#I found so many of the YouTubers I like somewhere along this pipeline

[bean-there-before]

I was just thinking about how much I love Smosh and how genuinely happy it’s made me to since I started watching it which was anywhere from four months to a year ago

so I would like to say thank you to my cousin for showing me YouTube and Collins key, to Collins key for collabing with the Merrell twins, for the merrell twins for collabing with Rosanna pansino, Rosanna for collabing with matpat, matpat for talking about the try guys that one time, and the try guys for collabing with Smosh

[codylabs]

I cannot even begin to describe what a hot commodity that shade of purple is.

To give some context, I have 8 siblings all younger than me, and each and every one of us had a Lego phase at one point. For some of us it lasted years, some of us collected, others never outgrew them at all, I personally started a Youtube channel. We were a Lego family; thoroughbread, you understand. Birthdays and Christmases and hard-earned allowances all contributed toward the cause; ever our collection grew. But despite our great means, for a long span of time in the middle of this process, (I estimate for close to 8 years,) the ONLY PURPLE PIECES that our family had that were three (QTY 3) 2X1 grates that we got in 2001 on this set: 6227 LEGO Alpha Team Cruiser.

Now, sad as it may be in hindsight, it is no great mystery why purple was so rare: Legos were boy toys, plain and simple, and since purple is a girly color, it had no place among them. Lego did try to expand its market towards girls in that era of its business, but it was always in a half-hearted and pandering (to put it lightly) way that simplified away and rejected the freedom and awesomeness that made Lego so special, thus doing little to endear to wider audiences, or even to girls themselves. By way of example, behold the mindlessly grotesque simplicity of 5860 Love n' Lullabies:

Sad.

I cannot delve deeply into this matter here, but Nick On Planet Ripple has an excellent video essay laying it all out. Suffice to say that our family never owned any "girl" Legos, and thus had no direct pipeline to pink and purple pieces.

In terms of the "non-girly" legos that used purple, the selection really was quite limited. Obviously they were on the Alpha Team Cruiser because its pilot was female, and probably a few other places along that line, but anywhere else it was only used in places where it was impossible to interpret as girly. That is, exclusively on scrappy high-tech machines like 8257 Cyber Strikers:

Even this sort of thing was eventually phased out though, as the mechanical "Technic" line eventually found itself a more grounded voice, less focused on whatever the above is supposed to be, and more geared toward the emulation of real-world vehicles and heavy machinery, which themselves are rarely purple for unrelated reasons.

It was in this era before the clarification of the Technic identity that, of course, Bionicle entered the picture. And I must say, Bionicle began its life quite purple. Slizers and Throwbots, the precursors/prototypes to Bionicle, both had several purple members, whose pieces I recognize here and there within the build that started this discussion. But although Bionicle chose purple for a few early monsters and side characters, the color never made it into the main cast (much to the chagrin of many fans including my family, who thought having black and brown represent the inexplicably distinct elemental powers of stone and earth was kind of silly), and thus never became a staple of the series. So after the first 6 months, for the entire 8-year life of Bioncile, there were NO more purple Bionicles. The masks in the build that started this discussion are painted or custom molded by fans; they are not real Lego. And to be perfectly frank with humanity as my witness, the world is a worse place for the loss. As an tender reminder of Bionicle's purple beginnings, I leave you an image of 8548 Nui-Jaga:

Now, Lego as a company fell on hard times somewhere during this era, and a lot their more experimental avenues had to be trimmed up and left by the wayside; among them, seemingly, was purple as concept at all.

You may be surprised to hear that the color turquoise (see: the left-hand Cyber Striker) was undergoing an identical journey to purple, albeit for entirely different reasons: the chemical process Lego had used for creating turquoise was difficult to do consistently, so they used it sparingly, and then eventually found they had no reason to use at all.

This all came to a head in 2008, with 8115 Dark Panther. Lego was in a position of needing to choose either turquoise or purple, and which of the cult-classic colors got retired forever would be determined by what color they made the Dark Panther. That silly robot could have been either purple or turquoise, and ladies and gentlement, they chose purple.

We did not see another turquoise piece until just recently (YES you heard that right, turquoise is BACK and it only took a decade, thank goodness it's back!)

But from Dark Panther onward, purple was returned to the mainstream. I remember how overjoyed I was to see this happening, and I remember the elation I felt in 2010 when my brother brought home 5984 Lunar Limo:

And from then on purple was a part of my life. My very first Youtube video was of a ship that was built using pieces from that very same Lunar Limo, and I liked the color scheme enough that in my first scifi story, the human faction flew ships with a purple stripe.

Returning to Lego, the new purple was different than the old purple. It was slightly more indigo, a truer purple that made the old purple look like more of a bright violet. You can see the comparison of this screenshot I took from google images:

Our family now had access to all the new purple we could ever use or hope to use, and indeed I think I do prefer the new shade of purple, but the fact remains that purple had changed, and the fact remains that the old violet would NEVER BE SEEN AGAIN.

Even to this day, our family only owns approximately 8 pieces of that old violet. Only one of the original grates from the Alpha Team Cruiser is still with us, but it's been joined by a few Bionicle parts that my brother bought used, and, (most notably) a few technic beams that I once saw in a bin at the YMCA when I was 13. Don't worry, I didn't steal them, I brought in some identical beams in more mundane colors, and offered the teacher a trade. She didn't know what she lost that day, and what she cost the YMCA, but I got what I wanted, got what I needed, and I never looked back.

The moral of this story is that I love purple.

Bionicle

ChrisK

[cheesesteak-horror]

Examples on How to Approach Game Development Tools and Engines (With Sonic)

What’s good ya’ll, here’s a look at what I’ve been doing for a few weeks now!

I want to talk about how to approach new tools in game development. More specifically, how I approached development with completely new software to make new, possibly better games.

Let’s take Day Dreaming Derpy for example, it was made with RPGMaker VX ACE. One of the reasons I chose this version of RPGMaker was that I was largely familiar with many of the games other developers made using Ace.

