#also there's a ridiculous amount of pettiness but that's not advertized like the crazy or the Quality

[insanescriptist]

Varia Hierarchy, thoughts?

Didn’t I answer this in another ask?

No, wait, that was Varia Ranks wasn’t it?

Okay, Varia Hierarchy is politics at it rawest. Work has to get done and organized and people put to work they’re good at, get training to be better and more. People need supplies, food, weapons, training tools. There’s vehicles to maintain, equipment to keep track of and of course managing people.

Assassins are creatures of politics. If you’re important enough to get assassinated, it involves politics. Sometimes it is just personal politics between a few people. Sometimes it’s economical politics like taking out a rival businessman. Sometimes it’s just business to remove an embarrassment. Generally assassination is a matter of influence of the victim; otherwise it’s just plain ole’ vanilla murder.

So most Varia are pretty adept at politics, even if they couldn’t care less about them. One of those ‘just because you know how it works, how to fix it or how to do it doesn’t mean you want to.’

It might come across as lazy that the Varia have a kind of ‘kill and be promoted for it’ but it’s more of a matter of efficiency.

The Varia likes their efficiency. It’s why they can afford to be so extravagant. Custom uniforms, custom weapons. Private jet remember? Private jets are practically money sinks. It’s why they’re a status symbol.

So mission squads are set up in small groups; a couple of people means taking shifts, more hands and bodies to move stuff with, more support for those doing the killing by being eyes in the sky, watching the road or the desk or whatever. Is it really needed to have a full squad to kill one person? No, but it reduces the likelihood that the assassin would die in doing so or get caught or whatever. (The Varia’s secret to success is teamwork.)

Anyway, mission groups tend to end up as friends; that’s human nature to bond with those around you, especially in stressful situations. But also it’s likely to have people bicker over plans, so Squad Leaders are needed. They say how it is going to be and that’s how it is.

Now who decides who is going on what mission and where? Sure it can be done by each individual Squad Leader but it’s honestly easier to have a set list of missions available which means having standards set for accepting them. So Varia’s got to have Information people who analyze the requests, do digging for more information and so on.

Okay so who decides on Squad Leaders? The Squad? Yeah, that works. Sometimes. What happens when a job needs doing and you’ve got strangers to work with? Need someone above the Squad Leader.

Need some sort of manager or officer position. So what would they do and how? The Varia still needs to run efficiently. So other than riding a desk, what else do they do? Assign training, approve training, move people around, smooth issues out with other people... other over reaching duties that individuals cannot do like source and maintain equipment, run finances, see to recruitment and more. Higher position means more work.

Okay so if you’ve got people that are now above the Squad Leaders, how are you dividing the people out? Preferred killing method? How they’re cross-trained? What? In KHR we’ve got this handy thing called Flames, so it’s easy to sort people out by Flame-type. Which makes Flame-training an Officer responsibility, because Squad Leaders don’t have to share a Flame-type.

So now you’ve got Officers but who’s in charge of the whole organization? Who represents the Varia to the Vongola? Why the Head of the Varia. Who is that? One of the Officers or someone appointed to that position.

Yeah, Varia Hierarchy doesn’t seem like raw politics but it is; it’s walking the knife’s edge around other professional killers who might take offense to what you do, what you say, how you say it or to any of your decisions. It’s a personal choice to use administrative authority or personal ability to deal with this person. It is using charisma to gain respect, ability to earn it and quick-thinking to keep it. Otherwise... you might end up dead.

Statistically most Officers die at the hands of their subordinates in war. Just sayin’ that as a reminder.

Roughly put: Officers are scary impressive people even for those with Varia Quality and Izzy headcannons that more Varia Officers have died due to internal issues than missions. Most Varia would like to avoid Officer positions because retiring to the grave becomes more likely to happen that way.

Addendum: It never stops amusing Izzy that Xanxus has a position in the Varia because Squalo said so and gave him the work. Which technically makes Xanxus the subordinate. Except Squalo then promoted Xanxus above him by giving him the Head of Varia position

[jivingcryingboy]

FEAR

I was sitting at a cafe with my family once, I must have been about 3 or around that age and I was watching this Lucozade advert. This is one of my earliest childhood memories. In the advert there were several people who were staring daringly into the city like one of those vague perfume adverts where no one knows what the hell's going on. After a while they start drinking Lucozade and as they all take their first sip they all suddenly transform into cats and start jumping and purring all over town. It must have had an effect on me because from then on I never touched a bottle of Lucozade for an embarrassing amount of time. Probably until I was old enough to realise that drinking Lucozade doesn’t turn you into a cat.

