jim tackled him so majestically ...  * Zsasz usurping the applause afterwards, and later was adorable. * “Is this about Sofia Falcone? Because you should really move past that. It's not healthy.” DOES HE KNOW SHE KILLED CARMINE, DOES HE OR DOES HE NOT ???? They had him express sympathy towards Carmine in Season 1, they showed that he cared when Carmine got killed. I get that he might abandon issues like that in the current environment but they can´t open up such a plotline and then just drop it. Does he know that Oswald didn´t kill Carmine? Like honestly .. I know it´s the Jim Gordon show but I would have loved it if Victor Zsasz just had saved himself!! I would have loved it even more if along the way they somehow figured out the whole misconception, Zsasz would recognize that Sofia and not Oswald is to blame and maybe even apologize. * But hey Oswald´s “Well said” about the mumbled last words was mean but awesome. * Soooo who went in the trashy local torture museum to get the guillotine? * How does Zsasz work? There where zero people shown around him. What is it like to live on Zsasz turf? * Zsasz mumbling must have been bewildered that they aren´t honouring the tradition of the last meal before an execution, like he got his order ready, that was the last silver lining, if he´s really going to face his end at the hands of penguin in those halls at least he´s going to get his teeth into something juicy and tasty before it happens ..  SELINA KYLE, (Bruce Wayne), JEREMIAH VALESKA, ECCO * Sykes and the Soothsayers digging a tunnel for Jeremiah Valeska. Is that poetic justice? Also is this a new tunnel, when the Soothsayers had the children dig it they went out of their way to state that their cruelty is even more infuriating because the whole endeavour is very likely futile.  Like they made it damn clear that the TUNNEL is not going to go anywhere. Also would Jeremiah, who made the bridges go boom want a tunnel that remedies that  issue partly? Only for himself? His cult? Is he doing something else altogether? Is it about what he can get into the city through it? Is he better at static issues and remedied the tunnel digging plan? Was he involved before?  * “Yes you certainly have set a very high bar - for devotion.” Fucker gave me an earworm, Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio & Spiritual Front - A Song 4 Hate and Devotion (live) I mean quite a fitting mood considering all the other portrayals of the Harley and Mr. Jay relationship, but maybe they give ECCO and JEREMIAH VALESKA a different path. Aside from that the little dance was slightly nice. * “Bruce Wayne and his sidekick Curls Or is he the sidekick?” Yes! Ecco got the right spirit. I wonder if Ecco sees herself as sidekick?  “You see, a river cuts through rock not because of its power, but because of its persistence.So what do we do when we feel like giving up?” “Dig a little deeper.” “And what do we do when we can't possibly go on any longer?” “Dig a little deeper.” “And what do we ..” “Deep enough?”  I´m afraid it was not deep enough, I´m afraid it was quite shallow because the show is not as clever as Ecco, I bet that he isn´t dead, if he was it if could have actually been just about her. Honestly, I would love that. All the BatJokes built up and then it´s about Selina. And she has plenty right for it to be about her, Jeremiah almost killed her. What else does it need.  * SELINA KYLE keeping in the shadows investigating, disguising herself as one of the people there, then getting close to Jeremiah dressed as Ecco: She´s good! She´s awesome! * That GCPD woman that was doing PAPERWORK when Ed sneaked into the building. Do they do regular paperwork? Cause damn, considering the governmental neglect if Jim got them to bother to do the regular paperwork he must have given one hell of a speech. Or is it paperwork related to organize a place like Haven? How do they do things? * Oswald destroying all strategy with a megaphone: “There goes the element of surprise.” * “Elevated position, back to the sun.” * “Never ever ask me to do anything like that again. Pull yourself together.” Harvey does not approve of Wild West Jim  * “ I know the wheels of justice turn slowly, so I'm here to provide - a modicum of grease.” / “I did not expect you to go soft, Jim. Actually, I did.”  / “By the power vested in me by well, me, I sentence you, Victor Zsasz, to die.”   * “One of the areas in which I excel is the loosening of tongues.” “No. He's mine”  Oh damn I thought Jim said “it´s mine” as in he´s better with interrogations. Well there goes my whole comparison with the Edward Nygma & Lucius Fox expertise quip:  “So, the second smartest man in Gotham needs my help.” “Explosives are not my expertise.”  “Didn't realize you had one.”  *“Jim Gordon cares more about protecting a murderer than he does about protecting you!” Okay look who is projecting .... 

