#what you need to keep your bio family out of your business and get institutions to recognize your chosen relationships

[vmures]

I didn't have a chance to add this when I reblogged yesterday. But here are the three key documents you will need not just for relationship protection, but also for yourself if you are single and estranged from your family of origin.

Durable Power of Attorney

This is a document that lets you designate a person to handle your financial and healthcare matters. This is vital if you do not want your family stepping in and making any choices.

Advanced Health Directive (sometimes called a living will)

This is similar to the Durable Power of Attorney, but is focused entirely on medical care and decisions. It allows you to outline what you want in case of various things and name a person to handle all these things should you become unable to do so yourself for any reason. This is also a vital document if you do not want your family making any decisions because if you are single or your relationship is not recognized, they will reach out to your biological next of kin.

Last Will and Testament (or simply Will)

This is the document you want to have in place should you not want family making any decisions about what happens to your body and your possessions after you die. Even if you are extremely poor like myself, it's good to have a simple will in place so that you can trust that what you want done post death will happen the way you want it, including making sure that you are memorialized with the correct name.

When my father died, the first thing I did was make sure I had these documents because I do not trust my mother at all and haven't spoken to her in over 20 years for many reasons. I encourage everyone regardless of sexuality to have these documents, but particularly LGBTQUIA+ folks who are estranged from their families.

Here is a lovely law firm that offers national legal resources for LGBTQUIA+ folks:

Before January 2025:

If you are a USAmerican in a relationship that might be affected by legislation that dissolves same-sex marriages, who may no longer be recognized as next-of-kin, especially if you have children, get your rights in writing!

Your marriage certificate may not be enough to prove you have rights to make medical decisions for non-biological children or for a same-sex spouse or partner.

Go to a lawyer, get it spelled out as clearly as possible that you have a voice in emergency medical and legal situations.

[nonprofitarchitect]

Comments Build Relationships Faster and Better than Posting Content with Ira Bowman

Is your non-profit in need of assistance with its digital media? How can you boost your SEO, drive more visitors to your website, and manage your social media? A good place to start is LinkedIn. Begin to form genuine relationships rather than just posting on social media.

Remarkable Quotes:

Ira: Your first, second, and third-level connections on LinkedIn allow you to see more of the board.  

Travis: It's amazing what happens when you have a pretty good idea that's not self-centered

Ira: Understanding the mechanics of LinkedIn is the first part.

Ira: The word is authentic if you keep it authentic, it's better.  

Travis: You've got to engage, and you've got to be different than everyone else.

  Highlights:

{02:24} Who is Ira Bowman

{08:14} The difference between a connection and a follower

{14:38} Project “help you grow”

{28:50} Going beyond posting to building relationships

  Ira Bowman bio:

Professionally Ira is a marketing and sales expert, photographer, graphics designer, website builder, philanthropy owner, Search Engine Optimization content writer, and TEDx speaker.  Ira has built a large social media following with six-figure following counts on both LinkedIn and Instagram.

Ira Bowman holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Liberty University where he graduated with a 3.916 GPA in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a concentration in Business and Religion. This says a lot about who Ira is, as he has many interests, and he strives to do things with excellence.

Over his 25-year career to date, Ira has worked in the restaurant, e-commerce, print, and marketing industries. The majority of Ira’s career has been spent in a sales role in the print and graphics industry helping small and medium-size businesses gain market share and increase sales. Since June of 2020, with the launch of Ira’s business, Bowman Digital Media, Ira has focused on helping increase visibility for his clients on social media and increasing website traffic. The internet has become the main source of commerce and visibility is important to increase sales.

Ira Bowman has been married to Alicia Bowman since June of 2000 and is a proud father of eight children with several of the kids now in college. The family is located in Southern California just outside Los Angeles.

Bowman Digital Media

  The new superhighway of business is found online.  The equivalent of buying property along a busy street or near the highway is increasing your website domain authority and following on social media.

At Bowman Digital Media, we help our clients increase their digital visibility by creating content, writing blogs, building backlinks, and more, so they can focus on running their business without fear of becoming obsolete. 

We create websites, design graphics, write blogs, take photos, edit videos, and improve SEO all at prices that won’t break the bank on a month-to-month basis as we’re happy to earn the business on a proven basis.

Want to discuss how BDM can help your business?  Book a free 30-minute consultation.

  Connect with Ira:

ira@bowmandigitalmedia.com

https://bowmandigitalmedia.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ira-bowman/

https://www.instagram.com/irambowman/

https://www.youtube.com/c/IraBowman_ProjectHelpYouGrow

https://twitter.com/irambowman

Nonprofit Architect Podcast Links

  More Episodes

http://nonprofitarchitect.org/blog

  Ultimate Podcast Guide

https://nonprofitarchitect.org/ultimate-podcast-guide/

  Ultimate Podcast Course fully WASC accredited

https://envisageconnect.com/education-training/partner-products/synergy-learning-institute/

  Subscribe and Leave a Review

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nonprofit-architect-podcast/id1481292481

  Get Fully Funded with Sharing the Credit

https://mpro.sharingthecredit.com/appointly/appointments_public/form/DBF73E8A-7D93-438E-B42C-6683022EE380

  Check out this episode!

[notebooknebula]

Improving Business Relationships Through CRM with Danny Johnson & Jay Conner

https://www.jayconner.com/improving-business-relationships-through-crm-with-danny-johnson-jay-conner/

Real Estate Investing With Jay Conner

It doesn’t matter if you are earning a million dollars a year unless you are enjoying the freedom that comes along with your business.

In today’s Real Estate Investing show with Jay Conner, Jay and his guest Danny Johnson talk about automation and organizing your business. How it will greatly help you build a real estate business that works for you and not you working the business.

Danny Johnson is a veteran real estate investor that has been flipping and wholesaling since 2003 having done nearly 1,000 deals. The financial and time freedom his real estate business created for him has allowed him to use his software background to develop the Forefront CRM for real estate investors.

He also hosts a new podcast called ‘Braver’ which is devoted to being honest about what’s holding you back so that you can transition from doing everything in your business to having the business work for you.

Timestamps:

0:01 – Get Ready To Be Plugged Into The Money

2:00 – Jay’s New Book: “Where To Get The Money Now” –https://www.JayConner.com/Book

2:41 – Today’s guest: Danny Johnson

5:17 – Getting involve in different Masterminds greatly affects the success of your real estate business.

7:25 – “ Flipping Houses Expose” – Danny Johnson

9:19 – What is your conversion now compare to when you started?

12:04 – Importance of attending immediately to a motivated seller.

13:30 – Danny Johnson’s different marketing strategies

16:17 – Significance of building rapport with your motivated seller.

18:16 – How Danny got into real estate?

21:39 – How did you transition from wearing all the hats to building a real estate business that’s working for you and not you working the business?

27:02 – The Forefront CRM for real estate investors.

29:03 – Connect with Danny Johnson – https://www.forefrontcrm.com

30:15 – Danny’s parting comments: Look at the next step that you need to do. Do it and take action.

Private Money Academy Conference:

https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now? It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at https://www.JayConner.com/Book

Free Webinar: http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

https://youtu.be/QyeBbDOF4wo

YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner

iTunes:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/private-money-academy-real-estate-investing-jay-conner/id1377723034

Listen to our Podcast:

https://realestateinvestingdeals.mypodcastworld.com/11208/improving-business-relationships-through-crm-with-danny-johnson-jay-conner

Jay Conner and Danny Johnson

Jay Conner

00:00:30

Well, what in the world was I talking about a second ago on plugging you into the money? Well, you see back in 2003, my wife, Carol Joy, and I started investing in single-family houses here in Eastern North Carolina. The first six years, we relied on local banks and mortgage companies and institutional money. And you know what? In January of 2009, we were cut off, lost our lines of credit, no way to fund our deals. I was introduced to this wonderful world of private money. And since that time, we have not missed out on a deal for not having the money.

And when I say private money, I’m not talking about hard money. I’m not talking about brokers. I’m not talking about institutional money. I’m talking about getting funding from individuals right now. We’ve got 46 individuals investing in funding our deals. We haven’t missed out on deals since 2009. And guess what? You can experience the very same thing and be in control of your real estate investing business. So what am I talking about? I got a free gift for you. I just released my brand new book, “Where To Get The Money Now,” subtitled: “How and Where to Get Money for Your Real Estate Deals Without Relying on Traditional Hard Money Lenders.” It hit number one on Amazon just a few short months ago. And so I want to send this book to you, just cover delivery. I will tell you how you can get this brand new book for free. Go to www.JayConner.com/Book

You know that I have amazing guests on the show and today is no different whatsoever. My dear friend, my fellow mastermind member is a veteran real estate investor. I’ve been doing this for a long, long time. I mean, he’s been flipping, he’s been wholesaling all the way back to the very same year that Carol Joy and I started, back in 2003, and he’s done almost a thousand deals.  Well, the financial and time freedom that his real estate investing business created for him has allowed him to use his software background. Yes, his software background is to develop what’s called The Forefront CRM for real estate investors.

In other words, how do you keep up with all those contacts? How do you keep up with the buyers and the sellers and everything that’s going on? Well, he’s going to be telling us about that because I tell you what, I was still totally paper until about 4 years ago, maybe as recent as 3 years ago. So you want to organize your life. My guest is going to get to helping you on that in just a second. He also hosts a podcast that’s called, “Braver,” which is devoted to being honest about what’s holding you back so that you can transition from doing everything in your business to having the business work for you. And I tell you that reminds me of what my dad taught me years ago. “Make sure you get your business to where you’re running it and it’s not running you.” So we’re going to talk with my special guest right now about automation, organizing your business, and one of the best CRMs for keeping up with all your contacts, which he developed and calls, “The Forefront CRM.” With that, welcome to the show, my friend, Danny Johnson. How are you?

Danny Johnson

00:04:40

Doing great. Thank you for having me on, Jay.

Jay Conner

00:04:43

Absolutely, Danny. We’re glad to have you and tell everybody where you are speaking from today.

Danny Johnson

00:04:49

Well, I’m in San Antonio, Texas, and yeah, I like that, you know, we both started in 2003. And how you introduced me that way, that you didn’t just read the bio, like you really put it out there in a great way. It made it sound a lot more interesting. I was excited. I was like, “Who’s he going to be talking with?” But it was actually me.

Jay Conner

00:05:16

Absolutely, Danny. Well, you know, we are in a mastermind together and masterminds, being a member of a mastermind, has just been such a huge part of my real estate investing business. I really started getting involved in masterminds- Right now, I’m in 3 masterminds, got involved back in 2009. And so when you’re hanging around people that are of light minds and you’re helping each other and your business, it’s bound to grow, right?

Danny Johnson

00:05:44

Absolutely. I’m a part of 2, been a part of probably 6 in my investing career. And it was a pivotal moment in the first one that I joined where I was doing everything in the business. My ex-wife and I were doing everything in our business, wearing all the hats. We had contractors, we had an agent to sell properties, but beyond that, we did everything and that was 8 or 9 years. And it wasn’t until I joined a mastermind and hung out with people that were operating the business in a way that allowed them the time to actually work on the business more than they worked in the business. And having that firsthand experience with people that were doing it, showed that it was completely possible, and cut out a lot of time and headache and hassle and mistakes. So that was great.

Jay Conner

00:06:41

Well, I can certainly relate. I remember I had been in the business from 2003 until about 2008, five years. And I came around the corner one night and there was my Carol Joy sitting at the kitchen table, crying with 3 different checkbooks in front of her. And that was at 10 o’clock at night. And she told me she couldn’t handle it anymore. And I learned right there that you can be making a million dollars a year and it doesn’t really matter unless we are enjoying the reason we got into real estate and that’s to enjoy the freedom that comes along with it. So yeah, it took me an entire year to really hone in and start automating my business. So I can definitely relate to your story, Danny.

Danny Johnson

00:07:23

It’s interesting. I had a book that I put out a while back called “Flipping House Exposed,” and that was 34 weeks in the life of my business where I documented every single lead that came in. And basically week by week I was breaking down what I spent on marketing, where I put my marketing, the leads that came in, all that kind of stuff. But the thing that came out of that was out of those 34 weeks, I generated 495 motivated seller leads. So these are qualified leads where people called or submitted on my website that they wanted an offer on their house. Guess how many of those I turned into a deal?

Jay Conner

00:08:04

Probably less than you would have desired.

Danny Johnson

00:08:09

Right. I wouldn’t bring it up. But yeah, it was about 11 during that 34 weeks. Right? Yeah. So that’s about one out of every 45. And so a lot of people, got into this business after reading that book and were telling me it was so great because it showed me it was a numbers game, but it wasn’t until a little bit later that I realized looking back, it was like I was killing myself trying to have more success by doing more of the same thing that I had original success with. So it was okay when I was generating, doing maybe 20 to 30 deals a year. It was okay to be focused mainly on the lead generation. Right? If I want to do more deals, I’ve got to get more leads. I mean, in my mind, that’s how it was. I don’t have a business background. I wasn’t structured in business, and looking back in hindsight, it was treating it like a hobby. It really was just, “Hey, I’m having fun. I’m doing that,” which is great, but it comes at a price. And that price is that hamster wheel of having some success and trying to have more success by just doing more of the same thing without really dialing anything in, where I’m really looking at them.

