#the incredibles dyna guy

[melonthesprigatito]

My idea on who I think would make the PERFECT villain for The Incredibles 3 (not that they're ever going to make one***, this could also just be a fanfic idea)

***EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS WAS WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER 2023, NEARLY A YEAR BEFORE THEY ANNOUNCED INCREDIBLES 3, I WAS A FOOL FOR DOUBTING IT WOULD GET MADE

NaNoWriMo somehow dragged me kicking and screaming back into my The Incredibles hyperfixation that I haven't thought about since 2021. Drafting up a long Tumblr post in my Notes app for a few days totally counts, right? (Probably not but whatever, I am fukcing passionate about The Incredibles lore, I need to ramble)

So, the villains of The Incredibles and Incredibles 2 are both genius inventors with no superpowers who use their technology to fight the heroes. What if, for the third villain, they ditched that idea and had a villain who was a Super?

Who'd be able to fill that role? Would they invent an entirely new character who is a Super? It wouldn't be too farfetched of an idea, they did invent two new Super supervillains in Lego Incredibles, The Anchor Man and Brainfreezer, one with hydrokinesis and the other with.... functionally cryokinesis like Frozone except she controls ice cream. 

But what if... the villain was an already existing Super? That already poses a problem, a majority of the Supers in the present day of The Incredibles are either dead from Syndrome's Omnidroid or an unfortunate cape snag. The only surviving Supers from the pre-Super Ban Glory days are Mr Incredible, Elastigirl and Frozone and possibly Fironic and Plasmabolt (and only because they never showed up in Syndrome's Operation KRONOS database.)

Fironic is pretty ambiguous if he's still alive or not, but Plasmabolt for its practically a 100% chance of survival for a few reasons:

1. Her profile says she keeps her hero and civilian lives strictly separate, so she might have had no desire to go moonlighting as a hero like Mr Incredible did

2. She's a forest park ranger. She probably lives off-grid in a shack in the woods or something. 

3. The way Psycwave, Everseer and Macroburst are killed one after the other, but Plasmabolt isn't counted with them. All four of these Supers were part of a superhero team called The Phantasmics. Mirage probably used their connection to find all of them, maybe Plasmabolt fell out of contact with her old friends.

Plasmabolt herself might have been a good villain candidate, having lost faith in humanity after learning how the National Supers Agency failed to keep track of her old friends, of all the Supers, and didn't notice that Syndrome was picking them all off. 

Buuuuuut she's not the one this post is about. There's another that would probably be an even better villain, mostly because she has a personal tie to one of the main characters.

This is one of the features on the bonus disk of The Incredibles: a full set of character files and audio interviews of most of the Supers (except for Tradewind, Vectress, Blitzerman and Fironic. They didn't get profiles.) 

It's listed in alphabetical order, featuring Apogee, Blazestone, Downburst, Dyna Guy, Elastigirl, Everseer, Frozone, Gamma Jack, Gazerbeam, Hypershock, Macroburst, Meta Man, Mr Incredible, Phylange, Plasmabolt, Psycwave, Stratogale, Splashdown, Stormicide, Thunderhead and Universal Man. 

The one I want to draw attention to is this one. 

(Side note, it’s kinda frustrating that the only way to find images of most of these guys in colour is to look for random comic strips and the freaking Lego game of all things. I’m just gonna link this fan art too because I think it rocks and is probably the best image of her https://www.tumblr.com/pazam/183219465026/no-gadgets-no-gimmicks?source=share)

THIS, is Blazestone, the blorbo- I MEAN, the Super I think would make a great villain in a hypothetical third Incredibles movie. Or a Frozone spinoff movie. Either works. 

I think she'd make a good villain for a number of reasons.

1. SHE'S ALREADY BEEN THE MAIN VILLAIN OF ANOTHER OFFICIAL THE INCREDIBLES STORY. 

Let me highlight something important from her profile. "ARRESTED AND JAILED. RECRUITED BY NSA. WATCH CLOSELY TO ENSURE SHE OPERATES WITHIN NSA GUIDELINES" 

That's right, Blazestone is actually a reformed criminal. This one little detail from her profile is a major plot point in the novel Elastigirl: A Real Stretch.

She was paired with Universal Man as part of her rehabilitation. In the novel, they're constantly arguing, they constantly insult each other. Universal Man is an incredibly strict rule follower and tries to keep her in line. He thinks she'll never make it as a true Super if she doesn't follow the guidelines and acts recklessly ("THESE TWO WOULD BE GREAT IF THEY DON'T KILL EACH OTHER FIRST")

She hates being constantly monitored and forced into teams with other Supers and wishes they'd give her the freedom to do what she wants, as opposed to being constantly badgered into being a better person and following the guidelines

Eventually, Blazestone gets so sick of the National Supers Agency that snaps and decides that the only way she'll be able to do what she wants is to KILL ALL THE OTHER SUPERS SO THERE'S NO ONE TO STOP HER FROM TAKING OVER. 

In fact, her plan involves 

1. Steal a shipment of the ZAP chemical (the novel's McGuffin, a radioactive chemical used as a superpower enhancer that has various effects depending on which Super it's used on. For most of them, it disables their powers entirely, for some it makes their powers malfunction and Apogee is the only Super who's powers are actually enhanced by it.) 

2. Secretly recruiting all the criminals she jailed as her henchmen and breaks them out of jail on the day of the Super Appreciation Day celebrations. These henchmen are disguised as other Supers and blend in with all the other cosplayers entering the Costume Contest. 

3. Attack the Supers Appreciation Day celebration at the pier. Trap EVERY SINGLE SUPER inside a band shell covered by a net that's coated ZAP which basically fucks up all of their powers. She then lifts the band shell off the ground and was heading towards the ocean to drop it in and drown them all.

 (a few pages later)

.... I'm serious, that's what actually happens in the climax. 

Never mind the fact that she's touching the net covered in the chemical that needed to be handled with heavy gloves WITH HER BARE HANDS BECAUSE HER SUPERSUIT HAS SHORT SLEEVES in order to lift the band shell. ...And the fact that she has no super strength so shouldn't have been able to carry the weight of a structure and 20+ Supers.

Blazestone actually mentioned earlier in the novel that ZAP had no effect on her, and while the novel never mentions it, my theory is that Blazestone is the only other Super who's powers are enhanced by ZAP. Apogee was also powered up by ZAP... in small doses but being that close to the netting enhanced her powers too much so she couldn't assist in the climax without incinerating everyone with the power of the sun. Blazestone must have lied about ZAP not having an effect on her to eliminate her as a suspect for the theft of the ZAP. 

ANYWAY, Blazestone went full supervillain and that's the last we heard of her until she showed up dead in Syndrome's Project KRONOS database. Between Supers Appreciation Day and the beginning of the Super Ban, she might have resumed her criminal activities and became part of Municiberg's Rogues Gallery. 

As the Super Ban went into effect she might have been kept in a maximum security facility for a few years until she managed to break out into a world where Supers are in hiding. She might have used her powers to commit smaller robberies to survive, which might have been how Mirage tracked her down..

But wait, she's dead isn't she? So how could she possibly be the main villain of Incredibles 3 if she's dead?

2. SHE'S ONE OF THE FEW SUPERS WHO COULD HAVE PLAUSIBLY SURVIVED THE OMNIDROID BY FAKING HER DEATH.

She's the 6th Super to have been killed by Syndrome, and is probably the Super Syndrome tested the Omnidroid's fireproofing on, hence when it's immune to lava. 

Except.... Blazestone could have been marked as "Terminated" when she really wasn't.

But how, exactly? The model of Omnidroid that killed her was v.X2 (the highest being v.10) so it was a VERY early model. Too early to have all the little issues ironed out. Perhaps there was a flaw that Blazestone exploited that kept her alive. 

There's also Blazestone's powerset.  She has a threat rating of 5.5, which sounds low until you realise that the highest is Gamma Jack with 7.9 Her powers are listed as pyrokinetic discharge, heat control, heat resistance, high agility and flight (by riding on heated air) which is pretty OP by itself but there's one power not listed on the file that Blazestone mentions having.

From the Bonus Disk Audio Interviews: (sped up because she was talking through the entire interview on 2x speed) "Wait what, do you want me to say the whole thing again? I thought I was completely clear, are you- Do you want me to go back again? The whole thing? I don't understand... (back to normal speed because she realised she wasn't in the dimension where people talk really fast, I guess?) "...OH, okay. *laughs* I am so sorry, I know what the problem is! I can't *laughs again* I keep on forgetting which dimension that I'm in! Wait, which... Which dimension am I in?"

From Lego Incredibles: "Wait, which dimension is this? Never mind, I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.”

That's right, apparently Blazestone has the ability to warp herself to other dimensions. And this isn't an out of the blue thing that probably isn't canon either, Incredibles 2 shows off exactly how that power would function.

(Transcript from Incredibles 2)

Escaping by warping to another dimension is a VEEEERY good method of hiding your own body.

Picture this: Blazestone is contacted by Mirage. She's told a lie about the Omnidroid, it's the government's secret project and how it's went rogue. She gets told they looked for her because she's the only Super who defected from the NSA, they need her specifically. If they approached any other Super they might contact the NSA and expose the secret project. So they need her because she won't tattle. 

Blazestone goes to Nomanisan Island and is told to go to Room A113 to wait for instructions. She gets bored and hates being told what to do so goes to explore. She finds the lava waterfall and flies through, only to find Syndrome on his computer looking over his Operation KRONOS files. She realises that they lured her to die, that she's not the first one they called to destroy the robot, they lied to her and now she's trapped. She goes back to Room A113, and while they're unaware that she found out, she starts asking too many questions. 

The Omnidroid x.V2 is sent after her. She's not fighting to disable it for a sum of money, she's fighting for her life. Blazestone is agile, she flies out of reach of the Omnidroid, and hurls fireballs at it as it has no methods of hitting her back. Until it learns to throw its own projectiles at her. It uproots trees, throws rocks etcetera. It gets an unlucky hit in and knocks her to the ground. Suddenly Blazestone realises that it's getting more accurate, it's predicting where she'll fly next. There's no winning against it. They're near the volcano at this point so Blazestone makes a beeline towards it, if she could just reach the lava.... 

She's inside the lava caves, she flies directly over the lava. She's heat resistant. She baits the Omnidroid into throwing one more boulder and allows herself to get knocked into the lava. She's entirely submerged. Syndrome is watching the fight through hidden cameras, waiting for her to emerge, but she doesn't. Syndrome makes a quip about how the lava must have been too hot for even Blazestone to handle and marks her down as terminated. In reality, Blazestone warped to the other dimension the second she went under, tricking them into thinking her body melted away in the lava. 

As for how Syndrome didn't know about her dimensional warping power, the fact that it's not listed on her National Supers Agency file kinda feels like the NSA didn't believe she had that power. She's a former criminal who probably figured that she she'd defect from being a Superhero at some point. If she ended up in a jail cell, she could teleport out of it. If they knew she could teleport they might have found some way to neutralise that power before sending her to jail. So Blazestone kept it a secret in the even that she'd need to escape from some where. 

So Blazestone lives and freaks out about her near death experience. Except... She draws the wrong conclusion about Syndrome. She doesn't know that the government is actually oblivious to the fact that Syndrome is developing a robot strong enough to fight Mr Incredible using Supers as test subjects. She thinks the government is hunting down Supers and killing them with the Omnidroid. 

She goes cold turkey on crime in case the government finds her again, but after all that, a deep resentment and rage bubbles up inside of her. 

Flashforward to after Incredibles 2, when the Super Ban is lifted and the National Supers Agency is re-established and is recruiting Supers again. The details of Project KRONOS are released to the public. Blazestone's rage boils over. 

She hates that the National Supers Agency is up and running to control Supers again like how they suffocated her with their rules and trapped her in a dysfunctional partnership with Universal Man, she hates that ordinary people tried to wipe out Supers when THEY should be in charge. 

Remember in Incredibles 2 when Evelyn mind controlled Mr Incredible, Elastigirl and Frozone and made them forced them to say something into the camera during the public broadcast before they hijacked the hydrofoil to make them look bad?

Yeah, Blazestone ACTUALLY believes that. 

As far as anyone is aware, Blazestone is dead. She might hide her face to make sure nobody figures out it's her. She could target the DevTech/Wannabe Supers (Voyd, Screech, He-Lectrix, Brick, Krushauer and Reflux) and shake their confidence in the Supers Agency or the public's faith in Supers, after all, the Supers Agency let all the old Supers die, they public turned on you years ago, who's to say they won't turn on you again? Look, there's already politicians who disagree with the Super Ban being lifted and want to put heavy restrictions on Super activity. I think she'd be after Voyd specifically because she's an anxiety ridden easily manipulated mess who is also potentially a threat. After all, Voyd's power is portals, and she can follow Blazestone when she dimensional warps...

She rallies a bunch of other young Supers who felt betrayed by the government banning Supers, perhaps she even manipulates a grieving Plasmabolt who's still mourning her teammates' deaths into acting as a mole in the National Supers Agency. She wants Supers to be on top while all the puny normals get subjugated like they deserve.