#gotham #gotham meta #gotham s5ep4 Ruin #Victor Zsasz #ecco #Selina Kyle #mine Gotham full episode reviews

[klbwriting]

Anomaly

Fandom: The Flash Pairing: Cisco x plussize!Reader Warnings: none just fluffy Summary: just a one shot I felt I had to write. Note: my computer went belly up so I'm writing on my phone for now so sorry for the issues with formatting Cisco and you had been playing a game for months now.  Communicating only through the comms, him trying to hack your system and find out who you were and why you were helping them, what you wanted.  It was frustrating for him and funny for you.  He didn’t know about your powers, how you were technology yourself.  You weren’t a cyborg or robot but when the accelerator exploded you had been in a room full of servers and it had affected you, making you a walking computer, able to control technology, get interceptions from cell phones and communications devices, and conveniently, meet Cisco Ramon while trying to help the Flash with one of his metas.  But now you were getting curious and wanted to meet Cisco, meet the guy you were sort of falling in love with, but you were scared.  You were not typical of the women he normally associated with.  You were bigger, you had freckles and less than perfect skin, you were less feminine, more tomboy than anything, but you knew you needed to meet sooner or later or Cisco would find you and you didn’t want to be caught off guard.  So now you were walking into S.T.A.R. Labs, into the main control center, seeing Cisco trying to track you.  You were quiet, watching him.                “Ok, I have a hit on the sig…what…Barry…she’s here?” he said confused.  He stood up and turned around, jumping about a foot in the air when he saw you.  He looked you up and down, confused on why you didn’t have a laptop or tablet at least with how many waves you were giving off.  “Wh..what are you?”                “My name is Y/N but you know me as Anamoly,” you answered.  Cisco stared for a moment and nodded.  “I’m pretty much a computer in a fleshy body.”  He moved a little closer to you and poked your arm.  “I’m a human just…my mind can control technology and understand technology.”                 “That…is awesome,” he said, moving around you, looking around you like you might have a motherboard on your back.  “When the accelerator exploded…”                “I was in a room full of servers and they all went boom on me and I ended up with the ability to do this,” you said, lifting a hand and making all the tech in the lab turn on and off in quick succession.  Cisco was still staring at you like he had never seen someone like you before even though he saw metas all the time.                 “You are amazing, I could kiss you,” he said.  You blushed and looked at him, he was cute, and funny, and sweet, and ya you wanted to kiss him too.                “Please do,” you said and without much forethought Cisco pressed his lips to yours, kissing you softly.  You felt your heart stop for a moment before starting again.  When you parted you stared at him.  “Um, you want to get pizza later? Maybe?  Like a date?”                “Uh ya, sure,” he said.  Cisco had been talking to you via the comms for months and he was curious about you, at least about what he didn’t know.  He knew you were good, funny, sweet, and a total nerd, which he had never found super attractive until you started talking to him.  Then you kissed and in that moment he realized that ya, he had deeper feelings for than just ‘o super cool metahuman’ and that freaked him out.  Cisco didn’t exactly have a string of successful relationships behind him and he wasn’t sure if he wanted another broken heart to wear on his sleeve.  He opened his mouth to cancel the date, make up an excuse but Barry ran in followed by Caitlin.                 “Sorry I’m late…there was a mugging…um…hi?” Barry said, looking over at you surprised.  You smiled at him and Caitlin.                “Hi, I’m Y/N, its nice to meet you Barry, and Caitlin,” you said happily.  You shook their hands before looking to Cisco.  “Are you hungry?  We could go now if you want…”  He looked over you and you knew instantly what was coming.  He didn’t need to say it.                 “I just remembered, I have…” he started, trying to think up a lie.                “Something to do,” you finished, nodding.  You looked down and then at Barry and Caitlin.  “Well it was nice meeting you, I’ll um just go.”  You nodded again, feeling foolish as you walked out.  You knew what Caitlin, Iris, everyone that Cisco was around looked like, hell you knew what attractive women looked like and you weren’t one of them.  You were midway to the elevator when you felt a hand grab your arm.                “Wait…don’t leave like this…we just met…” Cisco stammered, not wanting to see you look so hurt again.  All the others who had come before him had left for outside reasons, but you would be leaving because of him and he didn’t want that.                 “I know, and I understand, you are not the first person to kiss me and then be embarrassed by it, so don’t worry, I’ll still help you guys when I can but I won’t bother you anymore, don’t want to be awkward,” you said, not looking directly at him.  You had known this little crush on him would never come to anything but you had hoped anyway, he seemed to like you over comms, you thought he flirted but hell maybe he was flirting with Barry or just realized when he saw you that you weren’t someone he wanted.                “Embarrassed?  What are you talking about?” he asked, now confused.  You finally looked at him, biting your lip.                “Ya embarrassed, I see the kind of people you surround yourself with, everyone is so gorgeous, not only as a person, on the inside, but outside as well, and you, well, you’re gorgeous too and could get anyone you want, I know who you want would not be me,” you said, letting him know that you weren’t mad, that you understood.  He shook his head, the thought having never occurred to him.                 “No, that’s not even close to what I was thinking.  I just…I’ve had a string of recent failures in my love life and I just didn’t want another one to hurt me again,” he said.  “But…they left because something happened to make them leave, you I would be forcing away if I did this so, let’s go get pizza and let me kiss you again, please?”  You smiled and nodded.  “Do I have to wait until the end of the date for the kiss or can I sneak one in now to apologize for being a jerk?”  You smiled and stepped closer, moving to press your lips to his and feeling your heart skip again.  God you liked kissing him.  When you parted you blushed and held his hands in yours.                 “So pizza?” you asked.  He nodded.                “Yes, and btdubs, you’re beautiful don’t ever doubt that,” he said as he led you out of the lab.