That memory defines what fear is to me. Granted there isn’t a likely possibility that a liquid will ever turn me into a feline, but there’s been times down the years when I’ve been worrying where the actual, fretted possible outcome was just as likely to occur as me turning into a cat. I would lay there not being able to sleep, rolling around morning and night, my brain wrecked with anxious thoughts over something that was so ridiculously unlikely to happen it was laughable.

The worst thing about fear is that it hinders you from believing in yourself and that process, overused as it may be, is key to what helps you do great things. And I don’t mean being able to write Thriller, I’m talking about just being yourself. Walking into a room, looking in the mirror and just being yourself.

I've busked a lot in London and if you have ever busked or performed yourself I'm sure you too have heard, “You can’t busk here / wow that’s a terrible cover / this is your living?? / there’s a no-policy-busk-thing here ever”, whatever bullshit thing that comes about. After a while, once I realised remaining silent wasn't a helpful skill in order to earn money or gain an audience in the busking game, you begin to gauge the value of the consequences people warn you about; It’s zilch. Nada. My situation forced me out of my comfort zone. Me playing there, here or somewhere I’m not supposed or playing a song while someone walks past with their hands over their ears might be embarrassing to do so, but all of these scenarios are very likely to have no lingering, negative consequences. I might have that moment of pure embarrassment, guilt or shame but those feelings are so inconsequential to you it’s unbelievable. They're also feelings that don’t last a long time. It is through these experiences of being on a stage and pursuing a career which is deemed ‘un-persuable’ by some that has made me see my own fears for what they are.

Budding artists worry all the time, I’m sure of it. I did and still do sometimes. Trying to make a career out of music is bit like wearing a superhero outfit: when you’re 3 years old, everyone at the party thinks that a Spiderman outfit is the cutest thing in the world. But when you’re in your 20s, 30s and 40s and you’re still wearing that Spidey number??? It ain’t so cute anymore. You hear them say it: “Why’s that weird old dude in a Spiderman outfit?” And people, even close to you, start to question, "What is he/she/it doing with their lives?" And I’d be lying if I ever told you that I’ve never had these thoughts. A massive liar. Sometimes I’d be in the studio and if a song was sounding terrible at the time, maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed too, my thoughts would descend into absolute chaos. "What am I doing?! I’m writing shit songs in my fucking bedroom whilst my mates are decorating bedrooms for their new fucking kids!" One time I had a nightmare where my mate’s child who was a few months old heckled me off the stage.

What is the value of your fear? Why do you say no to yourself? Other people? Fear of failing?

Were you ever about to do something when a little voice inside your gut says, "nah, you shouldn’t/couldn’t do that." Whether it’s leaving your job to find a more deserving workplace for you or even if it’s asking a girl you like out for a drink. “You can’t do it. It'll be embarrassing. You’ll regret it”. How often do you hear that? Ask yourself again, what is the value of your fears? What are you protecting yourself from? What are you gaining from them? Will you be satisfied by not gambling on something that can potentially deeply satisfy you for the sake of one minute of shame? A millimetre of guilt in the big measuring stick of life? It's amazing how just a thought so small can appear so daunting as to paralyse you from doing so much. All of your reactions to these moments through the years will have affect where you end up.

We spend a crazy amount of time respecting our hollow, implausible fears. When you are a child this happens all the time. But as a child, all of our fears, in the scheme of things, are in the form of short term, arbitrary, harmless situations. Lumpy food for example. I was told when I was a baby, I cried when this particular spoon changed colour whilst I was dipping it into a yoghurt. I cried for ages. As a baby, my brain was horrified by this. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised the stupidity of my fear of the chameleon-esque spoon and I know now that if I ever ate from that spoon again (for some strange reason) it probably wouldn't have any long lasting negative effects on me. When we are children, for the most part, life forces us to overcome our fears, most of them material or physical: watching fireworks, talking to new people, riding a bike, going on a rollercoaster, whatever it is. You begin realise the emptiness of these fears and what little it does to hinder you even if they come to fruition.

When we are adults it changes slightly. We no longer become overly concerned with the physical. We become concerned about the future, the hypothetical; the unknown. The stuff we have no control over: Death, health (to an extent), relationships. And you can either let the unknown be the ambitious canvas for whatever path you paint or you can let it place you into some weird kind of purgatory of no consequence where the only thing that happens is you getting older. Some fears have no conclusions. Tom Petty once sang, ‘Most things I worry about never happen anyway’. How often have you looked at the same thing and felt so differently about it? Felt so positive and then so down. About the same thing. Even when not a lot has changed. You, your friends, your partner, your prospects? It doesn't even matter how academic or intelligent you are too. I think sometimes even the brightest person can think too much and will fabricate intricate, complex excuses to hide why they can’t face their fears when infact the real answers and solutions are quite simple.