Baaasically she becomes Pixar Magneto? ... I'm not 100% certain, I'm not all that familiar with X-Men? I just kinda know who he is from watching one movie years ago. I don't know, I suck at writing allegories, I just have the vague idea in my head and I dunno how to put it to paper properly. If I've said something bad or made a bad comparison, I'm sorry. I'm writing this section at 3am.

3. SHE HAS AN EMOTIONAL CONNECTION TO ONE OF THE MAIN CAST.

If The Incredibles was about Mr Incredible and Incredibles 2 was about Elastigirl, who's the third member of their trio who hasn't got a chance to be a protagonist yet? Let's bring up the profiles again, shall we?

Notice anything?

"ONCE PARTNERS WITH FROZONE. BUT RELATIONSHIP RAN HOT AND COLD."

"FORMER PARTNERS WITH BLAZESTONE (ROMANTICALLY?)"

OH SNAP THAT'S RIGHT, FROZONE AND BLAZESTONE USED TO BE PARTNERS. POSSIBLY ROMANTICALLY.

Blazestone was partnered with Frozone first before the NSA shoved her into the Beta Force with Universal Man. This is purely headcanon, but I like to imagine the Frozone/Blazestone team was known as the Alpha Force because Beta comes after Alpha. The sentence "relationship ran hot and cold" aside from being a bad pun, kinda implies that at some point the fluctuation led to them having a huge falling out and splitting their team apart so the NSA could try again with Universal Man.

I found this on Reddit's Tumblr sub and honestly, my thoughts exactly.

Imagine the DRAMA of Frozone finding out that his former "Enemies to lovers to enemies" partner who tried to drown him on Supers Appreciation Day that one time who he thought was dead is suddenly alive again and is currently leading a gang of Supers to attacking people. There could be a deep dive into what their partnership was like, how he reacted to her fall from grace and all the mixed feelings of seeing her alive again in the present day.

Maybe this could finally be the opportunity to show Honey on screen. I mean, she HAS a design now and an entire deleted scene that they cut out because it caused pacing issues

Imagine Frozone lying battered and bruised on the ground from Blazestone fighting him, and Honey runs to his defence. Blazestone mocks her like "What could you possibly do to me? You're powerless!" and then Honey takes her completely by surprise by pulling out a metal baseball bat or some other mundane household weapon and beats the ever loving shit out of her.

Another idea I had that doesn't really fit into any section is the idea of bringing the Deavor siblings back. Winston and Evelyn having a fractured relationship after the events of Incredibles 2. Winston visiting her in jail trying to understand why she'd risk their father's legacy and endangering DevTech by connecting it with the attempted mass murder with a boat. Evelyn snapping back that he never noticed how she was feeling as they grieved for their parent's deaths because he was too focused on thinking that they died because there was no Supers around anymore to save them.

Blazestone kidnapping both of them and forcing Evelyn, the one who hates Supers with her entire being to remake the Screenslaver technology by threatening to burn Winston to death if she doesnt comply. Why does Blazestone need the hypnosis tech? Because she's aware that some of the Supers she recruited might not be 100% loyal and wants to control their minds to keep them in line if she has to. Because she doesn't care at all about any of the other Supers, she just wants to use them for her own gain so that SHE can control the city. Plasmabolt is definitely going to be the one to betray Blazestone in the end. She realises that Everseer, Macroburst and Psycwave wouldn't have wanted her to harm innocent people to avenge their deaths, so she'd fight alongside The Incredibles family, the Wannabe Supers, and Frozone.

Aaaand that's all I have to say, it somehow took me three hours to move all this text from Google Docs to Tumblr and find accompanying images.

Hope you liked my probably badly written sequel idea

[gentaroukisaragi]

I posted 10,607 times in 2022

113 posts created (1%)

10,494 posts reblogged (99%)

^as usually, my k/d ratio was pretty bad

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@wcwit

@virtualherovranger

@neckspike

@pabs-art

@vexx-the-egg

I tagged 1,491 of my posts in 2022

#dont brothers - 222 posts

#biggest forehead in the galaxy - 82 posts

#eeaao - 56 posts

#revolver geatsune - 44 posts

#personal; sort of - 44 posts

#nope - 31 posts

#common sayings - 25 posts

#tunglr calendar - 9 posts

#zed head and the storage gang - 8 posts

#fighting things - 7 posts

^the donbrothers brain rot is so fucking real

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#its gonna be so sad when they read the printed stuff learn theres a whole other series then get disappointed when they consume the original

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

When John mentioned that the place in England was also kinda run down and sad i was like 'wouldnt it be funny if there was another vampire squatting there already?'

13 notes - Posted May 7, 2022

#4

I love when podcast characters look at a flawed system and go 'im gonna fuck that shit up'

14 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

#3

Seein all the talk about the stage show suits made me think of an idea for how to more accurately portray inubrother

[Id: 2 sketchy digital drawings of the idea. Both contain a blue humanoid wearing a puppet/costume of inubrother on their lower half. Inubrother is a large dog head with a small body and noodly limbs that lead to oversized hands and feet. In both images, he holds a vaguely gunshaped object in his right hand with text on it saying: i am not drawin the donblaster.

In the first picture the humanoid is facing the audience, with their right arm lowered and their left arm raised, using the strings attached to inubrother to make him look like hes waving.

The second image is a side profile, with the blue figures right arm raised to make it look like inubrother is shooting.]

15 notes - Posted November 23, 2022

#2

You guys remember that steamed hams meme? I was really into it, and this feels like an incredibly satisfying "ending" to it even tho i only learned of this videos existence today

15 notes - Posted October 30, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

inspired by Flowers's post

caveat: I have not watched Dyna

22 notes - Posted October 30, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[cultfaction]

Markie Post passes away aged 70

Markie Post passes away aged 70

It is Cult Faction’s sad duty to report that Markie Post has passed away at the age of 70 years old after a three-year battle with cancer. The sad news was broken by her long-term manager Ellen Lubin Sanitsky. Her family said in a statement: “Our pride is in who she was in addition to acting; a person who made elaborate cakes for friends, sewed curtains for first apartments and showed us how to…

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

Any particular thoughts on Masayuki Gotoh's Ultraman designs? (Designer of all the Ultras since Zero) I really like his designs, he always manages to make each Ultra stand out and pushes the aesthetic into new territory. Admittedly, sometimes his designs have an awkward translation from concept art to physical suit but they still tend to look pretty good.

ALL Ultras for the past decade and a half?? Every single one???? Well, I assume not counting Shin, but...

Incredible repertoire in that case. One of the biggest complaints I often see for Ultraman is that all the guys look the same and the series all feel the same; and the New Gen series definitely go a long way in trying to disprove that. Most New Gen Ultras I praise as being very distinct designs that still feel like Ultraman in a similar way to recent main Kamen Riders. Even Decker, whose whole thing is being Dyna Again, manages to easily stand out in a crowd. Just great designs all around and his work is consistently good

[dawnbreaks-a]

repost, don’t reblog.

WHICH ARE YOUR 5 FAVORITE SOUNDTRACKS FROM YOUR MUSES’ CANON? IF AN OC, WHICH 5 SOUNDTRACKS TO YOU RELATE TO YOUR MUSE?:

spoiler warning for fire emblem fates! and sorta minor spoilers for swsh’s main story? idk lol but ye be warned

1) Bubbles

we’re starting off w immediate spoilers DHSFDGJF but bubbles is definitely my favourite track of all of them. it’s calming and peaceful and SAD esp considering That One Cutscene after you beat the final boss in birthright (the other two routes don’t have That One Cutscene... if you know you know but it BROKE ME)

if you don’t want spoilers don’t look at the comments on the video pls HDSGFHF

2)  End of All (Sky, Land, Below)

this takes fates’ main theme (lost in thoughts) and fucking runs with it i cannot express in words how much i love this theme it’s beautiful and meaningful, it’s incredibly fitting for the final battle it just screams that this is the climax, that this is the end of your journey in the route

each version uses a different verse from lost in thoughts (hoshido verse for sky, conquest verse for land, revelation verse for below) which provides variety so even the ending song is different and fresh, but each version closes with the chorus of lost in thoughts before looping back to the beginning of the track. it’s just so................ mwah fe14 i love you

3)  Road Taken (Both Versions)

i decided to put both versions here as opposed to regular road taken here and road taken (roar) as the very next one sgfhdf i gotta save space there’s a lot of fe14′s soundtrack that i like lol i just. AAAAAA this music is so GOOD?? for literally no reason intsys how dare y

calm road taken is really beautiful and makes me a bit emotional since this is what plays after you make your choice on who you side with :’D this is my go to track for battles that aren’t main story (since you can choose what track plays) roar never fails to hype me up and i will never, NEVER get tired of hearing it it’s so fuckin neat to listen to esp w headphones

4) Lost in Thoughts (Heirs of Fate)

surprisingly it’s not the og lost in thoughts! but this version has the most emotional impact on me :’D this is azura’s son singing his own version and h..... matt mercer did a great job but what really sold this for me is when he sings the og chorus (starting with ‘you are the ocean’s grey waves’),,,, i’m honestly not sure if rena strober (azura’s va) is a back up singer here bUT IT SURE SOUNDS LIKE IT and the idea that he’s singing w his mom(’s spirit.. it’s a long story just know this is dlc) REALLY hits me in the feels

not to mention the credits (when this plays) shows stills of the kids reuniting with their parents,, kisaragi, m!kana and siegbert’s get me the most, in that order god i’m emo just thinking abt it hsfdshg

i won’t put other versions of lost in thoughts just bc.. i like them all and there’s. a Lot of versions fdhsg

5) Condemnation

this is by far my favourite boss theme (aside from endgame lmao), it’s intense and gets my blood pumping, hyping up the fight so fuckin much. god even the NAMING is fire. shame it’s so short but i love it nonetheless

...................... flora :’(

WHICH IS YOUR FAVOURITE SOUNDTRACK FROM THE PERSON WHO TAGGED YOU?:

NOT ME JUST TAKING THIS MEME FROM MYSELF FDHGSDF buuuuuuut like i said over on dyna, my fav track from swsh is hop’s final battle theme! tho recently i’ve listened to some tracks i haven’t listened to before during my playthrough of shield! some of my favs include:

ballonlea (uuuuuu i love this theme sm.. bede you once again get a pass bc your town is pretty af)

circhester (this one is so calming and prob my fav town theme along w ballonlea! this is where i stand when i’m waiting to join in raid battles online since they take so long hafdshd)

storming rose tower (it so doesn’t fit w what you’re doing but i love this theme; this paired w teaming up w hop is awesome.. love that guy)

freezington (i actually haven’t beaten swsh yet or played the dlc lmao but i heard this theme while watching a crown tundra playthrough and loved it)

TAGGED BY: myself? lmao TAGGING: anyone who hasn’t done this! i’d love to know what your favourite fates theme is :)

[micktaylor]

Cash McQueen is thirty-nine years old, and has lived in Charming for sixteen years. She’s the owner of Mayhem Maidens, and a member of the Wicked Wolves. Her relation with the Devil’s Disciples is maybe a little warmer than advised, but her loyalty to the Wolves is not in question. 

Cory again, here with Cash McQueen, the queen of cash. She’s ready for all sorts of trauma and trouble. Also, this gif. 

WARNINGS: Prostitution, self-destructive behavior, abduction, stabbing, violence. (Canon-typical levels of SoA)

FAST FACTS

Cash’s birth name is Olivia, though only a handful of people in Charming know that, and even fewer get away with using it.

There are messes of blade scars marring her right thigh, breast and side of her torso from an assault that happened in 2004.

Cash’s primary vehicle is a motorcycle, though she’s never been involved in MC life. Despite the fact that she obviously owns nothing resembling a Disciple’s cut, she still also makes a conscious effort to separate herself from the MC by riding a Yamaha R1, a quieter bike than the Harley Dynas and Softails she knows Charming associates with the club.

While generally an equal opportunist when it comes to her bisexuality, Cash can more often be found cuddling up to women over men - all women are appealing, while even great men are frankly still kind of boring to hang out with. For this reason, she’s never yet been known to have a serious male partner or get hung up on a guy.

Cash knows herself well enough to know that the members of the MC will always be “her type” when it comes to sexual attraction. They remind her of the things she liked most about escorting; rough hands on her body, making her feel grimy and used in the most addictive ways possible. So for the entire decade she’s been semi-retired, the ‘semi’ has been in play because she’s continued to make herself available to the MC the entire time. Always paid, always unattached, always to satisfy herself and always on the books with the Wicked Wolves. It’s not enough to outweigh her years of dedication and loyalty to the gang, but it does catch her a few side eyes and questioning comments.

TIMELINE

1998 / age 18: Cash’s friends abandon her after a Beastie Boys concert, and Cash is left asking around the parking lot for a ride two hours south to get back home before the sunrise. She’s offered the ride in exchange for some time in the backseat with the driver, and Cash doesn’t feel violated by the proposition. After she showers and gets into her own bed right before the sun comes up, her only thought about the encounter is - that was easy.