#the flash #cisco ramon #cisco ramon x reader #cisco x reader #ciscoxreader #ciscoramonxreader #cisco ramon one shot #Cisco one shot #ciscooneshot #ciscoramononeshot

[missjackil]

One Year.... One year ago this month, I was introduced to these AMAZING gentlemen, and life has never been the same! I don’t recall the exact day it happened, but I do know it was March, 2016, 

This is how it started... It was a very cold, snowy winter here in NJ last year, so my life long friend Dawn, my daughter Sarah, and I started binge watching different series on Netflix. Dawn first suggested this show Supernatural, which I had only heard of in passing a few times over the years, but she had watched since the beginning. She said I would love it, the brothers  are hot, they hunt monsters and demons, delve a lot into Religion, which is a big interest of mine, I even have a degree in Theology, and am legally ordained. I checked the title on Netflix and saw it had 10 seasons available, and I said  “Nah, that’s a pretty big commitment, I dont think I could stay interested in a show that long” then Dawn informed me, that it was still on the air and in season 11. Not my cup of tea, so I declined. She next suggested Nurse Jackie, which was really good, but so easy to burn through. I got the next pick and picked House MD which had been mine, and my daughter Sarah’s favorite series to date.  This was a longer series than Nurse Jackie, 8 seasons instead of 7, and hour long episodes, as opposed to half hour. This took almost 2 months to get through. While watching this series again, I would keep commenting how much I loved the bromance between House and Wilson, to wish Dawn would always reply “The you will LOVE Sam and Dean!!” So since she had next pick, I agreed to give Supernatural a try.  And this is what happened... *CRASH BOOM BANG  <heavy flop>* “Wooooaaah easy tiger” “Dean?” Yeah, these boys are freakin adorable, and Im gonna love this bromance. I thought Dean was hot, and Sam was cute. Too young for me to think he was hot (me being 49 at the time) but I felt like the monsters and a lot of the horror was pretty lame, and sometimes even cheesy, though I did enjoy the chemistry the boys had with each other, and found Sam’s psychic visions to be an interesting element, I didn’t think I would stay interested for very long.  For a while, we were only watching 2-3 episodes at a time, a couple times a week when Dawn would come over. Near the end of S1 I told her I didn’t think I wanted to continue. She asked me to PLEASE give it to the end of season 2 and if I still didnt like it, we could find something else. As promised, I did become more interested in S2. The humor was funnier, the acting got better, and the bromance was hotter, and the emotional moments were even more heart breaking. The first episode that left a really big impression on me was Born Under a Bad Sign. Until then, I knew Sam had psychic powers, and his father was worried he would turn dark, and left it on Dean’s shoulders to save him or kill him (good idea John, what the hell) and this episode was probably showing Sam go bad. I didnt want that, I liked the boys and I wanted to like both of them and not have to start thinking of Sam as evil, but he was soooooo creepy in that episode! I was so afraid he was going to rape Jo, fortunately he didn’t, but that “My daddy shot your daddy in the heeeaad” thing gave me the willies! I was so uncomfortable with this “Dark Sam” I thought maybe I couldnt continue. Dawn didnt want me to stop just yet, but didnt want to give me spoilers, she told me “Don’t worry, Sam and Dean are the GOOD guys and Sam is a REALLY good guy” so I continued. When it was discovered that Sam was possessed, I found that very interesting, I didn’t think the boys would ever succumb to the evil things, just kick their asses all the time, though I assumed theyd have their own asses kicked sometimes, I never thought the show would allow the heroes to really suffer.... boy was I wrong huh??  