Here’s some great examples:

Nomnomnami (Tumblr)

Mother: Cognitive Dissonance (Game)

bleet (Tumblr) (Actually predominantly uses RM2k3)

It very much influenced my decision on which version of RPGMaker to use for myself. And I believe the same could be said of other developers using any form of RPGMaker (there’s also many great games made RM2k3 and its still being used today too). Familiarity breeds comfort, and comfort has the potential to breed brilliance if applied correctly; this, and many other things can be said about creating a workflow, and a large part of the development process is establishing that pipeline.

But not all software is made equal, and sometimes its best to adapt to using new tools that help broaden your own horizons. For me, despite Ace’s reliability, I inevitably ran into certain limitations during development- limited screen size, round-about implementation using custom scripts, controller schemes, games only being available was .exes, etc. These among other things limited the game’s availability, and while it is nice to work locally with similar pc-users, sometimes games/software ask too much.

Then I found out RPGMaker MV supports multiple platforms for export.

You better believe I pounced on that sale last month so I could poke around in it.

This very much changes many things for me as a developer, sure MV has quite a lot of improvements over Ace, but for me, chief among them would be...

HTML5 Support (Newgrounds will never be safe)

This is important because, as discussed above, it addresses accessbility. Not just for Mac-users, but for everyone... because anyone can now just go to a webpage and play a full blown RPG without worrying about PC requirements or working out Virtual Machines. I believe it’s a very smart more on Enterbrain’s part.

So... does this mean Day Dreaming Derpy will coming to web-browser near you?

Probably not, but this does open up many, many avenues for games I would love to make.

Now let’s move on to another engine I’ve been eyeing for while now...

To be clear, Sonic Worlds is not really an engine, as the real engine it runs on is ClickTeam Multimedia Fusion 2(.5).

Sonic Worlds is actually just a project file with all the fixings, assets, and coding needed to create a sonic fangame. While I’m not abandoning RPGMaker, it’s been an interesting experience to learn how MMF 2.5 works. From what I’ve gathered, I’d have to agree that it does not handle eventing/scripting as well as RPGMaker, nor does it make it easy to manage object properties and the like.

But luckily for us, Sonic Worlds has got us covered as it really just leaves the assets and level design up to the developer.

Gotta respect open source fan collaborations.

So what’s got me riled up by Sonic fangames? Well, Sonic Mania of course.

Growing up, I believe my first REAL video game I ever played was Sonic Advance, and since then I’ve been diving in and out of Sonic’s library of games throughout ages.

Then Sonic Mania comes along and shows me what true love is and... then we’re here.

At first, I knew nothing about how the engine really worked, so I did the same thing I did when learning about VX Ace- research. Google’s your best friend.

Lo and behold, there was actually a written guide for it

But if reading documentation isn’t your thing, there’s some videos on youtube!

Simple Sonic Worlds (Slightly different project file, but helpful nonetheless)

So here’s what I got so far in experimenting with the engine.

Not exactly Mania-levels of material, but everything here is basically just a test of how the workflow will implemented. Things I considered:

How tiles can be replaced?

How must gimmicks be used in relation to one another/ with Sonic?

How terrain must be imported to support Sonic’s physics setup?

How big the parallax must be?

Among many other questions, is how creative can I be with the tools given?

Sure using the stuff that’s been implemented is great, but what if I wanted to recreate something that’s not in here?

The answer: research!!! (And poking around)

A specific gimmick I wanted to implement isn’t so much as a gimmick as it is a visual element that requires some custom properties be set.

Best way I could describe it online was- The Studiopolis Effect

It took a fair bit of research to get the above result, but here’s a good piece of wisdom I’ve learned from all this:

Sometimes people run into the same problems. And its quite often the case that somebody, somewhere encountered and explored that problem the way you are now.

Again, Gotta respect open source fan collaborations.

Here’s the thread so anyone interested in how the problem-solving process went!

And another piece of wisdom, if you find a solution, be sure to give appropriate credit! Everyone benefits from the knowledge!

Anyway, hope this ramble serves as a good piece of reference for when others start development!

Thanks a lot guys

[knb217-digitalcreaturesprogress]

Final Thoughts and Reflections

I spent more time than I admit on the pre-preparation of this project. I am not experienced in drawing humans or humanoid figures and I put it off for a long time because of this. Eventually I just decided that it would be better for me if I didn’t focus on the 2D turnarounds as much as I intended too, and I just found some male dolls online that I used as a base for my character. This allowed me to get a somewhat consistent shape for my character that allowed me to get the base mesh down. In the 2D turnarounds I had wanted to add more things to my character but I found that it was going to be too difficult to add them into the base mesh let alone the fully rendered and textured model. The base mesh went through several iterations before I was able to complete it and even then I wasn’t happy with it because it didn’t have a nose or anything of the like, and even thought I took the time to try and add it, it wasn’t going to be able to happen within the base mesh so I conceded and decided to add it when it came to sculpting. I was on the base mesh still for a while afterwards trying to fix up the edgeloops so they didn’t create creases when the mesh was smoothed within Mudbox. After converting most of the loops into edge loops I focused on the fingers again. The first time I made fingers was the best time, but somewhere they merged into one and it messed up the whole hand and I was unable to fix this properly to get the fingers working again properly, but I had already spent too long on the base mesh that I thought it best to move on with the process and pipeline so I could have something for delivery.

Then came the sculpting. The first time it happened there was several issues with my mesh that I had to go back and fix within Maya before I was able to transfer it back into Mudbox and do the sculpting. I spent a lot of time researching how muscles looked and moved under the skin so I could get a somewhat accurate looking portrayal in my model but I don’t know how well that went through. I took a lot of time with the nose, wanting to make it perfect but it ended up not being anywhere near as perfect as I wanted it to be, especially with the retopogising. I wanted to make my model perfect, but things went wrong later along the pipeline. I had to take a few steps back to calm myself down after Mudbox crashed and I lost a lot of my work, but I was able to bounce back pretty quickly as I knew what I wanted my character to look like now so less research was required. The model after the crash wasn’t to the quality as my last one, but I still believe that it is worthy.