Jay Conner

00:09:18

What’s your conversion now compared to when you started?

Danny Johnson

00:09:22

Well, now I’m actually back to operating as a solo-preneur with the real estate and just doing rental properties. But we did grow from that, we were doing everything and built a team and we got to the point with the team where we were getting about one out of every five leads became a deal.  

Jay Conner

00:09:41

That’s different than one out of every 40 or 50.

Danny Johnson

00:09:43

Right. So looking back, had we had the team, had we had the business dialed in and this doesn’t even require a team. It really just dials, it requires somebody to know what’s going on in their business and fix the parts that are broken because it wasn’t so much the leads were a problem. It was what we were doing once the leads came into our business. Right?

Jay Conner

00:10:06

And in addition to not only what you were doing with them, but what you were not doing with them.

Danny Johnson

00:10:13

But that’s probably the bigger issue. So what happened? What made the transition? Obviously the team helped because as a one-man-show, taking the calls, going on appointments, scheduling contractors, checking on jobs, you get to where you’re having a lot of appointments and meetings with different people. And when those motivated sellers are calling, if you can’t take those calls right away, number one, that’s a huge problem. Somebody has to live answer that call right away because that’s a truly motivated seller, the one that’s saying, “Hey, just get over here. I wanted this thing done yesterday. I’m just done.” If you’re not the first person that answers that call, whoever is, is getting the deal most likely. And so having a way, no matter what you do.

And I did this business 3 years part-time while I was a software developer working for a defense contractor where I couldn’t even have my cell phone with me at my job. I know it’s been long enough. I had it on vibrate and if it went off, I would run out into the stairwell and return the call right away because I didn’t want to miss out on those. Once you do that, make sure you’re answering all those calls, having those come in, what happens with the building of rapport, talking with that seller, listening to them, not just asking for all the details of the house and just being all about that and scheduling an appointment, just being done. There’s a lot that goes into building that rapport with the seller.  Almost all of my deals came from motivated seller direct to seller marketing. Just found that those were always the best deals and helped us actually get through that market correction back in ’07, ’08, but by just going direct to the seller and getting those great deals.

Jay Conner

00:12:03

Since you bring it up, let’s talk about it because this is a really important point. And that is, in my experience over the years, there are 5 key components to a successful real estate investing business when it comes to talking with and marketing to motivated sellers. And this podcast is about you. It’s not about me. So I’m only going to talk about one and you already said the word, and that is the word, “immediacy.” When a motivated seller, and of course we’re talking about off-market sellers, we’re not talking about sellers or bank-owned properties that are in the multiple listing service in this market, you can’t rely on that anyway. But when that call comes in, whether it’s from a Google ad or it’s direct mail, or doesn’t matter how you are getting leads coming in, it’s like the most important thing that could ever happen is for someone on the team, your acquisition is to ever to be talking to that person like right away.

And you know, it’s the age-old argument. Do you take the calls live? I mean, there’s an argument for that. Do you have them get an operating service? And then you’re like, get through the rigmarole of trying to get them back on the phone. So share with us your experience of taking the call live, wherein if you’re not doing it yourself, which I never recommend to people. So if you have an acquisition, do you answer the phone live in the morning to when at night?

Danny Johnson

00:13:50

That’s one of the big things that made a huge difference. So we had somebody come in as an acquisitions person to take that off of my plate. And they did take the calls for a while because it made it also seamless for when somebody is answering the phone, they talk to somebody and then that’s the same person that’s coming to the house. So that’s beneficial. As you grow, that’s going to be to where it becomes a problem because that person is going on appointments and they can’t take those calls while they’re at an appointment. And we don’t want them feeling like, “Oh, I’m going to miss a call or a call came in. I missed it. I need to wrap this appointment up.” Everything that we do, we spend so much time and energy looking at different marketing tactics, executing on those and doing all of that stuff to get those calls in and then to get to the appointment.

So all of that stuff to that point is to be at that appointment. And if we’re not spending the time that’s required at that appointment where we’re wasting all the rest of it, why are we doing anything else? So our acquisitions people, it was spend as much time as you need to at each of these, make sure that you’ve got at least 2 hours so that you can sit down on that gross couch or whatever it is, and have a conversation with the seller because this is what this is all about. It’s really getting to the bottom of why they’re selling, understanding their problem, and then showing them how we can help them. It’s not just, “Here’s the offer. Do you want it? Come on, sell your house.” It’s none of that stuff. So, in answering the calls, once you have that where you have the ability to bring on that lead intake person, then that person should be somebody that’s super friendly.

That’s easy to build rapport with. That’s the first person that they’re gonna interact within your business, right? They’re representing your business. And so if you can have somebody that doesn’t even have to be in an office or anything like that, this could be your mother-in-law, this could be your aunt, somebody that’s just at home all day that can take these calls. It doesn’t need to be a professional hire or anything like that. And just a part-time, “I’m going to pay you per call that you take,” or something like that. And you train them up just to be friendly. It really requires somebody that’s super friendly that’s not going to just go down the list of questions, ask them, get them answered, and then get off the call. Because we want the person saying, “Wow, that person, this company is great. I really liked that person I just talked to.”

Jay Conner

00:16:15

Building rapport is so important and people are gonna pick up on as to, do you really care about what they’ve got going on? As you say, if there wasn’t a problem with the property, if they didn’t have a personal problem or both, we wouldn’t be there looking to help solve the problems. For example, this past Friday, I was at a seller’s house myself, right here in Morgan City, North Carolina for 2 hours and 10 minutes. Myself personally. Most of the time that doesn’t happen because even with crazy times going on, I’m still traveling a lot or I’ve started traveling a lot. But something told me that I needed to go on this appointment. We were in a small market, only 40,000 people willing to do 2-3 deals a month, but the average profits were $70,000.

So not to get into the details of that visit, but I knew it was going to take an un-rushed amount of time, un-rushed. And when I’m visiting with a potential seller, I use a technique that I call, “awkward silence.” I ask a question and I just let them talk. And when they sound like they’re finished, I go, “Uh-hmm” and they talk more. And so I tell them right up front in the visit, I say, “You know what, there’s a good number of times I’m not able to help people. And the reason why is because every transaction I do, it’s got to be a win for you. It’s gotta be a win for your husband. It’s gotta be a win for me.” And so I go ahead and get the white elephant out of the room and just let them know that I’m not here to high-pressure you. I’m here to see what we can do to work together, to make things happen. And as you said, establishing a rapport is very, very important. So let’s get right into what your specialty is, Danny, and that’s the CRM keeping up with all the leads, right? That you developed from your background as a software developer. But before we jump into that, just tell us your background as to how you got into real estate.

Danny Johnson

00:18:33

So I got into real estate. I was going through college to get my degree in computer science. My father started flipping houses and when I was growing up, he was a contractor for a real estate investor. And so as a kid, I would go to the demos and I would have to haul out the junk and all this stuff from the demos of the houses. So I got an early taste of that, but my father was a contractor at that time. So in college, he began being mentored by the person he had done a lot of contracting work for in the past. And I just saw his joy. It was just like a whole new him, my father. I’d never seen him like this. He had always struggled in his life. He had always started in different businesses that didn’t succeed.

And we had to move year after year and sometimes getting evicted. And it was just a rough, rough time and I’ve got three other siblings, but in college, it just all broke loose for him. Like he was just having so much fun talking about the deals he was doing driving around town. And I just felt this surge with him. He was like, “Oh, I want to do that, too. That’s what I want to do.” So I started part-time, also getting into the business and he worked with small towns around San Antonio and I worked in San Antonio. So the relationship was really, “Well, you go find out how you want to invest, whether that’s fix-and-flip or rentals or whatever, you just go and learn what you want to learn. When you have an issue that you come against as you’re taking action, call me.”

So it wasn’t hand-holding, what-do-I-do-next? kind of thing. That relationship was like a mentor relationship. And then his mentor also was available to me, too, whenever I had questions, which was great because it forced me to take action and make mistakes. And I tell people that one of the first, I think it was the first contract that I did directly with a motivated seller, I signed the contract then I went to the title company and I was in the parking lot. And I had to, literally, call my dad and say, “What am I supposed to say when I bring this inside of here?” I didn’t even know that step of it, but the beautiful thing was I was out there taking action, right? And even though I wasn’t well-versed in all the different things, from putting a deal under contract to getting it sold, I was taking action.

That was the important thing. So I was in the business part-time for 3 years. I was making good money as a software developer, it was really hard to leave that steady paycheck. And they let me go, thankfully, I guess they caught onto the fact that most of my day was spent on real estate investor forums and things like that. But anyway, they let me go and I became a full-time investor and my ex-wife and I ran that for 8 or 9 years alone. And then we started bringing on a team which started with my brother-in-law. He was one of the first people to sign on. And we grew that team and learned a lot after we joined the masterminds. And that’s where we started really systematizing the business, and a great book called, “Traction” by Gino Wickman really showed us how to operate the business like a true business.

Jay Conner

00:21:38

You just mentioned the phrase of transitioning in your business. So walk us through that process. How did you transition from doing everything, wearing all the hats to really building a true real estate investing business that was working for you instead of you working for it?

Danny Johnson

00:22:03

Sure. And I’ll tell you what I did first really quickly so that people don’t do what I did first because it wasn’t the right way to go about it. So the first hires, how it went down was, “Hey, yeah, sure. That’d be great. Yeah, come on and help us out. You know, you’ve been on a couple of appointments with me to talk to sellers.” And they would come in and I would just say, “Well, shadow me for a week. That’s how you’re going to learn what you’re supposed to do.” That was not the way to set somebody up for success. And so everything that I had learned over the years and doing the business 8 or 9 years, wearing all the hats, that was all in my head, and I was expecting them by just shadowing me for a week to pick up on all of it.

So when it was time for me to not be there for them to go on the appointment, they were really not set up to succeed. And I was thinking, “Well, they’ll find their own way. Like I did,” right? Not a good way to do it. So I don’t recommend that. What I recommend is setting things up. There’s a good, really good book called “Work The System,” that I forgot the author’s name, but he talks about setting up your procedures. And I wish I had done this even before I planned on bringing people in because there were so many times where I came up against the situation that I had solved before, but I didn’t remember how I solved it. And so I had to go back and spend all this time trying to figure out the right solution.

Whereas if I had just documented what to do in this situation, I would have known. And the beautiful thing about when you do that is you realize a lot of times, even with the things that you do on a weekly or daily basis, is pretty inefficient. And when you document it out and you’re like, “Whoa, what am I? Wow, I’m-” and then you realize how much you’re doing as well, which will make you want to hire someone to take a lot of that off your plate. So getting all of that documented, I use a tool called “TETTRA.” It’s free. I think you get a free account and you can document your procedures there. And then whenever you hire a team, they have a place to easily find all of those procedures. And then they have a way to communicate and update those so that they’re living documents, they’re living processes.

And so when you set those things up like that, when you bring somebody on, number one, they’re going to have a lot more trust in your company because you don’t want to be starting a job where you’re feeling like everything is just shooting from the hip and nothing is structured at all. And job security might be in question. And so having all of that to bring somebody in, to follow what you’ve proven to work, and then they can just pick it up. And what that does is that truly does free you from having to interact as much, because they have something to go off of and they won’t be calling you every hour or 30 minutes, even asking you questions about things, making you question whether even hiring somebody was the right thing to do.

Because I found that I would get into situations where I would say, “What am I doing? I can finish this faster than it would take to explain it to them.” And you do not want to fall into that trap. And so documenting those processes is absolutely critical. The next thing I don’t want to spend too much time on is, but the next thing is really having that system in place where everything in the business is in, the data is there in a place that everybody on the team has access to it. And even if you’re a small team, even when it was my ex-wife and I, having that place where everything about the lead in the deal is right there in one place, keeps everything so much more organized and less communication needing to happen. I didn’t have to bug her to find out some situation about this deal because it’s all right there in the system, right?

Yeah. And things that you can do these days with what we’ve done with Forefront and several other systems out there, all the communication can be tracked within the system. So not only do you have the deal information for one of these properties, you also can have all your communication that was ever had with them within that same record. So you can see no matter who chose the call, who sent the text, who received the text, it’s all right there on a timeline. And the beautiful thing about that is when you do that, you start to get into things that really help you also dial in your marketing because you can track, you get a different phone number per marketing channel, or even campaign. So everything’s attributed properly and it’s really producing not just the leads, but the ones that become deals. And then the profit you actually get from those deals per campaign. Because if you’re not tying all that stuff together and figuring that out, how do you make decisions on where to put your marketing?

