#and I would learn an actual valuable skill! I could put roofs over peoples heads and know how to repair my own home!

[witchothewest]

What if I quit my office job got in shape and started a carpentry apprenticeship. haha just kidding :) unless

[roscgcld]

HEADCANON + VARIOUS || when their siblings are evil

request: Hello, I was kinda wondering how would Gojo, Itadori and megumi react to a their younger sibling being evil but she has a reason to being that way. [Headcanon] -

note: hmm - this one is really interesting! honestly i had never thought about their reactions if their younger siblings are evil! this was an entirely new idea to me, so i definitely enjoyed writing something like this

characters: gojo satoru, itadori yuji, fushiguro megumi

pronouns: she/her

GOJO SATORU

in this sense, I feel it’s not that shocking that if his younger sister joined forces with geto

if you weren’t born with the Six Eyes like your older brother, your clan will just treat you like a slave - like maki was treated when she was in the zen’in clan 

after years of abuse and being told that you were a mistake, and that you shouldn’t have been born, and that you were a waste of space - that might crack you and made you go insane

gojo might have known this might happen, and had tried to move you away from the path of evil - because i feel like he would be a good older brother and shower you in all the love you deserve

he’d shower you in love and respect, getting you new clothes even if your parents tell him not to, spoil you rotten and even training you to use your powers under the cover of darkness

but sometimes it just isn’t enough though, and the emotional wounds are just too deep to heal - and he gets that

feel like he might end up blaming himself - what kind of older brother can’t protect his own baby sister? how can he call himself ‘the strongest’ when he can’t even protect the one person that he was born to protect?

screw the world - he’s your older brother. he should have seen the signs and stopped you from doing what you do

at the same time, he knows the reason why you left - you were sick and tired of the higher ups and their backwards thinking

the elders of your clan, the elders of other clans, the higher ups who control the jujutsu world - you hate them all, and you strive for the change that gojo wants to do as well. but with how you’ve been put down your entire life, and how underdeveloped your skills are, you went the only route you know - a route that strays you away from all you’ve ever known

if anything, he’s sort of proud - since along the way, geto definitely takes you under his wing and teaches you to unlock all the potential of your power - which will be a huge slap to the face for the rest of the clan and the higher ups

feel like he doesn’t have it in him to really take you down if he needs to, since he can see through you no matter what - how you’re scared to be on the run, how you hate being away from your older brother, how you know that you have innocent blood on your hands

yet you can’t leave, you’re in too deep now. and if you return, who exactly is there to stop the higher ups from killing you like they so desperate want to for so long?  

he’d probably spare you out of all the sorcerers that the higher-ups have branded as traitors, because at the end of the day you’re still his baby sister

and no matter how twisted your views of getting to your goal has become, you two still strive for the same thing - and that is to rid the jujutsu world of people like them

plus, if he was being honest, he’d want to keep you around as a slap to the higher ups still lol; the biggest middle finger he can give to them is by keeping you alive for as long as possible

ITADORI YUJI

yuji, being the sunshine he is, would not have known why you decided to leave for the other side of the war

it wasn’t his fault - if anything, he was the best older brother to be around. he’s what people dreamed of when they think of having an older brother

he took care of you, make sure you and your grandfather was fed, made sure you didn’t need to worry about trivial things like money or when the pay the bills - you just focus on being happy and that’s all that he needs in return

feel like the reason why you left was more because of manipulation - if you can just grow stronger, you can protect yuji from getting executed. that you can make a better world for the both of you, that you two can one day live in a happy world where curses and sorcerers were far behind you

of course yuji will be upset - he doesn’t see the appeal of the other side, and always advocates for you to realise how geto and the other curses are using you for their own benefit 

why would you give up your freedom to fight on the other side?

he’d be conflicted - this was the little girl who he used to braid her hair and cook for every day, the girl who he brought up from young to become the headstrong woman you are today. his best friend and the only person he can truly rely on during the darkest of times

how can he put that aside and hunt you down like you’re a prized animal in a hunting competition?

he’d wonder if he was a good brother to you too as well - wondering if he wasn’t giving you enough attention growing up, not as good as he thought he was at splitting his time for you

it’d take a lot of convincing from his friends that it wasn’t his fault, that you were being manipulated into thinking that this was the only way you can turn to in order to help him

since neither of you were really sorcerers to begin with - being thrown into a world where power dictates how you are treated would push anyone into a corner 

he’d use that to probably train harder - to show you that you didn’t need to do the things you are doing to make sure he’s safe, that he can protect both you and him with ease

that you two can go back to how things were before all this

if you two ever meet in battle, i don’t think he’d be able to handle it - he’d be hesitate when it comes to hitting you with full power, since he didn’t want to kill you by accident

the last he needs is to have your death on his conscience

throughout the entire battle he might still try to convince you that it isn’t too late, that you can return back to jujutsu tech and learn from the best of the best, with a warm roof over your heads and friends you can really rely on 

he’d stand in the way between you and any curse that tries to take you out, making sure that if either of you are to continue living, it’d be you

he’d lay his life down for you, even though he knows you’ve taken many innocent ones while getting to where you are today 

he still has all the love of an older brother, and nothing people say or do will waiver the vow he took when he first held you in his arms - that he was going to protect you no matter what

FUSHIGURO MEGUMI

with megumi, i can see why as well - you were abandoned at a young age, growing up watching your father working with all kinds of shady people

so it was natural for you to fall down the same path; since no one was really there to teach you right from wrong 

i feel like megumi might have tried, and he really did try to show you that going down the path your father did was not the best idea - but how much can he do as a young child?

he probably feels more guilty as time goes by - child or not, he was your older brother, he should have tried harder to show you where you could have put that skill

wouldn’t breath a word about your existence to anyone, not because he doesn’t want to be associated with you. it’s more so your name will not be as well known as geto suguru - that maybe, there was a chance that the higher-ups might overlook you and you can sneak back in without causing too much waves

but the entire time, he might harbour all the guilt from not trying hard enough as a child to convince you that going to jujutsu tech was the best way to get stronger and show the zen’in clan that your father wasn’t a ‘waste of an heir’

the first time his friends will even find out you were an actual person is when you would run into them whilst you’re on a job - kill a target your client gave to steal some documents that they view as valuable

you didn’t notice them until you felt someone staring at you, to which you turn to face the person - ready to threaten to scoop their eyeballs out

“oh, hi nii-chan.” you’d greet with a casual grin as he stared at you in shock, nobara and yuji looking between the both of you curiously. “didn’t think i’d see you ever again.”

yuji and nobara might talk to you like you’re a normal person, but they kept their guards up still - something you found amusing, but still answering their question truthfully 

megumi knew better - unfortunately you’re branded as an underground criminal, and if possible, any available sorcerer that bumps into you is to kill you before you accidentally reveal the existence of sorcerers and curses

however, no matter how hard he wills himself, he can’t do it - you’re still his flesh and blood. you may have chosen a path that’s different from his, but deep down you’re still living true to yourself

you’d glance over and see the conflict brewing in his eyes, to which you’d give him a soft smile before you lean over to grab his hand in his, causing him to snap his eyes up at you

“do what you think is right.”

with that you pulled away, and with another wave to the group, you melted into the crowd; somehow managing to disappear before their eyes

both his friends will be confused, looking around for you while he stared down at the hand you had grabbed, a slightly faraway look on his face

he’d probably realise that if anything, you’re living true to yourself and allowing yourself to fly so far ahead that you’ve slowly started to outshine any of them prior to this

and he’d feel weirdly proud, because you were still his baby sister, and you still achieved things that are worth being proud of 

© roscgcld — all rights reserved to me, rose, the author and creator of these works. do not repost/translate/claim my work as yours on any platform

[sweethq]

♡ how you became friends with them // headcanon

𑁍 Characters: Oikawa Tōru, Kuroo Tetsurō, Akaashi Keiji, Sugawara Kōshi

»»—Trigger warning(s): none—-««

➶ Genre: hmmm fluff?

-ˏˋ A/N: i’m an absolute hoe for all of them, I just had to put them in the same post ˊˎ-

Click here for part 1!

your nephew’s friends were going to the park to play volleyball and he wouldn’t stop begging you to take him

both of his parents were at work, forcing you to keep an eye on the little booger

all you wanted to do was stay home and watch terrible reality shows

but you decided to be nice and grant him his wish

besides, it would be nice to leave the house every once and awhile lol

when you got to the park you saw your nephew’s friends playing volleyball with a guy who was definitely not their age

“do you know that guy?” you ask the young one standing next to you, hoping that the older boy in the distance wasn’t some creep that was preying on children

“yeah, that’s _____’s uncle. he’s really good at volleyball so he likes to come and show off”

what kind of grown ass man would want to show off his skills to a bunch of 9 year olds lmao

you didn’t question it any further and took a seat on a nearby bench while your nephew ran to his friends

after about two minutes of scrolling through your phone, your nephew returns

“tooru wants you to come play volleyball with us”

“did you tell him that i don’t know anything about volleyball?”

“yup. come on, let’s go”

deadass pulls your phone out of your hand, grabs your arm, and drags you over to the group

he was freakishly strong for his age

“hi! i’m tooru, what’s your name?”

“uh, i’m y/n”

“cool! do you want to play volleyball with us?”

“do i have a choice?”

“nope!”

he quickly goes over the gist of the game and shows you how to position your arms for a receive and how to spike the ball

honestly most of it went through one ear and out the other, but you nodded as if you understood everything he was saying

you finally started the mock match, you and tooru on opposing sides

first play into the game, tooru serves it (at like 30% power from his usual serves) and it’s coming straight for you

instead of taking a step backwards so you can receive it, you just stare at it until it hits you dead in the face hAAA

all of the kids started laughing while tooru stood there in shock

who would’ve known this would be the start to an amazing friendship

we all know, math is FREAKING HARD

and the fact that you had to learn about imaginary numbers irked the hell out of you

they don’t even exist, WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW THIS

but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it

your teacher could see you visibly struggling with this lesson, even seeing that you nearly failed one of your quizzes

she pulled you to the side after class one day and told it to you straight

“if you don’t get a B on this next test, you’re going to have to retake this class”

“y-you expect me to get a B?!!!?!?!?!?”

yeah the rest of the day you were depressed lol

how in the world were you supposed to magically understand all of the material within the next week?

that’s where smartboi!kuroo comes along

he approaches you during lunch, taking the empty seat in front of you

you just kinda 👁️👄👁️

“hi so i couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with our math teacher. i can help you if you want. i don’t know if you know this, but i’m kinda good at math”

he gave you one of his infamous smirks, making you scoff

you had never talked to kuroo before, but he had a reputation around school for being arrogant and cold

“please tell me why i would want help from you?”

“because if you don’t get help then you’re probably going to fail this class and have to retake it, and we both know that’s not what you want.”

you hate that he’s right

“ugh fine”

over the course of that week you and kuroo hung out every day after school

and you found out that he’s nothing like what people say he is, he’s just a big nerd

you start to become fond of him, liking how patient he is with you and how much effort he’s putting into your tutoring sessions

by the end of the week, you’re actually able to call him a friend

and you got a B on the test :p

you were not a morning person

you were the type or person that needed to set 50 alarms in the morning just so you’d wake up for school

unfortunately, sometimes 50 alarms still isn’t enough to keep you from falling back asleep

one morning, you closed your eyes after turning off your alarm, knowing that another one will go off in 10 minutes. I’ll get up then, you tell yourself

what you didn’t know is that the alarm you turned off happened to be the last one

you wandered back to sleep and waited for the alarm that never went off

when you woke up, you checked your phone and saw that you were most definitely running late

you quite literally jumped out of bed and threw on your uniform and shoes before grabbing your backpack and running out the door

you didn’t even bother grabbing something to eat or checking the weather, two things you usually did every morning

you sprinted towards the bus stop, hoping that you didn’t just miss it and have to wait for another

but of course, as you’re approaching, you see the bus depart

and, to make matters even better, it was starting to rain

you made your way to the bus stop, standing under the small roof for shelter from the rain, staring at the bus that was slowly getting smaller

you sigh loudly while taking out your phone, finding the bus schedule only to see that the next one won’t be coming for another 20 minutes

school starts in 15, which is around the same time it would take to run there

but at this point, it wasn’t just raining, it was absolutely downpouring. but what choice did you have?

you prepared yourself to ruin into the rain, but before you could leave the shelter of the roof above you, a cold hand grabbed onto your wrist

you turned around to see sugawara, a boy who was in your third period class

he reached into his backpack and pulled out an umbrella before handing it to you

“here, use this. if you run to school in this weather, you might catch a cold”

“no, that’s okay. if i take this, then you might catch a cold. plus, it’s your umbrella, you should use it”

he laughed before grabbing your hand and placing the umbrella in it

before you could protest, he pulled his hood over his head and ran into the rain

you were dumbfounded, but decided not to waste any more time and make your way to school

you returned his umbrella to him when you saw him in class, and bought him lunch as a thank you

found out that you guys live in the same direction, and decided to walk to and from school together

now you don’t need 50 alarm clocks, knowing that suga will beat ur ass if you’re not ready to leave by the time he gets to your house lol

it was the week before finals, so you were doing the same thing that most students were doing

pulling all nighters at the library and drinking way too much coffee

it was approximately 2:30 in the morning when you were approaching the last class you needed to study for

the problem was, you had left your textbook for that class at home (freaking idiot)

thankfully for you, the library had one in stock that you could borrow for free

you wandered around the building that was surprisingly empty

on most days, every seat would be filled regardless of the time, everyone wanting to cram as much knowledge into their heads before their big exams

you finally found the section you were looking for and started scouting the bookshelves for the textbook you desired

after a solid 10 minutes of grazing through hundreds of books, your eyes finally fall onto the one you’ve been looking for

the only problem was

it was on the top shelf

and you were definitely not tall enough to reach it

but were you going to ask someone to help you get the book like a normal person?

of course not

no, the only logical answer to this problem would to be to climb the bookcase and use the tips of your finger to hopefully bring the book into your grasp

so that’s what you did,,,, kinda

the book was just out of your reach, so you started to swat at it like a cat, hoping the momentum would make your reach a tad longer

and it did!

but instead of you grabbing the book, your arm decided to fling it off the shelf

and right onto the head of a pretty boy who happened to be standing right beneath you

“oh my god are you oka-” *falls off the bookcase*

you were surprisingly able to land on your feet, but you twisted your ankle in the process

“are you okay?” akaashi asked, seeing the pain flash in your eyes

“I should be asking you that, i just dropped my book on your head :(“

akaashi was definitely not planning on spending his friday night in a nurses office with some clumsy person that drops books on people’s heads

and he definitely didn’t appreciate having to be checked for a concussion when he could be using this valuable time for studying

but when he was given the all clear and your ankle was wrapped, you offered him your last onigiri as a peace offering

instantly forgets about the whole incident and becomes a happy puppy

you find out that you guys are studying for the same class so decide to combine your brains and study together

study buddies 4 life!

[taglist] — @avylee

📥 click here to fill out the taglist form

[100dad]

100 things that made me America’s Dad

#1 I had Sex. It is tough to be a Dad when you do not have a kid. Full credit due for invitro dads, for adoption dads, and stepdads. I am not trying to bash on anybody’s parade. I just did it the old-fashioned way. Had a lot of fun. It is a natural talent.

#2 I got my priorities in the right order.  It is not about me anymore. Faith. Wife. Kids. Then me. My hobbies take a back seat. The gym became less important.

#3 I made my marriage a priority.

#4 I made sure I could financially provide. Check income. Track expenses. Budget.

#5 Financially prepared for the future. College. Retirement. Big Purchases. House. Cars. Etc.

#6 I made sure I had a Will.

#7 I made sure I had Life Insurance.

#8 I recognized that I am now a role model. I should at least act like it.

#9 I stayed optimistic about everything. Because pessimism sucks.

#10 Made sure Mom and Dad are on the same team.

#11 My discipline game was on point. Strong, Firm, Reasonable.

#12 I protected my family.  From physical harm, spiritual harm, emotional harm, evil.

#13 I am thankful for everything. Where I was born. The people I have met. That guy that gave me an idea. The guy that said I couldn’t. The ones that said I could. To authors. To haters. To supporters. Everything. Everyone.

#14 I provide. A roof, food, and water. Stable home. Education. Unconditional love. Discipline. Consequences.

#15 Not rigid. I stay flexible. Not only in the sack. I’m not going to be rigid in my parenting. Times change. Kids have different personalities. I adjust accordingly.

#16 I shouldered the responsibility. And the blame.  All of it. I can handle it.

#17 I set the tone at home. It’s what a leader does.

#18 Made sure our family name means something in our community. How we carry ourselves and how we treat others.

#19 A good home life was more important than faking it on social media.

#20 I made sure our house was a home.

#21 I kicked ass at work. I tried to be the best. Because that is how you succeed.

#22 I prepare my kids for the real world. Age appropriately, of course.

#23 My values and morals are firm. I do not compromise on those.

#24 I put in the effort. Because this is too important to wing it.

#25 I became good at relationships. It’s amazing what being nice, reliable, and offering help will do for your reputation.

#26   Humbled myself because I realized my ego will be my downfall.

#27   Perspective was everything. I learned to put myself in other people’s shoes.

#28 Taught my kids about guns. If I am going to have them, we might as well make sure safety is taught and they do not become forbidden fruit.

#29 I reassessed who I hung out with. I wanted to elevate myself not be held back.

#30 This is who I took advice from. People who actually did what I wanted to do. Good Dads. Good businessmen who built from scratch.

#31 Time. Quality and quantity. I recognized its importance in raising a family. Time is everything.

#32 Let my kids be them. Not what I wish I had been. My Values and morals are firm but I let their personalities and talents bloom.

#33 I read books to my kids. Good bonding. Good teaching moments.

#34 I Play with my kids. Both when it was fun as they get older and when it was boring when they just laid there.

#35 I remain Calm under pressure. Cool heads prevail over emotional drama queens.

#36 I build up my kids’ confidence. Because self-esteem does not result from being crushed all the time.

#37 I give them frequent reality checks. If I’m going to be humbled…so will they. This isn’t a fairy tale.

#38 Created a stable home environment. Rules, routine, predictability.

#39 Realized how much these kids see and absorb…..and modified my behavior.

#40 I hated negativity. Still do.

#41 Vices – not for me. I can say no. I can handle stress. Drugs, alcohol, gambling, porn, tobacco….I make sure my mind is more powerful than temptation.

#42 My secret formula. Hard work + Good Decisions + Faith =Success

#43 Failing does not bother me. In fact, it oddly is fun for me.

#44 Plowed thru fears. Pushed forward. No, what-ifs.

#45 Live without regret. I do not want to be 90 wishing I had been a better dad or tried to make something of myself.

#46 Not afraid to make the unpopular decision because I know it is the right decision.

#47 I do not get painted into corners. If A and B are the only options. I find or create an option C.

#48 I am not afraid to get weird and step outside my comfort zone.

#49 I did not say the things I wanted to say when I was angry. Because I knew I would regret it and once those things are said they never really get taken back.

#50 Loved taking those scary leaps toward opportunities.

#51 Gave my kids independence and freedom as they earned it.

#52 I am not a helicopter dad. But I do verify the trust and freedoms I have allowed are worthy.

#53 Comparison was motivation, not depression. I was never envious, just inspired.

#54 Our house had RULES. Because structure is important.

#55 I refused to sacrifice my family to excel in my career.

#56 I let my kids fail…. a lot.

#57 Became okay with asking for help…. letting go of that ego thing.

#58 Actions were more important than words…. anybody can say the words.

#59 I didn’t make excuses, I just got things done.

#60 Willingness to do what others would not. I found there is much value in doing the things others find demeaning or too hard.

$61 I found the best balance is balancing over longer periods of time. Not day to day or even weekly. More seasonal.

#62 I gave myself reality checks. Check that ego.

#63 I realized how good I have it. And I did my best to soak in that contentment.

#64 Recognized my kids’ genetics and focused on their talents, skills, and personalities.

#65 Respect is important. Earning it & Giving it.

#66 Bravery is important. Super important. Stand up for what I genuinely believe in.

#67 Raising my kids to be fully functional adults.

#68 I used short-term tactics with long-term visions.

#69 Pushed my kids to be better, braver, stronger.

#70 Teach my kids everything I can about life, so they are prepared when they enter the real world without me.

#71 Recognized how important dads’ role is in the family.

#72 I document a lot. It’s great for memories. Reflection. Appreciation.

#73 I controlled my kids' influences. What they see, experience, hear.

#74 Strong man- Kind heart.

#75 The secret to a good life is simply being happy.

#76 I do my best. Give my best. Because effort is huge!

#77 Realized my wife was insanely important to our life.