This is when things went very wrong. I retopologised too quickly and without thinking really what I was doing. I didn’t do the edge loops around the mouth properly in the first place and when it came to facial rigging, and the rigging in general, everything went wrong. (More on that later) After retopogising the first time, and not being aware that it wouldn’t work with the rig workflow I moved into substance painter and textured my character (this is where the normal map worked) and ported it to Sketchfab through Substance painter’s uploader (see final result here: https://skfb.ly/6LpYF this will be talked about further down). After this, I went back into Maya and went through the rigging workflow… where everything went wrong. After I realised this, I went back several iterations and redid the topology of the face, making sure to pay special attention to the edgeloops this time. I continued with the workflow and moved to rig first before I textured.

Rigging was more of an enjoyable experience than I expected… sort of. As previously mentioned, I had a lot of trouble with the model as it was as I hadn’t set it up properly for animation. I spent several hours trying to get it to work but the rig kept unskinning itself, kept being a pain and just stopped working in general. The above sketchfab link is for the first topogised model and the texturing… the rig was that. It didn’t want to work and it didn’t want to behave for me. I slept on that model and animation as it was late last night when I finished and I was so Done with the whole process.

Realising that I wanted to come back to it in the morning I went through the process of retoplogising (as mentioned above) and went into the rigging process. This went much, much smoother, and I was able to get a working rig. I then went into Substance Painter for the painting of this rig as I knew the last texture set that I used wouldn’t have worked with this new model. This is when things started going very badly. I baked the highpoly model from Mudbox onto this new model…. And nothing happened. No many how times I tried it would not bake… so I was left as it is now without the normal from the high poly model (which can be seen through the above Sketchfab link). I knew I had to cut my losses and get something else done.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted my ‘heroic’ pose to be so I decided on the character jumping in front of someone to protect them from being shot. I think that I did this quite well and the sheen on the character in the rendered image (which is above) makes it look somewhat like bullets.

The animation for the first character was a mess. I wanted to do more but while I was animating the rig broke (again) and I was left doing what it is now. I knew this wasn’t going to be good enough for the final submission so I decided that, as previously mentioned, I was going to take a step back and go back and try again. Even still I am more happy with the above sketchfab link just because it works while the other one doesn’t. The animation is terrible and the rig is terrible but that was my own fault.

Animating the final piece (seen in the youtube video) was very fun. I started with the feet and moved onto the hips and the arms to give it some accurate looking movement. The skin weights are off, but I wasn’t really too concerned as without the normal maps the character looks more stylised than human.

Finally, after the animation was complete and I was happy with it I went to upload it to sketchfab. I tried several different ways several different times over two hours trying to get it to upload and work. I think there was a problem with the character mesh itself as when I tried uploading just that Sketchfab gave me an error. I don’t know. I believe that the way that I submitted it is the best case out of the bad scenario that I was given.

I’m not sure how I would go making another human in the future only because I struggle so much with humanoid characters, drawing and modelling them it seems. If I was to do it again I think I would focus on something more animalistic, furry like. I could even go as far to say that I would be willing to try and make my fursona and animate her instead of this elf.

I’m glad it’s over. Elf, I wish I could have done you better.

[dragonydreams]

Steal the Air - Captain Canary Pump Up the Volume AU

Title: Steal the Air Fandom: DC's Legends of Tomorrow Rating: Teen Pairings/Characters: Sara Lance/Leonard Snart Summary: Leonard Snart is your regular quiet nerdy guy by day, but at night, make sure to catch his Facebook Live posts as the mysterious Captain Cold. Modern Pump Up the Volume AU Timeline: n/a Word Count: 5,142 Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over these characters. I am merely borrowing them from Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television. Betas: Thank you to angelskuuipo and shanachie_quill for looking this over for me. Author's Note 1/Additional Disclaimer: I love the movie "Pump Up the Volume" and thought it would work so well as a Captain Canary story. It's so brilliantly written, that I couldn't bring myself to change many of the words from the film, so much of the text belongs to Allan Moyle and New Line Cinema. Author's Note 2: Written for @ficcingcaptaincanary​'s Movie AU prompt. (Told you I was going to be late with this.) Author's Note 3: Youtube links to songs used in story as you read or listen to playlist for this story on Spotify

Did you ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely fucked up? You know that feeling that the whole country is like one inch away from saying, 'That's it, forget it.' We live in a world where vigilantes dispense justice in the cities and metahumans rule the streets. And we're expected to survive high school and go out into that crazy world. I can barely think about surviving another day of mediocre education, let alone making it in the "real world". You know what I'm talking about, Starling City. So sit back, relax, and do not adjust your screen because I am Captain Cold and this is live. This is life.

~~*~~

"Hey, Sin, have you seen this?" Sara asked, sidling up next to her best friend as they headed into Starling City High School.

"What?" Sin asked, taking the cell phone from Sara. She glanced down at the open Facebook app. "Captain Cold? Yeah, I've been watching. You like every one of his posts so I was curious. Who is he?"

"No one knows," Sara said, taking her phone back and pulling up his profile. "The only photo is his profile photo with the huge parka and dark goggles. You can barely see his face."

"Maybe that's the point," Sin said. "He leaves that photo up blocking the camera for the live videos on purpose."

"I know, but he's gotta be a student here. He's as much as said so," Sara pointed out. "I'm gonna find him."

"Good luck with that," Sin said.

~~*~~

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That's how it goes Everybody knows - Everybody Knows, by Leonard Cohen

Okay, down to business. I got my Black Jack gum here and I got that feeling, mmm that familiar feeling that something rank is going down up there. Yeah, I can smell it. I can almost taste it. The rankness in the air. It's everywhere. It's running through that old pipeline out there, trickling along the dumb concrete river and coming up the drains of those lovely track homes we all live in. I mean, I don't know. Everywhere I look it seems everything is sold out.

My dad sold out. And my mom sold out years ago when she took off after birthing my sister. And then he went and brought us here, to this this shitty corner of the world. He made me everything I am today, so naturally, I hate the bastard.