Jay Conner

00:26:56

I love the way you got that set up. So in your CRM, Forefront, if you can get the phone numbers to track all the marketing from that same system, right?

Danny Johnson

00:27:11

We actually integrate it right now with CallRail.

Jay Conner

00:27:16

I use CallRail, but I have a VA that I actually manually puts in the information. So it’s really cool for you to have a CRM that you develop that CallRail actually communicates and it goes straight into your CRM. Right?

Danny Johnson

00:27:33

Right. And then the text messages, everything gets routed through. So you can see and listen to those calls, listen to voicemails. That’s a good way to stay on top of your team, too, when you look at the KPI page and you’re seeing that, “Hey, for some reason, we’re having less appointments being set, even though our lead count is the same or better. What’s going on?” You can go into those records and listen to the calls. And there was a situation that we ran into where that happened. And it turned out that our lead intake person taking the calls was making assumptions about the seller’s motivation level. They had plenty of equity. They didn’t know much, but they were saying, “They’re not motivated. So I didn’t set the appointment.” It’s like, when did you decide to start doing that? Like, that’s completely against what we’ve trained, you know? But something happened maybe where somebody was angry or who knows, but you’ve gotta be able to see that kind of thing in your business.

Jay Conner

00:28:32

Well, you just told the story of, by listening to the calls, you’re learning that, “Oh, my lands, what in the world is this person saying?” which reminds me of a very, very important principle that I learned years ago. And that is you cannot expect anything in your business that you cannot inspect, so you can’t expect it unless you can inspect it. And one way that you’re inspecting is by actually being able to listen to those recorded calls that come in. Danny, let’s go ahead and let folks know how they can learn about your software, your CRM system, and keeping up with all the leads.

Danny Johnson

00:29:12

You can find out more at forefrontcrm.com. We’ve got it where there’s a button to book a demo, go ahead and do that if you’re interested in finding out more, and that way we can find out what you’re looking for, what you’re needing in your business, and then tailor that demo specifically to you to show you how it can actually help you with that and show you all the cool features, everything that we’ve built, but not spend a whole day running you through everything, but just showing the pieces that make sense and matter for you and where you’re at in your investing business.

I’ve been on a couple of interviews, but it’s quite a few actually, but the big thing that I’m seeing with investors wanting to get to the next level, even if you’ve gotten to a good level, is this thing where we’ve overcome some fears and got our comfort zone and got to the next level. But sometimes we don’t realize when we get to another plateau and there’s new fears that we’re not acknowledging. And so taking a look at, no matter where you’re at in this business, if you are avoiding things and doing things that keep you in your comfort zone, or even having false beliefs about what’s keeping you stuck. Looking at that, accepting it, and then just looking at the next step. What is the next thing that you need to do? And just do that. Don’t give it too much thought. Just do it and take action.

[valhallanrose]

Matilda Bonetti

Artwork done by @/hirodraga

Bio format by @/arcanecadenza

Meaning of name: 

Matilda, Latin origin, variant of Mathilde. Means “mighty in battle”.

Bonetti, Italian origin, surname. Means “hatmaker”. 

Family: Marcello Bonetti (father), Delmore Bonetti (father), Adrasteia Bonetti (sister), Salvatore Bonetti (brother), Clemente Bonetti (sibling)

Matilda, like the rest of the four Bonetti children, was adopted as an infant into the family and raised at the family home in Mavarra, the capital of the Venterran region of Lulia. Marcello had been raised there, as had his father, and his father before him, and every Bonetti beforehand until they had settled in Mavarra - so it had been a no-brainer, once he and Delmore had wed, that they would raise their own family there. 

However, though Marcello had been born into wealth and luxury, Delmore had not. The pair came to an agreement early on that while their children would want for nothing, they would not be allowed to become spoiled in the sense of being unappreciative and greedy based on their privileged position. Each received a full education and were allowed to pursue their interests, with Marcello maintaining the family business - the Bonettis had built their fortune as shipbuilders - and Delmore, who had just finished a law degree when they had married, continued to practice in Venterre. 

Each of the children will tell you first of their upbringing and how well they were loved, and none are oblivious to the wealth that will be their inheritance, but their parents had laid down conditions before they would be allowed to receive that inheritance. The Bonetti children had to find their own way, to make something of themselves, rather than sit back and wait for a free ride through life. 

They did get their wish - Adrasteia followed in Delmore’s footsteps, studying and eventually settling into a family law practice not too far from home in Venterre. Salvatore became an architect, working primarily on the quickly growing neighborhoods of Mavarra and coastal Lulia, while Clemente went to Prakra after completing an education program to teach science in some of their public schools and institutions. 

Matilda found her way, eventually, but it took some trial and error. 

One of many hobbies she pursued as a child was dance, beginning with ballet at the age of eight after the family had attended several holiday performances together. Ballet turned into a variety of styles and complexities that made her an accomplished dancer by the time she would turn eighteen and finish her schooling. She’d tell you it was one of her first loves, but when figuring out her next steps, she chose to set it aside. 

Her other first love had been the stars. 

She remembered being six years old standing on a stepstool to peer into Clemente’s telescope, marveling at the constellations as her ten year old sibling dragged out the star maps and told her where every one sat in the sky. 

Star maps had been her favorite thing to draw, copying them out of Clemente’s books until she understood exactly what she was seeing and was able to draw them on her own. Any book she laid hands on related back to them - the mythology tied to the constellations, the science of how they came into being, so on and so forth - if it wasn’t dance, it was the heavens. 

When she turned eighteen, she enrolled for a year to work towards an education in astronomy, but found herself...bored. She still loved the stars, but the way it was taught felt like they were trying to drain the passion out of it. She didn’t want to keep falling out of love, so she dropped it after her first year - much to the bewilderment of her family - and returned full force into dance, joining a troupe at nineteen and taking up a role in a performance of the Nutcracker as one of the sugar plum fairies. Soon after, she officially landed the role of Odette in Swan Lake, landing her full prima ballerina status and launching her career as a full-time dancer, and she loved every second of it.

While surprised, her fathers still supported her, teasing her about those early days where she’d stuff herself in tutus and spin so fast she’d make herself sick trying to figure out how a pirouette worked. 

She continued with the company for a good five years before she found herself forced to take a break - worsening stress fractures in her feet would have ended her career completely had she not done so. But, still so in love with dance and the beauty of it, she decided to stay with the troupe and lend a hand mending and creating costumes, finding a sort of meditative calm in piecing them all together even if she couldn’t wear them herself. 

She chose to partially retire from dancing two years later when she settled in Vesuvia, opening a clothing shop - the Silk and Scissors - with all the knowledge she’d gained from her time helping the seamstresses in her troupe. She focused primarily on costumes, but she quickly learned that the Masquerade in particular had a special market to be considered. She had plenty of time to experiment, and about a year ago, she perfected her animated fabric technique that catapulted her business into the eye of Vesuvia’s eccentric. 

While she still dances on occasion with the Vesuvian Community Theater, you’re more likely to find her hidden away in her shop nowadays - just be careful if you go in, she will stuff you into one of her creations if she needs a model with your body type. 

Favorite meal: Tiramisu

Favorite drink: Apple cider

Favorite flower: Pansies

Birthday: July 19th

Age: 27

Zodiac: Cancer Sun, Leo Moon, Pisces Rising

MBTI type: ESTP

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. - Helen Keller

Patron Arcana: 

Major - The Chariot

Upright: The Chariot is in complete control of its own destiny. It hurtles towards victory, unhindered by adversity. Work hard and stay focused. Your drive will be rewarded; the road will lead you right.

Reverse: The Chariot careens out of control, losing its way as it becomes stranded on the road. Sometimes you must learn to release the reins in order to move forward.

Minor - Queen of Wands

Upright: The Queen of Wands is confident in social and professional settings, drawing others into her orbit. Trust in your own vision and drive. You have all the skills to make your dreams reality.

Reversed: The Queen of Wands is stubborn and quick-tempered, easily losing her temper when things don't go her way. Do not let your fire burn those around you with its intensity. Try to take other people's perspectives into account.

Gender: Trans Female 

Orientation: Bisexual

Languages spoken: Venterrean and Vesuvian fluently, casual conversational in Hjallen, Prakran, Firentian, and Nopali

Magical specialties: Illusions, primarily, with some skill in alchemy. Her claim to fame in fashion has been the creation of fabrics imbued with her illusionary magic, allowing for a unique style that she knows few have come close to replicating. A lot of it relies on the weaver’s loom she has in the back room of her shop, since the creation of her animated fabric relies on the magic being woven in during the creation process. 

Familiar: Ciro, a partial leucistic peacock. He mostly keeps an eye on things around the shop, but he’s a drama queen, and behaves as if it’s the end of the world if he’s not given attention. It’s customary in Matilda’s shop that you give him a little affection before you go, or he’ll pout and avoid you the next time you come for a fitting. 

[somersetmummy]

(A/N) This chapter takes place right at the beginning of the story, prior to TNA Chapter 1. Some characters property of Pixelberry.

Original characters: Katie Hide (MC), Jenny Blake

New characters: Lucinda Hansen

Rating/Content Warning: Mild adult language

Word count: 2005

Summary: MC Katie Hide is an English rose, living in New York. She’s down on her luck and desperately needs a job before her visa expires and she’s sent back to London. A chance conversation with a friend leads to an unlikely opportunity. Little did she know that one little interview would change the course of her life forever.

- Bonus social edits at the end -

Just like any other Thursday morning of recent weeks, Katie and Jenny were killing time together in their favourite coffee shop just down the street from their shared apartment. It had become Katie's haven and her go-to place when she wanted to lose herself for a few hours people watching, letting the stories of their lives unfold around her.

She'd always had a knack for paying attention to the details, noticing things which passed by most others. It was a skill she'd relied on heavily in her work, always giving her the edge, at least it had until the time it led to her downfall at Panacea Labs.

Katie had recently walked out of her job after piecing together a scheme under the radar to roll out a costly new drug for treating MS, despite there being multiple warning signs that it was ultimately ineffective but instead just masked the symptoms. Anyone else would've just glossed over the signs, not even noticing, but to Katie, the anomalies jumped off the page unmistakably. It was when she tried to escalate her concerns that she was shut down and her life in the lab made a misery by the VP, Declan Nash.

It hadn't taken long for her to realise that the company was more concerned about profits than actually helping people and she knew that the battle to fall in line and keep her job wasn't worth it. After calmly and quietly sending a company wide report on her findings, she gathered her things and walked out before she could be accosted by security. Little did she know that Nash had already been keeping tabs on her communications, in his eyes she was a trouble maker, and the report never saw the light of day.

Unfortunately for Katie, the current opportunities for young women in the biotech and pharmaceutical world just weren't what they should have been and she spent the next few weeks furiously searching for something else to avoid her work visa being revoked. 

Having moved from London to attend the New York Institute of Technology and graduating with a Masters in Chemistry & Bio Engineering three years ago, she'd fallen in love with the city and the life she'd built. She didn't know exactly what the future held and couldn't put her finger on why, but she had a very strong feeling that she needed to stay in New York.  

Today, Katie had planned to work through all the job adverts remotely relating to her experience and qualifications, with Jenny on hand to offer moral support. Tiring quickly of hitting one brick wall after another, they'd long forgotten the laptop and instead had spent the last 30 minutes idly chatting about Jenny’s upcoming gallery event when Lucinda arrived, phone to her ear, her body tense and voice sharp as she wrapped up a call with her boss.

"Of course I've got someone Angela, I wouldn't put my name in the mix if I didn't. My candidate is going to blow the others out of the water, I just know Mr Dalton will be impressed....no not just impressed, he'll be awestruck..."

While waiting for her to wrap up her call, Katie heads to the counter to order Lucinda a much needed coffee and returns to place it down in front of her just as she hangs up. She tosses her phone onto the table and slumps back in her chair, defeated.

Jenny stares her down waiting for an explanation which she and Katie both know Lucinda desperately wants to give but is holding off for dramatic effect.

After a long sip of coffee and a moment of holding her head in her hands she finally exhales.

"I am so SO SCREWED."

Katie and Jenny share a look before returning their attention to Lucinda.

"I've just promised my boss that I have the perfect candidate for some billionaire business man's nanny position....." She glares at them both as if they should understand why that's a problem. "I never touch these sorts of jobs, I only ever look for candidates in finance, nannying isn't worth my time."

Katie chooses her words carefully, knowing how Lucinda can bite back pretty quickly when she's stressed. Speaking softly, cautious not to poke the bear, she looks Lucinda in the eye and internally braces herself for whatever might come next.

"So what made this one so different?"

Fortunately Lucinda seems to finally be relaxing, she replies more quietly.