I recall my first noticing that Sam was hot and built like a truck, in Heart, and it was also the first time I really cried. I remember telling Dawn, I will watch it when she comes over but Im watching it on my own too, because now Im much more interested, but I also said “it’s kind of a bummer knowing the boys wont die, that will take away from the suspense and emotional moments when it’s feared they might die, and I remember her giving me this look... she said “trust me, you know nothing”. She was right ... All Hell Breaks Loose 1 & 2 had me sobbing! When Sam dies in Dean’s arms and Dean sobs into his neck, I dont think Ive ever seen such intense, realistic  grief on a TV show. And then Dean goes and sells his soul for Sam!! This turned what I thought was a “My brother is my best friend” love into a “Id willingly spend eternity in fire and torment, to have one more year with my brother” love. That was a big turning point for me. I new Id watch it till the end and couldnt wait for those long days off when I could just binge all day long.  Then Season 4 happened... I dont know when exactly it happened, or which episode it was, but somewhere early in S4, I discovered the most amazing thing. I woke up one day and realized I am madly in love with Sam Winchester! And to top it off, I was hopelessly addicted and obsessed with SPN! I wont give a rundown of how each season hit me, but its been a crazy, emotional, tragically painful, beautful roller coaster that I have no intentions to ever get off of. By the time I got to S9 and started seeing the episodes dwindle away, I didnt want to finish too fast, yet I wanted to keep binging, so thats when I decided to start rewatching. ration out the newer episodes so I dont finish too fast, and binge the ones Ive already seen, and Ive done that continiously since then, and that was in May. By the end of June, I had watched everything on Netflix and purchased all of S11 On Demand and just kept finishing and starting over, rinse, repeat.  What I have learned... I mean no disrespect to Dean, I love him... but, if he ever says “As long as Im around, nothing bad is ever gonna happen to you” ... just RUN!! He said this to Sam in S1 and things just unraveled fast for poor Sam. I dont think there are many bad things LEFT that haven't happened to Sam, and we still have at least 2 more seasons to go!!!  To me, Sam is the most beautiful, kind, selfless, brave character ever. Yet, he can be a little selfish on occasion, but if you needed any of the duct tape and safety pins that hold him together, he wouldnt think twice about giivng them to you. He is scared fairly often, but it’s never stopped him from facing any big bad monster life could hand him.Season 10 was definitely not his most attractive season (that hair?? WHAT??) and if you piss him off, he can viciously sting with his words at the very least, or be brutally lethal with his hands when need be. He is a full on nerd, but not the least bit pretentious about it. He doesnt think he is better than anyone, and maybe even not as good as most. He is brilliant, but wont ever make you feel stupid. He is the sweetest, kindest gentleman you’ll ever meet, but 100% badass as well. But most of all. he loves Dean with everything in his life. He will never leave him (again) for anyone. If he ever finds a significant other, they will have to accept him and Dean as One person. Package deal and thats it.  To me, Dean is a rock. He rarely ever changes, This isn’t a bad thing. This compliments Sam, who is ever changing. Dean doesn’t live inside his head. He expresses his feelings more physically than with words, though he isnt one to mince words if you need to hear it. He’s emotional, not afraid to cry, but maybe afraid of who he allows to see it. He’s not perfect, he has made a lot of poor choices for himself and for Sam as well, but never with any ill intent (other than when influenced by a Supernatural force) He is a sweetheart, who unfortunately carries too much baggage. In Regarding Dean I feel like I met the REAL Dean that is lost under decades of pain, lossm and never ending violence. He can piss me off big time, but I forgive him because Sam does, and the most important thing in his world is Sam. There is nothing he wouldnt do, nor lines he wouldnt cross for Sam, and I believe he would give Sam anything in his power if Sam would simply ask.  What I think of the side characters  Cas, Crowley, Rowena, Bobby, etc.. all good characters who bring a lot of interest to the show, but none are strong enough characters to have their own storylines apart from Sam and Dean. Their side stories arent very interesting. I would watch a show that was only Sam and Dean (which is what I prefer) but I wouldnt watch a show that was only Cas or Crowley or whomever. They should support Sam and Dean and thats it, in my opinion.