~~*~~

Laurel Lance sat on her bed, laptop open on her outstretched legs as she watched Captain Cold's live feed. She muted the video as her dad came into the room.

"I don't know how you get perfect grades when you're on that thing all hours of the night." Laurel felt like her smile was more of a grimace. "Don't forget that your Harvard interview is tomorrow. Don't want you looking tired. Good night, Sweetheart."

She kept the smile plastered on her face until her dad had closed her bedroom door before unmuting the video almost violently.

She didn't know why, but this Captain Cold seemed to understand her in a way her father never would.

~~*~~

I'm getting a lot of comments and private messages here. 'Dear Captain Cold, my boyfriend's giving me the cold shoulder. How do I show him that I really love him?' Why do you keep asking me for love advice? Do I seem like I have a lot of experience with relationships? If I had a girlfriend I'd be making out with her instead of talking to all you lonely freaks. 'Dear Captain, I think you're full of crap. High school isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Cheer up, buddy.' Well, you may be one of the few teenagers who doesn't hate high school, but let me tell you something, you're in the minority. You wanna know why I'm not "cheery"? I just got dragged to this dumb city. I don't have any friends, no money of my own, no car, and oh yeah, no license. I don't know what good a license would do since there's nothing to do here anyway.

~~*~~

Leonard Snart hesitantly went up to the librarian's desk in the school library, handing over the book he was returning to the cute blonde girl who was working at the desk.

"Hi," she greeted him.

"Hi," he automatically responded, adjusting his glasses.

"You're in my writing class, right?" she asked.

Leonard really wished the teacher hadn't read from his paper in today's class, drawing this girl's attention to him. Pretty girls like her made him nervous. "Uh huh."

"I like Mrs. Smoak. She's quirky." She turned away to look at his check out slip. "Now you're in trouble!" She paused dramatically. "You owe me twenty-five cents. 'How To Talk Dirty And Influence People' by Lenny Bruce. Who's he? Any good?"

Leonard shifted uncomfortably as he dug a quarter out of his pocket and handed it to her. "He's all right."

"Talk a lot?" Sara teased.

"Not too much, no," Leonard responded, making his retreat.

~~*~~

Sara pulled out a school newspaper with pictures of all the senior class in it as she watched the quiet new guy practically run from the library. She found his photo and circled it, then crossed it out. "Cute, but no way," she mused.

~~*~~

Curtain’s call Is the last of all When the lights fade out All the sinners crawl

So they dug your grave And the masquerade Will come calling out At the mess you've made

Don't wanna let you down But I am hell bound Though this is all for you Don't wanna hide the truth

No matter what we breed We still are made of greed This is my kingdom come This is my kingdom come - Demons, by Imagine Dragons

Guess who? It's ten o'clock; do you care where your parents are? After all, it's a jungle out there. I don't know. Everywhere I look it seems that someone's getting butt surfed by the system. Parents are always talking about the system, and the sixties and how cool it was. I hate the sixties, I hate school, I hate principals, I hate vice principals! But my true pure refined hatred is reserved for guidance counsellors. Captain Cold just happens to have in his very hands a copy of a memo written by Mr. Slade Wilson, guidance counselor extraordinaire to one Miss Amanda Waller, high school principal. "I found Miranda un-remorseful about her current condition." Bastard can't even say she's knocked up. "And she's unwilling to minimize its effect on the morals of the student population." Guidance counsellors! If they knew anything about career moves would they have ended up as guidance counsellors?

~~*~~

Carter Hall was sitting in front of his computer, Captain Cold's livestream open in one window with a blank Word doc open in another.

He hastily muted his computer as his mom knocked on the open door. "Carter have you finished your homework yet?"

"Yes," he somberly answered.

"Your father and I are downstairs, why don't you come and join us for once," she implored.

"No," Carter refused.

"Okay, Carter, have it your way," she said, sadly.

"Thanks," Carter said as she retreated.

Carter unmuted his computer as he typed: Dear Captain Cold, do you think I should kill myself?

~~*~~

I took the pistol and I shot out all the lights I started running in the middle of the night The law ain't never been a friend of mine I would kill again to keep from doing time You should never ever trust my kind

I'm a wanted man I got blood on my hands Do you understand I'm a wanted man - I'm a Wanted Man, by Royal Deluxe

Send me your most pathetic moment, your most anything, as long as it's real. I mean I want the size, the shape, the feel, the smell. I want blood, sweat, and tears in these messages. I want brains and ectoplasm all over them. Hallelujah! And now, all my chilly listeners, get comfy because my White Canary is back. "Come in. Every night you enter me like a criminal. You break into my brain, but you're no ordinary criminal. You put your feet up, you drink your mug of hot chocolate, you start to party, you turn up my stereo. Songs I've never heard, but I move anyway. You get me crazy, I say 'Do it.' I don't care what, just do it. Jam me, jack me, push me, pull me -talk hard!" I like that. Talk Hard. I like the idea that a voice can just go somewhere uninvited and just kind of hang out like a dirty thought in a nice clean mind. To me a thought is like a virus. You know, it can just kill all the healthy thoughts and just take over. That would be serious.

Sara was lying on her bed, listening to Captain Cold read her message for all the world to hear. "That would be totally serious," she agreed.

I know all of my chilly listeners would love it if I would just call up the pretty bird lady. But no! Because she never encloses her number.

Sara laughed. "Tough luck, creepoid."

She's probably a lot like me, a legend in her own mind. But you know what, I bet in real life she's probably not that wild. I bet she's kind of shy like so many of us who briskly walk the halls, pretending to be late for some class, pretending to be distracted. Hey, poetry lady, are you really this cool? Are you out there? Are you listening?

"I'm always out here," Sara promised.

I feel like I know you, and yet… we'll never meet. Ah, so be it. I don't know; drugs are out, sex is out, politics are out, everything is on hold. I mean we definitely need something new. We just keep waiting for some new voice to come out of somewhere and just say, "Hey, wait a minute, what is wrong with this picture?" Well maybe this is the answer to everything, wouldn't that be nice, huh? "Dear Captain Cold, do you think I should kill myself?" Great! Signed, "I'm Serious." And of course there is a number here. Hello, Serious?