#78 I drive our family value home repeatedly. No one and done. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

#79 Started my own businesses giving us control of our lifestyle.

#80 Worked close to home because I hated the idea of traffic instead of family.

#81 Made big efforts to be incredibly involved in my kids’ lives. Even the not so fun things.

#82 We switched to homeschooling. More time. More freedom. More control of influences.

#83 Knew my priorities in life. Faith. Family. Work. Friends.

#84 Budgeting was a huge deal. Both of us stayed involved and adhered to it. Neither of us wasted our hard-earned money.

#85 I did not borrow money. No partners. No inheritance. All on my own. No scapegoats. No crutches.

#86 Willing to do unpopular things and go against the grain. Because going along with crowds seems so…. basic.

#87 Cared more about building a net worth than impressing people.

#88 Despite mediocre grammar skills I enjoy writing out my thoughts. Creates clarity and conviction!

#89 Never traveled as a kid, Limited travel as an adult= Strong desire to travel!

#90 Sold a valuable business to the right company at the right time. Luck helps. Luck seems to happen to people who work really hard and do the right things.

#91 Realized having cash and no debt gives you options and freedom and tremendous peace of mind.

#92 Set huge, big goals. Never achieved them totally. But when I came up short, I still did great!

#93 Never afraid of work…even hard work, willing to outwork everyone.

#94 My hobby was my family and work. I excelled at the 2 things I focused most on.

#95 Leaned heavily on my Faith. Put my worries, struggles, anxieties on shoulders bigger than mine.

#96 I knew I did not want to replicate the bad parts of my father …but I did want to replicate the good parts.

#97 Married a girl with the same values and morals as me. With similar goals. With similar ethics. With the same determination to work through bad times and build a good life.

#98 Looked at my ancestry and wanted to become a legend in my family. I wanted our name to really mean something.

#99 Lived a life that if someone wants to dig into it there is nothing to find. Squeaky clean.

#100 Wrote down our family values. This became our compass and roadmap.

100% Dad is currently on tour traveling the country promoting the 100% Dad brand. Townsend Russell is the Founder and Personality for 100% Dad. Townsend has been on the tour for over 15 months with his family with plans to continue until January 2023. Townsend sold his businesses and retired in 2019 and has been building 100% Dad and creating insane memories with his family along the way.

Find out more about 100% Dad on the website 100dad.com

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[madamewriterofwrongs]

62 of the sensory prompts!

I hope you enjoy <3

Sensory Prompts

62. Fingertips smudged in blue ink

Bear my Signature

2008

His hands were steady as he bent over the recruitment table, sure in the path he was setting himself on. This was his decision, not his father’s. Shannon was proud of him; his parents were proud of him – he was proud of himself. Nothing could make him change his mind.

Then why did he hesitate over the final signature?

One last scrawl of his name and he would be a new Sixty-eight Whiskey recruit with the United States Armed Forces, with a career and a future serving his country and doing something of use – for once.

He couldn’t keep working for his father, long hours of travel, barked orders, and n real choice. Working with his hands was one thing, but this would be so much more.

He was going to make something of himself.

All he had to do was sign on the bottom line and his life would change forever. He thought of Shannon. They hadn’t been together long enough to know what time and distance would do to them, but he loved her; and she loved him. That would be enough.

He could do this.

He would do this.

He had to do this.

Eddie’s hands shook as his pen danced over his last key to freedom.

2010

He had been staring at the page for hours. It was a good program – it should be for the amount of money his parents were paying (he could hear his mother’s voice echoing in his ears). He wanted to be here. Sure, he wasn’t overly enthusiastic about his field of study but it would open up a lot of doors if he could be at least a B student.

He wouldn’t have to live at home any more, that was a definite plus. There was a great love he had for his parents when he didn’t have to see them every day.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder.

Or forgetful.

Either way, this college would be the perfect opportunity to go out on his own and make something of himself. So what, if it was only a few hours away from home and his parents were paying for everything? He was still an independent person of independent means; he would finally have something to contribute. He’d be doing something of use – for once.

So what, if he hated the program? So what, if he was still staring at that map of the known world he got on his seventh grade trip to the museum?

This would be how he would make his mark on the world; it was his only option.

Buck placed his signature on the final page and handed the pile of forms back to the registration office.

2010

Eddie had never felt so panicked in his entire life (apart from the time two months ago when he’d called his girlfriend in the middle of the night and asked her to marry him when he was in town on leave). That had been a different kind of panic.

The panic brought on from calling his parents the day before and telling them that Shannon was pregnant and he had no idea what to do. After a lot of cursing and a lot of lecturing, they told him that there was only one option available to him: marry the girl.

They never liked Shannon. They tolerated her – were polite to her whenever Eddie brought her around – but the sneer in his mother’s voice when she told him what an idiotic mistake he’d made, reminded him that this would be the only way his parents approved of him marrying his high school sweetheart.

He’d always thought he’d get around to marrying her eventually. Sure, they’d only dated for a few months in her last year of high school but that still counted as a teenage romance where he was from. It was romantic right?

And then she’d told him she was pregnant, and then he’d panicked and begged her to marry him.

And now they were walking down the aisle in front of their friends and family (who were available to fly out at a moment’s notice), saying their vows like they actually meant them.

To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.

Eddie smudged the ink of his signature as he marked the marriage certificate, a reminder of the familiar yet uncharted path his life was currently on.

2011

Eddie never believed in love at first sight, but holding that little boy in his arms changed everything. Christopher Ramon Diaz, born 4lbs, 9oz. The doctors assured them that he was a little small but perfectly healthy and safe. That was all he needed to hear.

He hadn’t stopped smiling since they brought Shannon and Christopher to their room so mom and the baby could rest.

Mom.

Shannon was a mother now. The mother of his child.

He was a father. How the hell was he going to be a dad when his own had kept him at a distance his entire life? Not that he blamed him – he was providing for his family – that’s what you do. That’s why he was serving out the rest of his tour and coming straight home to look for a job.

He hated that he wouldn’t get to spend more than a week with his wife (the mother of his child) and newborn son, but that was the deal he made:

Put food on the table, keep a roof over their heads, and you will be a family forever.

At least he was around long enough to sign his name on the dotted line, declaring this little boy his for anyone to see. Christopher looked so much like his mother, he prayed he wouldn’t stay away long enough to become a stranger in his eyes. He wanted every moment he could get.

Eddie was going to be a good father; he would fight for them, and when he came back, he would work a million jobs so he could keep their deal. So long as the two of them were happy, nothing else mattered.

2014

Buck was floating, restless, in a sea of uncertainty. To be specific, he was floating in Moloaʻa Bay, just north of Kauaʻi, watching a group of men performing professional grade dives further out. They worked in sync but came up splashing and laughing, hearty laughs of grown men (not boys who had no idea what they were doing with their lives).

He’d spoken to them the night before when they stumbled into the bar he’d found himself sitting at most nights, striking up a conversation about how they all ended up on this island paradise.

He vaguely remembered coming up with some story about following a girl here only to have her ditch him for another man. It sounded better than telling them, he’d shown up at the airport in Seattle and asked for the cheapest, earliest flight and somehow ended up here.

Their story had been much more interesting anyways. Naval SEALS, honorable and strong. They were attending a conference by day (who got to go to a conference in Kauaʻi?) but the nights were all for them.

Buck blushed, remembering how bright the youngest one, Jacob, had smiled at him over their fifth shot of rum – or was it their eighth? Either way, they’d woken up tangled in each other’s arms somewhere around 6am, when Jake kicked him out so he could get ready for his meeting.

Now, he watched them all, wondering what it must be like to have that kind of comradery, that kind of purpose – that kind of freedom.

That night at the bar, Buck found Jake again and followed him back to his hotel room so he could register for their mailing list of interested applicants (he didn’t ask to stay).

The next time he was in Coronado, he’d have a new career opportunity and – hopefully – a new life.

2015

Eddie hated his signature. On a good day, it was a series of loops strung together with an E and D sloppily thrown in.

On a bad day, it was the end of a long series of papers that meant he was being discharged from the army with honors. For being brave, he wouldn’t have to fight anymore.

He didn’t feel brave. He certainly didn’t feel like he was done fighting.

And yet here he was, standing in front of a General he’d never met, having to hide the tremor in his hand as he struggled to sign off on his emancipation from the only real thing he’d ever known.

He had a wife and a son back home who didn’t know him any more – it wasn’t a stretch to say he no longer knew himself. But they needed him. They needed his money and his leadership and he didn’t have much of either. He had no way of knowing what he was coming home to (and didn’t that just sting?). Having no idea what was going on with his own family because he was gone for too long. What good was he to them now that he was back, though? He still had months of recovery ahead of him, and a few scars that opened up into a chasm of nightmares every night. All he wanted to do was take a deep breath a scream.

But he couldn’t do that.

He could salute with his good hand, and thank the man for the box that said he was a hero, and go back to his family.

And keep trying to hold it together.

2016

So being a SEAL hadn’t been the dream he imagined it to be. He still gained some valuable skills when it came to search and rescue, and combat. He also learned about the type of job he didn’t want to have.

He wanted the life they had on the brochure:

Help save lives.

Do some good.

Be a daredevil.

So they hadn’t said those exact words but that was the implication. It was implied that he’d get to be a badass rulebreaker with a heart of gold.

He shuffled out of the facility with a few new bruises and a new respect for being a decent human being for once.

Whether by coincidence of providence, he found himself wandering around the streets of Los Angeles nearly every night after he arrived, searching for some sort of sign that this was the place to be at this moment in time. If it wasn’t, he could always move on to the next place. But there was something about LA that felt right. Hot sun, hot people, lots of mischief and adventure.

A boy could become a man here.

He was stopped on the street as the fire station in front of him roared to life, and he watched through the window as men and women worked in tandem to load their gear and peel away from the hangar. 30 seconds of excitement suddenly left the building feeling empty enough for Buck to hear his own heart pick up.

Before he knew what he was doing, he walked up to the main door and rang the bell. A man in a uniformed t-shirt and pants answered, and invited him inside to tell him all about the exciting life as a Los Angeles Firefighter.

For the second time in his life, Buck left his name and number with a strange man, hoping this single interaction would change his life.

2017

Eddie took a deep breath; not screaming, this time, but exhaling the last of his nerves. This felt right. This was his decision, not his father’s – in fact, his father had no qualms about showing his disapproval at his decision.

But it felt right.

Being a firefighter was a lot like combat (with an eighth of the on-the-job stressors). But he still got to help people – he could use his skills he’d learned in the army to save lives at home the way he hoped he was doing overseas. And he could come home to his son every night.

He would have come home to Shannon, too, if he could get her on the phone for more than a few minutes at a time.

He hadn’t spoken with her in over a year, now. She’d stopped answering so he’d stopped calling and only part of his heart was broken for knowing that she’d run away, too.

Even if it was just him and Christopher for a little while, it would be still be a blessing to go save the world and be back in time for dinner (usually).

He was so tired lately. Working three jobs left him no energy to be with his son and even less desire to argue with his parents over how to best raise him.

Christopher needed stability, so he’d give it to him. He’d become a firefighter for whoever would take this mess of a human being, and build the life for his son that he deserved – a happy one.

Even if he wondered twelve times a day if a happy life was really a life with him. Maybe Christopher would be better off with his parents. He barely knew the little boy sleeping in his own bed and not a crib.

Isn’t that all the more reason to stay?

Before Eddie could second guess himself, he signed his name on the dotted line, and joined the row of recruits for the fire academy training.

2017

As far as first dates went, this one was strangely not the worst. That had involved jumping out the second story window of an apartment complex because her “technically still my boyfriend” was coming through the front door.

He’d twisted his ankle when his leg got caught on the fire escape and the police were called – though, thankfully, no charges were laid. Incredibly painful, and incredibly embarrassing.

Waking up in the hospital after his girlfriend had performed an emergency tracheotomy, was a very close second.

Unlike that awful first date, though. Abby was still at his side when he woke up. He hadn’t realized how long it had been since he’d had someone to wake up next to – even if it was groggily coming off anesthesia after surgery.

It was nice.

She was nice.

God, he liked her so much. Why couldn’t the universe let him have one good date? He hadn’t had that many to begin with, was it so much to ask that things go right?

Abby was nice and smart and beautiful and liked him.

And she stayed.

She was at work when he signed himself out of the hospital but Bobby had been there, too, to drive him home since his car was still at the restaurant. They even went out for breakfast. That was new as well. Someone who willingly spent time with him and offered him advice and cared whether Buck took that advice.

He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a little addictive:

Having people in his life who stayed.

2018

Carla had to slap his hand during their tour of the school every time he tried to play with the lanyard around his neck. He managed to stop fidgeting after the first fifteen minutes, but the nerves never faded.

This was a huge risk. It was still early in the school year, but Christopher had just moved to LA. He had no friends, no social circle, no one outside of his family; and now Eddie wanted to move him to a highly specialized school.

What, just because it had small class sizes, and teachers who seemed to understand his son’s needs, and had incredible security measures, and was an opportunity for Christopher to get a better education than he had back in Texas, and it felt like a miracle that Carla convinced the school to see him on such short notice?

It was still an incredibly expensive miracle.

And there was the problem of getting a hold of Shannon. He’d told their lawyer when he was taking Christopher out of the state, and thankfully, her number hadn’t changed, but getting her to pick up the phone when he called his estranged wife had been an exercise in anxiety control.

If it meant that Christopher got the best care, nothing else mattered.

Even as his thought swam with a thousand unanswered questions (the loudest one being: what did that kiss in the parking lot mean for us?), Eddie’s hand was sure and still as he signed the registration form.

2019

Maddie was back in his life. He’d almost lost Maddie a few months after getting her back, but now that wouldn’t be a problem anymore. She was safe, and she was home with him; he had his big sister once again and that was all he needed.

It didn’t stop the nightmares from bolting him awake, reminding him that he could die tomorrow and then she’d be left alone. Or she could leave again and then he’d be alone.

He didn’t want that: he didn’t want to be alone again. He liked the people in his life. Maddie, Bobby, the 118, Eddie, Christopher; they were people he wanted to keep safe.

But the dangers he needed to protect them from weren’t always solved with a giant water hose or an axe. For everything else, he called a lawyer and got some advice.

Maddie had been very understanding when he told her about the will he planned to change so she’d receive a larger piece of his assets. She was his sister, he was always going to leave something to her, but now that she was back, he wanted to know that she’d be happy here without him in this place he’d convinced her to settle.

Eddie had been less understanding; grateful, yes, but speechless as to why Buck would want to leave his colleague so much (it was mostly for Christopher, he explained, so that he’d could have something for his future if he lost his best buddy). That had still led to a lot of protesting – eventually broken up by a confused by thankful Shannon – but nothing was compared to Bobby.

Bobby who teared up when Buck explained that he didn’t have a lot of things in this world, but if anything happened to him, he wanted Bobby to have something to remember him by.

That hadn’t been a lie, but maybe not a whole truth.

He wanted to know that the people he loved most were never left alone even after he left them.

Was that so much to ask for?

2019

Eddie hated funerals. He didn’t know a single person who enjoyed them; but he’d been to far too many in his short life to find any comfort in them.

They were burying his wife today.

She didn’t want to be his wife anymore but he hadn’t told anyone that. The shame that burned his throat when he thought of revealing that painful truth, was too sharp. He suffered in silence as he always had. It wasn’t just his own feelings he had to worry about; there was Christopher.

There was always Christopher – there would always be Christopher – he would never stop caring for his son as long as he lived (and probably long after as well). Because that’s what parents were supposed to do.

He found himself standing, poised with pen in hand over another piece of paper, frozen once again by his own indecision and fear.

What was he supposed to write in the book of her life? How was he meant to say goodbye to the only woman he’d ever loved? How could he close this chapter of his life with a flick of ink?

He couldn’t.

His eyes hooked onto his son’s back, sitting quietly beside his great grandmother, swinging his legs under the pews because he still wasn’t tall enough to touch the ground. He was so small; so young.

Christopher needed him to be strong; needed him to put it away so they could take care of each other.

Eddie signed the front page, and opened the book for the guests to sign.

2019

When Buck woke up in the hospital this time, he saw an angel, and for a moment he was terrified; but then everything was at peace.

The moments after he felt peace, however, were agonizing and terrifying. The moments before hadn’t been a picnic either, but at least his memories of laying underneath a ladder truck and being pulled to safety were still a little hazy. He remembered a warm hand in his and a few words of encouragement and a lot of screaming, but not much else.

Now that he was awake, fear was quickly becoming his only focus. The fear of not knowing whether the surgery had been successful – not knowing if he’d ever work again or if he’d have to start his life over. The fear of whether he would be the same man if he ever could go back to work. So much was uncertain, that he clung to the tiniest bit of hope: Ali, Maddie, and Carla. The women who would stay by his side no matter what.

It took him four days before he had the strength to walk to the end of the hall, and finally, the doctor was satisfied that the was safe to go home. He had never been happier being wheeled out to his sister’s car, than the day he got to sign himself out of the hospital, knowing that everything would be back to normal.

2019

Buck was man enough to admit that this punishment was nothing compared to what it could be. Three hours in the human resources office with Bobby, Chief Alonso and Alex, head of HR, signing his name to a million forms, could have been a lot worse.

Sure, his hand cramped about half an hour in, but it was worth it all if it meant he could finally go back to work.

It all seemed a little silly – not that he’d ever say that out loud. Buck had no intention of suing the city or the department (or Bobby) again. He’d meant what he said, though: he was a fighter. He’d fight for his job and his family however he could.

Sometimes he fought in really stupid ways that he didn’t realize were harmful until it was too late. But then he’d just have to fight to make up for those mistakes.

Buck was a fighter, plain and simple.

Tonight, he’d fight through hand cramps and eye fatigue. Tomorrow he’d fight for his friends’ trust.

And pray it was enough for them to let him come home.

2022

There was one recorded day of history in which Eddie Diaz felt happier than he did today: the day his son was born.

Nothing else compared to that day, vowing his fealty to Christopher and whatever he needed.

Today was a pretty good day, though.

He was dressed a lot nicer, that was for certain – not that he didn’t love the sea green scrubs, but a fitted suit was much more comfortable.  

The company was also pretty good.

Christopher stood beside him in the mirror, adjusting his tie for the tenth time (even though Abuela told him to stop playing with it). He understood that the boy was nervous so he only smiled down at him and his slightly crooked tie.

There was a knock at the door and Eddie hurried to answer it, knowing exactly who would be on the other side.

Buck hadn’t stopped smiling since he arrived at the rental hall, taking all of Maddie’s teasing as she helped him dress for his big day. Nothing could dampen his mood; not the caterers calling in with last minute substitutions, not baby Gloria throwing up on Chimney all night, not a small tear in his suit jacket that neither of them could fix.

None of it mattered as he knocked on the door of the side room they’d set up.

Technically, he wasn’t supposed to see the groom before the wedding – but technically they weren’t supposed to sleep together the night before either, so one more break in tradition wouldn’t be the end of the world. Since the day they moved in together, Buck had never willingly spent a night away from their bed. Even on the nights when they were irreconcilably fighting, they’d sleep on opposite sides of the bed.

He was not about to sleep without his fiancé on the last night he got to call him his fiancé.

Eddie and Buck walked down the hallway to greet the officiant, Maddie waiting for them with two pens in hand.

This was it; the last step before they officially tied the knot. Everything after this was just icing on the cake (which reminded Buck, he needed to tell Eddie about the catering mishap after everything was sorted because he was more likely to panic). This was the moment where they would sign their names and be legally bound in the eyes of the world, as two people who wanted to spent their lives together.

Eddie was careful with his penmanship. His hands didn’t shake much – absolutely confident in this choice – but he wanted it to be perfect. This would be the last time he would sign his name on a piece of paper like this (and he wouldn’t sign his name on a book for others to impart their memories of his dearly departed for a very long time); so he savored every little detail as he lent his name to another cause he believed in wholeheartedly.

Buck laughed when he messed up the B in “Buckley” after spending hours for weeks on end, practicing his “Diaz”s. It turned into a strange series of vertical loops that someone could use in context to describe as a B, so he wasn’t too worried. In fact, he had no worries at all. Now, he had a happy memory attached to signing away his life to a man he hoped to know better with every passing day.

[reikisessions]

The Most Important Lessons We Can Take from This Pandemic

“And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.” ~Kitty O’Meara

While this pandemic is turning out to be a very confusing and difficult time for many people, it is undoubtedly giving humanity an incredibly rare opportunity to learn some challenging lessons. I believe these lessons will trigger a much-needed change of perspective for how we do things on this planet and will hopefully enable us to turn over a new leaf.

For so long it felt that we had been living in a way that went against everything that is natural and sacred.

We had been living in a way that neither serves humans nor the natural world, and yet we continued on this path seemingly powerless to stop what we were doing.