What I have learned about the Fandom... Supernatural is the Holy Reaches of Heaven to them and they are Religions. Separate groups of individuals, expressing their love for the show and the characters in different ways. Some SPN religions are open and accepting, and some are vicious and hateful. Everyone gets different things from different parts of the series, but some of these religions, think their thoughts are the best and only True Canon even when sometimes, their thoughts are not canon at all. There are some fun, silly, kind loving fans in the SPN Family, and I have met a few, but Ive also seen some unnecessarily hatefull, mean spirited individuals who I cant consider family. SPN belongs to me, and it belongs to you. Take from it what you take from it... blog your blogs, go meta crazy, ship your ships, and write the shit out of fan fic... but please dont belittle and berate those who think differently. It is a ficitonal show, no one is going to go to Hell or be arrested for their views on it. If you don’t like it, dont watch it, but let those who do still love it, like myself, enjoy it while they can. Don’t go trying to hurt our feelings with “It should end!!” because someday it will, we know this, but we want it to live on for as long as J2 are happy to do it, and even then, it’s gonna hurt like the death of a loved one to see it go, so try to be more considerate okay? If you stayed to read ALL of this, You are precious to me :) and thank you!

#supernatural #1 year anniversary #many years to come

[jessestoddard]

Welcome to Chapter 12 of my blog-to-book project: Life After High School: Secrets To A Successful Life By Those Who Have Had Twenty Years To Think About It (or) What They Didn’t Teach Us Gen Xers In High School. This chapter is called Stupid Tax. If you missed the last post, click here, otherwise, you can start at the beginning here.

It was cool while it lasted

Before I left Pure Fitness I got caught up in the amazing returns people were getting on real estate during the false boom of 2005. I invested in a plot of land in a new development in Northport, Florida, and had my aunt checking on it in my stead. I thought I knew about real estate, as I had carefully purchased a condo in Belltown while working at University Fitness. The price on that had nearly doubled, so I thought I could handle a little long distance investing.

I had a house built on the land and was ready to sell. I would have profited around $50,000 when it sold. My aunt was interested in living there, so I made the very unfortunate decision to hold on to it and rent it to her. She lost her job and then the economy tanked in 2007. It was all over the news that this particular area in Florida was not only dropping rapidly, it was one of the worst places in the entire country. Only some areas in Nevada and California had bigger drops in value. I went down to Florida and realized that every two out of three houses in the area were in foreclosure. Every single house had a for sale sign.

I gritted my teeth, found a tenant, who ironically was a foreclosure attorney (and later took advantage of his knowledge of the system to avoid paying rent), and tried to ride it out suffering through the loss. I bought the house at around $200,000 (all leveraged with a stupid low-down payment ARM), it was going to sell a little over $260,000, and since I didn’t sell, it was now worth $57,000 and I had a ton of debt that would eventually adjust to higher interest and kill me financially.

Also in 2005, being married and trying to settle down to give my wife some much-needed security, I decided it was the perfect time for me to become a high-risk entrepreneur.

It was an idea I had always believed I was destined for, even though my career had centered on the arts. In my mind, there is a strange parallel between the arts and entrepreneurship that most people miss. There is a creative genius that both require, but not everyone taps into.

I felt I had what it took, and since I had been kicking the idea around for around seven years, I dedicated focused time on carefully planning a new strategy to own my own gym. It was, after all, something I knew a lot about as an employee and independent contractor, and it seemed to go with my fascination with the physical.

Owning a gym is the perfect business for someone who wants to get in horrendous shape and go broke. Pushing pencils do wonders for the waistline, and any business that has huge fixed costs at the peak of the bubble with fickle customers paying $29 per month or less, is bound to have money slipping through your hands like a bucket shot full of holes by a 12-gauge shotgun.

I went back to my old boss, Rick Clark, and I appealed to his desire to expand his health club into new territory. I knew from years of conversations that he wanted more.

Actually, all Rick ever wanted to do was go golfing. He didn’t want to be there, but it had been a good gig and I saw that as an opportunity to be of service while helping myself make my own way simultaneously. I saw the debacle at the 5th Avenue Theater as a sign it was time to move on with my life and become a high roller.