Carter Hall took a deep breath and answered his phone. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay?" Captain Cold asked.

"Yep," Carter answered.

"I guess what I'm asking is how serious are you? How are you going to do it?" Captain Cold asked.

"I'm gonna blow my fucking head off," Carter responded.

"Oh! Well, do you have a gun?" Captain Cold asked.

"No, I'm going to use my finger, genius," Carter said, sarcastically.

"All right. So where is this gonna take place, huh?"

"Right here," Carter said.

"Where is this alleged gun? Do you have it with you? Did you at least write a note? You have a reason, don't you? You're not going to be one of those people who kills themselves and nobody has any idea of why they did it? Hey, that's why we need a note, pal!" Captain Cold cajoled.

"I'm all alone," Carter admitted.

"No, hey, look, maybe it's okay to be alone sometimes, everybody's alone," Captain Cold insisted.

"You're not," Carter said.

"I didn't talk to one person today, not- not counting teachers. I sit alone every day you know, sitting in the stairwell eating my lunch, reading a book. What about you?"

Carter hung up the phone. His mind was already made up. He loaded the gun.

I hate that, now I'm depressed. Now I feel like killing myself, but luckily I'm too depressed to bother. Great! Straight to voicemail. Rejected again, that's okay I'm used to it, terminal loneliness. People always think they know who a person is but they're always wrong. Most parents have no idea. It's just that mine had me tested because I sit alone in my room alone, naked, wearing only a cock ring, heh heh! I mean it really bugs me, everyone knows what a person should be, who cares how I should be! You know, in real life I could be that anonymous nerd sitting across from you in Chem. Lab, staring at you so hard, you turn around, he tries to smile, but the smile just comes out all wrong. You just think how pathetic, then he just looks away and never looks back at you again. Well, hey, who cares, that's my motto. Well, sleep tight, Miranda, sleep tight, White Canary, sleep tight, Mr. Serious. Maybe you'll feel better tomorrow.

Sara went to the paper she had taped to the wall of what she knew about Captain Cold so far. She wrote down that he ate lunch on the stairs reading a book.

She had a pretty good idea where to go look now.

~~*~~

Leonard was sitting outside with an open book and his lunch the next day, like he did every day.

The pretty girl from the library skipped down the stairs and stopped in front of him. "Hi, got a stick of gum?" She grabbed the package out of his shirt pocket, triumphantly. "Black Jack! My name's Sara, what's yours?"

"Leonard."

"Leonard," she repeated. "Well, hi, Leonard."

"Hi," Leonard said, marking his place in his book and closing it.

"Listen, I was gonna cut fourth period, do you wanna join me in the art supply room?" Sara asked.

"Er, no, I can't, got to go, sorry," Leonard said, awkwardly getting to his feet and practically running off.

"Sorry!" Sara called after him. "Maybe next time."

~~*~~

Mrs. Smoak was somber as she got the class's attention. "I have some very upsetting news. Last night one of our students, Carter Hall, took his own life. For those of you who knew him, there will be a memorial service at Dempsey Hall on Friday. I know it hurts, it's painful to lose someone."

~~*~~

Leonard found a quiet corner on campus and pulled out his phone. He opened Captain Cold's Facebook account and read the newest message from White Canary aloud, to himself. "You're the voice crying out in the wilderness, you're the voice that makes my brain burn and makes my guts go gooey. Yeah, you gut me, my insides spill out on your altar and tell the future, my steaming gleaming guts spill out your nature. I know you, not your name, but your game. I know the true you, come to me or I'll come to you."

"So you are him," Sara exclaimed from behind Leonard, causing him to jump. "Don't worry I'm not going to bust you or anything. Aren't you going to ask who I am?"

"No, I don't think so. No!" Leonard said.

"I'm the White Canary!" She boasted. "You don't believe me." She grabbed his phone and quoted without looking at the screen, "'I know you, not your name, but your game. I know the true you, come to me or I'll come to you.' Hey, relax, I'm not really like that, except when I am."

Leonard tried to get away from her, still upset from learning about Carter's suicide. "Look, I really can't handle this right now, okay?"

Sara looked at him sympathetically, as if she could read his mind. "Look, it's not your fault. I was listening last night. I didn't think he'd go through with it."

~~*~~

You're free to do what you want You never thought of consequences You created your own little world Where you could always be different

A place where the rules do not apply You could never be denied You took advantage of a good think Now the void you filled is empty

Put the mask back on Put the mask back on Don't take it off 'til everybody's gone

Put the mask back on Put the mask back on No disguise has ever lasted so long - Cover Up, by Trapt

You see I never planned it like this. I set up this account to talk to my old friends, but they didn't know to look for me under this handle. I thought I was talking to nobody. I imagined that nobody was listening. Maybe I imagined one person out there. Anyway one day I woke up and I realized I was never going to be normal and so I said fuck it, I said so be it and Captain Cold was born. I never meant to hurt anyone, honestly, I never meant to hurt anyone. I'm sorry, Carter. I never said, "Don't do it." I'm sorry. Um, anyway I'm done, stick a fork in me it's been grand. This is Captain Cold saying sayonara, over and out.

Sara sat staring at her computer as the video ended. "Come on, you can't do this," she told the screen.

Laurel shook her phone in the bedroom next to Sara's. "This is a joke right?"

"C'mon, Captain baby, don't stiff," Mick, Sin's boyfriend, complained as they watched together.

Leonard Snart paced around his bedroom, staring at his computer equipment. "What am I doing? Fuck It!" He sat back down and queued up a new video session.

You hear about some kid who did something stupid, something desperate. What possessed him? How could he do such a terrible thing? It's really quite simple, actually. Consider the life of a teenager. You have parents and teachers telling you what to do. You have movies, magazines, and TV telling you what to do. But you know what you have to do. Your job, your purpose, is to get accepted, get a cute girlfriend, and think up something great to do with the rest of your life. What if you're confused and can't imagine a career? What if you're funny looking and you can't get a girlfriend? You see no one wants to hear it, but the terrible secret is that being young is sometimes less fun than being dead.