1999 / age 19: Cash has accidentally ended up far from home without a wallet seven times by now. Sex with strangers excites her, and the thrill of realizing the power and value in her own body has become intoxicating.

2000 / age 20: While wandering around having a good time late at night in San Diego, Cash is for the first time approached by a man who calls himself an “agent”. After a couple hours of discussion and working out some details, Cash accepts his gateway into paid escorting.  

2004 / age 24: A client turns out to be into some sick shit, and Cash ends up bound and gagged in a motel room in Charming, hours away from her agent and bleeding out via knife wounds. After years of reckless behavior, it’s the first time she realizes she really doesn’t want to die. Fortunately, the other girl being held and abused in the same room with her works for the Wicked Wolves, and the gang’s local tendrils get them there before torture can turn to murder. Cash accepts the Wolves’ offer of off-the-books medical care to get her stable, the preferable option for everyone over either letting her die there in Charming or having to explain the scene to local first responders.

2007 / age 27: Cash’s been loyal to the Wicked Wolves since they saved her life and patched her up. She had no issue parting from her San Diego ‘agent’, him having been just a street level pimp without gang ties or expectations of loyalty from her.

2010 / age 30: Cash semi-retires from escorting, now practically a senior-citizen in the world of sex work and also tired of having to explain the heavy scarring from the 2004 attack every time she undresses for someone new. She advances through positions of trust and power until landing herself as the owner of Mayhem Maidens.

2017 / age 37: A man getting out of hand at Mayhem takes a low blow on Cash and addresses her as a sweetbutt. Effectively rattled in an incredibly rare moment of weakness, Cash slams his face into the counter three times, causing substantial injury and catching herself an assault charge. She does soft time - just three months in jail and not prison - but it brings more attention on herself and the club than she’s proud of, and the Wolves aren’t happy. Upon release and return to freedom, she vows more self control and has stayed off the radar ever since.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[kessielrg]

[MNo9] Little Sister

aka, I Want Another Little Sister! A Short Complaint Story by Cryosphere

Summary: Something I promised three-some years ago, the backstory for Cryo's 'Little Sister' in Pier Pressure: Ever since Dynatron, Cryo's been craving to have another little sister. After Avi is announced, along with the bombshell that Dr. White may not make any more female Mighty Numbers, Cryo runs away and forms a bond with the oddest of things: an old Cabbage Patch doll.

Rating: K+

Word count: 2,057 words

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Cryosphere could never explain why, but she had always liked the idea of having little sisters. It must have started after Dynatron was finished -the two had hit it off rather well on first impressions- and that helped fuel Cryo's desire for more.

Then Seismic was created. Now, don't get her wrong, Cryo really does love Mighty Number Four and his hugs are bar none. But after his first handful of Battle Colosseum wins, Mic's head started to inflate and his attitude became unbearable. For several months, Mic was not someone Cryo (or anyone else for that matter) wanted to be around; it wasn't until Pryogen's old friend, Troilus, took Seismic down single handedly at what seemed to be a curb-stomp battle in Mic's favor. (And it was, just not for Mic.) After that, Mighty Number Four calmed down a bit and became the best brother to hug in times of hugging emergencies. Cryo liked that, it worked despite Mic not being a girl.

And then Battalion was created. When Doctor White told the Mighty Numbers about Bat's basic theme, Cryo already knew that Mighty Number Five was going to be assigned as a boy. She was annoyed then, the ratio between the two genders were now in favor of the guys; and when you want more sisters than brothers, it will make you incredibly irritable. Cryo wasn't even subtle about her dismay either. She'd tell Dyna, sometimes she'd even tell Pyrogen. But when she got a hold of Doctor White himself? He'd have to force her out of the room -or tell her a lie that seemed to soothe her for the moment- before she would even remotely leave him alone.

Now the Professor was starting to shut himself away from the world again. He always did this when he was about to reveal a new Mighty Number- which means that Cryo always filled up with hope for a new sister.

“The odds are literally 50/50 Cryo.” Pyrogen told her as she paced outside the professor's door, waiting for him to come out with the blueprint for the new Mighty Number. “You need to relax a little.”

“I'm so perfectly 'chill'-ed that I'm getting goosebumps!” Cryo replied with an ecstatic giggle. “Don't tell me to 'cool' off when you're the hot head!”

Mighty Number One let out a small chuckle. “Just don't get too excited this time, you nearly blew one of your cooling regulators last time.”

But Cryo chose to ignore him, deterring the subject by asking, “'Water' you want Pyro?”

“Doesn't matter to me, I'm just glad our family is growing.” Pyrogen decided. “Besides, with current trends, at least one of us at some point will be nonbinary, so it shouldn't matter what the gender OS is.”

“Why do you have to be such a 'wet' blanket?” Cryosphere whined, making the sound of sticking her tongue out at him, despite him not being able to see it from under her helmet.

“Just trying to keep you from 'burning' out.” Number One mused with a smirk. Despite being a pun appreciator, Cryosphere let out a groan of disgust just as Doctor White came out from his private lab.

“What's the news, Professor?” Pyrogen asked his creator, smiling a little. Cyrosphere turned around and gave Doctor White a rather unexpected hug.

“So Professor,” Cyro immediately -and very sweetly- inquired, “Boy or a girl?”

It took the human a moment to realize what Number Two was asking, and with a sigh, he told her.

. . .

There was no other way to describe it: Cryosphere was pissed. And boy, she really didn't want anyone to leave her vacancy without them knowing too. After learning about the situation, Bat and Mic did their best to stay out of her way but Dyna and Pyro remained to try to soothe her.

“It isn't fair!” Cryosphere complained for the umpteenth time. “Why does the Professor have to make only boy Mighty Numbers? What's wrong with girl Numbers, huh?!”

“What izzz that one zzzaying?” Dyna teased. “You get what you get, and you do not throw a fit?”

“Shut up!” she snapped.

“Cryosphere!” Pyrogen snapped back.

“Pyrogen!” replied the irritable second Mighty Number. The two then gave each other a heated glare before Pyro finally said,

“We need to talk. Alone.”

Cryo huffed, but said nothing against it so the two bid Dyna farewell and went to find a place where they could be alone. Number Two huffed the entire way there with her arms folded in annoyance. Pyrogen wasn't falling for it in the slightest.

“Cryosphere, you have no reason to be acting like this.” Pyrogen then proceeded to chastise. “It's fine to be upset, but when are you going to realize that the Professor will design whatever he wants for us Mighty Numbers? Our genders are, for the most part, cosmetic extensions to our main purpose. We're lucky that the Professor is even able to create more of us- isn't that the most important part for you?”

Cryo looked away from her brother before letting out a defiant mumble of, “No...”

“Cryosphere,” Pyro eventually sigh in defeat, “Just… Just grow up.”

Hearing this, the second oldest Mighty Number almost broke down in tears. Of course Pyrogen would never understand he wants and desires- he never asked for anything because he was just so boring in trying to be the perfect role model for all the Mighty Numbers. He didn't know, he wouldn't understand, and knowing that made Cryosphere even more angry. After some time of trying to hold back her frustration and bitterness, Cryosphere looked at Pyrogen to darkly say,

“Now I know why my nickname's Cryo, it's because I Cryo-lot!”

Mighty Number One's expression softened. “Cryosphere, you know that's not true.”

“It is! It is!” the robot insisted before fleeing.

“Cryo!” Pyrogen called after her, but the name fell on deaf ears and Cryosphere ran as far as she could away from her family.

She wasn't even sure how she did it, but Cryo had found herself in the middle of a festival in Darlington, Maryland. It was apparently an annual thing and they made a big deal about apples, or something? Cryo didn't care, she was away from the rest of her family to even worry about whatever autumn rituals humans had. At least she wasn't far from the Susquehanna here, she could go ice skating later. Creating ice flows in active water ways always made Crysosphere feel better.

She then figured, if she was going to be near humans, then she had to remove her helmet, water tank, and replace her nozzles for actual hands before going further in. So that was what she did; her helmet and tank were tossed on the ground and she retracted her nozzles to reform into thin, but still robotic looking, hands with five little fingers. Unfamiliar to the mere idea of fingers, Cryosphere had some humor with hers by wiggling them for awhile before moving onward.

It didn't take much for Cyrosphere to move with the wave of humans. Just like a tide, she moved with them as they pushed and pulled against each other as they moved across the cleared street to gather at various vendor tents. Here and there Cyro would see a fellow robot, but most of them weren't as sophisticated as she was, or the other bots she knew at the Battle Colosseum. They were simple machines, designed to make a disabled human's life easier than anything else- and those were the bots that she disliked the most. If you didn't give them a personality, then why bother making a robot?

Letting out an annoyed huff, Cyrosphere happened to look up as she walked by a vendor tent with vintage Barbies and American Girl dolls on display. She only gave it a quick glance at first, but then she looked again at a doll that didn't look like the others. The little doll was fair skinned, with rooted brown yarn for hair. The vinyl head was slightly squished near the left eye- the paint on the eyes themselves were slightly scratched and worn from many playtimes in the past. There was no denying that the eyes were colored a dark blue though, and that was what Cryosphere found that she was so drawn to. Carefully, Mighty Number 2 picked the doll up off the table and sat down on the ground to look at it further. The doll's body was made of some kind of fabric and stuffed with something super soft and squishy. After a few test pokes, Cryo found herself giving the doll a small hug.

It was nothing like Mic's hugs, but it seemed just as comforting.

That was were Cryosphere remained for a good hour after, up until her family was able to track her down again. The festival goers didn't pay much attention to her as she cooed at the doll, telling it her life story, as many thought that she was the vendor's daughter or something. The vender themselves thought that Cryo was just a lost child waiting for their parents to come back around, so they allowed her to stay there. It's not like she was doing any harm anyway. No one seemed to recognize her as a Mighty Number though. Weird; they must not have cable.

Cryo has been so enraptured by the doll that she didn't even flinch when Dr. White suddenly shouted “Cryosphere!” when he saw her, and instead scaring a few people that happened to be next to him at the time. When he was closer, Dr. White once more snapped, “Mighty Number Two!”

This succeeded in startling Cryo, making her quickly scramble to her feet and declare in shock, “Dr. White!” Her surprise was short lived when she saw that Pyrogen had joined Dr. White, and her sour attitude returned at the reminder of a broken promise that never was.

“What?” Cryosphere snapped. “No Bat?”

“I assure you that he is nearby.” Dr. White affirmed, “He can't be near this large of a concentration of humans. I'm sure you're aware of how easily he'll cause a public panic?”

“Sure, sure.” Number Two huffed before turning her attention back to the doll.

“Crysophere, stop sassing the professor!” Pyrogen snapped. To Dr. White he apologized, “I'm sorry professor, this is all my fault.”

Beyond exasperated at this point, Dr. White rubbed the bridge of his nose before saying, “This isn't your fault Number One. However, I do not see why she expects there to be more female Numbers when she's more trouble than she's worth! Even Number Three wouldn't act like this.”

Cryo flinched at this, absently tracing her fingers through the doll's hair. That was when she had remembered she was holding the old doll and making the quick decision to change the subject by presenting it to her brother and creator.

“This is my little sister.” Cryosphere told them in a matter-of-fact tone. “If you're not going to build any more female Numbers, then let me have this dollie as my sister instead. I won't go back until you say yes professor!”

For a rather long amount of time, Dr. White looked at his creation as if she had suddenly decided to speak a different language.

“How much for the doll?” Dr. White then asked the vendor as he started to get out his wallet.

“Dunno,” the vendor teased, “That Cabbage Patch Kid has been in my family for two generations- it might be worth quite a bit if you ask me.”

Dr. White raised a very unamused eyebrow.

“20 bucks.” the vendor told him.

“Thank you.” the professor agreed, getting out the cash needed. Knowing that she was going to keep the doll, Cryosphere let out an ecstatic squeal as she hugged the doll once more.

“You're all mine now!” she happily said to the doll. “Oh…! I love you so much, my new little sister! I do! I do! I do!”

“Are you happy now?” Pyrogen asked her with his arms crossed. He still wasn't amused with her, but there was little he could do about it now.

Cryosphere didn't answer because she was too preoccupied with the doll. “I'm going to call you Kaberi, Kabi for short! Cryosphere and Kaberi, Cryo and Kabi! Oh, we'd make the perfect team!!”