It’s as if we were all part of this machine that kept on chugging along, but no one could find the stop button. Well, that stop button has arrived and it’s not like anything we could have ever imagined.

Over the last several weeks we have seen a massive change in our priorities, and the economy has echoed this to a great degree. Sales of food and health products have gone through the roof, while sales of clothes, makeup, cars, etc, (you know, the stuff we don’t really need but think we need to attain some kind of happiness) has plummeted.

In my personal life, I can feel that my priorities have massively shifted due to this pandemic, and it has been eye-opening to see how so much can change in such a short space of time.

I recently found myself looking at pictures I had taken a couple months ago of me and my daughter out and about, and suddenly this strange thought came to my mind: In some way, life will never be the same again.

I think most of us are wondering what the future will hold and how this pandemic will change the way we do things, but I feel there is no way to escape the change in perspective that it will bring.

This is our silver lining, and it will hopefully allow us to look back on this time and feel there were some benefits.

Here are six valuable lessons I think we will learn from this.

1. The power of stillness.

Our lives were put on pause, many were forced to work from home, and we can longer travel unless necessary.

With this, we were given the power of stillness and the opportunity to unapologetically slow down. There is no other situation other than an outbreak of a virus where our world would come to such a pause. This will most likely be an opportunity that we never get again (and ironically, we are all hoping we won’t ever get again).

As such, now more than ever—for those who are still under lockdown—this is the time to go within and be still with yourself. Heal, remove emotional blockages, meditate, and practice yoga. Take this opportunity to do the inner work that you previously had no time for. If ever there was time for personal transformation, it’s now.

And as the lockdowns begin to lift perhaps we will see the value in living a quieter and more peaceful life.

2. Friends and family mean everything.

Probably the most difficult part of this journey for most people is being separated from their friends, family, and maybe even a romantic partner.

I once heard someone say that “connection is something that all humans need, but we are just not very good at it.” Who here feels that maybe they took human interaction for granted before this? I will raise my hand to that.

Connection is something that is so critical for our emotional and mental well-being, yet it something we often take for granted.

After this is over, I think people will reach out to each other like never before and everyone will be so overjoyed to see their loved ones again. And just maybe we might be a little bolder and share our smiles and greetings with those we don’t even know.

3. Nature continues to thrive even if the world has shutdown.

For many during this lockdown, including myself, nature has been a life saver. Whether we spend time in our garden, walk through a park, do gardening, grow food (I grant that not everyone has been able to enjoy these luxuries), or simply poke our head out of our window for some fresh air and sunlight, the serenity of nature has been something we can rely on. While the world stopped, nature remained constant.

Incredible stories have also emerged about wild animals taking over quiet city centers and dolphins returning to waters that they haven’t been spotted in for hundreds of years. Nature never stops, and the sad truth is that less human activity has meant that nature has been able to thrive in a way that most of us haven’t seen in our lifetime.

Yet, maybe seeing nature in full force with all its beauty will prompt us to create new systems where humans and nature can thrive together. I can’t bear to think of losing our new fresh air or the animals that have finally felt safe enough to come closer to us. Perhaps this will be the big wake up call we needed.

Either way, I believe humans will make a renewed relationship with nature and just hopefully this might lead to big environmental change.

4. Material goods mean nothing.

As I have already mentioned, this pandemic has forced us to completely rearrange our priorities, and I can’t help but feel this is a good thing. What good are material things when your health, safety, and access to food are jeopardized? They mean zero at times like this, which I think just helps us put into perspective exactly what we should be prioritizing in our lives.

Since realizing this virus was going to be something that was very serious, I have barely bought anything that isn’t absolutely essential. And of course, this doesn’t mean that I am done with buying beautiful clothes or things to make my life more enjoyable, but it has cast a light on how little I actually need and what truly makes me happy.

5. Our health is gold.

Health is something we so easily take for granted until it is at risk. The possibility of our health taking a downturn has made many of us pay more attention to our nutrition intake and cleanliness. Some of us have even been taking preventative health measures and steps to boost our immune system.

If we have a working body with no serious physical ailments, we should be beyond grateful!

6. Essential workers are heroes.

Every good story needs its hero, and in the story that is playing out on our planet right now, our heroes are of course key workers—healthcare workers, delivery drivers, bus and train drivers, and those who work in the supermarkets and food distribution. These are the people who are keeping everything going and right now risking their health and safety every day to do it.

In the past, so many of these professions were deemed as jobs that require little skill or don’t deserve much pay, but right now there is no saying what we would do without these people.

I hope in the future these professions shall be seen with high esteem, and the soldiers fighting on the frontline will be remembered. If this pandemic is teaching us one thing, it is not to take anyone or anything for granted.

What Will Be the Outcome of All This?

I think everyone is wondering what exactly will come out of this crisis and whether we will really change our ways. Will we learn the lessons or go back to the way we were before—our unhealthy ‘normality’?

This is yet to be seen. However, as individuals we can make our own choices, and it is our individual choice that will make all the difference.

Let us learn from this situation and do what we can to preserve nature, to bring more stillness into our lives, and to never take people or our health and safety for granted again. As always, individual change and transformation will always triumph.

[hysterialevi]

When the Devil Cries pt. 24

Fanfic summary: (NO SPOILERS IN THIS STORY) After arriving in Saint Denis, Arthur ends up falling in love with a seemingly innocent pianist, only to find himself in a battle with one of the most notorious outlaws to ever emerge from America. Now, between working for Dutch and robbing money for the gang, Arthur has to also protect the man he loves as the two of them try to find their freedom.

Pairing: Arthur Morgan/Male OC

Previous chapter

This story is also on AO3

Author’s note: Sorry this chapter was a little later than usual. Like I said before, I haven’t been feeling that well this past week. Mainly just headaches and mental health, but I hope you guys enjoy this part nonetheless. Thank you for being patient :)

(Warning: this chapter is slightly nsfw!)

From Arthur’s POV

THE NEXT DAY

SAINT DENIS

Ridin’ through the city’s crowded streets, Eddie and I trotted our way to the tailor’s shop -- the location where Trelawny said he’d meet us -- and strolled past a bunch of lawmen, beggars, merchants, and even the same lady who was advocating for women’s right to vote all those months ago. It didn’t look like Saint Denis had changed that much, and most of the people appeared to be the same...but it was certainly still a foreign sight for me and Eddie.

I mean, if I was bein’ honest, I never thought we’d come back here. Not after the way we hit the goddamned national bank, and blew up one of the bridges leadin’ into the city. In my eyes, Saint Denis was supposed to be off-limits, considering how many people was after our gang, but clearly, Dutch didn’t agree.

All he seemed to care about recently was the money, risks be damned. We had already lost Hosea to Atticus and his army of crazies, and now, we was riskin’ even more of our necks for some high-stakes Poker game on a goddamned boat.

Had we learned nothing from that disaster in Blackwater? Had Dutch suddenly forgotten what happened back there? The last time we tried to rob a boat, our entire gang nearly got wiped out. Only difference was back then, all we had to worry about was the Pinkertons. Now though, we also had a rival gang threatening to destroy us, and even fewer men to fight them back.

We was in the middle of a storm. If we wanted to survive, we’d have to leave this place as soon as possible. We had far too much to lose, and even less to gain. S’far as I was concerned, the money on this boat weren’t worth the risk. ...But what could I do?

Tearin’ me away from my thoughts, Eddie suddenly grabbed my attention when he said something to me, his gaze stuck on a very familiar building that we were riding by. It had colorful posters plastered all over its walls, vibrant spherical lights decorating the roof, music dancin’ through its doors, and a decent-sized crowd of people gathering at its entrance. It was the Râleur Theatre.

We both stopped for a moment, sayin’ a quick hello to an old friend.

“...The Râleur,” Eddie murmured to himself in a nostalgic tone, clearly feelin’ a bit homesick upon seeing it. “I never expected to see it again.”

I moved my horse next to his, takin’ in the view of the theater as hundreds of memories began to flood my mind.

“Me neither,” I admitted, thinking back to the day I first met Eddie. “I imagine you must miss it a whole lot. And the folks that work there.”

The boy nodded. “Oh, you’ve no idea. Though, it’s strange to say that, considering how it used to be such a nerve-wracking experience for me. I was always afraid that I’d mess up a song, or hit a wrong note, or disappoint the audience with something I composed...but I never realized how lucky I was to have those fears until now. And how lucky I am to have new ones.”

I rested my arms on the horn of my saddle, tiltin’ my head at Eddie.

“You think you’re lucky?”

He shrugged. “There’ve been multiple occasions where I could’ve died, Arthur. Where we both could’ve died. But against all odds, we’re still here. We’re still going. I’d say that’s pretty lucky.”

A soft smile spread across my face. “I s’pose you’re right.”

Eddie shifted to a more anxious tone. “Though...I can’t deny I’m a bit worried about Dutch’s plans recently. Shouldn’t we be packing up camp? Why are we still in Shady Belle? I thought we were moving the gang up north.”

A defeated sigh escaped me. “That’s what I thought too, but evidently, Dutch ain’t ready to leave just yet. Wants to grab one more score before we get moving.”

That didn’t appear to calm the pianist down at all. “We need to get out of here, Arthur. I know we’re low on money, but Atticus is dangerously close to killing us all. And I don’t want anyone else to end up like Hosea. Especially not you.”

I gave him a sincere look. “I hear you, Eddie, and truth be told, most o’ the gang feels the same way. But like I said, so long as Dutch has his mind set on robbin’ this boat, I don’t see us leaving anytime sooner than expected. We’ll just have to survive.”

Eddie let the subject go for now. “I understand. I just hope we can make it out of this. We’ve had enough close calls as is.” The boy lightly snapped his reins and pushed his horse into a casual trot, continuin’ our trip.

“Anyways,” he said, “I’ve held us up for long enough. We should go and see, erm-- what did you say his name was again?”

“Trelawny.” I answered.

“Trelawny...” Eddie repeated to himself, “he’s part of Dutch’s gang?”

I chuckled at that. “Well, that depends on who you ask. He’s not really part of the gang like we are, but...I guess...he ain’t exactly against it neither. Sometimes, Trelawny’ll stay with us for a while, hang around camp...but then suddenly, he’ll disappear for months on end. And just when we start thinkin’ about cutting him loose, the bastard shows up again with a tip valuable enough to earn us hundreds of dollars. Kinda like now.”

“And you think we can trust this tip?” He asked.

“Trelawny’s always come through before,” I replied. “We’ve got no reason not to trust him.”

Eddie seemed content with that. “That works for me. I just want to get this robbery over with and bring the gang someplace safe. I feel like I’m constantly checking over my shoulder to make sure Atticus or Rodrick isn’t there.”

I laughed, tryin’ to ease his worries a little. “You’re assumin’ I’d let them get that close.”

The boy smirked in response, adjusting his hat. “After everything that’s happened, I’m sure you wouldn’t. ...And neither would I.”

A FEW MINUTES LATER

THE TAILOR

Strollin’ towards the opulent shop, Eddie and I hitched our horses before approaching the front doors, attemptin’ to look as casual as possible in order to avoid grabbing anyone’s attention. The people of Saint Denis were already on high alert ever since the bank robbery, and with the amount of lawmen patrolling this city, the last thing I wanted was for anyone to recognize us. We’d have to keep a low profile.

Stepping up to the tailor’s, the two of us came to a halt once we noticed an elegant man leaning against one of its corners, his face hidden behind a newspaper. There wasn’t anyone else accompanying him, and judgin’ by the not-so-subtle top hat peeking above the paper’s edge, I had a good guess as to who it was.

I double-checked our surroundings to make sure there wasn’t any unwanted ears listenin’ in and walked towards the man, quietly calling out to him.

“Trelawny.” I whispered, causing him to instantly lower the newspaper.

He gave me a delighted smile and folded the article, doin’ his best to pretend that there weren’t anything suspicious going on.

“Arthur!” Trelawny said happily. “My, my...hasn’t it been quite some time. It’s good to see you, dear boy.”

“And you, Josiah.”

The magician flicked his gaze over to Eddie. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Eddie Ryan,” I introduced, gesturing towards him. “He’s a new member of the gang. Joined not too long ago. Eddie, this is Josiah.”

The pianist reached a hand out, but I could tell he was still a bit skeptical about this new face.

“Good to meet you.” Eddie greeted. A radiant smile beamed on Trelawny’s face.

“Ah, a fellow Englishman. Don’t see too many of those around here, nor in the gang. I can see Dutch is...broadening his horizons.”

I scoffed. “Well, he’s tryin’ to, at least. But Dutch ain’t going nowhere until the gang gets some more money. And he tells me you might have a tip for our next score.”

Josiah nodded. “Yes, indeed...”

I quirked a brow, noticin’ his doubtful tone. “You don’t sound too sure.”

The magician’s expression drooped with uncertainty, and he lowered his voice so that it was just above a whisper.

“...I won’t lie to you, Arthur. This robbery is going to be tricky to pull off. Mainly because guests are not permitted to have weapons on this riverboat. Now, of course, we could disguise some of you gentlemen as security guards so you wouldn’t be entirely defenseless. But as far as having a weapon on your person...I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

I shrugged in a puzzled manner. “How the hell are we supposed rob the money without weapons?”

Trelawny held up a finger. “Discretion, dear boy. You are going to participate in the Poker game and win. Now, don’t worry -- you’ll have, err...‘assistance’ to ensure your victory.”

I got straight to the point. “You want me to cheat.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite as bluntly as that, but yes! You’re going to cheat. Though, I would still make sure that whoever is going to play the games actually looks affluent. That way, your ‘luck’ doesn’t seem too suspicious to the other players.”

An idea popped up in my mind.

“Eddie,” I suggested, “why don’t you play?”

The boy appeared surprised at the thought. “Me?”

“Yeah. You got some skill in Poker, and besides, outta all the people in the gang, you look the most civilized among us. No one would suspect you to be a crook. You don’t have to do it, o’ course. I’m just saying.”

He went along with the plan. “No, I’m up for it, but who’s going to be giving me the ‘assistance?”

“How about Herr Strauss?” Josiah recommended. “I know these sort of things are usually right up his alley. Or perhaps even Hosea. That man is a conman at heart. This would be perfect for him.”

I froze with realization, suddenly rememberin’ that Trelawny hadn’t heard about his death. To me, it felt like it had been ages since Hosea died, but the reality was...it had only been a few days. All this mayhem, all this death...it barely spanned across an entire week. We were given almost no time to mourn Hosea after he was killed, let alone write a letter to Trelawny about it. I supposed it only made sense he didn’t know yet. I was just surprised Dutch hadn’t told him.

Letting out a morose sigh, I tried to think of the quickest and least painful way to break the news to him, causing Josiah to pause in confusion once he noticed my sudden change in mood.

Eddie and I exchanged looks, the both of us unsure of how to get it out in the open.

“Trelawny,” I murmured, “...Hosea’s dead.”

The magician blinked out of shock, his usual facade of charm and charisma breaking for just a moment upon hearin’ the horrible news.

“...D-Dead?” He repeated. “What on earth happened?”

I mindlessly brought my eyes to the ground, not exactly eager to discuss the topic.

“Trouble with a rival gang,” I hurriedly explained. “Hosea was killed in an ambush.”

Trelawny’s face sank with a gentle frown.

“Well...I’m terribly sorry to hear that, Arthur. Mister Matthews was always one of the good ones. Sometimes, he was even the best. It’s a shame he’s gone.”

I agreed with a simple nod. “Sure is.”

Clearin’ my throat, I attempted to regain composure and changed the subject, hastily getting back to business. “...Anyway, ah...what else can you tell us about this riverboat party? When is it? What can we expect?”

Josiah retrieved the newspaper he was reading earlier and handed it to me, pointing to a certain article.

“About the same as you’d expect from any high-society gala. There’ll be crowds of rich folk who couldn’t be more pleased with themselves, a bar, musicians, safes full of money and jewelry, the Poker tables of course...and lots of security. As for when it’s taking place, I believe the party is being held in four days from now. It’s not an abundant amount of time to plan, but it should give you boys long enough to think of something. Which brings me to the building behind us.”

I glanced up from the paper and brought my gaze to the tailor’s shop, givin’ Trelawny a curious look.

“You tellin’ me we met at the tailor’s for a reason?”

The magician laughed. “Well, I didn’t bring you here to admire the dresses, dear boy! No...we need to get you a suit, and perhaps a shave as well. After all, if you want to blend in with the fine folk on the riverboat, you’re going to have to look the part. And -- I mean no offense to your current attire -- but nobody is going to believe you’re filthy rich when you’re just filthy.”

I heavily sighed in annoyance, shovin’ the newspaper into my satchel as my expression flattened with irritation.

“...Fine. Before we go in, though,” I turned to Eddie and placed a few dollars in his hand, givin’ him a different task as I pointed in the opposite direction. “Eddie, why don’t you go and rent us a room at the Bastille? Ain’t no point in goin’ back to camp this early. Besides, maybe you can get yourself some real food there.”

The pianist stared downwards at his palm. “You sure?”

“Yes,” I answered firmly. “Besides, I’d rather you not be present when I’m tryin’ on skin-tight suits. You’ve seen enough horrors lately.”

Eddie chuckled at that and took the money, steadily walkin’ back to Bullet who was now getting a bit restless at the hitching post.

“If you insist,” he complied with a giggle. “Alright then, I’ll meet you at the saloon. Good luck, gentlemen.”

Trelawny waved him goodbye. “And good luck to you, young man.” Josiah turned back to me, gesturing inside the tailor’s with a polite bow. “Well then, Arthur...shall we?”

I walked ahead of him, lettin’ myself into the shop while Eddie mounted up.

“Sure.”

THAT EVENING

THE BASTILLE

Leavin’ my horse next to Eddie’s, I hopped off the animal and pushed my way through the swinging doors, allowing myself into the saloon as everyone inside instantly jolted their heads towards me, wonderin��� what the hell this cowboy was doing back in Saint Denis.

I mean, I doubted anyone here really remembered me -- apart from the bartender who was wavin’ me over like an old friend -- but I imagined it was also hard to forget someone of my “background” hanging around this lavish establishment. After all, the last time I was here, it was to gather information on that godforsaken gala where Eddie and I nearly got shot. There weren’t no honest people in this saloon, and unlike the rest of the patrons relaxin’ in this here bar, I certainly wasn’t being subtle about it in the slightest.

I just hoped the boy and I would be able to get at least one moment of peace today. Things had been so chaotic back at camp recently, part of me couldn’t deny that I only agreed to be Dutch’s errand boy so I could get away from all that. It was selfish, yeah...but I just needed a goddamned break. And so did Eddie.

Sauntering over to the bar while the other customers went back to their business, I simply slid a coin onto the counter and leaned against its surface, causin’ the bartender’s eyes to pop open in shock once he recognized my sour face.

“Well, well...look who it is!” He greeted, taking the coin into his palm. “Long time, no see, mister! How ya been?”

I chuckled in a friendly tone. “It has been a long time, ain’t it? I’m doin’ well, I suppose. Y’know, considering the circumstances.”

He nodded in understanding, giving me a beer. “Mm-hmm, things is gettin’ rough out there, for sure. I’m just glad to see you alright.” The bartender’s expression lit up with remembrance. “Hey, your friend was down here not too long ago. Mister Ryan. I gotta say: as surprised as I am to see you, I was even more surprised to see him. I thought he was dead!”

I took a sip. “Dead?”

“Well, he just sorta disappeared after that horrific firefight at Miss Powell���s place. And there’s also the fact that the folks at the Râleur miss him a whole bunch. So, I just kinda assumed, y’know?”

I stared down the mouth of the bottle, mindlessly thinkin’ back to all the shit Eddie and I had been through these past months.

“Yeah...” I said, “things’ve gotten crazy for us lately. Eddie, especially. I’ve just been...helpin’ him along, I guess.”

The bartender wiped a rag along the counter, cleanin’ it as he spoke. “Well, that’s certainly nice of you, mister. Obviously, I dunno Mister Ryan as well as you do, but based on what I’ve seen and heard of him, he seems like a good man. One of the few left in this city.”

I brought the bottle to my lips, downing another sip. “One o’ the few left in the world.”

He smiled at that. “Indeed.”

Halting his movements, the bartender paused for a moment and took on a more concerned tone, his chipper mood slightly dyin’ down as he glanced upstairs.

“You, ah...you make sure to keep an eye on that boy, alright? Things is already uncomfortably quiet in this saloon now that Lillian’s gone, and I’d never thought I’d say this, but...I kinda miss when she’d come here and complain to the rest of us. She was a troubled woman, for sure, but she made this place memorable in a strange way. Watchin’ another familiar face disappear might just...do me in.”