"This is great, he's making it worse," the reporter commented to his cameraman outside the high school the kid who'd killed himself had attended. Whoever this guy was behind the parka and goggles, he'd made an impression. Whether that impression was good or bad, remained to be seen. What would get better ratings?

Suicide is wrong, but the interesting thing about it is how uncomplicated it seems. There you are, you got all these problems swarming around your brain, and here is one simple, one incredibly simple solution. I'm just surprised it doesn't happen every day around here. Now, now they're going to say I said offing yourself is simple, but no, no, no, no, it's not simple. It's like everything else, you have to read the fine print. For instance, assuming there is a heaven who would ever wanna go there, you know? I mean think about it, sitting on this cloud, you know it's nice, it's quiet, there's no teachers, there's no parents, but guess what? There's nothing to do! Fucking boring. Another thing to remember about suicide is that it is not a pretty picture. First of all, you shit your shorts, you know. So, there you are, dead, people are weeping over you, crying, girls you never spoke to are saying, "Why? Why? Why?" and you have a load in your shorts! That's the way I see it. Sue me. Now, they're saying I shouldn't think stuff like this. They're saying something is wrong with me, that I should be ashamed. Well, I'm sick of being ashamed. Aren't you?

"Sick to death!" Laurel agreed.

I don't mind being dejected and rejected, but I'm not going to be ashamed about it.

"Hallelujah," Sara called out.

At least pain is real. You look around and you see nothing is real, but the pain is real. You know, even this show isn't real. This isn't me; I'm using a voice disguiser. I'm a phony fuck just like my dad, just like anybody. You see, the real me is just as worried as the rest of you. They say I'm disturbed, well, of course, I'm disturbed. I mean we're all disturbed, and if we're not, why not? Doesn't this blend of blindness and blandness want to make you do something crazy? Then why not do something crazy? It makes a hell of a lot more sense than blowing your fucking brains out, you know. Go nuts, go crazy, get creative! You got problems? You just chuck 'em, nuke 'em! They think you're moody? Make 'em think you're crazy, make 'em think you might snap! They think you got attitude? You show 'em some real attitude! Come on, go nuts, get crazy. Hey no more Mr. Nice Guy! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, oh god!! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, oh yes.

We're all excited But we don't know why Maybe it's cause We're all gonna die

And when we do (When we do) What's it all for (What's it all for) You better live now Before the grim reaper come knocking on your door

Tell me, are we gonna let de-elevator bring us down? Oh, no let's go!

Let's go crazy Let's get nuts Look for the purple banana Until they put us in the truck, let's go! - Let’s Go Crazy, by Prince

~~*~~

Laurel Lance took Captain Cold's words to heart. She grabbed her ribbons and trophies - symbols of her academic achievement, of her so-called perfect life, and carried them down to the kitchen where she stuffed them in the microwave. Just before she slammed the door closed, she ripped off her stupid pearls and tossed them in, too. She punched something into the timer and watched in fascination as the items slowly spun around until the microwave exploded, spitting debris hit her in the face, knocking her out.

The explosion drew Sara out of her bedroom and down the stairs where she found her sister unconscious on the floor. She looked around, bewildered, until she saw the microwave and she burst out laughing.

"You tell 'em, Captain Cold," she muttered, reaching for her phone to call an ambulance.

~~*~~

The next day, Leonard watched as students rearranged the cards on the notice boards to spell out STAY COLD and hung signs that said THE TRUTH IS A VIRUS. Some of the teachers were running around freaking out, trying to get it all down. Others thought it was about time someone made a stand.

Sara tracked down Leonard and got him alone in the art room. "So, I don't know if you know this, but my sister is the perfect Laurel Lance." Leonard shook his head to indicate that he had not known this. "So, last night she burned up all her shit right after you suggested it, in our kitchen! Oh, her precious pearls were flying like bullets. Dad was un-thrilled."

Leonard ran a hand over his closely shorn hair. "This is out of control."

"Yeess!" Sara emphatically agreed, grinning maniacally.

"That's it, it's over. I just hope it isn't too late," Leonard said.

"Leonard!" Sara called after him as he ran away, again.

"Just leave me alone, okay, please?" he called back over his shoulder.

~~*~~

Leonard allowed his dad to drag him to the PTA meeting at the school. He slumped down in his chair as Principal Waller tried to conduct regular business when all the parents wanted to do was talk about him. Well, Captain Cold. He sat up straighter as Laurel Lance walked up on the dais.

"My name is Laurel Lance and I have something to say to you people. People are saying that Captain Cold is introducing bad things and encouraging bad things. But it seems to me that these things were already here. My god, why don't you people listen? He's trying to tell you something is wrong with this school. Half the people that are here are on a probation of some kind. We are all really scared to be who we really are. I am not perfect. I've just been going through the motions of being perfect, and inside I'm screaming."

"Laurel, you were a model student," Waller said, disappointment evident in her voice.

Leonard made a hasty retreat after Laurel left. This was all getting to be too much.

~~*~~

Leonard stood leaning against the wall outside the sliding door of his basement bedroom, deleting messages for Captain Cold on his phone.

"Hi! What are you doing? You having fun?" Sara asked as she approached him.

"Yeah," Leonard said, absently.

"Hey, look, I took some of these off the wall for you. I mistakenly thought you might want them," she said, thrusting some handmade signs at him.

"Thanks," Leonard said, letting them fall to the ground.

"So I guess you're not going on tonight," Sara commented after a few minutes of silence.

"Brilliant," Leonard drawled, pushing off the wall and going back into his room.

Sara huffed, following him. "Is this all just a game to you? You know you can't just shout 'fire' in a theatre and then walk out. You have a responsibility for the people who believe in you. What is this? C'mon say something, say anything. Open your mouth and say, 'Get the hell out of here bitch.'"

"I can't," Leonard said.

"You can't what?" Sara demanded.

"I can't talk," Leonard ground out.

Sara snorted. "Sure you can talk."