I would say I wanted to be like Donald Trump since I had read his book among many other business books at the time before anyone knew who he was. Of course, this was long before anyone dreamed that he might become president. I just respected some of his real estate accomplishments, and the stories were inspiring to show how America still has opportunities. That was it. He was barely getting into reality TV, and people only knew him as a shrewd and rather wise business man.

Be honest, before the presidential election, did you even know anything about him other than he was a business celebrity on TV? Did you read books about him or by him? Well, I did, which might just give me a slightly different perspective than the average Joe. So just relax for a minute before you go nuts on me and throw Molotov Cocktails at my front door.

At that time, if you said “Trump for president,” you would be probably looked on as a radical intellectual with interesting views of the world and a unique viewpoint that others would wonder at.

Of course, at the time of this writing, if I were to say anything remotely positive about him, I am afraid a lynch mob would be waiting outside my house ready to take me out for devil worship. Living in Washington State has such a rich and tolerant culture! So I will NOT say anything either for or against. I leave that to Facebook, the source of all of our news and opinions. Facebook will tell us how to think. Oh great Facebook, only you know the truth. Please enlighten us with your out-of-context video clips and serial rants. Show us the way.

OK, worship time is over. Back to the story…

While I was still working at the 5th Ave, I met a guy named Mark who worked with Gary at WAMU Capital Corporation. He was a finance guy of sorts, but his dream was just to brew beer. He was at some of our poker parties at Gary’s. For some reason, I called him up at the bank and said: “You still want to get out of there?” He was ecstatic. We decided to open a gym.

I mean, of course, a gym made perfect sense, right?

We drove all over for months looking for spaces and writing business plans and then playing Halo on the X-Box to blow off steam. Eventually, a commercial broker introduced us to a space in Mountlake Terrace. It was 6,400 square feet next to a QFC and seemed to be prime retail. Mark and I gathered other partners (Mark’s friend Nathan, and my friends Gary and Luke) to raise cash, and then Rick provided the credit and his reputation. We called our new venture Retrofit, using a Seattle firm to create the branding elements.

At that time, my wife and I moved into the Snohomish house she grew up in, leaving Seattle behind in favor of rural commuting to the gym every day instead. She still worked at the UW, helping run a lab, and then came home to help me at the gym. She was and is an amazing woman, who stuck by me through some very bleak times. We are stronger for it.

The house was nearly condemned and in sore need of a major overhaul. My mom and dad came and stayed in hotels while helping remodel our house while Mae and I worked. I would come home after a very long day at the gym and crawl under the house to help with plumbing. We rebuilt the entire house from the inside out and ended up having to take a second mortgage to do it. We knew that everything would be fine since even though we had a lot of debt, real estate would most certainly keep going up and we would be making tons of money on our gyms after we opened three to five of them in the next couple of years as was our plan. We had run the numbers and were determined we would become wealthy.

This was a very tough time in my life that I am going to skirt over very quickly so as not to make myself rant excessively. We bought in at the top of the market on everything. We even went to the big IHRSA convention in Los Vegas to buy equipment. We did our research and studied our demographics and we were sure we could do it.

I signed up 635 new clients (setting a few records), in the worst time of the year to open a gym (summer), as fast as I could and things looked pretty good, but behind the scenes, we were falling apart. Let’s just say none of us could get along and there was some power plays that drove us further apart. The stock was internally devalued and somehow through some very tricky legal handiwork, I no longer had any control or value in the company and my equity had been reduced to nothing. I learned a huge lesson that day and for many days after that.

Luckily, while I was there, a guy named Wayne came in and had me try AdvoCare. I was very skeptical, but the stuff worked. In three weeks, without changing diet or exercise, the products helped me lose two notches on my belt, gain a pound of muscle, and feel more energy than I did in high school, and that was exactly what I needed at the time. Later, Mae would use the products to go from a size 12 to a 6 after kids and looks and feels amazing. We have maintained those results for over eleven years and love every aspect of the company and products. The customers were starting to love it too, but we didn’t have much time in the gym left to introduce it there.

Shortly after, the locks were changed and I was ousted of my own creation.

I was crushed and the company was in trouble. I could no longer sell memberships to keep it going and yet I still had all of the responsibilities and debts. The gym cost us $500,000 worth of equipment, and it was $13,000 a month in rent, not including the equipment leases.