[kyledefoor]

If you’re into bikes I’ve tagged and mentioned those that you should follow. Those that help me out with bike stuff like maybe I help some of you with shooting and gun stuff. Tap pic of bike for more links. @atomictrent is my go to guy for knowledge and builds incredible FXRs and Dynas made to be abused as well as choppers. He recently built one for one of you (my students). I’ve really been into as stock as possible lately. @teamdyna123 does a great job with this on his FXRs and Dynas. Only mods are what’s needed. “Best handling one I’ve ever ridden “ says and 18 year HD service manager who knows his business. I honestly believe setting them up with all the suspension and handling components when new helps immensely to allow motor mounts, shocks and frame to settle in. I say this because with this bike I’ve never had a wobble, shake or shimmey at high speed in a curve and I do my best to be like @nationallmotors Again- tap pic to see links to who makes what and does it so you can do it better. #defoorproformanceshooting #weridetheharley #defoor #motorcyclesmakeitbetter #kd4 https://www.instagram.com/p/BtqS68cDm9t/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1jxgpa48ex618

[ryuunosenshi]

Gender-neutral costumes never crossed my mind before you mentioned it, but it sounded so very appealing. This was a very great idea. One day, probably after we were old and no more than bones buried beneath the Earth, this dream will become reality. :) Hopefully, we needed not to wait that long for Toei to give us a female Kamen Rider that was here to stay. I wanted Kamen Rider Tsukuyomi. T-T [1/4]

Imagined Zero adopted human form to interact better with Ran and Nao. Do you think he would be confused on which human forms he was going to use? He had too many hosts. There was a possibility that Ran would remember his experiences as Ultra host when he met Zero. Shin Hayata from Ultraman manga experienced the same thing. [2/4]

Yay! You watched Mebius. :D If you were done watching that, I suggested that you watched Ultraman Mebius and Eight Ultra Brothers the movie. That Ultra was the most touching Ultra movies I had ever watched. Though, this probably had something to do with seeing so many old Ultra actors and actresses returning to reprise their roles, both from the Showa and early Heisei-era. [3/4]

I would like gushing over it in detail of how awesome this movie was, but I do not want to give you spoiler. And it best that you watch Tiga, Dyna and Gaia first to experience the euphoria I had when watching this movie anyway. ^^’’ Put this movie on the back of your queue. [4/4]

I forgot this: Gai was such a low-key dork. My favourite scene from Orb was when Alien Babalou showed up disguised as him. He stood at the door, behind everyone; staring at the fake Orb with quiet shock, he dropped his food! That was hilarious.

Come now, xD if gender-neutral hero costumes ever become a thing, I’d like to see them while still alive and not as a ghost xD don’t be so gloomy ^^

I really like Tsukuyomi, it would’ve been amazing if she was a rider as well. Tho I’m actually a bit worried for her, first we had that guy in the Wizard episodes that wouldn’t stop obsessing over his boss even when she was engaged to someone else and in ep 9 we had Dan deciding that Hina be his queen and making her really uncomfortable.... I don’t trust these writers...

Zero actually had a human form! ^^ Tho I guess that depends on how much you consider Stage Shows to be canon. His human form is Moroboshi Shin and is played by three different actors depending on the city the show was performed in; Naoki Kawano, Daisuke Watanabe and Mamoru Miyano. Personally, since it’s his voice actor after all, I consider Mamoru to be his (’true’) human form ^^ (and I would absolutely sell my soul to whatever devil needs it if we could ever see Mamoru play Zero’s human form in a series or movie)

So you’re saying that in meeting Zero again, Ran could start remembering things again? That would be nice, especially if it’s not all at once and he would gradually remember stuff the more time he spends with Zero. And what if the same goes for the other UFZ members if they should ever meet Ran? ^^ For instance, Ran immediately calls Jean-Bot ‘yakitori’ (much to Jean’s frustration) because Ran has some vague memory of Glen calling him that.

YES! I’m so incredibly happy I started watching Mebius! I was actually surprised by how quickly the characters grew on me, usually, I need anywhere up to 10 episodes before I can honestly say if I like or dislike any characters. With Mebius however, at the end of episode 1, I was like; ‘’these are my children and I would literally die for any of them.’’. (Tho with Teppei it might’ve been more because of  bias since I really like his actor)

I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to watch all those other series before I watch the Mebius movie but thanks for the heads-up ^^ But since I really do want to watch those series eventually, is it best to just watch those in chronological order of the years they’ve been released or do you have any other advice on how to best watch them? 

(I’m also downloading Cosmos right now, so I’ll also be able to watch that one at some point in the future ^^)

Oh man, the Alien Babalou episode is one of my favorites in Orb! I actually just had to rewatch that episode again before answering when I read you mentioning it! ^^

[crystalkleure]

ep 37: one of the ones I was waiting for, and found it to be interesting; for the"Demon Baby Quartet" I have nothing new, and Vacation De La Hoya - I made 3 sequels: One True Pairing, The Power Of Love, and Love Boat; as for spoilers, I'd like to hear what goes on with my fave characters (Free, Silas, Wakiya, and Cleo) in the future eps, might miss a few due to vacation (which I leave for in 2 days), and if they appear in s3 (I know Silas does but what about the remaining 75%)

[Ah man, I’m sorry for the late reply – I hope your vacation’s going well, yo!]Ep. 37 was good but I feel like it didn’t really stand out to a lot of people because everyone was still reeling from the traumatic experience that was ep. 36, ahaha…And I’d love to hear about your stories! Those titles sound like a lot of fun dfghjkfs

As far as spoilers go…oh boy:

Free, ah…does a lot. I’m gonna struggle to keep the summary short – He battles Lui like 50 times [just for the hell of it, this isn’t part of a tournament or anything], and loses exactly once. He acts like that’s totally cool and he’s A-OK with it but he actually very very much is NOT okay with it and he’s totally freaking out on the inside; he suddenly goes batshit insane with training [when he’s never really felt the need to train much AT ALL before]. {X} So yeah, since he’s not used to properly working out, he apparently sucks at it. He goes too hard for too long and fucks up his arm/shoulder and that’s the bullshit reason why he doesn’t win Ashram’s tournament lmao. He injured himself by lifting boulders up over his head and ended up not being able to launch his beyblade when he battled Valt. So Free doesn’t technically lose that fight, but he has to forfeit. And, surprisingly, we actually haven’t seen Free again yet in s3, even though both Sisco AND Christina have shown back up at least briefly. jhgfdsdfg I’m mad. Where Is The Vampire, Chouzetsu.

Sisco battles Free again at one point in Ashram’s tournament [before Free cripples himself with the big rocks], and Free kicks his ass in the most condescending way possible fgjhkjkl Sisco was SO MAD and Free just thought it was cute. My description of that scene can’t even do it justice, it was really a visual thing. It was So Good. And while Sisco does return in s3, it’s only for like a quarter of one episode – he battles Valt and loses and that’s it. He’s got a funky new outfit, though; it’s a neon lightning bolt nightmare. I love it.

Wakiya doesn’t do too much, but he does try to keep some interest in the Snake Pit alive – he brings the subject up to Christina at one point, as though he wants to see something done about it. Nothing became of Wakiya’s concerns though, because Ashram disappeared at the end of the season and nobody chased him down or called the cops or anything for some reason. I Do Not Understand. Wakiya also talked to Shuu after Shuu wasn’t brainwashed anymore; Wakiya basically told Shuu that running away like that was Bad And Stupid but also he forgives him without question, ahaha. Wakiya hasn’t shown back up in s3 yet.

Clio is pretty much irrelevant to the plot, but he’s always a hilarious chaos agent to have in the background. At one point Cooza has to battle Norman, and Clio bothers the hell out of Norman to gather intel on him to help Cooza. Norman can’t seem to decide whether to be irritated or amused by the ridiculous vampire child that is following him around. It’s cute. Cooza and Clio get along incredibly well towards the end of the season; Cooza doesn’t seem to be afraid of Clio at all anymore, though he still pretends to be spooked by him, I think? It’s weird. Like, Cooza can go from being Exaggeratedly Uncomfortable around Clio to being perfectly casually calm and friendly with him within seconds. Cooza was even willing to hang out alone with Clio outside at night at one point. They’re good friends by the end of s2. Haven’t seen either of them in s3 so far, though.

So s3 has been a little disappointing in the “RETURN THE OLD CHARACTERS TO ME, BEYBURST” department imo, haha, but it does look like some random people are showing back up briefly every now and then. I hope it picks up the pace and dumps ALL of the older characters on us again all at once sooner or later, hhhhhhhhhh because if the old Main Crew hasn’t even been fully reintroduced at this point [we haven’t seen Wakiya, Dyna, Kensuke, or Boss, and we’ve only BARELY seen Shuu…] I’m starting to lose hope for seeing most of the more minor guys again…………

[wankybookquotes]

THE PRINCESS DIARIST - Carrie Fisher

 Something really incredible happened to me. Something that should've happened a long time ago, but Jesus, I'm just grateful it happened. I mean, it's changed everything. You're probably thinking, oh, she's falling in love, or she's found God, or the IRA, or whatever. But it's nothing like that. Although in a way it's like all of those things because it's a kind of revolutionary deep emotional religious experience. And yet not like that at all. I suppose I should just tell you exactly what happened and let it speak for itself.

I was sitting by myself the other night doing the usual things one does when spending time alone with yourselves. You know, making mountains out of molehills, hiking up to the top of the mountains, having a Hostess Twinkie and then throwing myself off the mountain. Stuff like that. Anyway, I'd done this... oh, 4, maybe 5... we'll call it an even 19 times. I was just about ready to start construction on my 20th molehill when I suddenly thought I head someone playing a polka outside my window.

I later discovered that it was a recording of Ray Conniff jamming live at the Troubadour with Led Zeppelin. It was early Ray Conniff, before he got really commercial. When he was still really mellow and innovative and... Well, when his music got inside you, you know what I mean? You remember the days when everyone would rush home from school, grab some Fritos and Ripple Wine, put on their favourite Ray Conniff album and just unwind. And finding out when his new album was coming out and rushing down to Discount Records, hoping that they've not sold out.

I know one guy who actually saw a Ray Conniff concert, before he stopped giving them because the girls would scream so loud that you couldn't hear his music. But this guy was close and could hear pretty well and he was just... Well, completely blown away. I mean, he said it was so fucking moving, you know? He said that Ray Conniff, and I do not make this up, he said that Ray Conniff was the most real person, the most together person, he'd ever seen. And this guy's been around and met them all - yes, including Mantovani - and yet Ray Conniff was the one person whose mere presence and even merer music moved him profoundly.

Anyway, all this has nothing to do with my experience really, except I think it is somehow ironic that I should be sitting there and suddenly hear this incredible music that had meant so much to me. So I stopped work on my molehill and went to the window to see where this music was coming from. Suddenly I noticed a light in the distance that seemed to be coming towards me. As it grew closer I could see the light was coming from a fire. I look back on this and find it really strange and sort of eerie, but at the time I thought nothing of it. It was almost 5 feet in front of me when I realized I was looking at a man sitting on a flaming pie. He smiled serenely at me - or maybe he coughed violently - but whatever it was, it was mystical. Almost embarrassingly mystical, if you know what I mean.

The man must have noticed me blushing because he offered me a rainbow trout and enough money to finish my payments on my new Dyna-Gym. My eyes filled with tears and he leaned over and wiped my eyes with the trout and then said, "You needn't ever make mountains out of molehills again. You have misjudged yourself. You are not who you think you are. You have been examining yourself from the wrong end of the telescope, one might say. You can set up housekeeping on one side of the looking glass or the other - the side that makes big things small or small things big; I like to hang out on the big things small side, you meet a better class of people there. But of late, you haven't been able to see yourself clearly. You see, my dear, you are not Carrie Fisher at all. They just told you that to test you. Well, now, my dear, the test is over, and I'm pleased to say you pass with a C-. Now you can graduate to your true identity. You see, my dear, you are really Mr. Ed. And you have been all along. You can now live out your life as who you were intended to be. Farewell."

As I watched him disappear on his flaming pie, I suddenly noticed the rainbow trout smiling at me from the windowsill where the mystical pie man had left him. I started to ask if I could get him something - a drink, or some bait - when he suddenly let out a shrill laugh, as only a fish can do. I politely asked him what was so funny and he said, "You. So you're Mr. Ed. Old horse face with the dumb jokes. No wonder you got canceled." Then he laughed again and continued laughing until he fell off the window-sill and into the street below.

He lay in the street the entire night screaming with laughter and then suddenly the laughing stopped. I don't know what happened to him. Although recently someone was talking about the sequel Don Knotts was doing to The Incredible Mr. Limpet (The Incredible Mr. Limpet Two) and they were describing the fish that had the lead opposite Knotts, and it could only have been my rainbow trout.

Mystical, huh?

[olivereliott]

Fighting Talk: Harley design boss Brad Richards

Harley-Davidson is under a microscope right now: its every move is dissected, examined and critiqued.

And there have been plenty of moves lately. They’ve killed the Dyna while relaunching the Softail. They’ve announced a barrage of new models, including the Livewire. But although revenue is holding up at the moment, sales figures have been declining for several years—and were down 10% in 2018.

It’s a challenging time for the Motor Company. So I sat down in Milwaukee with Harley’s VP of Styling and Design, Brad Richards, to ask how they’re going to fix this. Harley’s PR lead Joe Gustafson joined us too, and both were raring to go.

Bike EXIF: There’s a lot of pressure on Harley-Davidson right now. People expect every new bike the company releases to be ‘the’ bike to turn things around.

Brad: It’s so funny that you should say that. It’s as if you’re the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, and your entire library was forgotten before whatever single you’re putting out. That’s what you’re judged on—the latest track.

You really think that we’re just going to abandon the core, and start doing other things? The messaging has always been that we’re going to embrace electric … because it breaks down so many barriers for new riders. There’s no transmission, there’s no clutch. It’s very simple to get involved in two wheels, via electric.