"I can't talk to you," he clarified. He let out a noise of frustration as he sat in front of his computer, put on his headset, and opened Facebook.

I got a message from this guy who's got a problem, he can't talk. I mean he can talk, but never when he wants to, not to girls, not to people. He just opened up his mouth and nothing came out. And this jerk finds somebody that he likes, which is probably the worst thing to happen to a person who can't talk. So, I don't know what to tell this guy because lately every time I give out advice the fit hits the shan. So, I don't know, maybe the best thing to do is just turn around and face the music and try to talk.

Leonard turned around to talk to Sara but she's gone.

"Leo," Lewis called, knocking on the door.

"Coming," Leonard called back, pausing the video and turning off the monitor.

"Leo, it's just me. I wanna come in for a minute," Lewis said, turning the locked doorknob.

"Yeah, just give me a second here, two seconds," Leonard said, taking off the headset and hiding it under a dirty tee-shirt.

"Open the goddamn door," Lewis shouted.

"On my way," Leonard said, checking the room one last time before yanking the door open.

"I have been out there for two minutes, what the hell are you doing in here?" Lewis demanded, looking for evidence of drugs or alcohol. Or a Facebook video.

"I was just reading," Leonard said, gesturing to the book on his desk.

"Oh c'mon, Leo, I heard you. I heard you talking," Lewis said.

"I was reading aloud," Leonard quickly said.

"Oh c'mon, do you really expect me to believe that?"

"Okay, I'll tell you the truth," Leonard said, not sure what he was going to say.

"He was talking to me," Sara said, popping up from behind the loveseat. "Hi, I'm Sara Lance."

"Nice to meet you," Lewis said, stunned. "How do you do?"

"I was afraid you would be mad at me for disturbing Leonard's homework," Sara said.

"You don't know how happy I am to meet you," Lewis said, looking at his son with new appreciation.

"Listen, I've got to go, but it was really nice to have met you. Bye, Leonard," Sara said, taking a step towards the sliding door.

"No, you don't have to go. Leo, she doesn't have to go," Lewis said.

"Bye now, see you tomorrow," Sara said with a wink to Leonard as she slipped outside.

"You've been a bad dog, haven't you?" Lewis said, punching his son lightly on the arm. "You know, for a second there I thought you were that crazy Facebook character they've been talking about on the news."

"Maybe he's not that crazy, Dad," Leonard suggested.

"Right! Very funny. Go get her, go on. That's my idea of homework," Lewis cajoled.

After his dad left, Leonard got his microphone back on and resumed his session.

Sorry about that, folks, technical difficulties. Let's see who we have out there tonight. The usual band of teenage malcontents. I certainly hope so, because Captain Cold is feeling kind of rude tonight.

~~*~~

Let's go out in flames so everyone knows who we are 'Cause these city walls never knew that we'd make it this far We've become echoes, but echoes are fading away So let's dance like two shadows, burning out a glory day

Devil's on your shoulder Strangers in your head As if you don't remember As if you can forget It's only been a moment It's only been a lifetime But tonight you're a stranger Some silhouette - Silhouette, by Aquilo

After Leonard put on the song he went outside to get some air. It had been a surreal night so far. He'd called Mr. Wilson again and was informed that his phone was being traced. Too bad for the cops that it was a burner phone. They could triangulate his signal, but not to his specific address, especially once he removed the battery and sim card from the phone.

He wasn't surprised that Sara was out there, listening to his cast on her phone.

"It's okay, you don't have to talk, you don't have to say anything and you don't have to do anything, unless you want to," she said, approaching him slowly.

"You're so different," Leonard said. "I mean, you're so fearless. I wish I could be like you."

"You are," Sara said, stepping close to him. They're so close but still not touching. Swaying together in the warm breeze. Almost dancing.

"I wish I could say things to you," Leonard said, raising a hand to hover over her cheek before lowering it.

"You do," Sara said, so earnestly. She grabbed his hand and placed it over her heart.

"Everything's so strange," Leonard whispered, his fingers flexing against her shirt.

"Yeah," Sara agreed, her breath hitching at their nearness.

"Maybe we're just crazy," Leonard said, meeting her eyes.

"So be it," Sara said, rising on her toes and pressing her lips to his.

Leonard wrapped his free arm around her back, pulling Sara closer as she wound her arms around his neck. The kiss was clumsy, messy, all teeth and hard lips, but neither cared. They paused, panting for breath before coming together again in a much more satisfying kiss.

"So be it," Leonard whispered against her lips.

The End

[teritcrawfordca]

How to Handle HR Issues In Your Small Business

This week on #Smallbizchat LIVE our show featured three guests, HR Expert Oginga Carr @OgingaCarr Sales Expert Shawn Karol Sandy @ShawnSandy1 and Veteran Entrepreneur @Twyla Garrett I pulled three of the best questions from each of them to share with you. Every third Wed of the month, Smallbizchat Live is broadcast on my SmallBizLady Facebook Page, YouTube channel and on Twitter @SmallBizLady.

Oginga is an author, organizational structure expert and HR consultant. He brings 19 years of experience in Sales, Management, and Human Resources. Oginga focuses on productivity through structure and human capital development. He has trained tens of thousands of HR Professionals in 49 states.  He consults with and trains organizations in Human Resources and compliance. For more information www.ogingacarr.com

SmallBizLady: How do I hire better employees?

Oginga Carr: Finding an employee that is a proper fit for your organization is one of the more difficult issues for small businesses. To find a terrific employee, we must first be clear on what we need.  This requires a great job description. Our job description must include the minimum qualifications for the job, an expectation of the job duties, and the ergonomic, environmental, and physical needs of the job.  If we can be clear about the structural needs of the job, it makes it easier to find the employee we want.

SmallBizLady: Does my business need a handbook?

Oginga Carr: In a short answer, YES.  Your handbook decides the structure of your business.  We need a foundation to be able to achieve the vision of our business.  Once we have set the vision, the policies and procedures lead the way to that vision.  There aren’t that many laws.  We just need to set our organizational standards so that we can be consistent in our treatment of our employees. Lack of consistency is on of the biggest road blocks to running an effective team.  When we set standards, then monitor and adjust those standards as our organization grows and evolves, we can achieve the visions of our business.  A handbook is where we commit to those standards.