The gym kept puttering along for a few years, and finally, they declared bankruptcy. Rick Clark lost his other gym and his house and retirement and moved to Arizona to get a job and start over in his sixty’s. Everybody lost, and a trainer who worked for us got pregnant (not by me).

My personal guarantee was on everything. My stock was worth nothing. It was a nightmare.

Right before we closed, another gym owner con man befriended me with an evil manipulation. I was weak and he saw it. He convinced me to give him $15,000, which was my last line of credit to my name to go invest in a new company so I could go work with him. He took it and ran. People from all over were trying to put him in jail for years. Like they say, an idiot is born every day, and I was being a glutton for punishment apparently.

Now there are different kinds of debt… At least there are different reasons you might choose to get into debt. You can just be a normal American and rack up the consumer kind using credit cards and payday loans and rent your furniture and get a couch repossessed, or you can get into debt as a small business owner and live the real American Dream.

“Our bank supports hard-working entrepreneurs like you. This country was built on the backs of small businesses and if you want to do something of patriotic significance you’ll need to take out a loan with us.”

“But I thought 99% of all traditional businesses fail, so why—”

“Well, yeah, but that could take years and you will be paying a lot of taxes in the meantime to support your local community… And don’t worry about us, we’ll just take your home when you fail.”

You know what’s stupid about business debt in particular? At least with normal consumer debt you get to have all the fun and trinkets that give you temporary material pleasures! Most regular Americans just rack up the credit cards and have a blast and then file bankruptcy… And later they might enjoy a bailout paid for by the taxpayers. With small business debt, however, you get an entire decade of lost hopes and dreams.

“So let’s see, would you like to take a cruise around the world for a year, buy a Lamborghini, and have a wild shopping spree to Best Buy every day for a month…

‘Or would your prefer to have all the same debt and just sit in a cold unfinished foreclosed house filling out endless paperwork for the IRS?”

“Hmmmm…. That paperwork in a cold empty house sounds pretty nice. Do I get extra airline miles with that?”

There was one time I was in court and remember representing myself in front of the judge. Even the judge admitted that he thought I really got screwed. The landlord took pity on me and released me from my obligations to him, although that was only a part of what I owed. He was still trying to collect over fifty-thousand in back rent. He tried to get the partners to come back together to make it work, but it wasn’t happening.

Lessons From The Loss Of Retrofit

Always Go Low Overhead (my dad warned me, but I had to learn the hard way)

Pick the right partners, because breaking up is hard to do

Handle conflict with care. It’s like a seriously inflamed hemorrhoid

The only way out of the business that continues to profit is to go from true business owner to investor (or a “B” to an “I”, as Robert Kiyosaki suggests in Rich Dad, Poor Dad). Become the financier and get a replacement who has skin in the game with ownership. Otherwise, just cut your losses since that ship is eventually going to go down like the Titanic!

I fell into a deep depression in 2007 and 2008. I would lie around in my bathroom all day and Mae would understandably be upset and worried. I would pour through emails and paper trails looking for a way to fight everyone. I was angry and sad and had never seen such loss.

I eventually drug my sorry tail out of the house and started over working at a little gym in Snohomish as a personal trainer. I felt like a nobody. I later took a second job crawling under houses for an insulation company, do estimates while lying in rat feces. I had spiders crawling all over me every day, lived out of their trucks, and had insulation in my hair and on my skin that never seemed to wash out—always itching.

I hated myself. I found myself in the crawl spaces, talking to myself and feeling sorry and mumbling: “I used to be on the 5th Avenue stage! We got a standing ovation at the end of A Chorus Line after our perfect show and I started balling!” Then, I was too angry to cry so I just went emotionally numb for a time.

(Ironically, this same company became a consulting client almost a decade later and hired me on full-time to transform their marketing strategy, but that is another story).

After the loss, it took me ten years to forgive everyone, and I am almost ready to forgive myself too. It has taken a lot of work since I live with the repercussions still to this day. The good news is that I never declared bankruptcy since I don’t really believe in it. I have lived modestly and worked hard and followed the Debt Buster plan that AdvoCare, the nutrition company we are distributors for, provided me. I highly recommend everyone at least check out their debt reduction program, and the people are wonderful.