But we’re also going to innovate with our core internal combustion product as well. The only reason that I think folks are letting us get away with the electric stuff—and not everybody is accepting of it, but most people are—is because we haven’t abandoned our core product. If you think about Pan America and the Streetfighter and so on, those are bikes in the middleweight space, and we’re clearly innovating and investing in the future of that product.

So when I hear people saying ‘Oh, Harley’s lost their way, they’re making an electric bike, it’s all over…’ you’re exactly right, they’re only looking at the electric product. I feel like they need to look at the rest of the portfolio too.

Right after announcing ‘More Roads,’ you released the FXDR 114. Detractors were saying that it’s too traditional a Harley and won’t attract new riders. And some older Harley fans didn’t quite get the modern styling. How do you manage that tension between the brand’s history, while still looking forward from a design point of view?

Brad: I think it’s a great question. If you look back at the history of Harley-Davidson—from the birth of the company—we were incredible innovative. People say we’ve never done an adventure touring bike—in 1903, roads were not paved. Every bike we made was an adventure touring bike.

During World War II we made a hundred thousand WLAs; that was a bike that was also intended for pure off-road use. You can argue that World War II kind of created the birth of the segment, and we were there with a product. There are still thousands of them running around today, still functioning.

So when people have a hang up on what we’ve just released. Most of the time it’s because the context in which they’re making that judgment, is the last 20 years. The boom years, the core, mid-90s through early 2000s, where our current archetype rider was defined.

The new generation wants nothing to do with that archetype—loud and proud and bold. We love those folks, and I love that part of the culture. But millennials don’t want that. They want subtlety, they want high quality experience, but they don’t brag, they don’t boast, they’re not loud, they’re not obnoxious. So we have to be able to tailor some of the products to this new generation.

It’s the same problem that we had in about 1947. Post World War II there was a massive boom. Guys came back from the military, and there was this huge investment in social free time and hobbies and so on, and our bike sales went through the roof. But by 1949, there was a massive drop-off in the sales of our big twins. The volumes were almost cut in half. And so we invested in light weight and low displacement. That’s how Sportster was eventually born.

We’re going through the same thing right now. It’s so cyclical. So it’s funny to me.

We’ve done tons of research. And the research has told us that the younger generation loves the brand. They know what it stands for, they know its authenticity and quality and the history, but they just don’t see products that they really wanna ride. So the More Roads initiative is to create bikes that appeal to that generation, because they’re giving us the permission to go into adventure touring, to go into electric, to go into Streetfighter, and other places that we’re gonna go.

It’s the tip of the iceberg. The next five years, we’re gonna blow minds. I keep thinking about the reaction we’re getting now, it’s like ‘holy smokes, wait two years from now,’ because the stuff is just gonna keep coming.

When the new Softails were released, a lot of people were upset that the Dyna was gone. But when the Dyna was first released, no one liked it. So I guess by now you’re used to weathering that storm of criticism…

Brad: You have to have a thick skin. Some of the younger guys in the studio who are right outta school, they design something, and all of a sudden the feedback starts coming out on Instagram. They’re like ‘Holy smokes!’ It’s okay…most of the folks that you meet love what we’re doing and understand what we’re doing.

When Pan America [below] was revealed, and the feedback started coming in, it was pretty polarizing. There was some great stuff and there was some pretty bad stuff, and what I told upper leadership at that time, was, the worst thing that we could have done is release a design and no-one commented on it.

I personally love all the feedback, whether it’s good or bad, and I love people that bring it to me and are very frank, and ask me why we’re doing what we’re doing. As a designer, I wanna do things that are compelling, that are remembered. Our team wants that.

And are we gonna have home runs every bike? No. That’s impossible. But we’re gonna have some really compelling product, that in the future will be in the museum, and people are gonna say ‘You know what? That’s the moment when they pivoted, and thank God they did, because they’re still in business today.’

Joe: You look at Softail, and you look at what was added to the conversation. You look at Dyna, and people like performance, they want the feel, they want the look. And Softail’s lighter, it’s smoother, and it’s faster.

Yeah it’s better, in every way.

Brad: I have a Low Rider S, that’s my favorite bike [below]. And that was the first bike that I did when I got here with the team. We had a hole in the life cycle plan, and we needed something quickly, just to be totally frank, and all the parts and components were there. And we all knew what was happening with Dyna.

So was that your ‘twilight’ Dyna?

Brad: Yeah, we wanted to make the ultimate Dyna. That’s why I’ll never sell mine, I think it’s gonna be a collector’s item. But having said that, and as much as I love my bike—and I put money into it, upping the performance and suspension and doing all kinds of things to it like everybody does—when I went to Spain and rode with you guys on the new bikes, there’s no comparison.

The new Softails are just infinitely better motorcycles. And if you talk to anybody who really does this stuff and takes it seriously—Mark Atkins [Rusty Butcher], Speed Merchant, Noise Cycles—the guys who are riding our new bikes, taking them apart and customizing ’em. They all know that the new bikes are infinitely better too.

Are you feeling a lot of pressure to progress on the tech front? Premium bikes like the FXDR 114 and Road Glide [above], for example, don’t have some of the same tech (like switchable rider modes) that their competitors do.

Brad: We look at everything. I wish I could take you to the test track in Yucca, Arizona, and show you all the things that we’re experimenting with.

We are not static any more. We are embracing these things, and we are exploring all avenues of technology, and motorcycling. Because all of these things that you’ve described, make motorcycling safer, and easier, and it breaks down barriers for people to get into the sport.

Joe: If you look at Livewire [below], it’s got riding modes, it has a six-axis IMU, it has cellular connectivity. I could be sitting at lunch and know when my bike’s being charged.

But that tech (in Livewire) comes at a massive premium.

Brad: Livewire’s a halo product. It’s a halo product for EV, but it’s also a halo product for connectivity and all these other things that Joe just described. These things eventually become less expensive, and we do integrate them into the rest of the product line.

But let’s be frank. It is not a bike that’s been designed for millennials, from a price point. And the EV technology’s expensive right now. Battery technology’s incredibly expensive. It will get less expensive, and it’s going to change, but Livewire’s really about the first product from a major OE, that’s very compelling, very well engineered.

I think that there was a misconception, in the way it went to market for some reason—it didn’t really come from us—that it is the answer to the millennials.

From a design point of view, Livewire does hit that sweet spot between modern, and keeping with Harley-Davidson’s design language. But how did you figure out the smaller electric vehicles, from a design point of view?

Brad: We had the one that’s in between a dirt bike and a mountain bike—the one that was at X Games [above]. But we felt in the studio that there might be something that was more like a 70s minibike [below]. Because a lot of us that ride Harleys, grew up on a little Briggs and Stratton minibike.

So it was like: “What if we took this, and did the modern interpretation of that?’ And all of a sudden you have this whole new generation of younger folks, learning to ride a Harley-Davidson on something like that.

A lot of the baby boomers, and what we call our core customers, are sort of ageing out of the sport. They’re embracing things like boating and RV-ing and camping. And really, that is a migration stream that’s happening. So I said, “What a great way for that generation to reconnect with Harley-Davidson, by having a couple of these strapped to their Airstream trailers.”

We wanted to do something that was very friendly, very approachable. But the trick is, that when you get on it, it’s gotta be fast as f–k. We called it the ‘Angry Little Bastard,’ that was its nickname. So you have this little thing that looks like a kid’s scooter, you get on it, and it’ll outrun a Sportster ’til 3rd gear.

Joe: From a riding situation—no license, torque, speed—it pulls so many notes of what people love about motorcycles into a new package. That’s really what it’s all about. We were at X Games with these concepts, people that didn’t even ride…it kind of pulls at those heartstrings. ‘What is this? I love Harley, I want this.’

I guess online commentary always leans towards being more negative than positive… was the reaction different when people saw the bikes in person?

Joe: Oh absolutely. Think about on Bike EXIF with the seat argument. ‘You can’t sit on that seat, there’s no way that’s gonna be fun!’ Then you see it in person. I would challenge a lot of Bike EXIF commentators to say if they saw that bike in person, they would love it.

There’s a lot of riding scenarios, that you gotta look at those two concepts where it’s not, you know, “I’m gonna buy this bike and I’m gonna go to Sturgis.” It’s: “I’m gonna buy this bike, and fit it in my life.” Which is a really cool aspect of these bikes.

Brad: It was all about getting people to embrace two wheels, because that wasn’t happening with the current state of product that’s out there.

I love the smaller electric concepts, but personally I think Livewire’s too expensive for everybody.

Joe: If you look at the package of that product—it’s performance, it’s the riding suite, it’s connectivity. So it’s not price point. It’s, “What experience are you trying to get for that?”

Brad: I’d argue that there are some customers who have never looked at Harley-Davidson, because there hasn’t been an EV product. If you read some of the feedback, it’s “never been interested in Harley-Davidson, never noticed the brand, until they agreed to do this. Until they showed this.”

When I said Livewire wasn’t designed for millennials…the experience was. But that wasn’t necessarily our primary objective. Our primary objective was to do a very compelling motorcycle in general, with this new EV technology. And put it in the Harley-Davidson lineup, designed with Harley-Davidson DNA and ethos.

So was the motivation more about a solid product than massive sales?

Brad: There are a lot of people at Harley-Davidson that are much smarter than I am, and figure out business cases. We don’t set out to lose money on anything. But a product like this, there’s a different nuance to it, because it’s about the future. And it’s about trying to attract a new customer to the brand.

And frankly, there are a lot of places in the world where internal combustion will eventually go away. And so we want to have something for those folks. So that is the other piece that’s very important to think about.

Because again, going back to the beginning of the company, I argue to people that in 1903, Harley-Davidson was Apple. In 1903, most people didn’t go more than, like, 14 miles from the farm they grew up on. All of a sudden here comes this product that allows you to go 100 miles from home in a day. Your social network has just increased in a magnitude of a hundred.

Changing gears back to gas and oil for a minute; when Pan America and Streetfighter [above] were announced, it was very subtly mentioned that the new motor would be coming in a 500 cc, 750 cc, 950 cc and 1250 cc versions. And I immediately thought, is this going to replace the Sportster?

Brad: We would never walk away from Sportster. Sportster is like Mustang. I had this conversation with a friend last night, the design director of Ford. We were talking about Sportster and talking about Ford. In the early 80s, they created the Ford Probe—remember that thing?

He said the Probe was the new Mustang. They felt the technology, and space age…this was gonna do it. And they researched it. And it just absolutely tanked. So at that point they decided, ‘you know what, let’s just keep Mustang around.’

A lot of companies have extremely equitable iconic names in their brands, and sometimes, for whatever reason, they start to challenge whether those are still of value to the overall big picture and ecosystem. I think there were probably some conversations at Ford Motor Company that time, and somebody said ‘yeah we don’t see value in the Mustang name anymore, the new generation doesn’t care about that.’ And obviously they were proven wrong. Thank God, because that’s one of the best selling cars that Ford has.

So I love Sportster. I love internal combustion, Harley V-twins…that’s my passion. I can’t divulge future product stuff, but you know, the company would be in some kind of dire straits to walk away from the Sportster name and brand.

Pan America, Streetfighter and Custom [below] are pretty progressive, design wise. But take a bike like the Sportster Iron 883…is there room in that new platform for an updated Iron? How do you still develop bikes that appeal to core customers that want a ‘typical’ Harley?

Brad: One way to do it is to have an extremely modular platform. And so, again, there are certain iconic products in our lineup that we will continue to embrace. It’s very exciting designing Harley-Davidson motorcycles, because of all the passion that our customers have.

You evolve the product. And what we showed with those first three models, I think that shows the diversity that we’re really after. And showing what we can do when we really decide to move the needle in a way that’s going to attract a whole bunch of new incremental customers.

With those new models, are we looking at better performance, lighter bikes?

Brad: Have to. Because to your point about some of the metric competition, you can find bikes that are a lot less expensive than a Harley-Davidson, that have some of these performance attributes, that are more compelling. So we have to move the needle on everything. It’s gotta be lighter, it’s gotta be faster, it’s gotta be more of a visceral experience.

We can’t walk away from the connection that you have emotionally to a Harley-Davidson when you ride it. It’s not the same connection I have when I ride one of my Ducatis, or ride a friend’s Yamaha. They’re great bikes, but emotionally they’re the most un-compelling. They’re appliances to me.

A Harley-Davidson is not a disposable product. It’s something you hand down to your son or daughter. We need to continue to do that, with even the electric product and all the technology that we’re embracing, the Harley DNA needs to come through. That is our special sauce, we cannot walk away from that.

A lot of people see you as a company that just makes cruisers—are you trying to break that perception, trying to get back to being perceived as a motorcycle company?

Brad: Yeah. I think that everything we’re doing is proving that’s our goal.

Our thanks to Brad, Joe and Harley-Davidson.

Harley-Davidson | Instagram | Images by Harley-Davidson and Wes Reyneke.