SmallBizLady: Is my worker an employee or a contractor?

Oginga Carr: The US government operates from a position that all workers are Common Law Employees, we have to prove that they are different. Common Law Employees are subject to all of the payroll taxes, so you will never run afoul as a business owner by making someone an employee.  In order to make someone an independent contractor, we have to be able to prove how we came to that assumption. We prove that through a three prong test, called the ABC test.  Some states have modified tests, both in most states, we have to prove that we don’t control the direction of the worker’s work, that they are providing an outside service, and that they are an independent business or trade.  There are individual qualifications that must be attained in each of these categories to prove that you are working with a contractor.

  Shawn Karol Sandy is the Chief Revenue Officer of The Selling Agency, Shawn helps small businesses deeply differentiate their offers and go-to-market strategies to build competitive advantages that increase revenue. Her bold and cheeky approach to selling helps small businesses level the playing field with their competition in highly competitive, highly commoditized, and mature industries. He website is www.thesellingagency.com

SmallBizLady: How does “Prequalifying” potential customers lead to increased revenue?

Shawn Karol Sandy: When I think of all the thousands of hours I have spent trying to force square customers into a round hole – it kind of makes me ill. I left prequalifying up to a loosely knit set of parameters bound together by hope and sometimes desperation. Hope that a customer will do business with me and desperately needing a win makes you vulnerable to taking “bad business” – business with terrible margins, terrible deadlines, or even TERRIBLE customers.

According to this statistical nugget cited from The B2B Lead, “50% of sales time is wasted on unproductive prospecting.” That’s REALLY scary when you take a look at some of the statistics about how much time sellers actually spend selling – somewhere between 15% and 50%. By improving our ability to prequalify prospects, we could improve how we spent our time selling successfully. The benefits of having a higher closing potential mean you waste less time chasing leads, you have stronger relationships with more loyal clients, and often, those accounts prove to have higher margins because they are in your value “sweet spot”.

SmallBizLady: How do I determine what criteria to use when prequalifying?

Shawn Karol Sandy: This is the time to be detailed and specific. This is painting a picture of your ideal customer. Use insights from your pool of stellar successes to outline exactly who you want to add to your pipeline. Create a profile by answering a bank of questions such as these –

Document the Attributes of a High-Quality Lead:

What Size of Company

Which Industries (Vertical Markets)

How Many Employees

How Many Locations

What’s the Organizational Makeup (decision-making structure or authority)

Geographical Location/Territory

Cash Flow Required for Solutions

Talent Required for Solutions

Symptoms/Triggers That Indicate They Need Your Solution

What Solutions Have They Tried (failed/successful)

Current Vendors (like your or unlike you) That Indicate an Ideal Match

Needs (do they align with your results)

Timeframe (focus now or planning long term)

Culture (primed for change or to shift)

Leadership/Project Management Needed (to implement solution)

Use this bank of qualifications to jump start your prequalification process. Some of these you’ll be able to research to quickly determine fit and others you’ll need to incorporate in your discovery conversations to continue to nurture prospects to leads and leads to opportunities.

SmallBizLady: Aren’t I missing business and leaving money on the table?

Shawn Karol Sandy: Here’s the painful truth: not everyone is going to buy from you. Not everyone SHOULD buy from you and you shouldn’t sell to everyone. Get selective. Improve your process. Stop throwing darts and hoping you hit the target.

If you provide a service that others find valuable, there is a qualified pool of customers for you. You are not a vacuum cleaner looking to suck up everything within your arm span. As a small business, you need filters for your time, energy, and limited resources.

Prequalifying is a filter. When you go through this exercise and paint the most detailed picture of what a successful, happy customer looks like, you can then reverse engineer your sales and marketing messages – using specific details about your target clients to promote and position yourself to attract your future ideal customers.

  Twyla Garrett is an extraordinary serial entrepreneur, corporate speaker, and author.  Garrett is known for her notable business deals and providing excellent opportunities to individuals needing a second chance. She started off in the federal government and in 2000 she is founded, IME, which she sold 2016.  She currently runs, GMS a General Contracting Firm located in North Carolina and Texas as well as IRG, an independent claims management firm.  Her first book “My mother’s Word” was just released. For more information go to her website at www.mymotherwords.com

SmallBizLady: Running is business is so isolating, how do you stay motivated?

Twyla Garrett: Running a business Is tough, but you must learn how to motivate yourself. I learned early in business that I need to stay focused not get distracted, so I took up Vikrim Yoga. At first I thought it was something that wasn’t for people like me. I’m from a broken home and a rough streets of Cleveland.  It clears your whole mind. You must stay positive no matter what happens. You will not be able to handle at the ups and downs that go along with running a business.

SmallBizLady: How important are relationships to growing a business?

Twyla Garrett: Relationships are critical. Be the person you want to be around. If you can’t stand to be in a room with yourself, how do you think anyone will want to be around you? No one wants to be around people who are negative. Relationships are the key to business success, your relationships with your employees, your customers, your brand and even your landlord will be a major part if your business success formula.

SmallBizLady: How can you build a great team when you don’t have enough revenue?

Twyla Garrett: We have had great success with my new business leveraging interns. We are based in Raleigh, NC and we have a lot great universities in the area. We have had teams of interns in five different disciplines in the 18-months since launching my construction company GMS. They’ve made a huge impact on our business and we’re going to hire many of them to join our business as full-time employees once they graduate.

Do you think you have what it takes to be a guest on #Smallbizchat in 2018, Click here to submit your pitch

Join us every Wednesday from 8-9 pm ET; follow @SmallBizChat on Twitter to stay up to date on our upcoming guests.

Here’s how to participate in #SmallBizChat: http://bit.ly/1hZeIlz

The post How to Handle HR Issues In Your Small Business appeared first on Succeed As Your Own Boss.

from Teri Crawford Business Tips https://succeedasyourownboss.com/how-to-handle-hr-issues-in-your-small-business/