Using that system and by selling things off and earning additional plan-B income, we have gone from 2.2 million dollars of debt down to under two-hundred-thousand. Our dream is to one day be debt free, and we see that as possible now. Granted, I lost my condo in downtown Seattle, had to short-sell the Florida property and sell most of my personal belongings, while working the new business on the side of multiple jobs. It is not easy, but I believe it will build character and be worth it in the long run.

I eventually started a boot camp business, called Snohomish Boot Camps that grew to four cities and had eight trainers working for me. We had hundreds of clients and helped people shed thousands of pounds. We did huge fundraisers and donated to charity. It was a rocking few years again from 2009 to 2012. We were also rocking and rolling in AdvoCare earning a substantial residual income. We had a month where we made a little over $7,000 just from that alone and decided Mae could leave her job in science to follow her dream, which was to be a mom to our two kids, Phinneas and Keira. At that time, it appeared it would all work out just fine.

Of course, we had another rude awakening. Perhaps I got a little ahead of myself again and tried to grow the fitness business too rapidly. I had a big vision to change the world with my boot camp system and franchise.

One of my trainers had a different idea of how it would be and she took the biggest camp I had and “moved” (a euphemism for “stole”) all the clients in a pretty well-executed coup d’état. Now, I am to blame for several poor leadership blunders, but it doesn’t justify that extreme of action. Maybe I do deserve it anyway, I don’t know. Well, she wanted more money, and she thought I was rolling in the dough and just holding out and didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t really making any money.

The truth is that I was living on under approximately $24,000 per year, and much of our income was coming from other sources, not from the boot camps. The reason she couldn’t believe it is that our gross revenue was very high. What she didn’t understand, because she was not and probably never will be a business owner, is that there is a huge difference between revenue and net income. I had huge expenses and was using the majority on the payroll (including her) and financing the launch of other camps so that someday if I worked really hard, I would eventually make good money on it personally.

I decided to sell what was left of the company but the new owners and I had some serious differences, so I was no longer involved at all. I found myself “retired,” but at least we were doing well enough in AdvoCare to make ends meet, which was the entire purpose of the plan-B income, to begin with.

After that, I have gone back to training and launched a boot camp with a new system I developed. I enjoy it and I help other people start their own fitness boot camp businesses as well. This has also lead me to small-business consulting and a new opportunity that is exciting and life-changing.

It is all good honest work now and I have zero partners, other than my wife. I am a believer now that most of the time the only ship sure to sink is a partnership (never say never?), and all of these learning lessons and never-ending debt payments were my way of having to pay a stupid tax for my lack of wisdom.

Lessons From The Loss Of Snohomish Boot Camps

There always is a way to exit and get to make lemonade out of lemons (E.g. I created a consulting practice and wrote a book).

Businesses without high overhead and debt are easy to change or get out of.

“Strictly Business” is a misnomer, and “It’s not personal” is a lie. It’s always personal, so you have to be prepared to handle it.

Leadership is influence, and it requires service and a servant’s heart. The business is not there to serve you, as much as you wish it were the other way around. If you treat it that way, you end up killing the Golden Goose and choking on the feathers. If it hurts you too much to see the world as it really is, you can always go back to being a lazy consumer and working for someone else and losing your influence. Then someone can tell you what to do all day and you can choose bondage. Freedom isn’t free.

Doing it “for the money” is a trap and a weird paradox. We must follow our dreams and passions to bring light to the world, and the light is what people pay for. Yet we feel we need money to follow our dreams, which entices us to choose careers and projects based on the lure of money, rather than the dream. We wait for the money so we can invest in the dream, but by then it’s too late… We are caught in a Catch 22.

Ok, this one is going to be challenging not to sound sexist (although I assure you that it isn’t), but here it goes… If you are a man:

Working with women is more complicated than working with men.

As a man, having women work for you is going to make you man up.

Having a bunch of women running your business is either going to be the best idea in the world or a recipe for drama and disaster…

And you can’t blame anyone but yourself (Just like the Jimmy Buffet song says).

Whew! Glad I’m getting through that lesson relatively unscathed until the hate mail comes in.)

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  In the next post, I will continue with more interesting interviews.

Are you from Generation X? I want to hear what you think! Please comment below and participate in the conversation about What They Didn’t Teach Us Gen Xers In High School. What do you wish someone told you when you were eighteen?

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Life After High School: Chapter 12 Stupid Tax Welcome to Chapter 12 of my blog-to-book project: Life After High School: Secrets To A Successful Life By Those Who Have Had Twenty Years To Think About It