I finished my drink and placed the bottle down, gettin’ ready to go find Eddie. “Believe me, I’m doing everything I can. Speakin’ of which, you know where Mister Ryan is? He said he’d meet me here.”

The bartender gestured above us. “He rented a room here for the night. Room 201. I believe he’s in the bath right now.”

I backed away from the bar, nonchalantly beginning to head upstairs. “Thanks. I’m gonna go and wait for him.”

“You take care of each other, sir,” the man replied. “Ain’t nowhere safe out there nowadays. Sometimes, a friend is more useful than a gun.”

I agreed. “That they are.”

A WHILE LATER

ROOM 201

Shovin’ my new suit into the temporary wardrobe, I slipped off my shirt and searched for a more casual one to wear while Eddie finished up his bath, the both of us eager to sleep under an actual roof for once.

The manor back at Shady Belle did its job well enough, and I didn’t find myself wakin’ up with as nearly mosquito bites as I did back in Clemens Point, but still. It was nice not havin’ to sleep around a bunch of gators or worry about being jumped by Atticus and his group of maniacs. Instead, I could probably actually get some real sleep tonight, and eat some food before inevitably returning to camp to carry out this insane robbery.

I mean, sure, the plan sounded simple enough. We’d stuff ourselves into some disguises, pretend to be all posh and whatnot, and cheat at the Poker games while simultaneously winning hundreds of dollars. It was child’s play compared to the other robberies we’d done.

But...what if something went awry? What if someone recognized us or found out who we were? What if the law was alerted before we got the money? We’d be trapped on a boat floatin’ in the middle of goddamned nowhere, and on top of that, most of us would be unarmed. I just didn’t think it was worth risking the gang’s safety like this no matter how much cash was sitting in those people’s pockets.

There’d be plenty of time for larceny later. But we'd already pushed our luck far enough. We had to leave Shady Belle. And now.

“Oh!” Eddie’s voice suddenly exclaimed from behind me, makin’ me realize I weren’t alone no more. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were here.”

Whirling around at the unexpected intrusion, I separated myself from the wardrobe and spotted a hilariously red-faced Eddie standing in the doorway as he tried to avert his eyes, clearly a bit embarrassed due to seein’ me shirtless.

“It’s alright,” I reassured with a chortle. “Come on in.”

Slowly walking into the room, the pianist shut the door behind him and awkwardly shuffled towards the bed, having a seat with his back turned to me while I continued to get dressed. I couldn’t lie -- it was amusin’ to see him in such a bashful state. Normally he was pretty well-composed, but...I guessed everyone had their weaknesses. I’d have to walk around without a shirt more often.

“...So,” Eddie said, sounding a bit more relaxed, “did you get a new suit?”

“Yep.” I answered, earnin’ an inquisitive look from him. I rolled my eyes in a playful manner. “Don’t worry...you’ll get to see it in all its glory on the riverboat. Then you can laugh and holler all you want.”

The boy chuckled. “You don’t look as bad in a suit as you think, Arthur. In fact, I’d say you look quite handsome.”

A small but surprisingly flattered smile grew on my face. “Well then, maybe there’s hope for me, after all. But what ‘bout you? Heard you got a nice bath.”

Eddie dragged a hand through his still-wet hair, tidying up the strands. “I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I actually got into the tub. I don’t know how you people do it, traveling in the wilderness for months. I’ve not even been away from civilization for that long and I’m already struggling.”

I grinned at him. “You’ll get used to it. Though, I will admit, it is nice to enjoy these luxuries every once in a while. Gives you a chance to relax.”

He nodded. “That it does.”

Sitting in silence for a few minutes after that, Eddie eventually rose to his feet and wandered next to me, his green eyes admirin’ the view outside our window as the sun began to sink under a purple sky. Despite the chaos we was dealing with right now -- what with fighting Atticus and killin’ Colm -- Eddie still appeared to be somewhat at peace, now that we were back in his hometown.

For the first time in a while...the boy actually looked happy, and the familiar spark I always saw in his expression had finally returned. It made me glad to see him smilin’ again, and part of me wished we would never have to leave this hotel room. ...But I knew better than to dream like that.

Turning to me with a loving glance, Eddie quietly cleared his throat and gazed at the floor, the red tint coming back to his face once again.

“Erm, Arthur...?” He nearly whispered.

I raised a brow at him, curious about the hesitance in his voice. “Yeah?”

The boy began fidgeting with his hands. “...This is...awkward for me to ask, but I was thinking...well, we never truly know how much time we have left with each other, do we?”

The sudden change in tone caught me off-guard and I put all my attention on Eddie, tryin’ to figure out where on earth this was coming from.

“...No,” I admitted somberly. “No, I...guess we don’t.”

The pianist grew even more red. “W-Which is why I was wondering if...perhaps, you’d like to...spend the night with me? I mean, we’re out here by ourselves, and...I-I don’t really know when we’ll get the chance again. The gang’s always moving, and--”

I cut the boy off and grabbed his hand, calmin’ him down.

“Relax, Eddie,” I comforted, chuckling softly. “I’d...I’d like that.”

He looked up at me with surprise. “You would?”

I wrapped my other arm around Eddie and brought him close. “O’ course. Like you said, we might never get another chance. We’re...always runnin’ for our lives, it feels like. Always fighting. Never at peace. Least we can do is reserve one day just for us.”

Seemingly devoid of all his previous self-doubt, the other man took what I said to heart and simply stood there for a moment before suddenly leanin’ forward and pressing his lips against mine, holding onto me as if I would vanish if he let go.

There was a certain passion behind Eddie’s actions -- one I’d never experienced from him before -- and...it made feel...alive. I mean, I wasn’t the best when it came to findin’ the right words, and truth be told: I rarely ever knew how to describe what was going through my mind...but this was different.

Most of the time, I found myself constantly feelin’ as if I was dead already. Day and night, week after week...I always felt more and more like a walking husk. Just a hollow shell about to crack at any moment and unveil the broken man hidin’ inside. There was hardly anything about me that was worth redeeming, and even with Dutch’s plans basically controlling my life, I still had no idea where this road was going.

There always seemed to be some sort of obstacle blockin’ our path, or another tragedy that would cause Dutch’s sanity to deteriorate even further, but with Eddie by my side now, somethin’ just felt like...it had changed.

Like even with the high chance that our gang would most-likely be wiped out before we could reach New York, or Tahiti, or wherever else Dutch had in his sights, that I still had something left to save. That even if everything else went to shit, I could still give Eddie the life he deserved. And God-willing, join him in it.

It was a foolish dream -- and one I doubted I’d ever actually make a reality -- but it was enough to keep me going. The idea alone of possibly makin’ it through this hell on Earth and somehow managing to survive was enough to convince me that it weren’t time to drop dead just yet. Even if it meant I’d end up havin’ to sacrifice everything I had, or abandon the only life I ever knew, I was ready to protect the one person that was keepin’ me alive.

‘Cause I knew I was also the only thing keeping him alive.

Returning Eddie’s affection, I tightened my arms around the pianist and slightly lifted him off the floor before setting him down on the bed, swiftly undoing his shirt as he sank into the mattress below.

Eddie allowed his hands to roam up my back and caressed every muscle he came across, softly pressing his fingers into my skin like a sculptor shaping his project. By now, his face was flushed pink all over again and I could almost feel the warmth radiating off him, but this time, he didn’t seem to care. Instead, the boy only appeared to be lost in bliss, and the further we let ourselves go, the more eager he became.

Yanking his shirt off, I tossed the piece of clothing to the side and exposed his bare chest...only to be met with a sight I wasn’t expecting.

Contrary to the smooth, unscathed complexion I anticipated Eddie to have, I saw a horrifying mess of fresh scars and burns crisscrossin’ each other on his torso, completely taking me by surprise as my jaw dropped in shock.

I hovered a gentle hand above the damaged flesh, unsure of how to react.

“...What...the hell happened to you?” I blurted out, examining the mostly healed wounds. “Did...did Rodrick do this to you?”

Eddie frowned out of guilt and looked away from me, evidently ashamed of the lacerations on his chest.

“...I didn’t want to alarm you,” he explained. “Reverend Swanson patched me up whilst you were still sleeping. I...I asked him not to tell you. ...I’m sorry, Arthur.”

Turnin’ away for a second, I took a deep breath and shook my head in anger, thinking about all the different ways I was gonna murder Rodrick if I ever saw him again.

“...That son-of-a-bitch...” I muttered. “I’ll kill that goddamn maniac--”

“--Arthur,” Eddie hushed, placing a soothing hand on my cheek. “It’s okay. We’ll worry about him later. We’ve got plenty of time to think about Atticus and his gang. For now, though...”

A frisky smirk grew on his lips and I suddenly felt his other hand tuggin’ at the hem of my pants, leadin’ me to let out an amused chuckle once I calmed down.

“You’re right...” I replied, “you’re right. I’m just sorry I couldn’t prevent that from happenin’ to you. I--”

Eddie put a single finger over my mouth, grinning in a fond manner.

“No, no,” he scolded playfully. “None of that. No apologies, no worrying about me, no nothing. Okay? Tomorrow, I promise I’ll let you go back to being an angry, cold-hearted brute. But tonight, you actually enjoy yourself for once, and just take a breather. Alright?”

I beamed at him and threw all my worries about Dutch or Atticus out the window, bendin’ down to place a series of kisses on Eddie’s neck as the night carried on.

A soft laugh escaped me. “As you wish.”

[shadesofjanuaryblues]

Chiberia

Chicago.

 Chicago. One of the greatest cities. THE Windy city.

Also known as Chitown, Chiberia.

I live here. Not directly in the city, but about 30 minutes out west, in the most basic middle class town. It doesn’t fall into the small-town category, but it isn’t a big town either. But basically, you go to the grocery store, and there is a 43% chance of you running into someone you know.

Well, let’s start from the beginning. I’m an immigrant. 

I am pure-breed, one hundred percent Lithuanian. Born and raised. Well, I guess, “halfway” raised. I came here when I had just turned thirteen. Straight into the school-year. Eighth grade.

The middle school I went to wasn’t big. Everyone knew everyone. Obviously there were the popular, the “independent” friend groups, and of course, the not-so-popular. But I’m not here to describe the social pyramid of the American school system.

All you have to know, is that I was placed in an ESL class, which was created to help out students who have a hard time with English. This helped me gain two friends, which gave me a little comfort to go through the school day without having to cry in the bathroom during lunchtime. Hell, I was glad to have someone to borrow a notebook from.

Going back to the whole ESL thing: my family stumbled into the office of the school, merely 2 months after moving here, me having absolutely zero English skills and having not formed any because I was only surrounded by my Lithuanian speaking family, we were told that I was not going to be able to repeat 7th grade, and that I was going to be placed straight into the next school year. Of course, our pale flustered faces were accompanied by my second-hand cousin, who had attended that school as well, earlier on. Anyways, they put me in a class - for immigrants. FANTASTIC resource, don’t you say? Except the biggest problem was that my ESL teacher’s second language was not Lithuanian, it was Spanish.

Now you say, “so many people go through these classes, they learn English, like even you, you’ve been here for, what, eight years already? I can’t even tell that you have an accent!”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heard it all before. Yeah, truthfully that class did help me. Not to learn English, but to complete my homework. That’s it. Meanwhile I was in an English class learning the same stuff as the other eighth graders were. History? A bunch of foreign words and gibberish. Science? Oh man, don’t even get me started. Even PE? CONSTANTLY hearing shit I did not understand. Like pacer test? Do you know how much nerve it took for me to ask a fellow classmate what the fuck that was and how do I do it? To literally make a fool out of myself with my “broken English”? Even math. Slopes, fractions, functions? I had not even heard of those terms when I got there, and in eighth grade they weren’t learning it anymore, they were perfecting it. So many hours spent by my kitchen table crying.

One advantage American kids had, was that they could ask their parents. I couldn’t.

Well, in other words I did, but they didn’t know.

 And the purpose of this whole written rant isn’t for me to shit on Americans. Not at all. It’s for you, the reader to realize or relate to the struggle immigrants have to go through. And many other issues that I’ll cover later, but this would be the first.

 Comes the age 15, I had befriended a fellow Lithuanian, a year earlier, who helped me ENORMOUSLY with my English. Not only the formal language, but the slang as well. This friendship was beneficial to us both, because at this point she had been living there for eight years, and having moved here at an earlier age, her Lithuanian was getting rusty.

Anyways, at 15 I started setting up my first bank deals with my parents. In person I would introduce myself as their daughter, the translator. I was learning new banking terms in English and Lithuanian on a weekly basis. By the phone, I talked on behalf of my mother, I mastered the art of lowering my voice and sounding more formal, knew my mother’s social security number by heart before I had even really looked at mine.

By sixteen I was handling most of my family’s bills, loans, car payments. I was answering most of their formal calls. Later that year my parents opened up a trucking company. With the help of some Lithuanian representatives, and myself, the company was running. I went over all of the contracts that were signed in terms of buying a truck, leasing a trailer, safety and all other regulations (not going to get into detail). Then, I got a temporary job at another trucking company in the summer solely to learn how to dispatch.

I had to learn how to dispatch so I could teach my mother. My mom’s English was still very weak at the time and she was scared to go and learn it herself.

In other words I had no choice. I spend my summer mornings waking up crabby as shit, going upstairs to make phone calls with cocky dudes with egos breaking through the roof. “Illinois to Alabama, one pick, one drop. Potatoes. 750 miles, rate 950”. See at that point I was taught to shoot double, then lower it to the most reasonable price. “Where’s the pickup? Loose potatoes? (Requires a paid wash afterwards, therefore rate should always be higher- waste of money and time), I’ll take it for 1500”, “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa are you out of your mind, where have you even heard of prices like this? 1000, take it or leave it”.

Approximately 70 calls a day with one successful, if it’s a good day. Sometimes I’d be on that computer for over 10 hours.

My mom learned, she started dispatching, things got a bit easier. I only had to handle the “bigger” things. Claims, detentions and other shit like that. Stressful as hell, burned out most of my patience out by the age of 17.

At seventeen, I started rebelling. I wasn’t happy with my life, but I also felt fucking invincible. By then I had earned a bit of social acknowledgement, I guess everyone saw me as the bitch I was portraying myself to be. Reckless and bad as fuck.

Street racing, going 120 on the highway to the city and back, drinking in the forest in the car. Coordinating who’s throwing a party on what weekend, sneaking out and coming home hammered, only to sleep for a few hours and go about my day like nothing ever happened.

This lasted a whole year, shit more than that. I made a lot of good and bad memories, been places I really shouldn’t have been, but I don’t regret any of it. But guess where I ended up on Halloween night the year I turned 18?

Cuffed to the fucking wall at a police station.

Wow.

Who would’ve thought, what a surprise!

 I’m not quite comfortable going into detail in writing, but if you know me then you know the story, and if not, ask me about it in person, I’ll be happy to tell you.

The one thing I want to put on the table is that it wasn’t drug affiliated, and not criminal.

 However, I was facing jail time. But hey, I was lucky enough to get those charges dropped, and that was the biggest lesson I could ever have.

 From that point on, I went to my court dates, reevaluated my life, and started rebuilding. I had to switch schools, which introduced me to new people, ended up cutting some off, and befriending new ones. Graduated, started going to the local community college. I was working the whole time, trying to make spending money, still helping out my parents with all the financial stuff. In college I was undecided, tried out a couple different options, they didn’t seem to work out.

Not this brings up another issue I have with the way society has been built.

HIGHER EDUCATION.

I ended up picking something I felt I had an interest in, and not what my parents thought would be good for me. I enrolled in the architecture program. I was doing great, I was able to keep my focus, I wanted to improve and was eager to learn new things. Finished off the first semester. Through sweat, sleepless nights, and tears – ended up with all A’s. That significantly brought my GPA up.

By the second semester, I was ready. I was excited, because at this point we were actually starting to be able to create. This had to be my favorite part, because I consider myself relatively creative, I constantly have random ideas flowing in my head. It’s kind of like slight madness.

Anyways, when we started, my architecture program coordinator was teaching one of the classes. By that time I had already formed a professional relationship with her, she was very helpful and gave enormously valuable advice. Every project we did, I put my heart and my soul into. There weren’t any major guidelines, yet I kept being told to simplify my work. I kept being told to change it up, almost so I would blend into the other projects hanging up beside mine. I talked to my professor, she complimented my creativity, she said she hasn’t seen this much creativity and thought in a very long time, yet I still had to change it, and simplify it.

I don’t blame her, or anyone, really, but I felt myself get more and more suppressed. I felt like I had to fit into a basic box that’s been designed by someone else. I accepted it, decided to move forward. Life is all about compromise, isn’t it?

But then, in the middle of my somewhat peaceful life…

 ….I found out my mom was having an affair.

 It’s almost like being practically the head of the family, I finally stepped a couple steps down and within a few blinks everything went to shit.

Wow, I can’t even describe you how I felt, truly broken. Like even worse, I felt like family was ripped out of my hands.

I tend to rely heavily on friends and family, and these two really are the only thing that kept me alive throughout all those years. And just like that, it’s gone.

The day I found out, I had been driving to the mall with my mom. I was putting a song on thru her phone, when a text message came in. I recognized the number, I had asked her about it roughly 4 months ago.  She told me it was nothing, just some stupid guy hitting on her, and that she blocked his number. During that car ride, looking out the window I realized that all those evening yoga classes weren’t really even yoga after all. Shit hit me hard. But what I managed to blurt out was “I’m going to pretend I didn’t see this, so that we have one good last day, and I will deal with this tomorrow”.

Fast forward over the next month or so, listening to my mother’s lies, and my dad’s psychosis trying to vent to me, I lost my mind. Actually, this time. I lost it. I dropped out of school after numerous failed attempts to show up. I would park up, get my backpack and tell myself “okay I’m going to go in one minute”, on repeat, until the class ended and I would take my ass back home, shameful and full of hatred. My anxiety and depression peaked at this point. I went to therapy, refused drugs, decided to continue going to therapy until I got somewhat stable. My friends pulled me out of the hole, forcefully, very unpleasantly, but I am eternally grateful for them. Took a very long time to heal, but I healed, I got back up, and I started moving forward.

Shortly after my father found out my mom was having an affair, he switched his life around trying to win her back. I respect him for that, however it didn’t work. The house went on sale. The house got sold. Dad (who is actually my stepdad but has been raising me since I was 3 years old), was moving in with his friend. I didn’t like that friend at all, he was an alcoholic and quite inappropriate at times. Mom? Off with her new husband. Greta with her dog and cat? Choose.

Do I want to live with someone who makes me feel very uncomfortable and is quite unpredictable?

Or do I live with the man who is the reason my family, and my life has fallen apart? Whom I, in fact, fantasized about stabbing at the time?

 I said fuck you to them both. Picked up more hours at my two jobs, with the help of my dad, I rented out a 500 square foot studio apartment. I worked a fuck ton, and I mean it. From one job to another in the same day, back and forth thru the week. Paid my bills, dad helped if I came up a few hundred bucks short. My diet consisted of solely the food I could get at the restaurant I was working at. If I worked there only 4 days that week, that means I was only going to be eating those 4 days, the next three, I’d get off my other job, if the time was right I would visit someone and eat what they gave me, if not I’d literally not eat. Cigarettes were expensive and they were my priority.

Slowly my dad got back on his feet, despite his deep depression that he simply wasn’t able to understand. He started out helping out more and more, at this point I was able to save a few bucks for myself. Those bucks were spent mostly on ramen and bottom shelf wine.

A while later, I got promoted at my job. I started being a manager at the restaurant I was working at, and then slowly went into accounting.

Quit my retail job, and have been relying on shifting from manager to waitress for the past 6 months.

I would go into detail about how difficult it is to be put in a higher position as a 21 year old white woman, working with middle age white men, but that’s just a buzzkill. Everyone knows “white men run this shit” and I have a HUUUGE problem with that, but it’s fine. Not going to worry about it.

  So why, after all this time, this magical city that I’ve seen my best ant my worst moments in, suddenly makes me sick to my stomach? Why can’t I stand being here?

Is it a bad case of (literally all year long) January blues? Is it all the cold and the gray? Is it all the garbage on the streets?

Downtown Chicago is like a painting you hang up on your wall. “Like, wouldn’t it be cool to be there right now?”, or “okay, this is the building I’m going to live in”. Pure fantasy, baby. You drive to your minimum wage job that you hate, you see the Chicago skyline in between the clouds ahead. All it is – a reminder that you probably will not be able to live on the 92nd floor of that building, no matter how hard you try. Some of us will try our best, but we will not achieve great things. Chances are slim, so we definitely should still try, but prepare for the worst. Life is funny, it will never go the way you want it to.

 I type this from my dad’s apartment, which I moved back into, with the hopes of going back to school soon.