[andrewdburton]

How to ask for a favor (and get it)

Think of all the favors you might need:

A job referral from an old boss

A friend to teach you how to cook a meal to impress your girlfriend

An introduction to the founder of a startup you want to freelance for

Favors like these can act as turning points in our life. But sometimes it’s hard to ask for a favor — especially if you’re shy and not too confident about the process.

Today I’m going to teach you the five simple steps to ask for a favor and actually get what you want.

How to ask for a favor in 5 steps

Each year on my birthday I ask my readers to do me a simple favor: Comment telling me how IWT has personally helped them. 

You know what happens? I get more than 500 comments every time. People LOVE telling me about landing their dream job, eliminating $45K of debt, earning $10K on the side, and more.

This is the best gift I could hope for. I don’t need cookies or new clothes. I just love hearing how my material has helped other people.

This is just a tiny favor. I’ve also asked for bigger ones like getting a bunch of my entrepreneur friends to contribute to an e-book I was working on.

So how do you ask for a favor and get great results?

Use the following 5 steps:

Step 1: Consider how your favor impacts them

Step 2: Ask with the expectation that your favor will be granted

Step 3: Don’t lie

Step 4: Hold on to your power

Step 5: Be very specific about what you’re requesting

Let’s get started.

Step 1: Consider how your favor impacts them

When you ask for a favor, you’re essentially doing sales. You’re selling someone else your needs at the cost of their time, energy, and/or money.

And that’s what you’ve got to realize: It’s not all about you. While this favor benefits you in some way, you’re putting this person out in another way. You need to acknowledge that and compensate for it.

Having empathy like this is absolutely necessary for two reasons:

It lets you talk to the person you’re selling to on their terms. You can relate to them and speak their language. Think about it: How you ask for a favor from your boss is a lot different than how you ask for a favor from your friend.

It lets you adapt as the “sale” happens. When you care about the other person’s emotions and needs, you can see if what you’re asking from them is too much, or maybe if you’re asking it in a way that makes them feel weird. So stop weirding them out and relate to them.

Check out this amazing email I got from a reader a while back that did exactly this.

I LOVE IT.

This email is the perfect example of everything that goes into learning how to ask for a favor:

He showed that he actually knows me. Nothing is going to make me want to trash your email faster than a boilerplate message. The guy who sent me this message showcased how he knew me and how I’ve helped him.

He made me care. Most likely, the person you’re trying to get a favor from is busy. That’s why you need to make them give a damn. That incentivized me even more to work with him. He also touched on a subject that matters to me (in this case, the sender knew that I’m always on the lookout for talented developers).

He made it easy to say yes. The reader who sent me the email made it clear that, though he was looking for paid work, he would be willing to work “to network and receive a little advice” while acknowledging that I did have a few projects that I didn’t have time for.

By the time I finished the email, I was clamoring for the phone to call him. THAT’S how you ask for a favor.

Step 2: Ask with the expectation that your request will be granted

However, if you feel like you’re putting them out by asking for this favor, stop. You’ve already failed.

Your mental framework matters. You need to believe you’re going to get whatever you ask for. If you’re going to play, play to win. Don’t try. Don’t hope. You’ve already decided to do it … you might as well do it right.

Go in with a winner’s mentality.

You should go in ACKNOWLEDGING that you are asking them to go out of their way. But that doesn’t mean you go in thinking that you’re “bothering” them or that this is a waste of their time.

That’s why I want to go over the “What if I were perfect” technique.

I’ve talked about this technique before but it’s important to mention again because it has everything to do with confidence.

Let’s say that you were trying to become more confident about public speaking, or cooking, or running, or starting a business. Whatever.

With these goals come a set of crippling barriers:

What if I screw up and make a bad meal?

What if I never lose weight?

What if my business fails?

And many times, that’s enough to screw up. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That’s what happened when I was younger and I thought nobody would ever show up to my personal finance class — and nobody did. That’s because I already set myself up for failure with my mental barriers.

Instead, just ask yourself, “What if I were the absolute master of this domain? What if I were perfect and had all the knowledge — in the world — what would I do?”

You wouldn’t get overwhelmed by going to the store, buying onions, and learning how to chop them. You wouldn’t get overwhelmed by going to the gym and hitting the treadmill. I definitely wouldn’t have been bothered by getting people to attend my personal finance class.

And you wouldn’t get psyched out by asking someone for a favor.

You would just do what was necessary to accomplish your goals. This technique helps you get past your own mental barriers and say, “If I were perfect, how would I handle this issue?”

Using this exercise is a great way to become more confident over time.

For more help, check out my video below on how to develop natural confidence. It’s only six minutes but you’ll learn some great mental frameworks.

Step 3: Don’t lie

Many people think that you have to lie or at least tell a white lie (like these 7 money lies) when it comes to asking for something. They believe you’ll be more successful if you butter someone up and give them a bunch of phony reasons to do something.

Wrong.

Being truthful is what makes people believe you and want to help you. Studies show that when you come at people from a place of honesty you not only make yourself and your relationship with that person happier but it’s also better for your mental health (per UC San Diego’s Emotion Lab).

Think about it. If I want my brother-in-law to introduce me to his boss, he’s going to be pissed if I come to him with the pretense of asking how his Thai cooking classes are going.

“Hey I saw that pad thai you made on Instagram the other day. Awesome stuff. Do you think your boss likes pad thai too?”

Fail. Instead he’ll respect me if I am direct and tell him, “Hey, I really want an intro to your boss because I think I could help him with XYZ goal.”

Step 4: Leverage your power

Nobody likes a needy person. But if you act like you don’t really need your favor granted, you’re more likely to get what you want.

I‘ve explained this before in the context of negotiating your way out of paying bank fees. Banks want your money however they can get it, but if you threaten to leave the bank they’ll clear any charges in no time.

I’m not saying threaten to terminate a friendship or partnership because they’re not presenting what you want on a gold platter.

Instead, lead into the conversation with something organic. For example, “Hey, do you still want those tickets for the game on Thursday? I’m happy to give them away since I know you love the team — but I was hoping I could ask you for a favor. Would you have a couple of hours to help me move this weekend?”

It’s like my system for asking for a raise from your boss or raising your freelance rates for your clients: Always do it after you’ve added value.

Did you just crush a project at work that increased sales by 100%? Perfect time to ask for that raise.

Did you create an email for your client that doubled leads for them? Strike while the iron is hot and raise your rates.

This isn’t all to say that you should be doing favors for other people strictly so you can have a bargaining chip for when you need a favor. What I’m saying is your chances of having your favor granted increase immensely when you’ve done something nice for the other person.

Think about my birthday example. It doesn’t actually matter to you that it’s my birthday. But, because of how our society is set up, you feel like you owe me one because of the value I’ve provided you. It’s totally okay to leverage situations like that.

Step 5: Be very specific about what you want

When you ask for directions, would you go up to someone and say, “How do I go somewhere?”

Of course not. Not only would you sound like an idiot, but you wouldn’t get what you want. Instead you ask specifically, “How do I get to the Farmhouse Restaurant?”

The same goes when you ask for your favor. Make sure you have a very specific ask in mind.

Don’t ask: “Can you get me a job?”

Ask: “Can you give me a warm intro to Ross Currier? He’s your head of accounting at Company XYZ, and there’s a position opening up under him that I’m interested in.”

Don’t ask: “Are you around this weekend?”

Ask: “Are you free on Saturday afternoon? I need to pick up a couch from ABC Store and I was wondering if you could drive me over in your pickup to get it.”

Be direct. Be succinct. When you say exactly what you want, people know exactly how to help you.

A great example of this was when I asked a few of my entrepreneur friends to contribute to an e-book I was writing.

I knew that all these people were incredibly busy, so I needed to offer value to them and show them that the favor wasn’t a waste of their time.

Here’s a private email I wrote to NYT bestselling author Ben Casnocha when I wanted him to help me with my 15 Little Life Experiments e-book. My comments are in brackets:

Hey Ben,

I’m putting together a short free e-book with fascinating/actionable test results (e.g., material on marketing, business, lifestyle design, social dynamics, career hacks, etc). [Quickly introduce what I’m doing and get them excited about it. Note how I skip over introductions because I already know Ben. If I didn’t, it would be important to introduce who I am and why he should read this email.]

I’d love to have you contribute, and wanted to see if you’d be interested. I already have a great idea of what your test result could be. [VIPs expect you to want something from them. Get to the point. Again, this is not the approach I would take with everyone, but it works here because Ben is (1) insanely busy and (2) a friend.]

I’ll be putting IWT’s marketing muscle behind it — we’ll be sharing it with our list of 200,000+ and we expect to have at least 500,000 other emails going out. The emails will have links to your site. [Benefit. Why should he care? Note that almost anyone would love to get this kind of exposure. (And note the meta-lesson of me promoting Ben in this very email.)]

All I would need from you is ONE great test/result that you’ve run. For example, one of the following list:

1. How I started waking up earlier (lifestyle)

2. One phrase I always use when I meet someone new (social dynamics)

3. How I got more people to join my email list (business/marketing) [Anticipate the needs of the reader. As he reads, he’s saying, “Hmm…so what would this require?” BOOM — proactively hit him with specific examples.]

(For you, I’m thinking about conversational techniques you used to become more interested/interesting … or how you elicit people to become more open by being transparent yourself. Also, you had that AWESOME tip about speaking, where you take a mid-talk break and tell them 5 books to write down, and everyone wakes up. People love that.) [Personalize it. I personalized every email I sent and got a tremendous response rate of over 90%. Use my motto — “Don’t make the busy person do your work for you” — and suggest ideas to them. There’s more to this principle that I outline in my e-book on writing winning emails (see below).]

We’ll include ~300-word case study about a successful test you’ve run. Here’s a previous e-book we did with examples from people like BJ Fogg, Mark Sisson, and Josh Kaufman: [Include a finished result, if possible. This also shows him big names I worked with in the past, so he can see this will be a gathering of renowned contributors.]

LINK TO FINISHED RESULT

Our deadline is Wednesday, September 18th. What do you think?

-Ramit

P.S. If you’re interested but not sure what you’d contribute, let me know and I can give you a quick call to share some ideas. [VIPs get swamped with emails. Sometimes, I prefer to hop on a 5-minute call while I’m in between errands. So I offer that option here.]

A few takeaways:

Be specific but brief. VIPs are busy and do not want to read your tortured expository essay on your life history, food allergies, and the mole on your back

Focus on what’s in it for THEM. Benefit-driven, focused on benefit to THEM (“putting the full IWT muscle behind it”)

Offer a clear CTA (call to action). You wouldn’t believe how many people end their emails to me with “Yeah, so … wow, I wrote more than I thought” DELETE

Anticipate every objection and counter it before they can consciously voice it. Who’s going to be in this? Oh, here are past people I worked with. I don’t have any ideas. Oh, let’s get on a call and I’ll help you come up with some, etc.

Get what you want

I’ve just given you the five steps to asking for a favor and getting what you want. This strategy works for anything.

And if you want specific scripts for emails that get results too, I have five you can use to:

Set up an informational interview

Ask for recommendations for people to talk to

Cold email a stranger for advice

Pitch for a consulting gig or a job interview

Reach out to others in your company to get to know them

Just enter your information below, and I’ll send you these five word-for-word scripts for free.

How to ask for a favor (and get it) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-ask-for-a-favor-and-get-what-you-want/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[paulckrueger]

How to ask for a favor (and get it)

Think of all the favors you might need:

A job referral from an old boss

A friend to teach you how to cook a meal to impress your girlfriend

An introduction to the founder of a startup you want to freelance for

Favors like these can act as turning points in our life. But sometimes it’s hard to ask for a favor — especially if you’re shy and not too confident about the process.

Today I’m going to teach you the five simple steps to ask for a favor and actually get what you want.

How to ask for a favor in 5 steps

Each year on my birthday I ask my readers to do me a simple favor: Comment telling me how IWT has personally helped them. 

You know what happens? I get more than 500 comments every time. People LOVE telling me about landing their dream job, eliminating $45K of debt, earning $10K on the side, and more.

This is the best gift I could hope for. I don’t need cookies or new clothes. I just love hearing how my material has helped other people.

This is just a tiny favor. I’ve also asked for bigger ones like getting a bunch of my entrepreneur friends to contribute to an e-book I was working on.

So how do you ask for a favor and get great results?

Use the following 5 steps:

Step 1: Consider how your favor impacts them

Step 2: Ask with the expectation that your favor will be granted

Step 3: Don’t lie

Step 4: Hold on to your power

Step 5: Be very specific about what you’re requesting

Let’s get started.

Step 1: Consider how your favor impacts them

When you ask for a favor, you’re essentially doing sales. You’re selling someone else your needs at the cost of their time, energy, and/or money.

And that’s what you’ve got to realize: It’s not all about you. While this favor benefits you in some way, you’re putting this person out in another way. You need to acknowledge that and compensate for it.

Having empathy like this is absolutely necessary for two reasons:

It lets you talk to the person you’re selling to on their terms. You can relate to them and speak their language. Think about it: How you ask for a favor from your boss is a lot different than how you ask for a favor from your friend.