That ‘thinggg’ in your gut (everyone has that ‘thing’ in their gut), that seemingly undeniable feeling deep down that tells you ‘nooooo’ for some sad reason has mistakenly become the centre-point for all of your morals, your decisions, your crystal ball, the righteousness of the path you take, loads of stuff. Whenever you hear a well informed, constructive opinion that defies your argument this voice comes out. Nooooooo. Whenever you hear a piece of music that is initially foreign to your ears, that voice rings out. Nooooo. Whenever, you make a joke and no one laughs, it’s there. Even when I've been writing this I've thought, “Am I really gonna post this crap up?" It might still be crap but that's not even the point. These situations are different to what you are comfortable with but there's nothing productive about what this feeling can do for you if you adhere to it constantly because you won't learn or adapt. We all approach opinions and experiences in our lives which challenge our staunch preconceived notions. When you are defied, are you humbled and enlightened or are you stubborn? Actually analyse why you are rejecting what you are encountering. That ‘thingggg' is some kind of emo-safety net and will only lead you to where you are now. The question is… are you happy with where you are now? If you are, then great. If you’re not, change it. And the stuff you can't change? The weird mole on your face? Your weird shaped head? Luckily, appearance is a bit like fashion and if you strut down the catwalk confidently parading that head of yours then people will be wishing they had your weird shaped head. Your age? “I’m old”. How many times have you said that or heard that. I’m 18, I’m old. I’m 28, I’m old, I’m 35, I feel old. I’m 67, I’m old. You must have been born old. That’s just fear. Feeling old is just being fearful of running out of time to find out and do the things you want to do. The freedom of youth. You are old when you are dead.

I don’t want to get away from the fact that sometimes our worst fears do become realities. I’ve been talking more about the fear of hypothetical situations but obviously past crises can affect your outlook on those imaginings drastically. Sometimes you can be in the small percentage, the minority that suffers from that rare thing you previously thought only people in the news get. A Doctor told me once she was treating this patient who had just finished his treatment and was then declared all clear from cancer. For the months that followed, this guy was constantly worrying about his illness coming back and although this was a possibility, it was an unlikely one. The Doctor told him to enjoy his life and be himself again. He didn’t enjoy himself and was on edge pretty much all the time. Well a year later, his illness did in fact come back. What the Doctor was telling me was you have to enjoy whatever you are doing right now because you have no idea what will happen to you, good or bad. Down the line, you will never get that time back. How many times do you scoff at that line? It is hard to disagree with though.

Fear can be good for you but only in the right circumstances. It keeps you alive for one. It makes you jump out of the way if a car is about to knock you down, it tells you that you should stay away from that tiger lingering in the grasses over there. Shame and guilt stops you from doing stupid stuff again. You have to experience those feelings. If you tease someone and they cry it might not be nice to feel a sense of shame but in that moment you've learnt to not do it again. But to obey that voice when your dreams are waiting for you when the only real obstacle is you? To deny yourself of something that could be so good? You can get lost in that. And when we do get lost in that, we procrastinate and distract our minds on YouTube, we make excuses regarding weather as to why we can't get fit, we declare ourselves not technologically adept enough to make make an app, anything to stop us escaping our safe spot and to stop us facing what we need to do in order to be fully satisfied. It’s all distraction. This goes for everyone. The scary thing, one of the scariest things is that no one will ever stop you from lying to yourself. If I’ve learned anything from people who are older than me, people who have lived, they paraphrase the same thing: never regret the things you never did. Never say, "I wish I did that”, when you were in a position to do so.

I also, also, don’t want to present fear as something that is easily ridden or completely laughable. Leaving a job, a relationship, taking less money to do what you want to do etc. They are risks. Or better put, they are paths that might not end in the place you want them to end up. You have to ask yourself the questions. Can you face risking it with no reward? Will you be content with not having gambled in attempting to do something that you love doing? What are you willing to sacrifice? I've accepted if I end up not doing what I love doing. I will be content with that but only, only, only if I've left it all out on the floor and squeezed all the juice out the metaphorical musical lemon.

Unfortunately, social media has made us become so aware of other people’s highlights that we begin to question our own actions and freeze in our pursuits of whatever we want to do. In our heads, our journeys become slow, or pointless, or simple, or doomed, or boring. We are constantly telling ourselves we are failing or lagging way behind. And when we do this we stop and do nothing at all, which is the worst thing to do. I don’t want this to be another attack-piece on social media because social media does some great things. Where it fails, or where I think we fail is how we introduce it to young people who were born into the social media generation. They are scared of being alone. I don’t just mean not having a relationship either, I mean in their own heads. They confront their fears, boredom and perceived failings through focusing on the lives of others. They learn about interaction through invisible ones, not even physical ones; ones where you can actually touch, talk to, feel, see and smell someone. I think this makes it harder to work out how your mind works, how you feel about something, how you solve your problems. And when these people finally do make a connection with someone real, that someone becomes the vessel for all of their problems when really they should be learning how to make themselves happy in their own company without the excuse of someone or something else.