  A few more things I want to mention while I’m here:

1.       Value your family, always. No matter how dirty they do you.

2.       It’s okay to hold your life on pause, to fix and reevaluate, as long as you make progress after.

3.       Don’t rush to move out of your parents, you will feel lonely. Like really fucking lonely.

4.       Don’t max out your new credit cards if you don’t want to be paying the bill (I’m currently still working on this)

5.       Yes, these new Nike’s will make you feel like a bad bitch, but you worked 10 hours for this amount of money.

6.       Don’t take a fucking 5 year loan out on a car that doesn’t hold value, shit drops value by the minute. Worst thing to ever invest in.

7.       Treat your friends to lunch, and make sure they feel appreciated, even if it’s Wendy’s 4 for 4.

8.       Last, but not least: don’t fucking litter please.

[crazyclouds5281]

Unnamed Naruto fic part 1

“Alright everybody, listen up!” Umino Iruka called, cutting through the chatter of his students. “First things first, congratulations to all of you for passing the final exam!” The majority of the students cheered. Iruka gave them a moment to bask in their success, smiling gently, before he raised a hand to quiet them down. “Today, I’ll be announcing team assignments! Please listen carefully!”

Uchiha Sasuke scowled. He did not want to be here, and he most definitely did not want to be put on a team with any of these incompetents. He steepled his hands in front of his chin, fingers covering the intense frown the tugged on his lips. Those two fools Yamanaka and Haruno were quietly fighting over who would get to sit on his right side, since on his left was the window. Iruka might not have noticed them, but Sasuke had no choice but to listen to these idiots. Inuzuka’s mutt was yipping excitedly, Nara yawned loudly every five seconds, and Akimichi was crunching on chips at the speed of light, the plastic packaging crinkling between his sausage fingers. All of it served to put Sasuke in an even worse mood than he was usually in.

“Team Seven will consist of Uchiha Sasuke,” Sasuke eyes flicked to the Chunin upon hearing his name, “Haruno Sakura,” cue the screeching and bickering, “And Uzumaki Naruto.” Suddenly, the classroom fell silent. “Your Jounin sensei will be Hatake Kakashi.” Yamanaka was the one to ask the question on everyone’s mind.

“Sensei, who’s Uzumaki Naruto?” she asked. Surprisingly, it was Inuzuka who answered.

“Wait, wasn’t he that annoying bastard who wore orange back in the first year of the Academy? What the hell happened to him?”

Iruka’s smile was a little strained. “Don’t worry about it,” he said simply, then continued what he was doing. “Team Eight will be…”

--------------------------

Two hours. That’s how long Sasuke waited in that room with that damned banshee Haruno, who kept endlessly asking him on dates and trying to talk to him. He completely ignored her, his furious gaze burning a hole into the chalkboard at the front of the room, yet she would not take the hint! If he remained silent for a solid 120 minutes, why did she think he would agree to go on a date with her after the two hour mark? This was supposed to be the smartest kunoichi in their class? Pathetic.

Sasuke was saved from his personal hell when the door opened, and a tall man walked in. He had spiky white hair, his hitai-ate covered his left eye, and a mask covered the rest of his face, save for his right eye. He had an orange book open in one hand, and was dressed in the usual uniform of a Konoha Jounin. The man only glanced up from his book once, eye flickering over him and Haruno at lightning speeds, so fast Sasuke wasn’t sure if he’d actually seen it.

“I’m your sensei, Hatake Kakashi,” the man droned. “Hmm… My first impression of you is… You’re boring. Meet me on the roof.” The man vanished in a blur, an instant before Haruno began yelling at him. Sasuke’s scowl deepened to the point where his facial muscles started to hurt, and he got up out of his seat.

“Sasuke-kun, I don’t think you’re boring,” Haruno said reassuringly, batting her eyelashes in a failed attempt to look pretty. The only reason Sasuke paid her any attention was because she was standing in his way.

“Move,” he commanded, then shoved past her before she could even comprehend his words. He had no patience for her. After these last few hours, spent in only her company, he doubted he ever would. He completely ignored her gasp as she rubbed at the shoulder he’d bumped into, a wide grin on her face. He had more important things to worry about.

--------------------------

There was a boy sitting on the bench when Sasuke and Haruno finally arrived at the roof. He was dressed in beige cargo pants and a gray t-shirt with Konoha’s leaf symbol. He had blond hair, and whisker-like marks on his cheeks. Sasuke scoffed; was this kid a civilian? He didn’t even have a shuriken pouch! Looks like he was in for a rough ride. Hopefully, he’d be promoted to Chunin soon, and be able to leave behind these worthless tools. He plopped himself down across from the blond.

“Um, are you Uzumaki Naruto?” Haruno asked hesitantly, sitting right next to Sasuke, much to chagrin. The boy stared at them with big blue eyes for a moment, before nodding. “Well, I’m Haruno Sakura! We’re gonna be on a team together, so I hope we can become friends!” she said brightly. Uzumaki just stared, as if he didn’t understand what she was saying. Thankfully, before the kunoichi could go on a rampage about him being rude, their Jounin sensei appeared, sitting right in the middle of his students.

“You two sure took your time,” Kakashi said to Sasuke and Haruno. It might’ve been a reprimand, but his bland tone made it sound like he didn’t even care. Sasuke bristled; this man had no right to talk, not after showing up two hours late. Of course, he wouldn’t say anything. Respect for his superiors had been drilled into Sasuke’s head by his father.

Haruno had no such inhibitions. “Us!?” she bellowed, standing up and raising a clenched fist. “You’re the one that’s two hours late!”

Kakashi just waved her off. “I guess the four of us are going to be a team, so we may as well introduce ourselves. Pinkie, you can go first.”

Haruno tilted her head. “What information should I include?” she asked, which was a dumb question. Information was valuable; you only parted with things that were inconsequential, and not even that, if you could help it.

“Oh, you know, your name, what you like, what you dislike, your dream. Simple stuff like that.” Haruno hesitated, and Sasuke wanted to rip his hair out. What part of this was so difficult!?

“Do you think you could go first, Sensei? I’d like an example.”

Kakashi heaved a put-upon sigh, and Sasuke could totally relate. “I suppose. I’m Hatake Kakashi. I like… Things that you aren’t old enough to understand yet. My dislikes… There are a few of those. My hobbies… You kids are still too young for that. My dream… Hm. Anyways, your turn, Pinkie.”

“That hardly told us anything at all!” Haruno screeched. When all three males silently stared at her for a solid five seconds, she deflated. “My name is Haruno Sakura! I like…” She glanced at Sasuke. “My hobbies are…” She glanced at Sasuke. “And my dream is…” This time, she stared at him for a few moments, stars in her eyes and a blush on her cheeks. Sasuke actually wanted to vomit, and had to force himself not to inch away from the pink-haired girl- there just wasn’t enough bench for him to scoot onto. “Oh! And I dislike Ino-pig!” she roared.

A judgmental silence fell upon the group, before Kakashi turned to Sasuke. “Well, I suppose it’s your turn.” Sasuke nodded.

“My name is Uchiha Sasuke.” That was common knowledge, so it was safe to divulge. There wasn’t even a point in trying to keep it secret in this village. “I dislike a lot of things, and I don’t particularly like anything.” Lie. He liked tomatoes, and enjoyed spending time with his mother. “My hobby is training.” A safe answer, one which was common amongst shinobi, and wouldn’t be seen as anything out of the ordinary. It also had the advantage of being true. “My dream…” Sasuke trailed off. There was no point telling these people. His so-called teammates had no right to that knowledge.

Kakashi nodded, and turned to Uzumaki. “Your turn.”

“Uzumaki Naruto. My hobby is training. I like ramen, and I don’t really dislike anything. My dream is to become a skilled shinobi.”

Kakashi nodded. “Right, good talk. Tomorrow, I want you three to meet me on Training Ground Three… Around eight should be good. We’ll be doing a little survival exercise, but I plan on putting you through your paces, so if you don’t wanna throw up, you probably shouldn’t eat breakfast. See you tomorrow!” With a cheerful wave, the Jounin disappeared in a blur of motion, and the three newly-appointed Genin were left alone.

Actually, make that two. Uzumaki had vanished as well.

--------------------------

0800 sharp. Sasuke ambled onto Training Ground Three, which was pretty standard for a Konoha training ground. A clearing with some log posts, surrounded by a forest. Sasuke took a seat at the base of one of the posts, wondering if his sensei would be late today, as well. Perhaps he’d only done that yesterday as a sort of test, to see just how patient his new students could be. After all, infiltration and stealth missions often required laying in wait, sometimes for hours on end, not moving a muscle or even breathing too loudly. Or so Sasuke had been told. A leaf fluttered by on the gentle wind, and Sasuke snatched it out of the air. Might as well occupy himself somehow. He placed the leaf on the back of his hand, using his chakra to make it stick. This was the chakra control exercise he’d learned in the Academy.

For five minutes, Sasuke entertained himself by making the leaf flow across his skin in intricate patterns, until a call shattered his concentration.

“Sasuke-kun~!”

Great.

“Looks like it’s just the two of us, Sasuke-kun,” Haruno said in an attempt to be seductive. “Hey, after this survival exercise is over, do you wanna go on a date-?” And that was when he stopped listening.

--------------------------

Two hours. Again. Sasuke really hoped this wasn’t a habit. Kakashi wandered towards his two students with the speed of a snail, orange book in one hand, and a plastic bag in the other. When he finally came to a stop in front of him and Haruno, the man only glanced up for the barest of moments before returning to his reading.

“Where’s Naruto?” he asked.

“He’s right behind you, Sensei,” Haruno answered, pointing behind the Jounin. Single eye narrowed, the Jounin whirled around, and true to word, there was Uzumaki. He stared up at Kakashi blankly. The blond was wearing clothes similar to yesterday, only with different colors. His shirt was a forest green, and his shorts navy blue. Again, he didn’t have any equipment pouches, or even his hitai-ate.

Kakashi took a step back, looking at the boy warily. “O-kay then,” he muttered. “Well, now that we’re all here, I’ll explain what’s going to happen. Today, you three are going to be taking your Genin Exam!”

Thankfully, Shisui had warned him, and Sasuke knew this was coming, though his cousin had been rather tight-lipped on what he’d be doing for this secondary test. Uzumaki remained silent as ever, but there was no surprise on his face. Someone must’ve tipped him off as well. Obviously, Haruno hadn’t gotten the memo.

“What!? But, we already passed the Academy Exam!” she wailed, trembling at the thought of an exam she hadn’t studied for rigorously.

“Exactly,” Kakashi agreed genially, “The Academy Exam. That was only to prove you weren’t completely worthless. The Genin Exam is different; it’s to determine whether or not you’re ready for the real world. Fail, and you’ll be going back to the Academy for another year. If you fail your second Genin Exam after that, then you’ll be blacklisted, unable to ever become a shinobi within the bounds of Konohagakure. Get it?” Stunned, Haruno could only nod. “Wonderful! So, for your exam, you three will have to get one of these bells.” The man pulled a pair of silver bells from his pouch, jangling them lightly. “You’ll have until noon to do it.” He pulled out an alarm clock now, setting it on top of a rock behind the log posts. He placed his plastic bag down next to it.

“But, Sensei, there’s only two bells, and three of us!” Haruno cried.

“Well spotted, Sakura!” Kakashi complimented. “And the reason for that is simple; only two of you can pass!”

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. This was another part Shisui hadn’t told him about. Sasuke had only ever seen Genin teams with three members, not counting their Jounin sensei. Then again, it wasn’t like he’d seen every single Genin team in Konoha, so he couldn’t say for certain whether Kakashi was lying or not. Actually, Sasuke kinda hoped he wasn’t; at least that way, he’d be sure to be rid of Haruno.

“Ah, maybe I should be a bit more clear,” Kakashi said, seemingly giving hope to the despairing Haruno. “You can only pass if you get a bell. Which means, if none of you get a bell, then none of you pass. If one of you gets a bell, then only they pass. It’s just that only a maximum of two of you can pass. Got it?”

“But, that’s not fair, Kakashi-sensei!” Haruno yelled. “We already graduated from the Academy! Why should we have to do another test!?” Kakashi blinked, as if astounded by her stupidity, before raising an eyebrow.

“It’s not fair?” he asked softly, his tone setting off alarm bells in Sasuke’s head. Haruno, completely oblivious to the rising danger, nodded emphatically.

“Right, it’s not!”

Kakashi closed his orange book, tucking it away. “So, is it fair when the Hokage orders a suicide mission?”

“What?”

He took a step forward, closing half the distance between him and Haruno. “Is it fair when the client gives bad intel, and you find yourself surrounded by A-rank nuke-nin when you were only supposed to take out some lowly bandits?”

“Uh-”

He took another step, looming over the diminutive girl, a menacing aura surrounding him. “Is it fair, when your teammate, the person you thought you could trust with your life, stabs you in the back and leaves you for dead?”

“N-no…” Haruno whispered, thoroughly cowed. The tension blanketing the clearing dispersed, and Kakashi was right back where he was a moment ago, book back in his hand as if nothing had happened.

“I wonder if I should just fail you three right now?” he asked nobody in particular, making Sasuke tense up. If he failed because Haruno was a naive idiot… “Unfortunately for me, I have to follow protocol, or I’ll get written up for sabotaging your careers. How troublesome.”

“Shikaku-san won’t appreciate you using his line,” Uzumaki muttered, the first words he’d ever spoken in Sasuke’s presence. His voice was incredibly soft, so much so that Sasuke nearly had to strain to hear it. Kakashi held up his free hand in half of the traditional pleading gesture.

“Aha, let’s just keep that between us, shall we?” he asked with a nervous chuckle. Uzumaki didn’t respond. “Anyways, I think I’ve wasted enough of your time. Remember, you have ‘till noon- no bell, no pass, and if you don’t come at me with the intent to kill, you will fail. Ready? Start!”

Sasuke rushed into the forest to find a hiding spot, not paying any attention to what his teammates did. They were on their own.

--------------------------

On the one hand, Kakashi just wanted this over with. He didn’t want to be saddled with some stupid, fresh out the Academy Genin. He was actually quite proud of how he’d managed to avoid being stuck as a Jounin sensei for so many years. The Nidaime’s Bell Test was ingenious, since most of these kids were too arrogant, too assured in their skills to even think about working together. The fact that they honestly thought they could take on a Jounin by themself was laughable, and Kakashi always felt a sort of dark glee when he sent those cocky little clowns back to the Academy.

On the other hand, the Sandaime had declared it was time for Naruto to be put on a Genin team with shinobi his age, and so here he was. Speaking of Naruto...

“Aren’t you going to hide?” he asked Naruto. The blond was still standing next to him. Rather than respond, Naruto just held up a red string, which was attached to…

“Eh?” Kakashi looked down at his waist, and found that only one bell was now tied to his hip. He glanced at the bell in Naruto’s hand, then back at his waist, then back at Naruto. “Eh!?”

“...I’m leaving,” Naruto said, turning around and walking off the training ground. Kakashi could only watch, stunned.

“Wait, my bell!”

[kpopkrappykraftbin]

It Wasn’t the First Time

Jun x Reader

Chapter 2

Mild language

Mafia AU

1662 words

Chapters: 1, 2, 3

enjoy its probably crap but that’s okay

Masterlist

    The sight you woke up to was the same one it had been for the past two years: a blank ceiling with a thin long crack traveling from your overhead lamp to above you solitary window. But any ceiling cracked or not was better than no ceiling at all. Your eyes traced their way along the familiar scraggly path. You hated waking up back in your run down apartment, it reminded you of what you’ve had to to do to keep a decrepit roof over your head. You had been raised with morals after all. From an upstanding middle class family; your parents always told you to work for what you wanted; stealing was wrong. Now you stole for work for what you needed. That was a loophole right? Not one your parents would be proud of.

    Staring blankly for a moment before getting up you went to make yourself some coffee, the only fuel your half awake body could take in the morning. You had yet to turn on the room lights, allowing the bit of streaming morning sunlight to filter through as you sipped at your drink. As you held the mug in your hands, you fingered at a chip on the lip of the cup. You had one and a half sets of plate and silverware. Only two plates with one cup and a single  coffee mug. Your employer had paid you fairly well for this last parcel but you never felt comfortable spending it on anything you didn’t actually need. Who needs more plates than people in a lonely apartment. You never had company.

    Inconsistent money was all your job had to offer. A great job you had; no skills you could flaunt to future employers for obvious reasons and no steady income, in fact, you could remember after your first major paycheck, back when you thought the weasel who paid you off might have some kind of loyalty or humanity, you had gone five months without a single message about a job. You had come dangerously close to eviction that time and had learned a valuable lesson: rely on no one. Especially not the tall grease weasel.

    Thinking of him, you glanced at your cheap mobile. His behavior yesterday was off putting-- not that you were worried, but for such a carefree guy, it was odd.

    ‘Stop thinking of the asshole. He’s always been weird. Don’t let him ruin your day off.’ You ignored the pit in your stomach and looked out the window. From your view you could see the street and laundromat you went to when you had to. The neighborhood wasn’t nice but it was clean. This was the place you ended up in after leaving your family for “bigger and better things”. Your parents hadn’t supported or bought into your unrealistic dream, you shouldn’t have either. You left your small town with little opportunities to become a music writer. You had wanted to fulfill your dreams in the big city. So much for striking out on your own to become a capable, successful adult. You were scraping by on stolen goods.

    When you were younger you used to play piano and guitar well. You could carry enough of a tune to not make anyone’s ears bleed and get the melody across. Music writing just seemed right to you. You never wanted a big spot light, but you were creative and knew you had talent. So you moved away from sheltering strict parents to make it big time. Well at least you could say you managed to stay out of the spotlight-- a somewhat important part of you job. You scoffed slightly at the irony. You continued to sip coffee watching the nearly empty street.

    Your phone vibrated on your countertop.

From Weasel: [Be ready in 10 pack only essentials] -- 8:47 am

    Your eyes widened at the message. Be ready? To leave? Why?

    Your employer had never asked anything like this of you. He had also never spoken so straight to the point with you. Even though you were questioning the whole thing, the nerves that tied your stomach in a knot got you moving. You started scrambling to collect essentials like toothpaste and toiletries, stuffing those along with some clothes into a duffel bag. Just as you were looking around to see if there was anything you forgot you looked down at yourself to realize you hadn’t changed out of your sleeping clothes. Quickly going to your closet for one more outfit, you pulled a shirt over your head and shimmied into your pants. Just as you were putting on your second tennis shoe a loud banging came from the other side of your door.

    Suspecting it was the lanky man, you jogged over to hurriedly swing the door open, ready to leave your humble housing. That was not what happened. As soon as you opened the door, a lean tall man pushed his way into your apartment, it took you half a second of staring at him before you recognized him as the weasel you had known for two years, but with blond, almost white hair. Gone was the friendly looking honey brown locks, replaced by a striking new color. You wanted to ask why but it didn’t seem like the best time to talk about his fashion sense. He was tense, you could see his shoulders looking taut and eyes shifting over his surroundings even as he moved into your apartment.

    “Not the front” he spoke in a rushed low mumble looking you in the eyes only briefly before hurriedly walking towards your bedroom. His gait suggested he would much prefer to sprint.

    “What’s going on?” you finally decided to ask. Sure he had kept you in the dark plenty of times before, but never this dark, never for this long. You had never seen him so on edge. You couldn’t find a trace of the man you had been working for for two years. Your break in silence had a much larger affect on him than seemed reasonable. Turning on his heel, the newly blond employer grabbed your shoulders speaking quickly but enunciating every word with clear importance.

    “I’m in danger. You’re in danger. We are leaving. Now.” The serious but almost distressed look he gave you was enough to shut you up. You didn’t trust him, not by a long shot. But this was serious. He was serious. Seeming to have understood your acceptance the man dropped his hands to open the door to your room, stepping around the mess of strewn clothes deftly,he came to your single bedroom window. You stopped just behind him. Ready to follow the crazy man you had known but not for years.

    Looking out the window down towards the alley leading to another more populated street he spoke quickly and clearly over the details he apparently deemed you worthy enough of knowing. “We’re leaving this way, stay close. Once we’re on the street we walk. We’re a normal couple, no one can know anything is wrong. Do you understand? But until we reach 3rd street, we run like bats out of Hell.” He paused briefly before receiving a nod from you. That confirmation being enough for him, he flung the window open.

    His long legs helped him over the window sill but he had to contort his torso to fit through the frame without receiving a concussion. Its right as he steps both feet fully on the fire escape that you hear another set of violent knocks on your apartment door. You paused looking towards the front of your small home. Then wide eyed you look to the informant. This pause is enough to make your employer to grab your arm to rush you over the window sill.