"Filling this position will put me on the map, nobody in the firm has been able to secure someone for this guy, they only seem to last a few weeks before they quit so the sign on bonus never kicks in. If I could find the perfect person I wouldn't only get a great bonus, I'd be next in line for promotion to Senior Head-hunter."

Her demanding demeanour melts away and she's left looking almost vulnerable. Something Katie knows Lucinda doesn't find at all comfortable.

"Anyway, I'll figure it out, I always do."

She gives Katie and Jenny a soft smile, allowing herself to momentarily forget about her woes so she can refocus the attention back to them.

"So what were you guys talking about before I came in?"

As Katie opens her mouth to speak Jenny cuts in on her behalf.

"Oh Katie's just been trying to work out how to get a job before her visa renewal date comes up in a couple of weeks."

Katie lets out a sigh of her own, suddenly remembering how dire her employment prospects are and feeling equally as defeated as Lucinda.

"I can't believe I've worked so hard for my degree, I found the perfect job in the perfect city but now it's all gone down the drain and I'm going to have to go back home and never see you all again."

Jenny wraps her arm around Katie's shoulders, pulling her close. "Oh come on, like you'd be able to shake us off. Even if you are in another country!"

As suddenly as Lucinda dramatically entered the coffee shop she slams her hand onto the table making the others jump.

"THAT'S IT!" She cries, her idea almost exploding out of her. "This is just too perfect...."

Katie and Jenny share a confused look before turning back to Lucinda who is practically foaming at the mouth, clearly onto something, though they're not quite sure what.

"You need a job, I need a candidate." She says in her signature matter of fact style.

Katie still has no idea where Lucinda's going with this.

"It's win win. I'll put you forward for the nanny position, you'll get a great job which means you get to stay in New York, I'll get my bonus. Not to mention I'll look like a damn superhero at work!"

The cogs start to turn in Katie's brain as she begins to digest what Lucinda is proposing.

"But I'm not a nanny....and what about my visa, it's only valid for work in relation to my degree."

Lucinda waves her hand at her, dismissing her concerns. "No problem there then. This guy's family owns one of the biggest Biotech companies in the country, surely that's related to your degree? He's so desperate for a successful match I'll make sure the visa thing is part of the contract."

She cuts back in quickly just as Katie opens her mouth to object.

"And as for you not being a nanny, what about all those times in the lab when you had to pull rank and sort out the shit that went down between your useless colleagues? You've done more nannying of adults in the last two years than most actual nanny's do in their whole career with children."

Jenny suddenly chimes in "OH MY GOD, this is genius!"

Defeated, Katie turns to look at Jenny in disbelief. She may have had a chance saying no to just Lucinda but with Jenny on board with this idea as well she may as well give up now.

"This will solve both your problems, I mean come on, who wouldn't want to work for this guy..."

Jenny turns her phone to Katie, clearly having been searching while she and Lucinda were talking. On the screen Katie sees the most devastatingly handsome man she's ever come across. He's nothing like the guys she'd known before, this person, was a real man and the sight of him caused her stomach to flip.

While undeniably handsome, it's not just the physical attraction that she's drawn to. Her eyes move to the company bio underneath his headshot and in true Katie style, she scans all of the accolades and achievements the company has to boast about. Her mind races at the possibilities. There's no mistaking that working for this man could open the door to so many opportunities and experiences in the future.

With a sigh she resigns herself to the fact that Lucinda might actually be on to something, this could be the break Katie had been waiting for and would certainly solve her imminent visa problems if she could get it taken care of as part of the contract negotiations.

With a silent nod and slight shrug of the shoulders, she begrudgingly agrees, much to the delight of her friends who squeal at each other in delight. Lucinda immediately pushes her shoulders back, standing to attention, furiously beginning to type on her phone.

"You TA'd for your old professor right?"

"Yes, I did a year as their assistant after graduating. Mainly doing research and going to conferences with her."

Lucinda's eyes never leave her phone as she works her magic, spinning Katie's words into an impressive resume. After a moment she raises her eyebrows and flits her eyes over to Katie, a small gesture which Katie realises is an invitation to elaborate.

"Oh, yeah so that's actually how I got into Panacea Labs, I met a rep at one of those conferences."

Jenny rolls her eyes at the mention of Katie's old company, now affectionately known by them both as Pariah Labs. Despite what she felt about Katie's previous employer, she was immensely proud of Katie's achievements and wanted to make sure they were included.

"Weren't you the youngest lab boss thingy they'd ever had?"

"Senior lab technician." Katie corrects, knowing full well that Jenny hasn't got a clue about the finer details of her work. "Well, yeah eventually, after two years of working my butt off. But I hardly think they'd rave about that in any reference they give me. If they even give one to begin with..."

Lucinda waves a dismissive hand at her.

"With this resume, you won't need any reference from those bastards. Trust me."

Katie had no idea what Lucinda had written or how she'd managed to spin her experience to be more favourable for a nanny position but it must've worked because half an hour later Lucinda slammed her hand down on the table once again, causing everyone around them to jump out of their skin.

"YES! It worked...he wants to see you, you've got an interview tomorrow at the Dalton Enterprises headquarters".

She turns her phone to Jenny to show off the email and they fall into an animated conversation, no doubt planning how they're all going to celebrate once Katie inevitably gets offered the job. As they fall into a blur in the background, Katie looks back over the picture of Sam Dalton on Jenny's phone, not quite sure how she can be so hypnotised by someone through a photograph.

There's something about him which feels familiar, something drawing her in. It's almost as if they're viewing each other through a looking glass and she wonders whether in this exact moment he is feeling the same magnetic pull towards her, a stranger whom he hasn't even met yet. Tearing her eyes away from the phone, Katie's tries to steady the stream of unanswered questions flooding her mind and focus on how she's going to win this man over.

"Here goes nothing."

TAG List: @shewillreadyou @chemist-ana @txemrn @silma-words @thefrenchiemama @secretaryunpaid @sfb123

- Bonus - pre-interview pep talk with the girls -

[cancerbiophd]

Hey! I’m sure this is a question you get asked a lot but how did you decide that a PhD was for you? I’m about to enter the last year of my undergrad and have really enjoyed the lab work I’ve done previously but it feels like a rather large commitment when I’m not 100% sure I’m going to end up in research at the end of it. I was just wondering how you knew it was what you wanted to do!

Hello!

I actually have never been asked that question before, which was surprising for me too. I get a lot of “how did you know lab research was right for you”, but never specifically about how I knew a PhD was right for me (or maybe I did and I just didn’t answer it well), so I’m really glad you asked!

As you said, it really does come down to answering yes to both these statements: 

The career path I want is best accomplished with a PhD

I am willing to commit to the challenging journey of 5-6 years of grad school (+1-3 years of being a post-doc, if applicable to your field)

So here are the reasons how I knew getting a PhD was the best past for me:

I loved research. And I loved research beyond just doing benchwork--I loved the brainstorming, the experimental design, the analyzing of results, the troubleshooting of the unexpected, the dissecting of both broad and fine details as you solve a puzzle, the moment when you realize you just discovered something no one else has ever seen before, and communicating those exciting results. I was infatuated. When I was working as a lab tech in a cancer research lab after undergrad there were nights where I couldn’t sleep because my brain just would not stop brainstorming new ideas and questions about my research. I told that to a current grad student in the lab at the time and he was like “You know what that means? You have the mind of a grad student.”

And I wanted to broaden my skillsets. I could do a few techniques really well, but I really wanted to learn more, and I also wanted to learn more about those techniques--why do this, and not an alternative? What would happen if we tried this? I wanted to explore more. 

Going off of that, I wanted to keep learning. And not just looking up wikipedia articles by myself; I wanted formal training (because I had no idea what I needed to learn). And I’ve always been good at learning in a classroom setting so I knew I would excel at that part in grad school. 

It would lead me to the career path I wanted, which was to work at a biotech company as a leader of a research team and then become a consultant. True, a PhD is not required for that in many cases, but a PhD would better prepare me for those roles

I enjoyed writing and orally communicating about my research. PhD’s do metric ton of writing (grants, papers, reports, etc) and oral presentations (conferences, meetings, collaborations, etc). And I really enjoyed (and was good at) all that. 

I wanted to be in a position where I could lead and mentor. As someone with the highest degree in the room, institutions look to the PhDs for direction. So PhDs will become leaders--whether it’s a lab of their own in academia, or a team in an industry setting, etc. Even grad students have undergrads, or have to TA. And I was ready for, and wanted, all that. 

I was good at wearing a lot of hats. PhDs don’t just do a singular task; during grad school we learn to be versatile (you have to be in an academic lab setting), and that versatility carries through later as we become excellent multitaskers and are good at adapting to new challenges. And as someone who has always successfully juggled school and work and multiple extracurriculars, and had experience being a rockin lab manager (in the lab I worked in after undergrad), I knew I was up to it. 

I loved working by myself but I also loved working as a team--and that’s a necessity for research in general, even for non-PhDs, but PhDs are more likely to have to excel at both. 

I was mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially ready for the challenges and commitment of 5-6 years of grad school (plus 1-3 years of being a post-doctoral fellow, if applicable). Grad school is tough as balls, and you have to be just as tough, or at least have the resources to help you. I took a gap year of 2.5 years after undergrad to a) figure out what the heck I wanted to do/get research experience and b) mature to the point where I could be ready for something like grad school. I feel that working as a full-time lab tech really allowed me to immerse myself into the closest setting of a grad student in my field as possible. Being there 40 hrs/week really is different than when you’re an undergrad researcher popping in for 2 hours/day. I also took a grad-level class to see if I could mentally balance class and research. I know that’s obviously not an option available to everyone (nor is it necessary), but that’s just how I knew that every part of me could handle the rigors of grad school. 

Going off of that, I had a lot of grit and discipline. Sometimes that’s all you have left to get you through the day in grad school when everything else feels depleted. Grad students do a lot of things they’re not motivated to do, but we gotta get it done anyway, and sometimes grit is all we have to make our limbs move. 

PhD holders and PhD students at the time were telling me I’d be great at pursuing one. They know better than anyone what it takes, and they knew I was ready. 

Also dang, I’d be lying if I said money didn’t play a role in it. I graduated college in 2011 during the grand ol recession, and the job market stunk. I saw that options for biology majors were slim to none (I was extremely lucky to have found my lab tech job), so I knew I had to either wait it out until the job market bounced back, or make myself a more attractive candidate for the workforce, or both! (Let’s not talk about the economy during Covid lol). Also, the thought of making over 100k with a PhD was attractive. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, but money does buy happiness, because money buys food and a roof over your head and warm clothes and healthcare and hobbies so uh, yeah, I did get the highest degree possible partially for the money. 

So why not a Masters? That’s a good question!! And the truth is: I didn’t know I could accomplish most of what I wanted with a Masters. And that was my fault for not doing my own research, but I think I was just.. surrounded by PhDs (both in my academic lab setting and in my family) and the thought of doing a Masters never really occurred to me. Also, idk, I knew in my heart and in my bones I wanted a PhD, so I’m not sure if I would be happy with a Masters. 

Lastly, because this list is personal to me, getting a PhD would get me off my mom’s shit-list and end her endless emotional abuse towards me being worthless, etc. Long story, but yeah, it did factor into it as kind of a bonus point. 

So thar’s my spiel.  

One last thing I want to add: though continuing research is the most common career path for PhD holders, it’s not the only one. Here’s what else is available for PhDs (from the book Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development by Toby Freedman)

If the image is hard to see, there are 4-ish main branches, and then some sub-branches (and even more specialized sub-branches that aren’t labeled):

R&D: Discovery research, preclinical research, bio/pharmaceutical product development, project management, clinical development, regularly affairs, medical affairs

Services: Recruiting, law, venture capital & banking, management consulting

Operations: Bio IT, quality, operations

Commercial Operations: Business development, corporate communications, product support, sales, marketing

And that’s just in the industry sector--academia, government, and non-academia/non-govt research institutions are also obviously available as career choices, though those would focus more on R&D (and also teaching). 

You obviously don’t need to know the specifics of your career path before committing to grad school, but I think you should have a general idea that what you want to do would best be accomplished with a PhD. 

If you’re still on the fence, I would advise:

Talking to more grad students or degree holders--both PhD and Masters (our Gradblr Discord is great for that!)--to paint a bigger picture.

Informational interviews are also great, especially if you’re interested in learning more about those career paths above. 

You can also explore the field a bit more in-person by starting off with a Masters (less time commitment than a PhD, though more expensive), or an entry-level research job like I did. 

Best of luck! 