It lets you adapt as the “sale” happens. When you care about the other person’s emotions and needs, you can see if what you’re asking from them is too much, or maybe if you’re asking it in a way that makes them feel weird. So stop weirding them out and relate to them.

Check out this amazing email I got from a reader a while back that did exactly this.

I LOVE IT.

This email is the perfect example of everything that goes into learning how to ask for a favor:

He showed that he actually knows me. Nothing is going to make me want to trash your email faster than a boilerplate message. The guy who sent me this message showcased how he knew me and how I’ve helped him.

He made me care. Most likely, the person you’re trying to get a favor from is busy. That’s why you need to make them give a damn. That incentivized me even more to work with him. He also touched on a subject that matters to me (in this case, the sender knew that I’m always on the lookout for talented developers).

He made it easy to say yes. The reader who sent me the email made it clear that, though he was looking for paid work, he would be willing to work “to network and receive a little advice” while acknowledging that I did have a few projects that I didn’t have time for.

By the time I finished the email, I was clamoring for the phone to call him. THAT’S how you ask for a favor.

Step 2: Ask with the expectation that your request will be granted

However, if you feel like you’re putting them out by asking for this favor, stop. You’ve already failed.

Your mental framework matters. You need to believe you’re going to get whatever you ask for. If you’re going to play, play to win. Don’t try. Don’t hope. You’ve already decided to do it … you might as well do it right.

Go in with a winner’s mentality.

You should go in ACKNOWLEDGING that you are asking them to go out of their way. But that doesn’t mean you go in thinking that you’re “bothering” them or that this is a waste of their time.

That’s why I want to go over the “What if I were perfect” technique.

I’ve talked about this technique before but it’s important to mention again because it has everything to do with confidence.

Let’s say that you were trying to become more confident about public speaking, or cooking, or running, or starting a business. Whatever.

With these goals come a set of crippling barriers:

What if I screw up and make a bad meal?

What if I never lose weight?

What if my business fails?

And many times, that’s enough to screw up. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That’s what happened when I was younger and I thought nobody would ever show up to my personal finance class — and nobody did. That’s because I already set myself up for failure with my mental barriers.

Instead, just ask yourself, “What if I were the absolute master of this domain? What if I were perfect and had all the knowledge — in the world — what would I do?”

You wouldn’t get overwhelmed by going to the store, buying onions, and learning how to chop them. You wouldn’t get overwhelmed by going to the gym and hitting the treadmill. I definitely wouldn’t have been bothered by getting people to attend my personal finance class.

And you wouldn’t get psyched out by asking someone for a favor.

You would just do what was necessary to accomplish your goals. This technique helps you get past your own mental barriers and say, “If I were perfect, how would I handle this issue?”

Using this exercise is a great way to become more confident over time.

For more help, check out my video below on how to develop natural confidence. It’s only six minutes but you’ll learn some great mental frameworks.

Step 3: Don’t lie

Many people think that you have to lie or at least tell a white lie (like these 7 money lies) when it comes to asking for something. They believe you’ll be more successful if you butter someone up and give them a bunch of phony reasons to do something.

Wrong.

Being truthful is what makes people believe you and want to help you. Studies show that when you come at people from a place of honesty you not only make yourself and your relationship with that person happier but it’s also better for your mental health (per UC San Diego’s Emotion Lab).

Think about it. If I want my brother-in-law to introduce me to his boss, he’s going to be pissed if I come to him with the pretense of asking how his Thai cooking classes are going.

“Hey I saw that pad thai you made on Instagram the other day. Awesome stuff. Do you think your boss likes pad thai too?”

Fail. Instead he’ll respect me if I am direct and tell him, “Hey, I really want an intro to your boss because I think I could help him with XYZ goal.”

Step 4: Leverage your power

Nobody likes a needy person. But if you act like you don’t really need your favor granted, you’re more likely to get what you want.

I‘ve explained this before in the context of negotiating your way out of paying bank fees. Banks want your money however they can get it, but if you threaten to leave the bank they’ll clear any charges in no time.

I’m not saying threaten to terminate a friendship or partnership because they’re not presenting what you want on a gold platter.

Instead, lead into the conversation with something organic. For example, “Hey, do you still want those tickets for the game on Thursday? I’m happy to give them away since I know you love the team — but I was hoping I could ask you for a favor. Would you have a couple of hours to help me move this weekend?”

It’s like my system for asking for a raise from your boss or raising your freelance rates for your clients: Always do it after you’ve added value.

Did you just crush a project at work that increased sales by 100%? Perfect time to ask for that raise.

Did you create an email for your client that doubled leads for them? Strike while the iron is hot and raise your rates.

This isn’t all to say that you should be doing favors for other people strictly so you can have a bargaining chip for when you need a favor. What I’m saying is your chances of having your favor granted increase immensely when you’ve done something nice for the other person.

Think about my birthday example. It doesn’t actually matter to you that it’s my birthday. But, because of how our society is set up, you feel like you owe me one because of the value I’ve provided you. It’s totally okay to leverage situations like that.

Step 5: Be very specific about what you want

When you ask for directions, would you go up to someone and say, “How do I go somewhere?”

Of course not. Not only would you sound like an idiot, but you wouldn’t get what you want. Instead you ask specifically, “How do I get to the Farmhouse Restaurant?”

The same goes when you ask for your favor. Make sure you have a very specific ask in mind.

Don’t ask: “Can you get me a job?”

Ask: “Can you give me a warm intro to Ross Currier? He’s your head of accounting at Company XYZ, and there’s a position opening up under him that I’m interested in.”

Don’t ask: “Are you around this weekend?”

Ask: “Are you free on Saturday afternoon? I need to pick up a couch from ABC Store and I was wondering if you could drive me over in your pickup to get it.”

Be direct. Be succinct. When you say exactly what you want, people know exactly how to help you.

A great example of this was when I asked a few of my entrepreneur friends to contribute to an e-book I was writing.

I knew that all these people were incredibly busy, so I needed to offer value to them and show them that the favor wasn’t a waste of their time.

Here’s a private email I wrote to NYT bestselling author Ben Casnocha when I wanted him to help me with my 15 Little Life Experiments e-book. My comments are in brackets:

Hey Ben,

I’m putting together a short free e-book with fascinating/actionable test results (e.g., material on marketing, business, lifestyle design, social dynamics, career hacks, etc). [Quickly introduce what I’m doing and get them excited about it. Note how I skip over introductions because I already know Ben. If I didn’t, it would be important to introduce who I am and why he should read this email.]

I’d love to have you contribute, and wanted to see if you’d be interested. I already have a great idea of what your test result could be. [VIPs expect you to want something from them. Get to the point. Again, this is not the approach I would take with everyone, but it works here because Ben is (1) insanely busy and (2) a friend.]

I’ll be putting IWT’s marketing muscle behind it — we’ll be sharing it with our list of 200,000+ and we expect to have at least 500,000 other emails going out. The emails will have links to your site. [Benefit. Why should he care? Note that almost anyone would love to get this kind of exposure. (And note the meta-lesson of me promoting Ben in this very email.)]

All I would need from you is ONE great test/result that you’ve run. For example, one of the following list:

1. How I started waking up earlier (lifestyle)

2. One phrase I always use when I meet someone new (social dynamics)

3. How I got more people to join my email list (business/marketing) [Anticipate the needs of the reader. As he reads, he’s saying, “Hmm…so what would this require?” BOOM — proactively hit him with specific examples.]

(For you, I’m thinking about conversational techniques you used to become more interested/interesting … or how you elicit people to become more open by being transparent yourself. Also, you had that AWESOME tip about speaking, where you take a mid-talk break and tell them 5 books to write down, and everyone wakes up. People love that.) [Personalize it. I personalized every email I sent and got a tremendous response rate of over 90%. Use my motto — “Don’t make the busy person do your work for you” — and suggest ideas to them. There’s more to this principle that I outline in my e-book on writing winning emails (see below).]

We’ll include ~300-word case study about a successful test you’ve run. Here’s a previous e-book we did with examples from people like BJ Fogg, Mark Sisson, and Josh Kaufman: [Include a finished result, if possible. This also shows him big names I worked with in the past, so he can see this will be a gathering of renowned contributors.]

LINK TO FINISHED RESULT

Our deadline is Wednesday, September 18th. What do you think?

-Ramit

P.S. If you’re interested but not sure what you’d contribute, let me know and I can give you a quick call to share some ideas. [VIPs get swamped with emails. Sometimes, I prefer to hop on a 5-minute call while I’m in between errands. So I offer that option here.]

A few takeaways:

Be specific but brief. VIPs are busy and do not want to read your tortured expository essay on your life history, food allergies, and the mole on your back

Focus on what’s in it for THEM. Benefit-driven, focused on benefit to THEM (“putting the full IWT muscle behind it”)

Offer a clear CTA (call to action). You wouldn’t believe how many people end their emails to me with “Yeah, so … wow, I wrote more than I thought” DELETE

Anticipate every objection and counter it before they can consciously voice it. Who’s going to be in this? Oh, here are past people I worked with. I don’t have any ideas. Oh, let’s get on a call and I’ll help you come up with some, etc.

Get what you want

I’ve just given you the five steps to asking for a favor and getting what you want. This strategy works for anything.

And if you want specific scripts for emails that get results too, I have five you can use to:

Set up an informational interview

Ask for recommendations for people to talk to

Cold email a stranger for advice

Pitch for a consulting gig or a job interview

Reach out to others in your company to get to know them

Just enter your information below, and I’ll send you these five word-for-word scripts for free.

How to ask for a favor (and get it) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Surety Bond Brokers? Business https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-ask-for-a-favor-and-get-what-you-want/

[the-great-bonkings]

This glorious. @pixar listen to our call please???? We don't need Incredibles 3, we need Incredibles 3,4,5 and at least two spinoff shows, one of which set in the glory days

My idea on who I think would make the PERFECT villain for The Incredibles 3 (not that they're ever going to make one, this could also just be a fanfic idea)

NaNoWriMo somehow dragged me kicking and screaming back into my The Incredibles hyperfixation that I haven't thought about since 2021. Drafting up a long Tumblr post in my Notes app for a few days totally counts, right? (Probably not but whatever, I am fukcing passionate about The Incredibles lore, I need to ramble)

So, the villains of The Incredibles and Incredibles 2 are both genius inventors with no superpowers who use their technology to fight the heroes. What if, for the third villain, they ditched that idea and had a villain who was a Super?

Who'd be able to fill that role? Would they invent an entirely new character who is a Super? It wouldn't be too farfetched of an idea, they did invent two new Super supervillains in Lego Incredibles, The Anchor Man and Brainfreezer, one with hydrokinesis and the other with.... functionally cryokinesis like Frozone except she controls ice cream. 

But what if... the villain was an already existing Super? That already poses a problem, a majority of the Supers in the present day of The Incredibles are either dead from Syndrome's Omnidroid or an unfortunate cape snag. The only surviving Supers from the pre-Super Ban Glory days are Mr Incredible, Elastigirl and Frozone and possibly Fironic and Plasmabolt (and only because they never showed up in Syndrome's Operation KRONOS database.)

Fironic is pretty ambiguous if he's still alive or not, but Plasmabolt for its practically a 100% chance of survival for a few reasons:

1. Her profile says she keeps her hero and civilian lives strictly separate, so she might have had no desire to go moonlighting as a hero like Mr Incredible did

2. She's a forest park ranger. She probably lives off-grid in a shack in the woods or something. 

3. The way Psycwave, Everseer and Macroburst are killed one after the other, but Plasmabolt isn't counted with them. All four of these Supers were part of a superhero team called The Phantasmics. Mirage probably used their connection to find all of them, maybe Plasmabolt fell out of contact with her old friends.

Plasmabolt herself might have been a good villain candidate, having lost faith in humanity after learning how the National Supers Agency failed to keep track of her old friends, of all the Supers, and didn't notice that Syndrome was picking them all off. 

Buuuuuut she's not the one this post is about. There's another that would probably be an even better villain, mostly because she has a personal tie to one of the main characters.

This is one of the features on the bonus disk of The Incredibles: a full set of character files and audio interviews of most of the Supers (except for Tradewind, Vectress, Blitzerman and Fironic. They didn't get profiles.) 

It's listed in alphabetical order, featuring Apogee, Blazestone, Downburst, Dyna Guy, Elastigirl, Everseer, Frozone, Gamma Jack, Gazerbeam, Hypershock, Macroburst, Meta Man, Mr Incredible, Phylange, Plasmabolt, Psycwave, Stratogale, Splashdown, Stormicide, Thunderhead and Universal Man. 

The one I want to draw attention to is this one. 

(Side note, it’s kinda frustrating that the only way to find images of most of these guys in colour is to look for random comic strips and the freaking Lego game of all things. I’m just gonna link this fan art too because I think it rocks and is probably the best image of her https://www.tumblr.com/pazam/183219465026/no-gadgets-no-gimmicks?source=share)

THIS, is Blazestone, the blorbo- I MEAN, the Super I think would make a great villain in a hypothetical third Incredibles movie. Or a Frozone spinoff movie. Either works. 

I think she'd make a good villain for a number of reasons.