Not to say you shouldn't be having any down moments. I worry that the more I get involved with making music the more unlikely I will be able to provide for someone or a family later on. But I guess that's something I've gambled on. I would rather fail at music rather than give up music. That fear, however irrational it maybe seem to you, is present. And I'm not saying that we should aim for our fears to be vanquished either. I think it's about altering how seriously you take those worries when your mind is in a fearful state. Easy as that? I think that's the hardest thing to do, to recognise or acknowledge when you are not thinking straight or at least to be able to know whether your thinking is of rational thought or not. Surely however, it's impossible to distinguish between rational and irrational thought under the visor of intense emotions, to not believe or act on what you are feeling so strongly about in those moments. What I've personally tried to do over the last few years is be objective as possible. Like I said that's pretty much impossible. But what I try and do is look back at all the consistent, important factors in my life that I love: music, my family, friends, art, tequila (whatever it is floats your boat) and at the moment, if I ever see any of those things as hindrances or if I ever question their value to me in my messy emotional state, then I tell myself I'm not in the right state of mind to be making any kind of decisions or judgements. I can only take myself seriously when I calm down. When you are scared, it’s crazy how a single thought can spread and affect the most positive of relationships in your head. This sounds like some psuedo-help-psychology bullshit and it might just be that, but it's starting to work for me only if it’s personally. Ultimately, it’s very hard to think rationally when your head is in a mess but just by recognising those anxious patterns, just by knowing you are stressed, that can help. Again, I don't think it's about getting rid of your fears, I think it's about acknowledging that they are there and I think it’s about questioning the validity of why they are there in the first place. More often than not, that feeling of fear can't always be fully justified by obeying it.

One of best things I have learnt and developed in my life over the years is that if I get up on stage, introduce myself as someone who wants to have a music career, if I tell a joke and no one laughs, if people don’t like me personally and put me down, even if! Even if you are reading this and saying “what a pretentious prick this artist thinking he knows anything about anything” etc. … I can still smile and be content and confident in myself to be alright with that. You see how “unscary” failure actually is. I have died on stage. I have embarrassed myself in front of people. I have been petrified of life. You name it. But I'm still here. And if I muck up, say anything out of line, I’ll learn and I'll move on. It’s a process, but I’m think I’m getting there. Fuck your fear, your self degrading thoughts, they benefit no one. If anything, they only make the destination sweeter.

I’m talking to the people who are in the fortunate position of being able to choose what they want to be and the same people who are not doing so because they are held back solely by their own fear. The unknown. I want to get this straight too. I am a twenty something, healthy, white dude who is (very) lucky to eat cooked meals, sleep under a roof every night and moan about the weather. In essence, I have nothing to be fearful of. I have no family of my own to provide for, no relationship to provide for, no direct responsibilities. I am not fleeing a war-torn country, I am not starving. My musical endeavours work because of how lucky I am to be born in a part of the world where I am not out there running for my life. How lucky am I? And if this is you too, how lucky are you? Really, I mean that. A massive percentage of people out there, probably too scary to say, can’t decide what they want to do in life because they have to focus everything they have on surviving until the next day. I think when you are comfortable, you are in danger of standing still. It's easy to freeze when you have a warm bed and a nice house. But when you don't have these things, people have no choice but to be dynamic, they have no choice but to face their fears, they have no time to think too much. When they’ve overcome their obstacles, they probably can face anything that life throws at them. If you’ve ever met these people who have gone through tragedy, who are now starting families, working towards their dreams, doing all of this through all the shit they’ve been though, it’s the greatest, most humbling lesson you can have.

Maybe what I've written comes across as really off the mark; fear just simply worked out by some poorly worded piece by some pretentious musician, but I really didn't mean it for it to be that way. Be under no false pretences, I'm only writing about what I've understood and seen over my lifetime and I guess it's a bit like writing a song. You write for your own personal reasons but you're also seeing who connects with you because if that does happen, it's a wonderful thing. To share something. And if this does manage to stir you in any way, even if it's just one person, well it can’t be that bad at all then.

So, if you are reading this and you're contemplating taking a risk, taking that leap of faith, throwing the die, all the clichés you can think of, no matter how small or big the task is, whether it’s just walking confidently into a room of people or setting out to be a rock star, I hope you do take a chance on yourself and go find out how un-earthshattering and valuable failure actually is