[lalunaphotosg-blog]

Should You Open a Photography Studio

Some professional photographers think all they require is a decent electronic cam, a pro image sharing or mini stock on the internet gallery as well as some calling card to pass out. Yet others seem to think you need a degree in digital photography, $25,000 worth of digital photography equipment, a fancy digital photography workshop, as well as a comfortable savings in the financial institution to make it function. My ideal advice is to deal with what you have, as well as just do your individual ideal with it. Your talent, hard work and relentless resolution, incorporated with individuals skills, and client service are very important tricks to success. Yet you can not constantly do every little thing on your own, as well as if musicians have a weak spot normally it's the business side of the workshop. As a result among one of the most vital skills you'll need is the capability to border on your own with a great group of experts. Below, we are looking at a normal home organization image procedure, with a focus on picture and wedding event photography, because that's the type of photography studio that the majority of digital photographers are most likely to begin. Naturally you might pick up other job along the way like product shots, publicity photos as well as group shots, nonetheless the mass of your service will be high school elders, youngsters as well as family portraiture.

Do you have what it takes to become a specialist digital photographer? Prior to you start an organization, right here are a couple of things to consider: Do you have the photography abilities and also skill necessary? Have you ever took a look at an engaging picture in a magazine or promotion as well as thought to on your own? I might do that! The reality is, you might get fortunate and manage an excellent shot once in a while, however you possibly can not do it consistently time-after-time, day-in-day-out, day-after-day, year-upon-year, well not yet anyway. The bottom line is that most amateur photographers, as well as digital photographers fresh out of digital photography institution are not prepared to jump in and start a digital photography business. There are exemptions, and although you might be among them, they are rare. It's just that, like a lot of online services you do not actually know what's going on till you have actually been in the family photoshoot singapore organization for some time. Capturing close friends, household or versions in a classroom is very different than photographing a real paying customer. That being stated, fortunately is that it's something you can discover and improve at. Just how? Take into consideration an instruction with a pro-photographer with job you admire. Find out the ropes from the inside of a functioning photography workshop for like a year prior to you go out by yourself. If that's just not a choice, do not fret and don't give up - review, read, read! Oh yes, and also shoot, shoot, shoot like crazy! Head out and also begin producing like a professional digital photographer. By that I imply knock out 500-1000 photos per day, and also ideally find a professional photographer with discriminating taste (and time) to act as a mentor, critiquing your work, and also listen-up, no one is best however we all can enhance, it's for your very own excellent. Likewise, talking to other pros is an excellent way to get a handle on what it's like around. Use this experience to discover the right particular niche for you and also the neighborhood market in your area, whether it's children, group shots, weddings, industrial and so on. Establish your particular imaginative style, understand what you desire out of each and every shot and get to where your capturing a continually high portion of quality images. Do you have the required funds to draw this off? It's mosting likely to take some cash to do it correctly from the start. Not just for photographic devices, however to establish your home/mobile maternity photoshoot singapore. Just how much? To get a good suggestion of what it's going to take you'll wish to construct your team of specialists as well as use their proficiency to aid figure out the very best course of action. Initially, look for an SBA certified banker that actively caters to local business needs. Second, look for an excellent local business accountant, they are expensive, however they can conserve your rear. Third and also last but not least if it's a collaboration or your preparation on including, safeguard a lawyer that focuses on small company to help you get your legal and also financial ducks straight, so to speak. Then, utilize your group assess your desires and needs to prepare an economically audio company plan and methodically bring it out. Take your time and utilize care to extensively interview viewpoint specialists for simply the appropriate ones for your particular demands. Do you have business savy required to develop, promote, market, rate, as well as market? This is possibly the most important part of owning a small company. Now-a-days it's essential to construct a good digital photography internet site for showcasing your one-of-a-kind photographic design. Attribute examples of your artwork, a bio concerning yourself and define your photo specialty. Include session, print, augmentation pricing as well as get in touch with info. Then, advertise your photography website online in digital photographer directory sites, and also with reciprocatory connecting. Advertise your site in offline marketing also. This constructs name recognition in your location. Keep in contact with clients and also advertise your services with the e-mail list you construct. You should additionally promote in neighborhood magazines as well as newspapers that your point of view customers are most likely to review. Be outward bound and also don't hesitate to offer on your own.

[raywritesthings]

Bird in a Storm 11/17

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Tommy Merlyn, Quentin Lance, Ted Grant, Captain Stein, Athena Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: The confrontation between the Hood and SWAT on the roof of the Winick Building goes differently, altering the course of Laurel’s career, relationships and efforts to save her city forever, the shockwaves of such an altered path making themselves felt throughout her family and friends. *Can be read on my AO3, link is in bio*

No matter what he seemed to do at night to counteract the problems plaguing Starling City, Oliver always seemed to end up with a whole host more of them the next day. The unexpected call he had received last night from Detective Lance was only the latest proof of that.

The man had a point. What was Oliver’s plan once he had deciphered the true purpose of the Undertaking and put a stop to it? He didn’t want to be doing this forever, not while it kept him away from the people he loved most or hurt them the ways it had done to Laurel or Tommy.

But Laurel and her father were both right that there was more than just the Undertaking troubling this city. Right now, the police couldn’t handle it, maybe because they were corrupted like Lance said. Maybe that was where he needed to direct his focus next.

Or perhaps it would better serve his time to go after this Woman that Lance had mentioned and Raisa had described. Contrary to what the police or the public might think, he did not wish for the city to be overrun with vigilantes like him. He did want the traditional institutions to be able to do their jobs on their own, and well, someday. Stopping others from following in his footsteps was therefore necessary.

But at this moment, the Woman did not pose the same sort of threat that the Savior had to law and order. She had no known body count, made very little noise and these murmured rumors were the first he was hearing of her. And in some ways, she only represented a symptom of the problem Lance was asking for help with regarding the corruption in law enforcement.

It wouldn’t be easy to back trace every single cop in this city. He would need to ask Felicity very nicely for help, assuming that she would be willing since this had little to nothing to do with finding Walter. Though perhaps he should use that as an angle; Walter had been captured and held this long, in part, because law enforcement wasn’t able to do their jobs. He’d run it by John first to see if he thought it might work.

The irony of Lance asking for his help wasn’t lost on him, especially when the detective showed up at the Verdant the next night to accuse his club of giving Vertigo to people. A young woman had been found dead after leaving it last night, and Lance thought, as usual, that he was onto something.

“Her last text was to your good pal Merlyn.”

“Tommy left the club earlier in the month to take over running his father’s company,” Oliver countered with a frown. “Even if he was still the manager, I can’t believe he would have given her anything. We both agreed to a strict no narcotics policy.”

“Then I guess I’ll go see how he still feels about that,” Lance said, marching back out the doors. 

Oliver let out a breath. He was sure Lance would be back once he’d finished questioning Tommy and probably want a look around the place as well. He could tell the detective to go get a warrant, but he didn’t doubt Lance would do just that. So how did he let him look around without him discovering anything?

First thing first, however, Oliver needed to send Tommy a little heads up notice that Lance was on his way. He winced when looking back through his recent contacts and realizing just how long it had been since he’d spoken to his friend.

Tommy picked up after the third ring. “Hello?”

“Tommy, it’s me. Listen, I wanted to let you know that Detective Lance might be over your way soon.”

“What about?”

“They found a young woman dead from Vertigo after she visited the club last night. Did you get a text from her?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve been blocking unfamiliar numbers. I’m thinking of changing my own,” Tommy said. His voice turned sardonic as he added, “I guess Lance thinks that’s a good enough reason to give us the third degree?”

“He’s doing his job,” Oliver replied. Even if Lance was wrong, it wasn’t like he could stop pursuing a possible lead based on Oliver’s word.

“He’s pushing his agenda is what he’s doing, against the both of us, and I’m sick of letting him get away with it. It doesn’t matter that he’s Laurel’s father — especially now.”

“I don’t think she meant to hurt you,” he couldn’t help saying, guilt churning in his gut. If he’d never come back, never involved Laurel in the Hood’s mission, would his friends be happy now?

“Yeah, well she didn’t mean to be with me, either. Look, I don’t really have the time to talk about this. I’m going to have to make a few calls before the boys in blue come sniffing around. I’ll take care of this, Ollie — but I’d get in touch with Jean just in case.”

Oliver hadn’t even been thinking of his family’s lawyer. If anything, he’d thought to call Laurel for her advice, but it was clear he shouldn’t mention that to Tommy. “Okay. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Oliver tried not to worry about Lance the next day, focused as he and Diggle needed to be on tracing this new supply of Vertigo. Therefore he was surprised and a little nervous to receive a call from none other than Captain Stein, the de facto leader of the SCPD since Nudocerdo’s ouster over the holidays.

“Mr. Queen, I’ll do my best to keep this brief,” the other man said. “I’ve received a complaint from Mr. Thomas Merlyn that one of my detectives has been harassing the pair of you.”

Oliver’s eyebrows raised. What was Tommy doing? “Harassing is a strong word, Captain. I understand that Detective Lance has a job to do.”

“Detective Lance always thinks he has a job to do, and frankly I happen to agree that he’s got blinders when it comes to certain issues.” Stein didn’t seem to mind making it perfectly clear just what his feelings on the man were. “Now, I value what you and Mr. Merlyn have done with the Verdant to gentrify the Glades neighborhood, and if there’s anything jeopardizing that, you just have to say the word.”

“I…” Oliver found himself unsure of what to say. It was clear what Stein was implying: disciplinary action, perhaps even termination, of the man who was leading the task force against the Hood. For one selfish moment, he could picture just how much easier it might make his mission.

But Lance was right. The SCPD was suffering from corruption, and if that was ever going to change so that the city didn’t need the Hood, he needed people like Lance to stay on the force. Not chased off because he was making those upstairs uncomfortable.

And if he lost his job because of Oliver? Not only would his own guilt eat at him, but he couldn’t imagine what Laurel would say. How betrayed she would feel after everything she’d willingly given up for his cause. After everything he had done wrong by the Lance family, how could he even entertain the idea?

“Thank you, Captain,” he finally managed. “But I’m sure that’s not necessary. I’m confident the SCPD will be able to track down the real distributor of this terrible drug that’s caused so much suffering to so many.”

“I’m hopeful they will now that this case has been transferred to narcotics. I’m also barring Detective Lance from any police matters involving you or Mr. Merlyn from now on.”

“I see,” was all Oliver could come up with. “Thank you, Captain Stein.”

“Just making sure we’re taking care of our citizens, Mr. Queen. If you’ll excuse me, I need to be getting to other matters.”

“Of course.” Oliver hung up, his mouth twisting into a frown as he digested this latest development. Just as Lance had reached out to the Hood for help in fighting corruption in law enforcement, his own influence and latitude to act was curtailed. It seemed a coincidence, but it also seemed to him a bad omen.

He didn’t know much about Captain Stein, though his overly-eager tone on the phone made him suspicious. He would need to start with looking in to him, and the best place to start would be with the person Oliver knew had talked to him last: Tommy.

He found his friend still in the CEO’s office at Merlyn Global. It was strange being here in light of what had happened the last time.

“Just got a call from Captain Stein,” he said in greeting. Tommy looked up and nodded once, hardly seeming surprised. Instead, his friend walked over to a small mini bar tucked in one corner of the office and got out two glasses and a bottle. “What exactly did you say to him to get him to go after Lance like that?”

“The truth. He’s had it out for us ever since you tangled with his daughters, but we’re not a couple of bad boys anymore, Ollie. We have businesses, employees who count on us. We can’t let him throw his weight around.”

“So we throw our own? What’s Stein getting out of all this?”

“Nothing.” Tommy narrowed his eyes. “You think I bribed him?”

“No,” Oliver said immediately. It sounded weak even to his own ears.

Tommy scoffed and shook his head as he finished pouring. “I didn’t need to bribe him. The special election to replace Nudocerdo is coming up in late spring.”

“So you offered your support,” he guessed.

“Hey, the guy’s clean from everything I know. Why shouldn’t he be commissioner?” Tommy crossed the room with both glasses in hand, holding one out that Oliver took out of social nicety more than wanting it. “And if he feels inclined to keep annoyances like Lance off our backs, what’s the harm?”

“The harm is if it doesn’t stop with voluntarily warding off ‘annoyances’,” Oliver answered. “The problem is that once the favors start rolling in, guys like Stein might find it hard to stay clean.”

Tommy sipped at his drink. “I didn’t hear you complaining when your mom and Walter had Nudocerdo over for their dinners.”

“That wasn’t really my choice.” Oliver set his drink aside, looking his friend squarely in the eye. “Come on, Tommy. I thought we weren’t trying to be our parents. I mean, you always said you never wanted to be your dad.”

“Well, I was wrong. My dad might have had trouble being there for me after mom died, but he understood how the world worked. I should have made better use of the time we had.”

The use of past tense alarmed him. “He’s not—”

“His condition’s the same. But even if they revive him, can he really be the same?” Tommy knocked the rest of his drink back, though Oliver doubted it was the sting of alcohol causing his eyes to brighten with a wet sheen. “He’s all I really have.”

“That’s not true.” Oliver stepped forward, but the hand he’d intended to lay on Tommy’s shoulder was brushed off.