    It was when your first foot made contact with metal platform that gunshots rang out. Having had enough with your “short legs” trouble, your boss roughly grabbed you under the armpits to haul you the rest of the way out. Another couple of gunshots sounded, along with the creak of your apartment door under pressure. Whoever was here wanted in. Badly. As soon as both your feet were under you, you looked up again at your employer. He took it as your sign of being ready to follow.

    He started going down the metal ladders at a dangerously fast speed, not that you could blame him. Pole burn on your hands sounded a lot more pleasant than what the gunshots had to offer. You followed as quickly as you were able. It was when you reached the second floor that you heard a loud splintering you could only guess to be your door being broken. The sound seemed to make the tall man go faster. He dropped from the bottom of the fire escape onto the pavement, crouching only briefly before looking up at you expectantly albeit somewhat exasperatedly, with his arms open.

    ‘Oh hell no do I trust him to catch me’ you protested silently desperately trying to figure out a way to jump without breaking your ankles. Your panic only intensified when you felt vibrations under your feet. Someone else was on the fire escape. Looking up you saw a wide figure coming down the same way you and the informant had. You looked back to the man you couldn’t even claim to know, let alone trust.

    “Trust me or die.” Not the most gentlemanly thing to say, but it got the point across. If you didn’t follow the weasel, he would leave, and you would die.

    You jumped.

    Catching you with some difficulty before quickly letting you stand on your own, the blond started off calling over his shoulder,

    “Like bats out of Hell!”

    And as you took off after him you had to wonder in terror,

    ‘What kind of Hell is this?’

[newstfionline]

José Andrés Fed Puerto Rico, and May Change How Aid Is Given

By Kim Severson, NY Times, Oct. 30, 2017

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico--José Andrés was walking along a dark street in a stained T-shirt and a ball cap, trying to decompress after another day of feeding an island that has been largely without electricity since Hurricane Maria hit a month ago.

He’d gone barely half a block before two women ran over to snag a selfie. A man shouted out his name from a bar running on a generator and offered to buy him a rum sour.

The reaction is more subdued in rural mountain communities like Naguabo, where Mr. Andrés and his crew have been delivering supplies so cooks at a small Pentecostal church can make 5,000 servings of arroz con pollo and carne guisada every day. There, people touch his sleeve and whisper, “Gracias.” They surround him and pray.

“He’s much more than a hero,” said Jesus R. Rivera, who was inside a cigar store watching Mr. Andrés pick out one of his daily smokes. “The situation is that still some people don’t even have food. He is all that is keeping them from starving.”

It’s overwhelming, even for Mr. Andrés, the larger-than-life, Michelin-starred Spanish chef with a prolific, unfiltered social media presence, who got into a legal fight with the Trump Organization after Donald Trump made disparaging comments about Mexicans.

“Every day I have this personal anxiety inside,” Mr. Andrés said during a Jeep ride through the countryside in late October. “We only came here to try to help a few thousand because nobody had a plan to feed Puerto Rico, and we opened the biggest restaurant in the world in a week. That’s how crazy this is.”

Since he hit the ground five days after the hurricane devastated this island of 3.4 million on Sept. 20, he has built a network of kitchens, supply chains and delivery services that as of Monday had served more than 2.2 million warm meals and sandwiches. No other single agency--not the Red Cross, the Salvation Army nor any government entity--has fed more people freshly cooked food since the hurricane, or done it in such a nurturing way.

Mr. Andrés’s effort, by all accounts the largest emergency feeding program ever set up by a group of chefs, has started winding down. But it illustrates in dramatic fashion the rise of chefs as valuable players in a realm traditionally left to more-established aid organizations.

With an ability to network quickly, organize kitchens in difficult circumstances and marshal raw ingredients and equipment, chef-led groups are creating a model for a more agile, local response to catastrophes.

“It’s part of larger trend we’re starting to see with corporations and individuals who are applying their unique skill sets to solve problems after a disaster,” said Bob Ottenhoff, the president and chief executive of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, which helps donors make strategic contributions related to domestic and international emergencies.

In addition to sending money or showing up to hand out blankets or boxes of food, companies like UPS and IBM are designing ways to quickly supply logistical and technical aid.

“Chefs are part of that trend now, too,” Mr. Ottenhoff said. “They’re starting to say, ‘Look, people are in need of not just food but good food, and we know how to serve large quantities of good food very quickly.’”

Kimberly Grant, the chief executive of Mr. André’s Think Food Group, which runs 27 restaurants, put it like this: “Who else can take raw ingredients that are seemingly unassociated and make them into delicious food and do it under extreme pressure?”

Restaurateurs have long offered food when trouble hit their communities.

Kitchens near the World Trade Center in New York served thousands of meals each day to emergency workers after 9/11. In response to the 2004 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, the celebrity chef Cat Cora started Chefs for Humanity. Competition barbecue teams that headed to Joplin, Mo., after the 2011 tornadoes organized themselves into Operation BBQ Relief, a nonprofit group that has since responded to more than 40 disasters.

Two weeks ago, a food writer in Northern California tapped the region’s best chefs to provide a steady stream of meals for people who had lost homes to wildfires. The restaurateur and TV personality Guy Fieri, who had to evacuate his Santa Rosa residence, organized a team of volunteers and began serving mashed potatoes and pork loin to firefighters and others in a parking lot.

Mr. Andrés helped out after Hurricane Sandy, but his first big lesson in emergency food relief came in August, when he rallied local chefs in Houston to help feed survivors of Hurricane Harvey.

Other Houston chefs and caterers started a website called “I Have Food I Need Food” and used social media to create a system to organize donations, cook food and get it delivered. They codified their effort in a manual and send it to chefs in Miami who were staring down Hurricane Irma, which landed 16 days later.

Mr. Andrés went to Houston in part to study how to expand the scope of World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit association of chefs he established in 2011 after helping Haiti earthquake victims a year earlier. The idea was to learn how he and Brian MacNair, World Central Kitchen’s executive director, could add emergency food relief to an agenda that already included building school kitchens, organizing culinary training and offering other forms of support in several countries.

But nothing prepared Mr. Andrés for what he faced in Puerto Rico. After taking one of the first commercial flights to the island after the storm, he realized that things were worse than anyone knew.

He found his friend Jose Enrique, the chef who has been leading Puerto Rico’s farm-to-table resurgence. Mr. Enrique had no electricity to run his Restaurant Jose Enrique, in the Santurce district of San Juan. Rain poured through the roof. But he had food in the freezer. Other chefs did, too. Someone had a generator.

“We decided we would just start cooking,” Mr. Enrique said.

The next morning, Mr. Andrés went to a food distributor and loaded up his car. “I was already smart enough to know I would need aluminum pans, so I bought every aluminum pan I could,” he said.

They began cooking big pots of the classic island stew called sancocho on the street in front of Mr. Enrique’s small restaurant. Word spread and the lines grew. They sent food to people waiting in 10-hour lines at gas stations. They heard that workers at the city’s biggest medical clinic were going hungry, so they added it to what was now a makeshift delivery schedule. “Every day it would just double,” Mr. Enrique said.

Mr. Andrés didn’t realize that his was the biggest hot-food game on the island until a week or so after they started. Someone from the Salvation Army pulled up and asked for 120 meals.

“In my life I never expected the Salvation Army to be asking me for food,” he said. “If one of the biggest NGOs comes to us for food, who is actually going to be feeding Puerto Rico? We are. We are it.”

More cooks arrived to help. Partnerships were forged with other aid groups and large food companies. Sandwiches and fruit were added to their repertory of rice dishes.

The team moved its base of operation to the island’s largest arena. To pay for it all, at least in the beginning, they used Mr. Andrés’s credit cards, or cash from the pockets of the Orvis fly-fishing vest he wore like a battle jacket.

Mr. Andrés left the island only a few times, the first after 11 days on the ground. He had lost 25 pounds and became dehydrated.

His team deployed food trucks, like a strike force, to isolated neighborhoods and towns that needed help. Agents of Homeland Security Investigations, a division of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, were serving as emergency workers, and staying in the same hotel as Mr. Andrés’s crew. The chef persuaded them to load food into their vehicles every morning as they headed out to patrol.

With limited ability to communicate, the crew organized everything with satellite phones, WhatsApp and a big paper map of all the feeding stations on the island, which Mr. Andrés carried like a general at war.

He negotiated with a chain of vocational schools around the island to let culinary students cook there. During visits to his kitchens, 18 in all, he admonished volunteers to add more mayonnaise to sandwiches, keep the temperature up on the pans of rice or serve bigger portions.

The Compass Group, a giant American food-service operation that Mr. Andrés recently partnered with, sent someone who understood what it takes to feed several thousand people at a time.

Mr. Andrés recruited his own chefs, too. David Thomas, accustomed to making $540 suckling pigs as the executive chef at Mr. Andrés’s Bazaar Meat restaurant in Las Vegas, suddenly found himself trying to figure out how to make meals out of donations that might include 5,000 pounds of lunch meat one day and 17 pallets of yogurt the next.

The operation grew so big that at one point you couldn’t find any sliced cheese in all of Puerto Rico. The team had bought it all up for sandwiches.

Eventually, the effort would cost World Central Kitchen about $400,000 a day, paid for by donations from foundations, celebrities and a flood of smaller donors, as well as two Federal Emergency Management Agency contracts--one early on to cover the cost of 140,000 meals, and another for $10 million to cover two weeks’ worth of meals while Mr. Andrés’s team scaled down the operation.

Mr. Andrés, who often rolls right over regulations and ignores the word “no,” clashed more than once with FEMA and other large organizations that have a more-seasoned and methodical approach. In meetings and telephone calls, FEMA officials reminded him that he and his people lacked the experience needed to organize a mass emergency feeding operation, he said.

“We are not perfect, but that doesn’t mean the government is perfect,” Mr. Andrés said. “I am doing it without red tape and 100 meetings.”

FEMA officials contacted for this article were quick to point out that many other groups and agencies besides World Central Kitchen were feeding Puerto Rico; a spokesman would not publicly discuss Mr. Andrés or his operation.

Late last week, the system that was serving more than 130,000 meals a day became much smaller. A core crew will likely keep things going until Thanksgiving, with one main kitchen and a handful in some of the neediest regions.

Mr. Andrés flew home to Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “This has been like my little Vietnam, but now I need to go back to normal life,” he said.

He never intended to stay as long as he did, he said. Or to feed an island.

“At the end, I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try to do what I thought was right,” he said. “We need to think less sometimes and dream less and just make it happen.”

[allenmendezsr]

How To Create An Iphone Or Ipad Apps And Games Succeed In App Store!

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/how-to-create-an-iphone-or-ipad-apps-and-games-succeed-in-app-store/

How To Create An Iphone Or Ipad Apps And Games Succeed In App Store!

 Buy Now

    $ 63,896.21 USD last month?

Looks impressive? I bet it does!

But now, let me tell you the ugly truth.

It looks like I am raking in money now, but the truth is that it was not always like that! Just 6 months ago I was completely struggling. I had no programming skills, no team and no money. The only thing I had was a great desire to create the game of my dreams.

Since childhood, I always had a dream to make it big. I was thinking my game over and over again and again during the sleepless nights, imagining the characters and heroes, levels, gameplay tricks… etc.

Does that sound familiar to you?

To be honest, I am a big fan of the iPhone, so I did not even consider the idea of creating games for anything else but the iPhone or iPad.

But I was missing the main thing – I had no team and no programming skills at all. Even worse – I did not even have a technical education!

Over and over again I have been reading the blogs and reports about the Gold Rush in the Apps Store where small guys like you and me achieved immense success by creating simple but great applications or games!

Did you know that guys from the Top Applications part of the App Store are selling over 35,000 copies a day!

35 thousand!

If you sell your app for $0.99 and get $0.70 from it after all apple commission cuts you are left with pure profit of $24,500 USD per DAY! Well, you can’t live with that but that is a good start, isn’t it 🙂

This thought would not let me sleep well. Of course I did not live in the illusion that I would get on top with my first app but you know me already – I am a kind of guy who always wants to reach the stars!

So my target was to get into the Top100 Apps at least.

Here is what I did. I decided to take it really seriously. First, I bought all the books available in my local Barnes&Noble store and on Amazon as well. Everything from Iphone Development for dummies to the advanced experts-stuff.

Oh boy, that was a real head ache to read all that stuff. It took me about 3 months alone to read all those books.

And you know what?

After I tried to implement the knowledge I was totally disappointed – most of the printed books turned out to be completely outdated. You know it is a long process after you write a book, it goes to the publisher, stays in editing for weeks, then the printing office keeps delaying it again and again. Then you need to distribute it throughout the country to local shops etc.. And the things change so fast. Once iPod was released, next year iPhone, then iPhone3GS, then iPad, then iPhone4, iPad2, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5… the list goes on and on. Things change so fast and these printed books can’t even catch up. Most samples were outdated and never worked for me. What a bummer.

So finally after reading all this crap my head was ready to explode and I decided to take action. My first game was supposed to be the simple “Hidden object” game –you know where you tap the screen to find the hidden objects. I found out that these kind of games are very popular among people and I figured out it is pretty easy to make it – you simply need several images properly cut into layers and a little bit of coding.

Getting a developer account with Apple was pretty easy, so I went ahead and opened it and started the development.

Since I had no one to help and guide me – I guess I spent 3 times longer than average creating it than I actually needed to. In about 2 months of sleepless nights my game was finally ready. The approval process from apple took about a week. This week of waiting was the most frustrating time for me, it felt like time itself stopped… I got so nervous my hands even shook. What if they disapproved of it? I have read tons of horror stories about developers failing because Apple did not accept their game or delayed approval for months. I could not even sleep. I was checking my email and Dev account every minute to see the desired “your App was approved” message from Apple. I was so noxious I even sent 3 followup emails asking apple why it takes so long. Don’t do that guys, I heard you only make the reviewers angry if you display impatience!

Finally I got approved and the sales started! I went to bed dreaming about loads of cash rushing into my pockets.

And can you imagine what happened?

I failed miserably!

The next day, when I checked my sales, I saw the devastating numbers – 16 copies sold. Total net profit: $9 … Well, obviously not the kind of numbers I was expecting…

Next day – 11 copies, then 8 copies, then about 2-3 copies per day during the next week. After 2 weeks my total net profit was around 50 bucks.. Sounds like now I have enough money to invite my girlfriend to McDonalds, right… what an epic failure.

And here is why.

Creating a great app or game is only part of the story. The most important part is how to sell it successfully and get on top of apps store sales. That’s what most developers are missing, failing one after another in their efforts to live their dream. They put all their efforts into the development and miss the most important part – successful marketing! Even the best app can remain totally unknown if you fail to market it properly.

Once I realized this, I decided not to give up. So I spent the next 6 months making the comprehensive market research. I contacted 135 top apple apps and games developers asking for help and advice. As you may expect, 90% of them simply ignored me. But you know I am not kind of guy who gives up easily.

Those 10% who replied gave me knowledge you’d never find in books or on the internet.

I could personally meet some of them and receive the most valuable insider information on how this market works. Oh you can’t imagine how it turned my worldview upside down. Nearly everything I learned before…

…was wrong.

That’s how top developers keep the information from small guys like you and me so they can rake in money, while we can’t even sell 10 copies! Did you know there is a list of elite developers who get fast approvals, premium placing in “What we are playing” and other top ratings & benefits?

All this information is well kept secret from us…

… so no surprise thousands and thousands of new developers who enter the market fail one after another. While you get confused reading and learning hundreds of ways of advertising your app – these guys use only a couple of ways that really work and don’t even waste their time on others…

Where to advertise the app? How to get traffic to the page? Should I order paid reviews or not? Should I create blogs? Do I need to make support forums for my game? Should I make my app free and earn money only by selling Ads inside, or is it better to get rid of ads and sell the app itself? All these questions could leave the newbie developer totally confused and as a result – on the road to total failure in achieving success in the apple store.

Let me tell you this.

Like Tony Robbins once said “Become the best by modeling the best”. Find out what the best developers do and mimic their techniques, use their secrets and tricks and you will become successful. Don’t try to re-invent the wheel. Use what is already working! Don’t spread out efforts on useless stuff that takes up your time but never brings results.

And you know it already – you’ve seen the proof before. Once I started implementing these ideas my sales started to go up and up. Literally, through the roof. Now my girlfriend and I are even thinking on opening our own McDonalds on the franchise next year on a $506,000 investment and 45k/year franchise fee so we can secure my profits in some real offline business. Well.. Ok ..maybe mcdonalds sounds too crazy, but if not McDonalds, I can predict we’ll buy some luxury apartment on the California coast for sure.

But after all that, I still realize that I owe my success to the few generous people among the top developers who decided not to ignore me and help me out by sharing their valuable knowledge with me. Without it, nothing could be possible.

That’s why I decided to gather all my knowledge and resources and put up a comprehensive course on iPhone and iPad development secrets.

My main goal was to make a full multimedia course that I can easily update on a monthly basis instead of writing the boring printed book that will become outdated even before it comes on the store shelf.

Secondly I wanted to make my course really newbie friendly. The arrogant expert authors are so proud of themselves that they don’t even bother to explain the details for people who are just starting out and don’t have any programming knowledge at all. They all assume you are at least expert in C++ before you start learning XCode and other iphone development stuff.

I decided to change this approach completely. You know I had no programming skills at all when I started out so I don’t expect you to know anything about programming. You don’t have to have any technical knowledge. If you can operate your iPhone and basic computer software – that’s all we need to start.

What does that mean to you? Well it means that you won’t have to spend 12 months and tens of thousands of dollars figuring this out like I did. More importantly, it means…

… you can start creating your own app or game today and making money with it tomorrow.

Here is what my course is all about.

During the 4 weeks, I am going to take you by the hand and follow through the whole process of creating your first app or game. I promise – we’ll do it the easy and fun way. No boring theories, no hard core programming, no useless stuff. Only practical information and step by step instructions!

Here is what we are going to cover in the first week.

Like I mentioned before, I don’t expect you to be an expert right of the bat, so first of all we are going to cover the great variety of basic information on how to start and apply yourself in different areas of game and application development: from creating your first “Hello World” application, to developing your first game with Cocos 2d toolkit. Did you know that Cocos 2d is considered one of the easiest ways of creating good Apps and will be the most used toolkit next year?

You will also discover how to create your first web using iWebKit and animated application using Adobe Flash CS5. We’ll also discu ss how to debug your application and get rid of the bugs so you have all the knowledge necessary to dive into more in-depth information over the following weeks. And like I said – it’ll be painless – we’ll do it the easy and fun way.

In Weeks 2&3 you will discover different iPhone development tools starting from simple Xcode to more advanced stuff like Cocos 2d & iWebKit secrets & tricks. Let me warn you – even if this may sound complicated – I put my information, tutorials and samples in such an easily understood manner that you can feel yourself becoming an expert even if you are a total newbie!

We are also going to learn the 2d and 3d editing software for game and app development and some sort of “cheat”-kinds of software & tricks – for those of you who want to use advanced stuff without wasting months on learning it. That’s why I call it “The lazy person’s guide to success” – I just give what you really need and don’t waste your time describing stuff you will never use!

As a result of week 3 you will have your first game or application ready to go!

In the final week we are going to cover the most important part of the story – how to market your game and finally make money by selling it in the App Store. Time to get the money rolling 🙂 Let’s be honest with each other – after all, you want to make good bucks with it, don’t you? I have prepared a lot of good, fresh, updated stuff on how to market your game, and where to get the dirt cheap targeted traffic!

We’ll also cover the most recent trends in game development – what genres are popular now and in the next year, what are the best converting ways to promote the game today and next year.

[dracox-serdriel]

Defenders

I liked Defenders. I should’ve loved Defenders, but I didn’t. I liked it.

Under the cut for spoilers of all episodes of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Defenders.

I understand there are four distinct shows involved here, so a little bit of “WTF” is to be expected. That being said, there are some pretty big problems with the Defenders overall plot.

Plot Issue #1: Who does the Hand bring back?

In Iron Fist, we learn that the hand “rarely” makes arrangements to bring back the dead, but the speaker likely means (it’s hard to tell) that it’s rare for the Hand to bring back an outsider to the organization like Harold Meachum.

I say this because in Daredevil Season 2, the Hand-ninja who Claire kills via shoving him out a window has a Y-incision scar from a previous autopsy, which clearly indicates he had died before. We also see the ninja Nobu - who Elektra incorrectly identifies as “the head” of the Hand in NYC  in Daredevil Season 2 - return being burned alive. And again after having his neck and/or back broken (he was thrown from a roof)... the only time he stayed dead was post-decapitation (thank you, Stick).

While it seems reasonable that a higher-up like Nobu would be given functional immortality, the unnamed Hand-ninja-in-the-morgue suggests that it’s given far more freely than that. Given that one of the biggest points of conflict inside the Hand is Alexandra’s decision to use the last of their “faux-immortal” stew to revive the Black Sky, this seems like an important point. Who does the Hand bring back? How many of their soldiers have this “gift”?