1. SHE'S ALREADY BEEN THE MAIN VILLAIN OF ANOTHER OFFICIAL THE INCREDIBLES STORY. 

Let me highlight something important from her profile. "ARRESTED AND JAILED. RECRUITED BY NSA. WATCH CLOSELY TO ENSURE SHE OPERATES WITHIN NSA GUIDELINES" 

That's right, Blazestone is actually a reformed criminal. This one little detail from her profile is a major plot point in the novel Elastigirl: A Real Stretch.

She was paired with Universal Man as part of her rehabilitation. In the novel, they're constantly arguing, they constantly insult each other. Universal Man is an incredibly strict rule follower and tries to keep her in line. He thinks she'll never make it as a true Super if she doesn't follow the guidelines and acts recklessly ("THESE TWO WOULD BE GREAT IF THEY DON'T KILL EACH OTHER FIRST")

She hates being constantly monitored and forced into teams with other Supers and wishes they'd give her the freedom to do what she wants, as opposed to being constantly badgered into being a better person and following the guidelines

Eventually, Blazestone gets so sick of the National Supers Agency that snaps and decides that the only way she'll be able to do what she wants is to KILL ALL THE OTHER SUPERS SO THERE'S NO ONE TO STOP HER FROM TAKING OVER. 

In fact, her plan involves 

1. Steal a shipment of the ZAP chemical (the novel's McGuffin, a radioactive chemical used as a superpower enhancer that has various effects depending on which Super it's used on. For most of them, it disables their powers entirely, for some it makes their powers malfunction and Apogee is the only Super who's powers are actually enhanced by it.) 

2. Secretly recruiting all the criminals she jailed as her henchmen and breaks them out of jail on the day of the Super Appreciation Day celebrations. These henchmen are disguised as other Supers and blend in with all the other cosplayers entering the Costume Contest. 

3. Attack the Supers Appreciation Day celebration at the pier. Trap EVERY SINGLE SUPER inside a band shell covered by a net that's coated ZAP which basically fucks up all of their powers. She then lifts the band shell off the ground and was heading towards the ocean to drop it in and drown them all.

 (a few pages later)

.... I'm serious, that's what actually happens in the climax. 

Never mind the fact that she's touching the net covered in the chemical that needed to be handled with heavy gloves WITH HER BARE HANDS BECAUSE HER SUPERSUIT HAS SHORT SLEEVES in order to lift the band shell. ...And the fact that she has no super strength so shouldn't have been able to carry the weight of a structure and 20+ Supers.

Blazestone actually mentioned earlier in the novel that ZAP had no effect on her, and while the novel never mentions it, my theory is that Blazestone is the only other Super who's powers are enhanced by ZAP. Apogee was also powered up by ZAP... in small doses but being that close to the netting enhanced her powers too much so she couldn't assist in the climax without incinerating everyone with the power of the sun. Blazestone must have lied about ZAP not having an effect on her to eliminate her as a suspect for the theft of the ZAP. 

ANYWAY, Blazestone went full supervillain and that's the last we heard of her until she showed up dead in Syndrome's Project KRONOS database. Between Supers Appreciation Day and the beginning of the Super Ban, she might have resumed her criminal activities and became part of Municiberg's Rogues Gallery. 

As the Super Ban went into effect she might have been kept in a maximum security facility for a few years until she managed to break out into a world where Supers are in hiding. She might have used her powers to commit smaller robberies to survive, which might have been how Mirage tracked her down..

But wait, she's dead isn't she? So how could she possibly be the main villain of Incredibles 3 if she's dead?

2. SHE'S ONE OF THE FEW SUPERS WHO COULD HAVE PLAUSIBLY SURVIVED THE OMNIDROID BY FAKING HER DEATH.

She's the 6th Super to have been killed by Syndrome, and is probably the Super Syndrome tested the Omnidroid's fireproofing on, hence when it's immune to lava. 

Except.... Blazestone could have been marked as "Terminated" when she really wasn't.

But how, exactly? The model of Omnidroid that killed her was v.X2 (the highest being v.10) so it was a VERY early model. Too early to have all the little issues ironed out. Perhaps there was a flaw that Blazestone exploited that kept her alive. 

There's also Blazestone's powerset.  She has a threat rating of 5.5, which sounds low until you realise that the highest is Gamma Jack with 7.9 Her powers are listed as pyrokinetic discharge, heat control, heat resistance, high agility and flight (by riding on heated air) which is pretty OP by itself but there's one power not listed on the file that Blazestone mentions having.

From the Bonus Disk Audio Interviews: (sped up because she was talking through the entire interview on 2x speed) "Wait what, do you want me to say the whole thing again? I thought I was completely clear, are you- Do you want me to go back again? The whole thing? I don't understand... (back to normal speed because she realised she wasn't in the dimension where people talk really fast, I guess?) "...OH, okay. *laughs* I am so sorry, I know what the problem is! I can't *laughs again* I keep on forgetting which dimension that I'm in! Wait, which... Which dimension am I in?"

From Lego Incredibles: "Wait, which dimension is this? Never mind, I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.”

That's right, apparently Blazestone has the ability to warp herself to other dimensions. And this isn't an out of the blue thing that probably isn't canon either, Incredibles 2 shows off exactly how that power would function.

(Transcript from Incredibles 2)

Escaping by warping to another dimension is a VEEEERY good method of hiding your own body.

Picture this: Blazestone is contacted by Mirage. She's told a lie about the Omnidroid, it's the government's secret project and how it's went rogue. She gets told they looked for her because she's the only Super who defected from the NSA, they need her specifically. If they approached any other Super they might contact the NSA and expose the secret project. So they need her because she won't tattle. 

Blazestone goes to Nomanisan Island and is told to go to Room A113 to wait for instructions. She gets bored and hates being told what to do so goes to explore. She finds the lava waterfall and flies through, only to find Syndrome on his computer looking over his Operation KRONOS files. She realises that they lured her to die, that she's not the first one they called to destroy the robot, they lied to her and now she's trapped. She goes back to Room A113, and while they're unaware that she found out, she starts asking too many questions. 

The Omnidroid x.V2 is sent after her. She's not fighting to disable it for a sum of money, she's fighting for her life. Blazestone is agile, she flies out of reach of the Omnidroid, and hurls fireballs at it as it has no methods of hitting her back. Until it learns to throw its own projectiles at her. It uproots trees, throws rocks etcetera. It gets an unlucky hit in and knocks her to the ground. Suddenly Blazestone realises that it's getting more accurate, it's predicting where she'll fly next. There's no winning against it. They're near the volcano at this point so Blazestone makes a beeline towards it, if she could just reach the lava.... 

She's inside the lava caves, she flies directly over the lava. She's heat resistant. She baits the Omnidroid into throwing one more boulder and allows herself to get knocked into the lava. She's entirely submerged. Syndrome is watching the fight through hidden cameras, waiting for her to emerge, but she doesn't. Syndrome makes a quip about how the lava must have been too hot for even Blazestone to handle and marks her down as terminated. In reality, Blazestone warped to the other dimension the second she went under, tricking them into thinking her body melted away in the lava. 

As for how Syndrome didn't know about her dimensional warping power, the fact that it's not listed on her National Supers Agency file kinda feels like the NSA didn't believe she had that power. She's a former criminal who probably figured that she she'd defect from being a Superhero at some point. If she ended up in a jail cell, she could teleport out of it. If they knew she could teleport they might have found some way to neutralise that power before sending her to jail. So Blazestone kept it a secret in the even that she'd need to escape from some where. 

So Blazestone lives and freaks out about her near death experience. Except... She draws the wrong conclusion about Syndrome. She doesn't know that the government is actually oblivious to the fact that Syndrome is developing a robot strong enough to fight Mr Incredible using Supers as test subjects. She thinks the government is hunting down Supers and killing them with the Omnidroid. 

She goes cold turkey on crime in case the government finds her again, but after all that, a deep resentment and rage bubbles up inside of her. 

Flashforward to after Incredibles 2, when the Super Ban is lifted and the National Supers Agency is re-established and is recruiting Supers again. The details of Project KRONOS are released to the public. Blazestone's rage boils over. 

She hates that the National Supers Agency is up and running to control Supers again like how they suffocated her with their rules and trapped her in a dysfunctional partnership with Universal Man, she hates that ordinary people tried to wipe out Supers when THEY should be in charge. 

Remember in Incredibles 2 when Evelyn mind controlled Mr Incredible, Elastigirl and Frozone and made them forced them to say something into the camera during the public broadcast before they hijacked the hydrofoil to make them look bad?

Yeah, Blazestone ACTUALLY believes that. 

As far as anyone is aware, Blazestone is dead. She might hide her face to make sure nobody figures out it's her. She could target the DevTech/Wannabe Supers (Voyd, Screech, He-Lectrix, Brick, Krushauer and Reflux) and shake their confidence in the Supers Agency or the public's faith in Supers, after all, the Supers Agency let all the old Supers die, they public turned on you years ago, who's to say they won't turn on you again? Look, there's already politicians who disagree with the Super Ban being lifted and want to put heavy restrictions on Super activity. I think she'd be after Voyd specifically because she's an anxiety ridden easily manipulated mess who is also potentially a threat. After all, Voyd's power is portals, and she can follow Blazestone when she dimensional warps...

She rallies a bunch of other young Supers who felt betrayed by the government banning Supers, perhaps she even manipulates a grieving Plasmabolt who's still mourning her teammates' deaths into acting as a mole in the National Supers Agency. She wants Supers to be on top while all the puny normals get subjugated like they deserve.

Baaasically she becomes Pixar Magneto? ... I'm not 100% certain, I'm not all that familiar with X-Men? I just kinda know who he is from watching one movie years ago. I don't know, I suck at writing allegories, I just have the vague idea in my head and I dunno how to put it to paper properly. If I've said something bad or made a bad comparison, I'm sorry. I'm writing this section at 3am.

3. SHE HAS AN EMOTIONAL CONNECTION TO ONE OF THE MAIN CAST.

If The Incredibles was about Mr Incredible and Incredibles 2 was about Elastigirl, who's the third member of their trio who hasn't got a chance to be a protagonist yet? Let's bring up the profiles again, shall we?

Notice anything?

"ONCE PARTNERS WITH FROZONE. BUT RELATIONSHIP RAN HOT AND COLD."

"FORMER PARTNERS WITH BLAZESTONE (ROMANTICALLY?)"

OH SNAP THAT'S RIGHT, FROZONE AND BLAZESTONE USED TO BE PARTNERS. POSSIBLY ROMANTICALLY.

Blazestone was partnered with Frozone first before the NSA shoved her into the Beta Force with Universal Man. This is purely headcanon, but I like to imagine the Frozone/Blazestone team was known as the Alpha Force because Beta comes after Alpha. The sentence "relationship ran hot and cold" aside from being a bad pun, kinda implies that at some point the fluctuation led to them having a huge falling out and splitting their team apart so the NSA could try again with Universal Man.

I found this on Reddit's Tumblr sub and honestly, my thoughts exactly.

Imagine the DRAMA of Frozone finding out that his former "Enemies to lovers to enemies" partner who tried to drown him on Supers Appreciation Day that one time who he thought was dead is suddenly alive again and is currently leading a gang of Supers to attacking people. There could be a deep dive into what their partnership was like, how he reacted to her fall from grace and all the mixed feelings of seeing her alive again in the present day.

Maybe this could finally be the opportunity to show Honey on screen. I mean, she HAS a design now and an entire deleted scene that they cut out because it caused pacing issues

Imagine Frozone lying battered and bruised on the ground from Blazestone fighting him, and Honey runs to his defence. Blazestone mocks her like "What could you possibly do to me? You're powerless!" and then Honey takes her completely by surprise by pulling out a metal baseball bat or some other mundane household weapon and beats the ever loving shit out of her.

Another idea I had that doesn't really fit into any section is the idea of bringing the Deavor siblings back. Winston and Evelyn having a fractured relationship after the events of Incredibles 2. Winston visiting her in jail trying to understand why she'd risk their father's legacy and endangering DevTech by connecting it with the attempted mass murder with a boat. Evelyn snapping back that he never noticed how she was feeling as they grieved for their parent's deaths because he was too focused on thinking that they died because there was no Supers around anymore to save them.

Blazestone kidnapping both of them and forcing Evelyn, the one who hates Supers with her entire being to remake the Screenslaver technology by threatening to burn Winston to death if she doesnt comply. Why does Blazestone need the hypnosis tech? Because she's aware that some of the Supers she recruited might not be 100% loyal and wants to control their minds to keep them in line if she has to. Because she doesn't care at all about any of the other Supers, she just wants to use them for her own gain so that SHE can control the city. Plasmabolt is definitely going to be the one to betray Blazestone in the end. She realises that Everseer, Macroburst and Psycwave wouldn't have wanted her to harm innocent people to avenge their deaths, so she'd fight alongside The Incredibles family, the Wannabe Supers, and Frozone.

Aaaand that's all I have to say, it somehow took me three hours to move all this text from Google Docs to Tumblr and find accompanying images.

Hope you liked my probably badly written sequel idea