“You’re not the same, Oliver. We both know it. And dating Laurel… it was a mistake. I thought I’d be happy without you as a friend if I had her, but I never did, did I?” His gaze seemed to rest heavier on Oliver for just a moment. “And now I have neither.”

His friend turned and walked towards the large windows, the same windows Deadshot had fired through to strike Tommy’s father and leave him fighting for his life in Starling General.

“You can decide how to deal with Lance in the future if you really want. I just thought I could help my friend.”

“Tommy…” How did he explain that he appreciated it, but that it just wasn’t the right way?

Breakup or no, it troubled him that Tommy would do something like this. He had very nearly ended Detective Lance’s career with a single phone call. Yet he couldn’t explain why it was so vital that Lance remain on the force without revealing his interest in helping the city and possibly tying himself to the Hood. Something he could never let Tommy know.

So Oliver swallowed down the words and left, hating himself for it. No matter what he did, he just ended up with more problems at the end of the day.

He didn’t know how much damage had been caused to Lance’s position in the precinct. He didn’t know how to fix things with Tommy, or how to make things okay for them to be friends again the way they’d once been. He didn’t know how to restore the balance between the two of them and Laurel. Maybe there had never been a balance; maybe he’d only been fooling himself trying to keep them all happy.

He wanted so badly to see her whether it was against the cover or not, but as he exited the lobby of Merlyn Global his phone buzzed. Diggle had the answers they’d been looking for about the location of the Vertigo. After heading to the psychiatric facility and being force-fed an overdose only his own injected antidote saved him from, Oliver decided that the cover could go to hell.

The only problem was, when he reached Laurel’s apartment and slipped in through the back door, no one was home. In the middle of the night.

The exhaustion from the fight with Dr. Webb and his orderly assistant left him instantly upon realizing this. Where was she? What could have happened?

---

Laurel frowned as she drew up to the front doors of the Wildcat Gym that afternoon only to find a sign taped to the front that read Closed Till Next Week. When she tried the handle, it was unlocked, so she let herself in.

“Ted?”

She spotted him gathering some kind of supplies in a couple duffle bags. He glanced up at her once in acknowledgement “I’m pretty sure you can read.”

“Is everything okay? You kind of look like you’re packing there,” she remarked, walking further into the space.

“It’s not for me.”

“Then what?”

“Some girl OD’d last night while she was out partying.” Ted shrugged. “When a white girl dies, people wanna look like they’re doing something. And then it’s the less fortunate who suffer.”

Of course. The more she learned about the ways their systems kept cutting the residents here down, the more ridiculous her ideals about justice in the courtrooms seemed. “Because she was out in the Glades, they’re going to crack down on the people who live here,” Laurel summarized. When her teacher nodded, she asked, “How can I help?”

He straightened up and looked her over as if assessing her for a moment. “We’re going into the crackhouses, getting the people out before the cops can round them up. I’ll be keeping some of them here, some friends that run a shelter are gonna take more. By the end of the week, everything should be calmed down.”

Laurel nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

Ted drove them around to different rundown tenements in the neighborhood. She’d seen one or two like this on her visits to clients in the past, though never set foot inside. That was changing today.

The smell was what hit most strongly. Sweat, piss, bile. The very air seemed stale, trapped as it was behind windows covered in dust and grime.

There were a few people slumped around on couches with broken springs or up against walls. Most of them were young, she was dismayed to see. Laurel supposed this wasn’t the kind of life that allowed a person to grow old.

“Come on,” Ted said gently, gripping the shoulder of a boy around Thea’s age. His dreads were practically plastered to one side of his face where he leaned on his friend. Or maybe they were strangers. “You’ve gotta get up. Cops are coming.”

“Man…” the kid groaned and blindly reached out. Ted helped him to stand.

“You have anyone to take you in?”

“Nah.”

“Alright, come on.”

Laurel watched Ted help him outside, then approached one of the girls on the couch. “Hey.”

“Mmph.”

“I know moving is probably the last thing you want to do right now, but I promise it’s better than jail. Do you need somewhere to stay?”

That got a head turning in her direction and eyes blinking at her blearily. “I stay here.”

“Not anymore. Come on.”

Calling on the approach she’d sometimes used with her father, Laurel lifted the young woman’s arm around her shoulder and helped her to shakily stand. The girl was barely supporting any of her own weight as she marched her out to the van.

Some of them were barely conscious. Some of them couldn’t move until they had water or food from the bags Ted had brought. Some of them were missing shoes or couldn’t remember where they’d left their own belongings.

It was slow work, especially since they could only take so many people at a time. They briefly crossed paths with Ted’s friends who ran the shelter in one of the other houses. They passed off some more supplies, food and blankets and the like.

It was dark by the time they called it quits, and Laurel stood with Ted looking at the people lying or sitting around on the gym floor. They looked just as lost here as where they’d brought them from.

“Do you think we got everyone?”

Ted shrugged. “No way to know. But probably not.”

“Where will they go after the gym reopens?”

“Right back where we found them.” He sighed when she turned to him with crossed arms. “Not like that. I couldn’t keep them here if I tried. Those houses are where they’ve found their escape, and they’re the only ones who can choose to stay away for themselves.” Ted took a number of cards for Narcotics Anonymous out of his pocket. “I make them take one when they leave. Sometimes it works. Sometimes only for a little. But what can you do?”

“It’s hard when people have lost hope,” Laurel agreed softly. 

Only several weeks ago, Thea had been refusing to listen to any of her brother’s pleas or demands to stop using. Only once it had nearly cost her her life had she gotten herself off the drugs. And not everyone found it so easy to go cold turkey like that. She’d have to let Thea know how strong she was, even if she had certain advantages and privileges these people certainly didn’t.

“Thanks for helping out,” Ted remarked. 

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“Does it feel better than dressing up and beating on people in the middle of the night?”

Laurel froze and stared at him. “How—”

“Let’s just say you remind me of someone.” Her teacher looked her square in the eyes. “I know what you’re thinking because I’ve had those thoughts, too. That someone ought to do something about all the crap going on in this world. That that someone might as well be me.”

“You’ve… you were a vigilante?” She wondered how she had never heard — but then, she was mostly flying under the radar so far herself, wasn’t she? Not all of them could afford the high-budget theatrics of the Hood.

“They called me Wildcat. But I was a thug,” Ted said. “Beating up on other thugs. It didn’t change anything in this town. Things just kept getting worse. That’s why I’m asking you to hang this up now, before you really get going, Laurel. It’s only going to end with you getting hurt.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t fail because of what you were doing, Ted. And you weren’t fighting a losing battle. You just didn’t know who you were fighting.”

Laurel walked around to keep him facing her when he turned away. “I’ve spoken to the Hood. He has evidence that a group of the wealthiest people in this city and their associates conspired to make the Glades worse off than ever over the last five years. He doesn’t know why yet. But that’s why things have become so bad. It’s not some statement on the people living here or some failure on your part. It was planned.”

She could see that this hit him somewhere inside. For a moment, his eyes widened, a dozen different emotions passing across his face. But at last, he settled on resignation. “All that means is I was never going to make a difference at all.”

“But we can now,” she insisted. “With the Hood taking on people at the top, it’s up to us to change things on the ground.”

“Maybe. But I’m doing what I can here, Laurel.” A frown creased his brow as he admitted, “I’m not in the shape I was, and I have things to lose. Maybe not a family, but this place.”

Ted walked to the nearest heavyweight bag and took it down off the hook. “You keep practicing, keep fighting. But it can’t be here. I’m sorry, but if they trace you back here and shut me down, that’s a lot of people back out on the street with nowhere to let out their hurt and their anger.”

Laurel nodded in hopes of disguising the lump that rose in her throat, especially as she didn’t trust her voice at the moment. She knew intellectually she hadn’t known Ted or the gym all that long, but it felt like yet another door being shut in her face. Another person walking out. Even if he explained, even if he had a good reason.

“Okay.”

“You take care of yourself, alright? And if you need me, I’ll do my best to be there,” he told her. “I hope you do make a difference. I hope you’re right. But I’ve found where I need to be.”

“Good.” She hauled the bag up from the ground by its straps. “Cause I’ve found the same thing. And I’ll be there, too.” Laurel turned and left the gym, her heart hurting more than the strain on her shoulders.

The more time went on, the more people she seemed to lose. Sara, her mother, her father, Tommy, Oliver more than once and now Ted. Was this just the way things ended for people on this kind of path, or was this just her?

She dropped the bag on her front stoop in order to get out her keys. Laurel froze as she placed the key in the lock. Was that the creaking of floorboards inside?

Drawing in a breath, she turned the knob and threw the door open, launching forward with her key pointing straight out of her clenched fist. An arm in dark leather took the brunt of it, and someone else’s hand grabbed towards her. She dropped and kicked one leg out, catching him in the shin.

There was a grunt, though he didn’t fall, and then he called out, “Laurel, stop!”

“Ollie?”

Laurel scrambled back up and their fingers tangled as they both reached for the light switch. Oliver’s face looked pale and drawn, though he still smiled weakly at her.

“Guess I should call ahead.”

“Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” She reached for his arm. The leather of his jacket now bore a scratch, but it had protected him.

“Believe me, I’ve had much worse. That was a hard kick, though. Where’d you learn that one?”

“Uh… my neighbor.” It was strange; she hadn’t thought about what to tell Oliver or when in more than the abstract. Their limited ability to see each other meant that she hadn’t necessarily felt obligated to disclose her nighttime activities. But now that he was here, what should she say?

As she looked at him, how worn and tired he seemed, would he even want to know?

“What was that thud I heard outside?”

“What? Oh, my punching bag.” Laurel stepped backwards out into the night to grab the straps again, but felt Oliver’s warmth and presence behind her as he reached around her to take hold. She could admit with some chagrin that he had an easier time carrying it inside. “My trainer is using his gym for something else for a week or so, so he lent it to me.”

“Is that why you were out so late?”

“Yes and no.” She could at least open up a little, right? “I was helping him get some people help. With the latest Vertigo scare, the police are going to be renewing the war on drugs, and that means a lot of people would suffer.”

Oliver opened his mouth for a moment, stopped, then said, “They’d only find the victims and not the ones dealing.”

She nodded. “Ted was the one who pointed it out to me. He’s a good guy.” She was really going to miss him, even if he was doing what he felt he needed to protect the gym.

“Well, the scrutiny over Vertigo should end soon. I took care of the new distributor tonight.” The way he said it, the slump of his shoulders, she thought she knew what must have happened to the distributor.

“Thank you.” Laurel crossed to the couch, gesturing to the open space on the other end. Oliver sat, and though he looked better for no longer having to hold himself up, he still wore a troubled frown. “What really brought you over this way?”

“I don’t know.” He sat forward, staring at his hands in his lap. “It feels like lately I can’t find the answers to the problems I’m facing. Or this city’s facing. I’m no closer to figuring out what my father was trying to stop except that his list has a map of the old subway tunnel system on it, which has nothing to do with the names. I don’t know what happens once the mission is complete. And Tommy… he’s lost, and I don’t know how to help him.”

Laurel bit her lip and looked down. “Is he still hurting over his father?” She hoped it wasn’t still the breakup.

“It’s more than that. Some of the things he’s saying, how he’s been acting since he took over Merlyn Global. And I think he knows I’m hiding things from him.” Oliver’s eyes searched hers. “I can’t be the friend he needs when I’m keeping all of this from him.”

She looked down. Just how good of a friend was she being to Oliver when she was keeping things from him?

“I wish we could all just go back sometimes,” he said wistfully.

“So do I. But we can’t go back, Ollie.” She looked up then. “We can’t change the past. We just move forward and hope that we’re acting for the best now.” Laurel leaned across the space towards him, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Whatever comes of your friendship with Tommy, I think most of the people of this city would agree that you have been doing your best by them. I know that doesn’t make it any easier to let go.”

“No, but it helped me realize what I can and can’t let go of,” he said. Oliver turned his head toward her. “I need you in my life, Laurel. Whatever story we have to make up, whatever excuse. Friends have differences of opinion all the time, and whatever else people have to believe of me as Oliver Queen, I want them to know that I am someone that sticks by my friends. No matter what. I miss you. Please.”

She had never been good at resisting those begging eyes. Laurel leaned across the couch space, her arms circling around him. He held her, his face turned into her neck, breath washing over her skin without her hair to act as a curtain between them. She wished they could simply stay like this forever, but they couldn’t cause time to stop any more than they could turn it back. And there was something he needed to know.

“Ollie—”

A sharp rapping on her front door caused them both to tense up and pull back. It repeated, and Laurel stood. Oliver grabbed for her hand but she pulled free, going to the door and checking through the peephole.

“Dad,” she said aloud out of surprise. She thought she heard Oliver scramble to stand up as she pulled open the door. “Dad?”