With all the griping over the fact that Alexandra put them all “at risk” by using the last of their stock, you’d think someone (anyone, really), would’ve brought up the fact that the Hand has “wasted” its faux-immortality-goo on others who have been far less helpful (case in point: Harold Meachum).

This isn’t the only question RE: bringing people back. In Daredevil Season 1, Stick kills a boy who was supposedly another Black Sky that Nobu shipped to New York City for “activation.” Stick says he put an “arrow in that thing’s heart.” But clearly, killing a Black Sky doesn’t stop it from being a Black Sky, given that the Hand brought Elektra back to life. So why didn’t they bring the boy Stick killed back to life and make him the Black Sky?

I suppose it could be because the elixir freezes the aging process or doesn’t work on children for one reason or another. Hell, Stick might’ve decapitated the boy or something extreme to prevent that from happening. (But if that’s true, Stick would’ve known that the Hand could bring back Black Skies, and he wouldn’t have so stupidly buried Elektra’s body. Cremation is totally a legit form of burial. There’s no reason Matthew would’ve said no to that, especially if the reason for it was to prevent evil ninjas from desecrating her grave.)

To be honest, I could’ve understood why this point was never addressed in Defenders - except that they made “wasting the last of our serum” a central point of conflict - actually, the sole point of conflict - for our five antagonists. Five antagonists who supposedly have a long history of personal conflict, and two of whom have a very recent history of conflict -- as in, during Iron Fist, they were at loggerheads. There are endless possibilities here, as far as conflict goes. Madam Goa apparently tried to wrest control from Alexandra at some point... but it’s only mentioned in passing, commented on as “the past is the past.” There’s very little in the way of depth here.

Also, everyone keeps bitching that Alexandra brought the Black Sky back to life, yet the Black Sky hasn’t gotten them “closer” to their goals.  Their “goals” meaning digging up a bunch of dragon goo underneath New York City. Why would anyone expect a weapon to succeed at that goal? The Black Sky is a weapon, not a backhoe.

Furthermore, in the span of a few months (six months?), the Black Sky has traveled all over the world (or at least to Cambodia) and killed every member of the Chaste. Except Stick... but that’s only because Alexandra ordered his capture (and let’s face it, he gets taken down, too--just later). The Hand’s only serious enemy - the Chaste - were extinguished thanks solely to the Black Sky. If we’re trying to figure out if the Black Sky is a valuable weapon, that’s the kind of information we should be looking at -- not whether or not she helped dig up dragon goo. Again, weapon -- NOT a backhoe. (For more on this, see Plot Issue #2 and Plot Issue #3.)

Plot Issue #2: If the Hand is so bad-ass, why do they suck so much?

Serious question. The Hand has an enemy organization called the Chaste. We’ve only ever heard of them in the world of Daredevil, and only because of Stick (and Elektra). I understand that the Chaste are skilled, dangerous warriors, most (all???) of whom will kill to stop the Hand. But the Hand are skilled, dangerous warriors, all of whom will kill for their organization, and at a few of (more than likely, many of) whom are functionally immortal.

How is it that the Hand, with all their advantages, has failed to overcome an organization like the Chaste? There’s no reason to suspect that the Chaste get all the naturally skilled fighters in the world - Colleen proves that the Hand has its own recruitment methods, and it’s a lot more subtle than putting a cattle-call for “evil ninjas” or “evil ninja wannabes.” The fact that some - even if only a handful - of their warriors can be resurrected over and over again should’ve given them the edge required to defeat the Chaste a long, long time ago.

But they haven’t. They don’t defeat their strongest enemies until the Black Sky turns up. And even then, they complain that resurrecting Black Sky wasted the last of their reserves. Apparently, wiping out their most dangerous enemy - the only enemy the Hand really had, the only army they were really facing - doesn’t justify that particular expense. Nobody bothers to mention that some of that same reserve was “wasted” on Harold Meachum--you know, the dude who set up Rand Enterprising purchasing a pier for the Hand to facilitate their drug smuggling. I’m sure Harold helped Goa and the Hand set up legit business/money laundering operation through Rand, too, as he served them in secret for many years. But, seriously, come on! Purchasing a pier/money laundering/faux-business deals vs. wiping out the Hand’s only true enemy organization/army? That’s not a tough call. Clearly the Black Sky has done more for the Hand than Harold Meachum. Yet no one speaks  a world about how much of that dragon-goo was wasted on him.

Beyond that, the Hand has certain goals... goals which a bad-ass organization should be able to achieve. They want to return to K’un-Lun, a place from which they were banished, and they want the dragon-goo from under NYC. Why do they fail at both?

In Daredevil, after Elektra and Matthew steal the secret ledger, the lead boss man says that “this operation” has been decades in the works--in planning, starting, and executing. In Season 1, Nobu uses Fisk to acquire property--specifically, the Midland Circle block under which the special dragon goo resides. The Hand covers their activities by putting a building above the giant hole they’re digging and -- my favorite part -- by smuggling the dirt from that hole out via train car. Seriously? It’s New York City. Dirt is everywhere. If the Hand was so bad ass, they would’ve found a more intelligent way to dispose of DIRT than “smuggling” it out of the city via train.

In Defenders, the first episode ends with an earthquake. It’s implied that this happens because Alexandra pushes up the time frame on dragon-goo extraction. As Goa says, “It won’t be quiet.” Apparently, what she really meant was, “There will be an earthquake where an earthquake shouldn’t be!” Still, it begs the question: with all the careful dirt-extraction-and-smuggling going on, WTF were they doing that caused a freaking earthquake?!

Thankfully, the next part of this story makes a bit more sense. They stop digging because they hit “a wall” that they can’t get through. Alexandra quickly identifies “the one thing” that the masters of K’un-Lun value above all else (aka the Iron Fist--why she didn’t just say this out loud? If it was meant to be mysterious, then epic fail.) as the thing that can open the wall. So the Hand decides they need to catch themselves an Iron Fist.

Again, if they’re so bad-ass, then why do they suck so much? Goa and Bakuto both know who Danny Rand is. After the demise of Harold Meachum, the man has (literally) five known associates: Colleen, Joy, Ward, Claire, and Hogarth. Even before the Hand knew they needed the Iron Fist, they knew he was a threat to their enterprises, no matter how small. So why don’t they have someone staking out/watching his associates? There are five of them, and it’s likely that the Hand had people watching Joy and Ward because of their dealings with Rand Enterprises. They have the resources to stake out Colleen (her dojo is still in the same place, guys), Claire (who, again, hasn’t moved and isn’t in hiding), and Hogarth (who might be trickier than the first two because she’s got resources of her own--but nevertheless, she’s also not in hiding).

The Hand frantically searches for Danny Rand starting with episode two... yet Colleen safely works out in her own dojo while the Defenders are under attack at the Royal Dragon. Nobody is there keeping an eye out. Too bad. Had they bothered, then they would’ve had a chance to follow the Defenders to whatever warehouse they went to with a captured Sowande in tow.

I mean, I feel like surveillance is just a basic Smart Thing to do if you happen to have an organization like the Hand--you know, one with resources, power, and people willing to kill (and surely do other unethical things) for you. If you don’t want to kidnap Colleen to use her as bait for the Iron Fist (which, why not? That totally could have worked!), then at the very least, keep an eye on her location. The Iron Fist is bound to go to her (or she to him) eventually. Again, the man has 5 associates. FIVE.

So, they fail epically at getting the Iron Fist. Which blocks their dragon-goo-extraction plan. All because they fail to do a basic Smart Thing that an organization of evil ninjas/criminal masterminds could’ve easily implemented. Again, if they’re so bad-ass, why do they suck so much?

Okay, but that wasn’t their only goal. Right? They also want to go back to K’un-Lun.

In Iron Fist, Bakuto shows Danny a film taken during World War II of an Iron Fist protecting the pass to K’un-Lun from soldiers. Danny watches it and makes no comment about the location, which indicates either that Danny actually has discretion (which, honestly, isn’t that likely), OR that the Iron Fist in the film is protecting the same pass that Danny himself had traveled through (and protected). We don’t know when Bakuto acquired this video, but we do know that the passage to K’un-Lun opens every fifteen years. So if it was open in 1948, then it would likely open again sometime in 1963, and again in 1978, and again in 1993, and again in 2008. (Note: This doesn’t line up with Danny’s entrance into K’un-Lun around 2002 nor his return to NYC in 2017. So clearly the “fifteen years” rule has a bit of leeway to it--unless it’s closer to the “ten year” rule in the comics with about a year of time being open, making it every 11 years or thereabouts.)

My point is, unless Bakuto was telling the truth (unlikely) and only recently acquired this video, he knew the general location of K’un-Lun’s passage opening. If he ever had the goal of returning, why didn’t he have that location staked out? Why didn’t he have a home or disciple living in the general area reporting back to him? Heck, once he had the Iron Fist in his training camp, why didn’t he go straight to the now-unguarded pass and walk right in?

It’s implied that the Hand attacked K’un-Lun sometime at the end of Iron Fist Season 1. Danny spends much of his time in Defenders lamenting his dereliction of duty because everyone in K’un-Lun is dead because he wasn’t there to guard the pass. Of course, he doesn’t know that for sure -- what he saw was that K’un-Lun and its passage simply wasn’t where he left it. And the only dead people they found outside it were soldiers of the Hand. There are tons of reasons for the passage being gone--it’s far more likely that the masters of K’un-Lun closed that passage to earth prematurely to prevent the Hand Ninjas from infiltrating the city... or maybe they’ve closed it forever. Maybe a new passage was created elsewhere in the world.

But whatever did happen, none of the five fingers (Gao, Sowande, Murakami, Bakuto, or Alexandra) managed to get inside. Even though the Iron Fist wasn’t there to guard the entrance.  Again, if they’re so bad-ass, why do they suck so much?

Plot Issue #3: If the Chaste is so bad-ass, why do they suck so much?

It’s possible that the reason that the Chaste manage to persist for so long is that they are, in fact, a deadly army. Maybe they cause real problems for the Hand all over the world... maybe the Chaste really are as bad-ass as Stick says they are.

Trouble is, both Daredevil and Defenders strongly imply that this simply isn’t the case.

For one thing, the Black Sky kills every single member of the Chaste (all over the world), yet the Fingers of the Hand bitch that she hasn’t done enough for them. You’d think eliminating an ancient and actually problematic enemy would be more than enough for them to STFU about it.

For another, in Daredevil Season 2, Elektra says that Nobu is the “head of the snake,” and that taking him down is their best bet to stop the evil ninjas from coming after her/the Black Sky. So does that mean Elektra, one of Stick’s best warriors, is in the dark about who the Hand really is? I suppose she could’ve been lying to Matthew, but given the stakes, that doesn’t seem likely. She honestly thinks that her (their) best bet is to take down Nobu, which makes no sense if she knows about Murakami or any of the other fingers of the Hand.

Even if Stick had a reason fro keeping Elektra (specifically) in the dark, given her inner Black-Sky-ness... then why doesn’t the Chaste know WTF the Hand are doing in New York City? It’s an operation they’ve been planning for decades. And more than that, it’s an operation that is quite ridiculously complex (given the actual goal of digging up dragon goo)--they have funding from criminal enterprises like Gao’s heroin, legitimate business dealings from infiltrating businesses like Rand Enterprises and the Roxxon Corporation. There were undoubtedly others. Which means there were plenty of places to start digging--to start trying to figure out WTF the Hand was doing for decades.

It’s implied that the Chaste have been thwarting the Hand’s attempts to activate a Black Sky for a long, long time. Too bad we know little to nothing about the Black Sky -- for example, how are they identified? If we knew more, it might actually tell us something about the Chaste.

Again, this is one of those things I might’ve been able to let go. Unfortunately, the destruction of the Chaste (their entire army) is part of the Defenders ramping up. It‘s the thing that says, “You four are the only thing that’s gonna save New York City. Ain’t no backup coming.” Conveniently, the only member of the Chaste we know (besides Elektra) survives for most of the Defenders, so we don’t waste time on a new character--but it begs the question... why was Stick singled out? That conveys a level of knowledge/authority that honestly hadn’t been there before. I mean, his connection to Matthew and Elektra was training... he went to these kids and trained them individually. The leader of an organization/army wouldn’t have that luxury. So did he rise through the ranks later? Or was he just so damn scrappy he happened to be the only surviving leader of the Chaste, no matter how low-level he might be?

Thus the conflict: the Chaste was “the army” for the Iron Fist, so their destruction tells the Defenders, our protagonists, that there ain’t no backup comin’, and chances are, anyone who might back you up won’t believe evil, undead/undying ninjas are trying to destroy New York City by extracting dragon goo from under it. Conversely, the Five Fingers of the Hand, our antagonists, simply aren’t impressed by the Black Sky who wiped out their only true enemies--given that they act as if such a weapon was clearly not worth the dragon goo that it took to bring her back! 

So which is it? Are the Chaste actually a problem? If so, why did they complain so much about the Black Sky? If not, then why bother sending the Black Sky after them at all? Why even be worried about the Chaste, if they proved no real threat?

Furthermore, after so long fighting the Hand, why doesn’t the Chaste know anything about them? In Iron Fist, the leader of the Hatchet Men (another organized crime group that had beef with Gao/the Hand stealing their pier), told Ward Meachum a story about one of the Hand’s soldiers--who once had been a farmer, before the Hand brought him back. “They destroy those closest to them first,” the man explained (paraphrased). “All you can do is run.”

Bakuto is much more helpful. He tells Ward that decapitation can do the trick. (Previously, Ward had stabbed his father to death and dumped his body in a lake... unfortunately, Harold spontaneously resurrected in said lake. No dragon goo or ancient device-thingie required!)

Apparently, the rules of the Hand’s resurrections are thus:

It doesn’t stop you from dying--it just brings you back to life.

At least one time, dragon-goo (or something like it) is required.

Post dragon-goo resurrection, the individual will spontaneously regenerate after most deaths... unless their head is cut off. Then the only way for you to live again is MORE dragon goo.

It’s implied that cremating Harold Meachum also prevented him from spontaneously resurrecting. Though I suppose they could’ve also cut his head off before they burnt his body... you know, just in case. (Though it does beg the question--after Fisk said Nobu should be “left to burn”--how did he survive? DID HE SPONTANEOUSLY RESURRECT WHILE STILL ON FIRE?! Sorry, that question required all caps...)

So, we know that the Chaste knew about the faux-immortality thing. Maybe they didn’t know about the beheading (which is reasonable, as given the Hand would have VERY, VERY good reason to keep that kind of thing secret--something only an insider like Bakuto would know)... but surely, someone in the Chaste must’ve WONDERED about how they could resurrect if, let’s say, they took their enemies heads?

I don’t mean just a simple beheading. I mean, cutting off the heads of the Hand ninjas and taking them away--either to be buried or burned or ... whatever. Surely someone in the Chaste thought that this would be effective -- if not to stop them, then to slow them down. Right? What about burning the bodies? Again, this is a reasonable thing to try after killing someone from the Hand. Eventually, the Chaste should’ve known one way or the other if beheading/burning the bodies was an effective way to stop (or slow) the resurrection process.

Again, it’s implied that Stick knows about beheading being an effective means against them at the end of Season 2, when he cuts off Nobu’s head. (He doesn’t take Nobu’s head with him, though. So I guess it’s lucky the Hand was low on dragon-goo... otherwise, Nobu would’ve probably returned...)

It’s also weird that Stick doesn’t behead or cremate Elektra (who is buried under a name known to the Hand). Maybe the Chaste think that the Hand can only resurrect people who have been dead for less than a certain period of time. And Elektra was likely dead for a few days at least, though how they buried her in a legitimate grave with no autopsy is beyond my best guess...

Plot Issue #4: The Architect

Jessica Jones is hired to find John Raymond, the Architect who built the Midland Circle building. You know, the one covering up the giant hole that goes straight down to the dragon goo.

So, this guy -- who has no ties whatsoever to the Hand or the Chaste or anything like that -- is hired to build a building. Great. Then he discovers that nefarious shit is afoot below said building. It’s so nefarious that he stock-piles C4 and makes very specific plans to implode an entire building (a building he designed/built) to stop the nefarity of it all.

To be clear: the Hand is digging to get to a repository of fossils/at least one dragon body. For some reason (never explained), removing the goo of this dragon body (also not explained) will cause the entire city of New York to collapse (again, not explained at all). So, let’s say that John Raymond, all-around good guy, father, and architect, finds out that the Hand (or whoever he thinks they are) are illegally digging/extracting stuff from under the city.

How does a good man get from ���illegal shit happening” to “I’mma gonna blow them up!”

 I suppose it’s possible that he discovered that the Hand believed they were digging up dragon bones/goo and that, in so doing, the entire city of New York would be destroyed. This begs the question: how did he believe any of this crap?

Seriously, digging up dragon bones is one thing--and I can even believe that he’d be concerned that such digging causing geological devastation that would harm New York City. But someone in his position would report something like that to the authorities. There’s no need to BLOW UP A BUILDING to stop them! So why is he doing it? The only answer is that he actually believes that dragon-goo extraction will cause city-wide implosion...

But seriously, WHY? How does a normal guy with no connection to any mysticism believe that a few people digging a hole can sink all of New York City? (Note that the earthquake would be a good reason for him to freak out, but he was collecting explosives before that happened... also, again, he could’ve reported the illegal digging to the authorities rather than trying to blow up a building.)

Final note There is a thing that happens where when people say “New York City” when what they really mean is Manhattan (and only Manhattan). This is one reason why people will say “the five boroughs” instead of NYC--to make sure everyone knows they mean “New York City, as in, you know, all of it.” But it seems to me that the that Manhattan--not NYC/the five boroughs--will sink into the earth post-dragon-goo-extraction. I know this is a (comparatively) small detail, but it bothers me nonetheless.

[kennethmontiveros]

This Marketing Consultant Hit 5x Growth With Landing Pages and an AI-Powered Sidekick

“You’ve got to do more with less.” If you’re running a small business or marketing agency, this isn’t some theoretical paradox or Goblin King riddle—this is actual advice you’ll hear on how to grow your revenue. The fastest way to scale up is to take on more clients and customers. But somehow you have to do that without taking on more expenses or sacrificing on the work you’re already delivering.

Sounds impossible, right?

Maybe not. Conversion Intelligence is helping to level the playing field for small business owners and savvy marketers alike. You might not have the same resources as those bigger, enterprise companies you’re competing with—but you do have access to AI and machine learning tools that can help you deliver higher-converting campaigns with fewer resources.

This is something that Mats Moy, digital marketing consultant and founder of Moy Consulting, knows from experience. For years, Mats has been helping roofing companies generate online leads and become authorities in their local markets. But as a one-man show, he has had to spend a lot of his time juggling multiple different clients and projects, while also being responsible for the marketing of his own business.

Around November 2019 though, everything changed for Mats. (Dun, dun, dunnn.) Since then, he has seen his business grow five times larger with the help of Unbounce landing pages and our AI-powered optimization tool, Smart Traffic. And this level of success is something Mats says he’s still coming to terms with…

I haven’t heard too many people speak about this feeling. Have you seen the meme of Elon Musk watching his spaceship launch? Just to see your baby take off and become what you hoped it would become. That’s the feeling that you get. Personally, it’s been life-changing.

This is how Mats is feeling right about now.

So how did Mats do it? Keep reading to hear more about the lead gen method he used to grow his consultancy, and how he’s been able to keep his operation lean and high-converting with tools like Unbounce.

Lots of Opportunities, But Limited Resources

A single conversion on a roofing landing page can drive anywhere between $6,000 and $10,000 in revenue. That’s a lot of shingles—er, I mean singles!

When Mats first started his marketing consulting business, he immediately saw the benefit of getting his clients to use landing pages. A typical roof replacement will normally run somewhere between $6,000 and $10,000, which makes every PPC ad click incredibly valuable.

Traffic-wise, this is not an industry where you’ll see thousands of hits a day. Roofing clicks are very expensive, right? Your typical paid ads campaign from Google might be like 10 cents, 30 cents, or maybe a dollar for a click. But in roofing, some [in this industry] are paying like 60 bucks or more per click. So it’s quite pricey.

By creating landing pages that targeted specific local keywords (e.g., “affordable roofing in Calgary”), Mats was able to help his clients earn more revenue from their ad spends and dominate their local markets. It was a super-effective strategy—he could test and optimize much faster on landing pages and get higher conversion rates compared to competitors who were still sending traffic to their websites.

But there was a (metaphorical) ceiling that blocked how much Mats could grow this business. He simply couldn’t be everywhere at once, and hiring loads more people wasn’t an option for him at this stage.