“Hey, uh. I wasn’t gonna stop if it looked like you were sleeping, but I saw your light on. I guess I just needed someone to talk to, cause of—” He froze upon spotting Oliver, who Laurel noticed looked stricken as he watched them. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“We were just talking,” she began.

“Detective, I’m so sorry,” Oliver spoke at the same time, throwing her completely. “I never meant to cause you trouble at work.”

“Never meant to, huh? So you gave your buddy Merlyn a call so he’d, what, cooperate with the law?”

“I didn’t know that he’d go to Stein, I only—”

“Okay, hang on, both of you,” Laurel said, holding her hands up like stop signs. “Before you keep arguing in my home, I need to know just what is going on.”

“There was a girl who died of an overdose after visiting his club,” her dad said, throwing a glare in Oliver’s direction. “Had a text on her phone to Merlyn asking for a fix. I was following the lead.”

“I called Tommy to tell him the situation,” Oliver admitted. “He’s been out of the club management for weeks. I just didn’t want him caught off guard. I didn’t ask him to call your boss, I swear.”

Laurel believed him, but she had her father to worry about. “Daddy, what did Stein say? Did he suspend you, did he—?”

“I still have my job,” he clarified, then scowled in Oliver’s direction. “No thanks to him.”

“Detective, if there’s anything I can do—”

“Yeah, there is something. You stay the hell away from my daughter. You and Merlyn.”

“Dad!”

Oliver bowed his head. “I understand that you’re angry with me, Detective Lance, but Laurel is my friend.”

“Really? You have a funny way of showing it!”

“That’s enough,” Laurel snapped. “Oliver was not intending to hurt you, and whatever strings Tommy pulled with Stein doesn’t change that Oliver is my friend. I know you’re upset, but you cannot keep blaming him for every single thing that goes wrong in your life.”

Her father was breathing harshly through his nose but remained silent.

“I should let you two talk,” Oliver said quietly. He made his way to the door, skirting around her father. “I’ll see you…?”

Laurel nodded. “Yeah.” Even if she didn’t know when. Between her work — both the kind she was paid for and the kind she wasn’t — and needing to pull her father out of this latest funk, it wasn’t going to be easy.

He glowered at Oliver until the door was closed behind him. Then, predictably, he rounded on her. “What are you doing, letting him back in your life? Where exactly was he when you lost everything this winter?”

“He offered to help me find work, actually,” Laurel revealed, perhaps rashly, but she was getting tired of remembering which conversations were a public or private matter. “But after the Hood visited Mrs. Queen to question her, I told him he shouldn’t have to choose between him and his family. I was keeping my distance from him, not the other way around.”

Her father opened his mouth, closed it, then frowned as she watched the wind deflate from his metaphorical sails. “I still think it was a bad idea for you to get mixed up with these billionaires.”

“I will agree that it got complicated,” she replied. Especially with Tommy. That really hadn’t been one of her better decisions. But then, she wasn’t the only Lance who had made bad decisions in the wake of the Queen’s Gambit sinking.

Was her past decision part of why her father was having such trouble at work? Was Tommy taking his anger out on her father? Maybe she should confront him — or would that only make everything worse? It was hard to know. She felt like she’d taken Tommy’s snark and devil may care approach to life for granted, not realizing the deep anger and hurt that lurked underneath. Could she have done more to be there for him? Would he have even let her?

“What’s this?” Her father was prodding the heavy bag with his toe.

“Gift from Ted. Uh, he’s a trainer at the local gym. I started going,” she told him. It was hard to remember what he did and didn’t know thanks to the time they had spent not talking. “I know you worry about me taking care of myself out here.”

“I do, yeah.” He glanced around. “How are you gonna hang it?”

“I’ll probably ask Jerome for some help. He’s next door with Anita.”

“You’ve really made a home for yourself out of this place, huh?” Her dad shook his head. “I didn’t used to believe you, but… I think you were right.”

It was rare enough that he said so that she sorely wished she knew what he thought she was right about. Laurel crossed her arms and raised both brows. “Oh?”

“What I was trying to make you do. Stay safe, keep your head down, all that. It wasn’t living.” He took a step towards her. “I was too hands off with Sara, so I doubled down on you and it wasn’t fair. You needed to find your own way.”

Laurel bit her lip. It was the last thing she’d been expecting to hear, and she had no idea what to say to it.

He waved a hand, like he knew exactly what she was thinking. “I just needed to tell you that. Now I think we both could do with some sleep.” He saw himself to the door, but paused as he opened it. “Look, about Queen.”

Laurel watched her father as he stared at the ground, obviously warring with himself.

“You do whatever you think is best. I trust you to know what that is. Just want you safe and happy, okay?”

“Okay,” Laurel agreed quietly. “Goodnight, daddy.”

“Goodnight sweetheart.”

Laurel slowly sank back down onto her couch when she heard the door of his cruiser shut outside and the motor start. She hoped he really was going home and not back to work, especially if he was on thin ice with his superiors at the moment. That didn’t lend well to his temper.

Laurel placed her face in her hands. What she thought was best. There were just so many moving parts in her life, it was hard to know what that was anymore. Was she really doing right by the people in her life and in her city?

She thought of a gym full of people sleeping and safe from being thrown in prison. She thought of the things she had achieved so far out in the streets.

Maybe she couldn’t know for sure, but she was the daughter of a cop, and her gut was saying that in at least one regard she was right on the money.

---

Tommy didn’t used to like drinking alone. In a way, it felt like admitting that he was alone. But it really was time to stop pretending.

He left Oliver’s untouched drink on the table for the janitors to clean up and locked up for the night. It made him uncomfortable staying here too late; too easy to recall the night his father had been shot and poisoned. So he made the long drive home, out of the city and into the peace and quiet of the surrounding countryside with its rolling hills and family homes.

He’d regrettably had to cancel the lease on his new bachelor pad so that someone was living in the Manor to give the staff reason to be paid. Being here made him feel closer not just to his father, but also his mother. If he closed his eyes and thought hard, he thought he could still picture the better times. The times they were a family, before the violence in this city had taken his parents away from him.

His footsteps carried him towards his father’s study. He hadn’t entered it since before the attack that had left him comatose, but Tommy did so now.

Papers sat on his father’s desk, correspondence and notes forever paused with no way of knowing when they would be picked up again. Tommy circled around the desk, standing where his father might have stood. His hands rested palms flat on the wood as he drew in a breath and closed his eyes.

He missed his dad. But Oliver’s question did make him wonder, was this truly what he wanted to be?

There was so much he felt he didn’t know. How had his father been able to fight those men that had attacked them? And what was behind that sliding wall his father had started to open in the panic room that night? A part of him was afraid to find out.

The other part of him, that part that truly did sound like his father, told him to stop being such a coward about it. Without his father’s unexpected skills, they would have both died that night, rather than him living and his father being in hospice. Strength was something good, something people respected. If Tommy had been strong, maybe Laurel wouldn’t have left him for the Hood.

His hands curled into fists against the cool surface of the wood. The Hood was an example of strength gone too far, strength that took what it wanted and bullied everyone else into submission. He was a product of the very neighborhood he seemed to slink out of every night to conduct his one-man crusade against the wealthy and successful in this city. And he needed to be stopped before more families were ripped apart.

“I’m beginning to see the resemblance.”

Tommy straightened up and turned towards the door. An unfamiliar woman stood there. She was beautiful in an exotic way, and not just because of the scar on her face.

“Who let you in here?” He would need to know which member of the staff to have words with.

“No one. You are the only one who knows I’m here.” She stepped forward, and Tommy took in the strange clothes she wore and the quiver of black arrows strapped to her back.

“If you’re some new girlfriend of the Hood’s—”

“I have no association with him. I belong to a much older order. A higher calling than this Hood aspires to in a vain attempt to salvage the ruin your city has become.” She reached a hand out, fingertips brushing a photo of his mother that sat on the desk. “A calling your father dedicated himself to in service of the one you both lost.”

He removes the photograph from her reach. “What do you know about my father?”

“Everything.” Her gaze was hypnotic in some ways. He didn’t doubt she was dangerous, lethal even. But did she really hold the answers to all the questions he had? “And I can heal him. With your help.”

After so many weeks of despairing, this stranger offered him hope. “What’s your name?”

She smiled, though like his father’s own smile, it held little warmth. “Athena.”

[lucius-a-malfoy]

Bio & Headcanons

Bio

Lucius Malfoy’s childhood was everything you would imagine from the youth of a Malfoy. Born to one of the wizarding world’s most wealthy families, with a silver spoon in his mouth, he wanted for nothing he didn’t get. He had two parents, a library containing all the best wizarding lore and spellbooks, more toys than any one child could ever manage to play with. He had everything any child could ever ask for. Except perhaps for those two parents of his to be loving. Salinda Malfoy was too busy being anything but a mother, which was preferable to Abraxas, who believed very much fists spoke better than words. As a Malfoy, perfection was the expectation, not the exception, and Abraxas would go to any measure to ensure his son achieved it.

His mother was absentee at best and his father simply didn’t make time for his son--working for the Ministry was job enough. The pair had also followed Malfoy tradition of only procreating until the birth of the first son (it helped keep the bloodline clean and the money growing rather than being divvied among squabeling children), meaning Lucius had no siblings either. He was often left alone on the sprawling Malfoy Estate--other than the countless house elves of course, but they certainly don’t count--but never left to his own devices. Spellbooks were shoved into his hand from the time he could read and his father enforced the expectation of learning all he could while alone in the house, even if not allowed to practice as a child. There was no time for play if Lucius were to be good enough to carry on the Malfoy legacy. If he were to fail, his father stepped in to discipline and Lucius learned young that was not something he wanted to happen.

Hogwarts, then, should have been a safe haven. Away from the parents that had made his early years so difficult, and starting miles ahead of the others in knowledge. The wizarding school should have been an ideal place for the likes of Lucius Malfoy. Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite how it worked out. So many things were wrong with Hogwarts. First of all there were far too many mixed bloods and mudbloods. Both his parents had taught him the importance of blood purity and he hadn’t often been exposed to those who weren’t pureblood. Second, school was boring--he knew the basics of most everything they taught, even if he hadn’t used them in practice.  And third, and most egregious of all, it seemed there was a rather large portion of the population there that did not care he was Lucius Malfoy, son of Abraxas Malfoy and had more money than so many of them could ever dream of having. He simply didn’t know what to make of it. He had expected everyone at school to love him, and while he was well liked by his Slytherin peers, the other houses left something to be desired. And his father’s involvement with the ousting of Minister Leach only further divided the peers he wanted to be devoted to him.

One thing became abundantly clear about Lucius Malfor while in school. He was smart, naturally so, but he would far rather lie and cheat and manipulate than put in the full effort. Using banned charms for tests and his family name and money to convince professors to give him better grades than he deserved, it was all better than actually just doing the work. He was particularly gifted with unspoken spell work and potions brewing, all natural and not the result of anything from Hogwarts (now see, this is what happens when you keep a blood line clear), enough so to justify his boasting and appointment to Prefect. His grades were good, and his OWLs and NEWTs middling (something that proved he would never be too old for his father to quite literally beat proper behavior into his son). Sure, he wanted to be the best, but finding alternate ways to get there was always best. Besides, he cared more about being the most powerful than he did being the highest performing. 

By the time of graduation, Lucius Malfoy had mastered several skills, though none from the institution's teaching. From his father’s, shall we say, forceful teachings, he had learned a calm, cool surface worked best. Stay even, at all times, don’t let emotions show unless they are superiority or anger. He had also become incredibly talented at persuasion and manipulation and frankly often preferred them over spellcasting. Together, they had shown him the importance of appearances. Say what you need to say, do what you need to do, craft whatever lies needed to keep people eating out of the palm of your hand, and everything will always come up roses for you.

Between his reputation and his lineage, Lucius easily obtained a role in the Ministry not long after his time at Hogwarts. He didn’t need a job, no, but with it would come more power and paise and money. Not to mention, his father made it quite clear that the life of a socialite wouldn’t be tolerated. He found his position with the Improper use of Magic department rather well suited. He’s used the position to create ties with other powerful witches and wizards and groom ties with the Minister and any potential future Ministers as well as expanding his collection of dark artifacts.

 It has also been rather useful to serve the Dark Lord--and now the Mundus. Being a member of Voldemort’s chosen flock was a birthright of being a Malfoy as much as anything else in his life. His father had known the Dark Lord for years and as he rose to power, Lucius was an early member of the Death Eaters, taking his Dark Mark the day after his graduation. His message is one Lucius has been bred to believe his whole life. Lucius has been using his position at the Ministry to keep an extra eye on magical use--being overly harsh with any reports involving those believed to have ties to the Order, conveniently losing data on pureblood children and Death Eaters with illegal magic use, turning in false reports showing misuse of magic from those against the cause--not that this is well known outside the highest Death Eater and Mundus ranks. 