What were my resources like? Well, I was by myself. A one-man show doing absolutely everything. And I think I was juggling maybe like four or five clients at a time doing all the work using landing pages. You gotta move really quickly when you’re first starting out.

Mats knew that something had to change if he was ever going to expand his business and grow his revenue. So, he started brainstorming some of the different ways he could generate leads to attract more roofing clients—without giving him a ton of extra work on the side.

Late last year, I set a goal for myself. ‘We’re going to reach X amount of customers.’ And step by step, I set out to make it happen. And it was just bull at that stage, it was just an idea. But then you start working on it and over time you slowly start to see … Whoa, this is working.

A Lead Generation Training Course Powered by Smart Traffic

To attract even more clients, Mats decided to turn his agency model on its head and start teaching roofers how to market for themselves. He figured that if they could use a mouse, they could build a landing page in Unbounce.

I needed a tool that would be easy not just for myself, but also for my clients to use. Because when it comes to roofers with computers… it just scares them. Like someone could barely copy and paste or turn on a computer, but here we are creating Unbounce landing pages!

And because Mats was a part of the Unbounce Partner Program, he was able to offer any roofers who took his training program a 20% discount off their first three months using Unbounce. In exchange, he would earn 20% recurring revenue for every referral.

I launched [the training program] back in November, and that’s been my sole focus. It shows them how to set everything up for their marketing, and that includes using Unbounce landing pages.

It seemed like a super-smart approach for someone as busy as Mats. Rather than get bogged down in the day-to-day management of each new client, he would be able to set them up with the skills, strategies, and tools to be successful online (and then offer his services to help them keep scaling). Like the old adage says, “Give a roofer a fish, and you feed them for a day. But give a roofer a crash course in landing pages, and you feed them for life.”

To get the word out about his new training program, Mats decided to use a series of Facebook Ads that would specifically target roofers. He used long-form storytelling to get their attention, and then routed them to a registration landing page to sign up for more details.

Mats uses long-form storytelling in his Facebook ads to get the attention of roofers.

But Mats wasn’t sending roofers to any old landing page—he was sending them to a landing page powered by Unbounce Smart Traffic. This was key because Mats was still juggling a lot of responsibilities in his role. He had to run the training course and manage his clients, so he didn’t want to be running small-scale A/B tests on his lunch break, too.

What’s the Smart Traffic advantage? Using machine learning, Smart Traffic boosts your conversion rates by automagically sending visitors to the landing page variant that’s most relevant. These split-second routing decisions are more accurate than a human-powered test and eliminate most of the manual hassles—and long wait times—marketers associate with traditional testing. Learn more about how Smart Traffic works here.

Instead, Mats whipped up a bunch of different variants to test new headlines and imagery on the page. Then, he used the Unbounce machine learning algorithm to automatically route visitors to the version they were most likely to convert on. No muss, no fuss.

Some of the different headlines Mats is testing with Smart Traffic. For more testing ideas, check out how to create landing page variants and optimize with AI.

I just leave it up to the AI to do its thing. If you’re really busy, or you don’t have that optimization experience, Smart Traffic will be your new best friend. It’s using machine learning to help you get those better results.

Blowing the Roof Off With 5x Growth in 6 Months

Six months later, Mats has gone from having 15 clients to over 80. And while this type of breakneck growth might have been unsustainable for him before, the lead gen training course has proven to be a reliable source of new leads for his business. He’s netting an 8% conversion rate on the registration landing page and seeing a conversion lift of over 35% with the help of Smart Traffic. (In other words, he’d be getting less than a 6% conversion rate if he were running these variants in a traditional A/B test.)

This has given Mats the confidence to grow his team and bring on four other marketers to assist with Moy Consulting. (Which means he can also finally put away his juggling gloves, because this is no longer a one-man show.)

Clients are happy with the program. I have people raving about it. So they’re seeing leads. It’s unlike anything that’s out there. And that’s the best part, knowing that your success comes from the success of your clients. That’s awesome.

Mats is seeing a conversion lift of over 35% (!!!) with Smart Traffic.

Speaking of client success, Mats is also using Smart Traffic on his clients’ roofing pages too. In some cases, he’s been able to bring the cost-per-lead down from $160 to as low as $40, and get conversion rates as high as 19% (with an incredible 70% lift from Smart Traffic). That’s well above the 2.6% median for the home improvement industry, according to the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report.

You can hear it in my voice… I’m pretty damn proud of some of the metrics that we’ve been able to gather and get from these campaigns.

For marketers still on the fence about Smart Traffic, Mats says he gets it. These are still early days for machine learning and some folks will need more time to shift their mindsets and come around to this new way of optimizing and testing. But as a busy marketer with a lot on his plate, Mats has found a ton of value in his new AI sidekick. Smart Traffic is augmenting his natural marketing skills and running in the background to optimize his campaigns with a speed and accuracy humans can’t match.

Smart traffic has given me back so much time on a day-to-day basis, instead of having to constantly split test different landing pages. Especially since I had so many other tasks on my plate. AI is absolutely the way of the future.

This Marketing Consultant Hit 5x Growth With Landing Pages and an AI-Powered Sidekick published first on http://nickpontemktg.blogspot.com/

[josephkchoi]

This Marketing Consultant Hit 5x Growth With Landing Pages and an AI-Powered Sidekick

“You’ve got to do more with less.” If you’re running a small business or marketing agency, this isn’t some theoretical paradox or Goblin King riddle—this is actual advice you’ll hear on how to grow your revenue. The fastest way to scale up is to take on more clients and customers. But somehow you have to do that without taking on more expenses or sacrificing on the work you’re already delivering.

Sounds impossible, right?

Maybe not. Conversion Intelligence is helping to level the playing field for small business owners and savvy marketers alike. You might not have the same resources as those bigger, enterprise companies you’re competing with—but you do have access to AI and machine learning tools that can help you deliver higher-converting campaigns with fewer resources.

This is something that Mats Moy, digital marketing consultant and founder of Moy Consulting, knows from experience. For years, Mats has been helping roofing companies generate online leads and become authorities in their local markets. But as a one-man show, he has had to spend a lot of his time juggling multiple different clients and projects, while also being responsible for the marketing of his own business.

Around November 2019 though, everything changed for Mats. (Dun, dun, dunnn.) Since then, he has seen his business grow five times larger with the help of Unbounce landing pages and our AI-powered optimization tool, Smart Traffic. And this level of success is something Mats says he’s still coming to terms with…

I haven’t heard too many people speak about this feeling. Have you seen the meme of Elon Musk watching his spaceship launch? Just to see your baby take off and become what you hoped it would become. That’s the feeling that you get. Personally, it���s been life-changing.

This is how Mats is feeling right about now.

So how did Mats do it? Keep reading to hear more about the lead gen method he used to grow his consultancy, and how he’s been able to keep his operation lean and high-converting with tools like Unbounce.

Lots of Opportunities, But Limited Resources

A single conversion on a roofing landing page can drive anywhere between $6,000 and $10,000 in revenue. That’s a lot of shingles—er, I mean singles!

When Mats first started his marketing consulting business, he immediately saw the benefit of getting his clients to use landing pages. A typical roof replacement will normally run somewhere between $6,000 and $10,000, which makes every PPC ad click incredibly valuable.

Traffic-wise, this is not an industry where you’ll see thousands of hits a day. Roofing clicks are very expensive, right? Your typical paid ads campaign from Google might be like 10 cents, 30 cents, or maybe a dollar for a click. But in roofing, some [in this industry] are paying like 60 bucks or more per click. So it’s quite pricey.

By creating landing pages that targeted specific local keywords (e.g., “affordable roofing in Calgary”), Mats was able to help his clients earn more revenue from their ad spends and dominate their local markets. It was a super-effective strategy—he could test and optimize much faster on landing pages and get higher conversion rates compared to competitors who were still sending traffic to their websites.

But there was a (metaphorical) ceiling that blocked how much Mats could grow this business. He simply couldn’t be everywhere at once, and hiring loads more people wasn’t an option for him at this stage.

What were my resources like? Well, I was by myself. A one-man show doing absolutely everything. And I think I was juggling maybe like four or five clients at a time doing all the work using landing pages. You gotta move really quickly when you’re first starting out.

Mats knew that something had to change if he was ever going to expand his business and grow his revenue. So, he started brainstorming some of the different ways he could generate leads to attract more roofing clients—without giving him a ton of extra work on the side.

Late last year, I set a goal for myself. ‘We’re going to reach X amount of customers.’ And step by step, I set out to make it happen. And it was just bull at that stage, it was just an idea. But then you start working on it and over time you slowly start to see … Whoa, this is working.

A Lead Generation Training Course Powered by Smart Traffic

To attract even more clients, Mats decided to turn his agency model on its head and start teaching roofers how to market for themselves. He figured that if they could use a mouse, they could build a landing page in Unbounce.

I needed a tool that would be easy not just for myself, but also for my clients to use. Because when it comes to roofers with computers… it just scares them. Like someone could barely copy and paste or turn on a computer, but here we are creating Unbounce landing pages!

And because Mats was a part of the Unbounce Partner Program, he was able to offer any roofers who took his training program a 20% discount off their first three months using Unbounce. In exchange, he would earn 20% recurring revenue for every referral.

I launched [the training program] back in November, and that’s been my sole focus. It shows them how to set everything up for their marketing, and that includes using Unbounce landing pages.

It seemed like a super-smart approach for someone as busy as Mats. Rather than get bogged down in the day-to-day management of each new client, he would be able to set them up with the skills, strategies, and tools to be successful online (and then offer his services to help them keep scaling). Like the old adage says, “Give a roofer a fish, and you feed them for a day. But give a roofer a crash course in landing pages, and you feed them for life.”

To get the word out about his new training program, Mats decided to use a series of Facebook Ads that would specifically target roofers. He used long-form storytelling to get their attention, and then routed them to a registration landing page to sign up for more details.

Mats uses long-form storytelling in his Facebook ads to get the attention of roofers.

But Mats wasn’t sending roofers to any old landing page—he was sending them to a landing page powered by Unbounce Smart Traffic. This was key because Mats was still juggling a lot of responsibilities in his role. He had to run the training course and manage his clients, so he didn’t want to be running small-scale A/B tests on his lunch break, too.

What’s the Smart Traffic advantage? Using machine learning, Smart Traffic boosts your conversion rates by automagically sending visitors to the landing page variant that’s most relevant. These split-second routing decisions are more accurate than a human-powered test and eliminate most of the manual hassles—and long wait times—marketers associate with traditional testing. Learn more about how Smart Traffic works here.

Instead, Mats whipped up a bunch of different variants to test new headlines and imagery on the page. Then, he used the Unbounce machine learning algorithm to automatically route visitors to the version they were most likely to convert on. No muss, no fuss.

Some of the different headlines Mats is testing with Smart Traffic. For more testing ideas, check out how to create landing page variants and optimize with AI.

I just leave it up to the AI to do its thing. If you’re really busy, or you don’t have that optimization experience, Smart Traffic will be your new best friend. It’s using machine learning to help you get those better results.

Blowing the Roof Off With 5x Growth in 6 Months

Six months later, Mats has gone from having 15 clients to over 80. And while this type of breakneck growth might have been unsustainable for him before, the lead gen training course has proven to be a reliable source of new leads for his business. He’s netting an 8% conversion rate on the registration landing page and seeing a conversion lift of over 35% with the help of Smart Traffic. (In other words, he’d be getting less than a 6% conversion rate if he were running these variants in a traditional A/B test.)

This has given Mats the confidence to grow his team and bring on four other marketers to assist with Moy Consulting. (Which means he can also finally put away his juggling gloves, because this is no longer a one-man show.)

Clients are happy with the program. I have people raving about it. So they’re seeing leads. It’s unlike anything that’s out there. And that’s the best part, knowing that your success comes from the success of your clients. That’s awesome.

Mats is seeing a conversion lift of over 35% (!!!) with Smart Traffic.

Speaking of client success, Mats is also using Smart Traffic on his clients’ roofing pages too. In some cases, he’s been able to bring the cost-per-lead down from $160 to as low as $40, and get conversion rates as high as 19% (with an incredible 70% lift from Smart Traffic). That’s well above the 2.6% median for the home improvement industry, according to the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report.

You can hear it in my voice… I’m pretty damn proud of some of the metrics that we’ve been able to gather and get from these campaigns.

For marketers still on the fence about Smart Traffic, Mats says he gets it. These are still early days for machine learning and some folks will need more time to shift their mindsets and come around to this new way of optimizing and testing. But as a busy marketer with a lot on his plate, Mats has found a ton of value in his new AI sidekick. Smart Traffic is augmenting his natural marketing skills and running in the background to optimize his campaigns with a speed and accuracy humans can’t match.

Smart traffic has given me back so much time on a day-to-day basis, instead of having to constantly split test different landing pages. Especially since I had so many other tasks on my plate. AI is absolutely the way of the future.

This Marketing Consultant Hit 5x Growth With Landing Pages and an AI-Powered Sidekick published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

[itsjessicaisreal]

This Marketing Consultant Hit 5x Growth With Landing Pages and an AI-Powered Sidekick

“You’ve got to do more with less.” If you’re running a small business or marketing agency, this isn’t some theoretical paradox or Goblin King riddle—this is actual advice you’ll hear on how to grow your revenue. The fastest way to scale up is to take on more clients and customers. But somehow you have to do that without taking on more expenses or sacrificing on the work you’re already delivering.

Sounds impossible, right?

Maybe not. Conversion Intelligence is helping to level the playing field for small business owners and savvy marketers alike. You might not have the same resources as those bigger, enterprise companies you’re competing with—but you do have access to AI and machine learning tools that can help you deliver higher-converting campaigns with fewer resources.

This is something that Mats Moy, digital marketing consultant and founder of Moy Consulting, knows from experience. For years, Mats has been helping roofing companies generate online leads and become authorities in their local markets. But as a one-man show, he has had to spend a lot of his time juggling multiple different clients and projects, while also being responsible for the marketing of his own business.

Around November 2019 though, everything changed for Mats. (Dun, dun, dunnn.) Since then, he has seen his business grow five times larger with the help of Unbounce landing pages and our AI-powered optimization tool, Smart Traffic. And this level of success is something Mats says he’s still coming to terms with…

I haven’t heard too many people speak about this feeling. Have you seen the meme of Elon Musk watching his spaceship launch? Just to see your baby take off and become what you hoped it would become. That’s the feeling that you get. Personally, it’s been life-changing.

This is how Mats is feeling right about now.

So how did Mats do it? Keep reading to hear more about the lead gen method he used to grow his consultancy, and how he’s been able to keep his operation lean and high-converting with tools like Unbounce.

Lots of Opportunities, But Limited Resources

A single conversion on a roofing landing page can drive anywhere between $6,000 and $10,000 in revenue. That’s a lot of shingles—er, I mean singles!

When Mats first started his marketing consulting business, he immediately saw the benefit of getting his clients to use landing pages. A typical roof replacement will normally run somewhere between $6,000 and $10,000, which makes every PPC ad click incredibly valuable.

Traffic-wise, this is not an industry where you’ll see thousands of hits a day. Roofing clicks are very expensive, right? Your typical paid ads campaign from Google might be like 10 cents, 30 cents, or maybe a dollar for a click. But in roofing, some [in this industry] are paying like 60 bucks or more per click. So it’s quite pricey.

By creating landing pages that targeted specific local keywords (e.g., “affordable roofing in Calgary”), Mats was able to help his clients earn more revenue from their ad spends and dominate their local markets. It was a super-effective strategy—he could test and optimize much faster on landing pages and get higher conversion rates compared to competitors who were still sending traffic to their websites.

But there was a (metaphorical) ceiling that blocked how much Mats could grow this business. He simply couldn’t be everywhere at once, and hiring loads more people wasn’t an option for him at this stage.

What were my resources like? Well, I was by myself. A one-man show doing absolutely everything. And I think I was juggling maybe like four or five clients at a time doing all the work using landing pages. You gotta move really quickly when you’re first starting out.

Mats knew that something had to change if he was ever going to expand his business and grow his revenue. So, he started brainstorming some of the different ways he could generate leads to attract more roofing clients—without giving him a ton of extra work on the side.

Late last year, I set a goal for myself. ‘We’re going to reach X amount of customers.’ And step by step, I set out to make it happen. And it was just bull at that stage, it was just an idea. But then you start working on it and over time you slowly start to see … Whoa, this is working.

A Lead Generation Training Course Powered by Smart Traffic

To attract even more clients, Mats decided to turn his agency model on its head and start teaching roofers how to market for themselves. He figured that if they could use a mouse, they could build a landing page in Unbounce.

I needed a tool that would be easy not just for myself, but also for my clients to use. Because when it comes to roofers with computers… it just scares them. Like someone could barely copy and paste or turn on a computer, but here we are creating Unbounce landing pages!

And because Mats was a part of the Unbounce Partner Program, he was able to offer any roofers who took his training program a 20% discount off their first three months using Unbounce. In exchange, he would earn 20% recurring revenue for every referral.

I launched [the training program] back in November, and that’s been my sole focus. It shows them how to set everything up for their marketing, and that includes using Unbounce landing pages.

It seemed like a super-smart approach for someone as busy as Mats. Rather than get bogged down in the day-to-day management of each new client, he would be able to set them up with the skills, strategies, and tools to be successful online (and then offer his services to help them keep scaling). Like the old adage says, “Give a roofer a fish, and you feed them for a day. But give a roofer a crash course in landing pages, and you feed them for life.”

To get the word out about his new training program, Mats decided to use a series of Facebook Ads that would specifically target roofers. He used long-form storytelling to get their attention, and then routed them to a registration landing page to sign up for more details.

Mats uses long-form storytelling in his Facebook ads to get the attention of roofers.

But Mats wasn’t sending roofers to any old landing page—he was sending them to a landing page powered by Unbounce Smart Traffic. This was key because Mats was still juggling a lot of responsibilities in his role. He had to run the training course and manage his clients, so he didn’t want to be running small-scale A/B tests on his lunch break, too.

What’s the Smart Traffic advantage? Using machine learning, Smart Traffic boosts your conversion rates by automagically sending visitors to the landing page variant that’s most relevant. These split-second routing decisions are more accurate than a human-powered test and eliminate most of the manual hassles—and long wait times—marketers associate with traditional testing. Learn more about how Smart Traffic works here.

Instead, Mats whipped up a bunch of different variants to test new headlines and imagery on the page. Then, he used the Unbounce machine learning algorithm to automatically route visitors to the version they were most likely to convert on. No muss, no fuss.

Some of the different headlines Mats is testing with Smart Traffic. For more testing ideas, check out how to create landing page variants and optimize with AI.

I just leave it up to the AI to do its thing. If you’re really busy, or you don’t have that optimization experience, Smart Traffic will be your new best friend. It’s using machine learning to help you get those better results.

Blowing the Roof Off With 5x Growth in 6 Months

Six months later, Mats has gone from having 15 clients to over 80. And while this type of breakneck growth might have been unsustainable for him before, the lead gen training course has proven to be a reliable source of new leads for his business. He’s netting an 8% conversion rate on the registration landing page and seeing a conversion lift of over 35% with the help of Smart Traffic. (In other words, he’d be getting less than a 6% conversion rate if he were running these variants in a traditional A/B test.)

This has given Mats the confidence to grow his team and bring on four other marketers to assist with Moy Consulting. (Which means he can also finally put away his juggling gloves, because this is no longer a one-man show.)

Clients are happy with the program. I have people raving about it. So they’re seeing leads. It’s unlike anything that’s out there. And that’s the best part, knowing that your success comes from the success of your clients. That’s awesome.

Mats is seeing a conversion lift of over 35% (!!!) with Smart Traffic.

Speaking of client success, Mats is also using Smart Traffic on his clients’ roofing pages too. In some cases, he’s been able to bring the cost-per-lead down from $160 to as low as $40, and get conversion rates as high as 19% (with an incredible 70% lift from Smart Traffic). That’s well above the 2.6% median for the home improvement industry, according to the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report.

You can hear it in my voice… I’m pretty damn proud of some of the metrics that we’ve been able to gather and get from these campaigns.

For marketers still on the fence about Smart Traffic, Mats says he gets it. These are still early days for machine learning and some folks will need more time to shift their mindsets and come around to this new way of optimizing and testing. But as a busy marketer with a lot on his plate, Mats has found a ton of value in his new AI sidekick. Smart Traffic is augmenting his natural marketing skills and running in the background to optimize his campaigns with a speed and accuracy humans can’t match.

Smart traffic has given me back so much time on a day-to-day basis, instead of having to constantly split test different landing pages. Especially since I had so many other tasks on my plate. AI is absolutely the way of the future.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/landing-pages/smart-traffic-customer-story-moy-consulting/ via http://www.rssmix.com/