When Mundus Novus was created, there was no more natural fit for Lucius. He likely would have joined their cause even without his father being a founder, but Abraxas’s always firm hand was just another reason to tilt his head high, knowing he’s better than everyone else. It felt right, natural, comfortable. Until suddenly it was oppressing. No one saw his father’s death coming, least of all Lucius. He was just starting to get the feel of the ground beneath him at Mundus and knowing he would have his father and the Black brother to hide behind when Voldemort caught on. But now his father is dead. He didn’t even have time to decide if he’s sad about it or not. Because there’s a war and the pillars of Mundus Novus have an empty chair that’s meant to be his. But it’s so much pressure for a boy who’s only ever been told he’s not good enough by his parents. And it means doing what he’s most afraid of--taking a defiant move against the Dark Lord he’d been bred to respect and fear in equal measure. He’ll step up. He has to. There’s no other option. He just wishes he had had more time to prepare.

Headcanons

Lineage -- The Malfoy family only procreates until they have their first male offspring, so as to keep the bloodline clean and the money growing rather than being divvied among squabbling children

Sexuality -- I always picture Lucius on the aromantic and asexual spectrum. He’s not a completely sex-negative ace individual, he can and does have sex, it’s just not something he’s particularly interested in--he has more important things to worry about. And he’s certainly aro because, really, Lucius Malfoy loving anyone but himself is practically laughable 

House Elves -- Lucius’s parents couldn’t be bothered to raise him. They both had more important things to do. So his raising feel to the House Elves. There was one elderly house elf, Maisel, who cared for him as a baby, would sneak him treats while he was a child, and showed him little bits of house elf magic to entertain him. She died turing his fifth year at Hogwarts, without so much as an owl from his parents. He simply returned at the end of term to find her no longer there and a young male houself (a Dob...something, Lucius didn’t bother learning the new elf’s name) tearfully telling him she had passed.

[starsailorstories]

So! Given, uh, everything, any chance you could talk about how various Astraea cultures deal with sicknesses and quarantine? Especially since some (especially Bell Town) are extremely or entirely genetically identical, and so more at risk?

Also, how would the cast members react to self isolation and social distancing?

FIRST OFF, sorry this took 10 years to answer, I was super busy and there’s kind of A Lot Of Spec Bio to discuss here

Also, this question made me feel very Seen lol…why yes i DO use worldbuilding as a coping mechanism for the stress of watching the wet tissue paper my country calls a social safety net dissolve

Most sickness that astraeas deal with day to day isn’t actually contagious*, but more a result of individual reaction to the environment (in terms of public health response, think seasonal allergies, although physiologically speaking it’s nothing like that). Communicable, infectious disease tends to be a less frequent problem but purely for that reason is more feared, especially as the most common source for novel diseases is interplanetary shipping (like, astraeas on one planet who have immunity to something unknowingly ship contaminated goods to another planet where people don’t). All that is nowhere near as devastating as it could be in a human context–for one thing astraeas’ bodies are hella dry compared to ours, so if a microbe isn’t airborne it’s almost a non-issue (on the other hand, infection is almost a guarantee if you have an open wound)–but most planets, stations and orbiters have a list of OTHER planets, stations and orbiters categorized by how long it’s been since first contact and how long shipments need to be in quarantine based on that, and that kind of thing runs the same gamut from “rigorously evidence-based” to “completely political and petty” that it does on earth.

Speaking of which, the issue of genetic similarity as a disease risk is as politicized as you’d expect in a society where people said “oh, with our genetic technology we can just design the working class to be however we want.” The Hyperians, being, you know, A Rigidly Hierarchal Interstellar Empire In A Space Opera as they are, tend to present the genetic homogeneity as sort of a good thing, what makes Us Us and Them Them, and the royal family themselves subscribe to the very historically royal (and also very eugenicist) idea that genetic “purity”–which for astraeas mostly just means having children in a very chemically controlled environment–helps keep em’ royal or something. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t it just makes hemophilia, and the more conservative Basileans minimize the environmental variance that keeps them from wiping each other out like some kind of aggressively graceful banana monocrop, the easier it is for epidemics to escalate in general because whole colonies become vectors together.

You won’t read about it in your galactic history book til after the revolution, but the dangers of genetic homogeneity were actually observed by lux units, who noticed that “variant” and “off-order” clones were a bit more likely to survive outbreaks of disease. Supervisors in clone factories have tried HARD to excise the superstition that variant units who remain un-decommissioned into adulthood are good luck to have on your cabin crew or manufacturing-plant shift, but it’s never completely gone away, and once Bell Town goes topside their medics and scientists immediately get to work testing, peer reviewing and proving the mechanics of diversity as a factor of public health because it’s a helpful argument for legitimizing their seizure of the means of their own reproduction and fighting the prejudice against “defective” lux that don’t fit the mold.

To really get into your question, Bell Town at least has the advantage of being small and having a busybody mom friend for a de facto head medic, so I don’t think they’ve ever had a quarantine situation get much bigger than four or five people just because Bolt is very up on how everyone’s doing and very very persuasive–the medics know that that’s just a matter of luck though, and I’m sure a factor in the push to go topside is the potential for tragedy involved in having a settlement of mostly/nearly genetically identical people in somewhat adverse and scarce conditions. That’s not to say there’s no plan–the shortages in Bell Town tend to be of immediately consumable raw materials, like air and fuel and very basic multi-use medicines, whereas raw materials for manufacturing specialized equipment are a lot easier to get because organized factories in DT’s network can have them smuggled out. And a majority of the town’s population, at least by vol. 2, are former manufacturing-plant labor with working radio receivers in their heads, so it’s fairly feasible to expect even a small portion of them, with an emergency push, to manufacture A Lot of vaccines, or intensive care equipment, or whatever was needed practically overnight with the direct guidance of the medics to ensure as much safety in the process as possible (they do just that with medical and defense supplies in vol. 2 for various spoilery things).

Up top, the aula’s responses to any and all large-scale social crises tend to be erratic but sweeping. There are some advantages–in terms of expertise, there are certainly things that well-paid doctors with fully equipped research hospitals can accomplish that a dedicated crack team of self-educated medics can’t, including proactive study of new strains of disease. There’s also feudal insanity–technically individual hospitals/institutions aren’t supposed to issue info without the aula’s permission, though legally local nobles can give it on the Hyperians’ behalf if they’re willing to risk Drama. The internal weirdness of the court both logistical and interpersonal (which I need to make a post about) can sometimes mean, in any emergency, that different parts of the empire receive conflicting information, or an edict followed after a day’s delay in the satellite network by a retraction. Public trust (among citizens of relative status at least) that the Hyperians know what they’re doing tends to decline exponentially as you move out from the inner Rings for this exact reason.

Derafior City on Caesura B dealt with a wave of multiple epidemics a couple hundred turns before the official rise of the empire that still affect how the city is laid out–leaders at the time issued quarantine orders in cooperation with individual colony matriarchs, and as those orders became enforced in physical “zones” neighborhood identities, reputations, and rivalries became increasingly defined (Crater culture being what it is, quarantine boundaries were often pretty literal battle lines as the situation became desperate). A lot of historians trace the factionalism of the Crater to this era, although outside imperialism was also a major instigator of both factional conflicts and disease exposure. Keep in mind too that while outsiders like to portray Derafior as violently fractured and there’s a grain of truth to that, there are just as many deep loyalties between neighborhood/colony factions as there are rivalries and as we see in vol. 3, Caesurans are certainly not allergic to closing ranks when shit really hits the fan. 

I don’t have specific canon examples from other ante-dome cultures but another thing of possible interest that I’d like to talk about is that in places touched by Basilean culture, a lot of what we consider “social distancing” is just normal because cleanliness is highly ritualized and valued. Although platonic adult friendships tend to be very cuddly by American and British standards, at the same time, hand touches between strangers outside specific social rituals are seen as quite inappropriate, so things are more thoroughly designed to prevent them–for example, most trading of goods is done purely on paper at the point of sale and nothing actually passes from hand to hand, you go get it out of the crate or pick it out of the field yourself (which is also a practicality of the relative non-ubiquity of flexible currency–and actually, one of the complaints about the use of currency among more traditional astraeas is that it spreads germs). Basically everyone who can afford it wears gloves in public, which are changed and washed every time a person re-enters her home (disposable gloves are mostly limited to medical and laboratory settings, although it’s not unheard of to use them in a pinch if you don’t have a place to launder gloves at home. Side note, if you’re translating directly Altamaian actually refers to manual labor that makes it impractical to wear gloves as “barehanded” labor and the summary conceptualization of such as unhygienic represents a MAJOR vein of classism among Basilean citizens). The reason for the glove thing is that for a species with an exoskeleton regular hand washing can be kind of involved (You know how sometimes it takes a lot of scrubbing to get the dirt out from under your fingernails? Now imagine you have fingernails all over your hands). 

Oh and to answer your second question: out of the main cast the one you’d think would suffer most with self-isolation is Bolt, but being a healthcare worker she’d still see people. Rugsy would complain the loudest but also paradoxically be secretly kind of relieved to not have to worry about People for a while. DT experiences virtually no change from her normal lifestyle lmao

*There’s two kinds of disease that can affect astraeas–what they call “miasmic”, and infectious. Miasmic disease (which as you might guess I named after the precursor to modern germ theory–it’s kind of true in this instance!) is basically when an individual’s body and light chemistry can’t maintain its normal balance in certain atmosphere conditions. A big reason for the kickoff of the artificial atmosphere industry after the settling of Altamai is that the cloud cover tends to trap a lot of carbon dioxide, and for i.e. Basillans and Sitherians (who have come to be based on G-type stars, like the sun, and K-type stars, slightly smaller and cooler than the sun) there’s just not enough hydrogen atoms in there to run their bodies optimally. This mostly affects very young children, the elderly, and those whose cores were formed in suboptimal conditions (comparable to a human who has a chronic health condition because of a birth defect) and if it can’t be remedied by a move to more hydrogen/helium rich air, it’s treated by sucking the pure hydrogen out of a water electrolysis device through a hose on the daily, which side note, is also a reliable hangover remedy for them.

[ofnolaxmagic]

➺ NIC MIKAELSON who looks exactly like ALFIE ENOCH has been spotted in the heart of new orleans. I heard the HETEROSEXUAL, TWENTY-SEVEN/ TWENTY SEVEN-year-old, WITCH who is known to be +GENTLEMANLY but also –TOO SOFTHEARTED, is one of the SURIVORS that has found their way to new orleans. Rumor has it they are FREYA AND KEELIN’S FIRSTBORN ( ALSO VINCENT’S BIO SON ) and you will find them working at the LE BAYOU RESTAURANT & OYSTER BAR as a CHEF.

How long has your character been in new orleans? Do they like new orleans? What brought them here? Are they planning to stay?

Nic’s been living in NOLA for 19 years now. There was 7 years when he was away due to  studying in a world-class culinary school in France and then staying and working in Hangzhou, China for his first career job, before finally returning to his home city when he was 24. Upon his return, he very quickly managed to find a job as a sous chef in Le Bayau Restaurant and Oyster Bar due to his very prolific resume high natural talents and a variety of amazing skillsets in his field despite his young age.  Nic will always love this city. It’s his home, no matter how far, or long he roams to other places, New Orleans will always be the place he eventually returns to in the end. 

Are they one of the returned dead, if so how long have they been alive for? Or are they one of the unfrozen, if so how are they handling that the world has moved on without them? Or are they one of the survivors, if so how did they handle the dead returning and now the unfreezing?

He is one of the survivors. Nic is very glad about the unfreezing as he will then get to finally meet his cousin Hope properly as well as his aunt Davina and it warms his heart to know that other families who were badly torn apart due to that spell, could now be reunited with each other. He was very ecstatic when the dead started coming back to life, as then gradually got to know his other family members who had died long before he was even born. 

Is your character connected with any of the groups in new orleans? The witch coven, the werewolf pack or the mikaelson academy?

He is part of the New Orleans coven and much to his uneasiness, a bit of a coveted member due to his powerful parentage. He is a very powerful witch due to being the child of Freya and Vincent as well as being well tutored to the max by both of them throughout his whole childhood, but he really tries to not show his potential that much, outside of his family members, in order to try to keep a low profile within the witch community as often as possible. He was formerly part of the Mikaelson Academy as he was enrolled there as well but he has long ago graduated. However, he still plays an active part sometimes in that place by stopping by there sometimes to check up on his relatives and offer his help at any kind of work if it was needed. 

Anything we should know about your character, the way you play them? Headcanons? Any connections or plots you want for your character that you would like others to take up within the group? What canons would you like to see taken for your character?

Nic’s a very friendly, gentle, helpful, very sincere, very neat and quite earnest in almost everything he does. He also is a rather pure gentlemanly guy as his mothers brought up him up very well and he was also an obedient son. He’s also loyal to a fault to his friends and family. Nic loves his family with his entire being and would do everything he can to make sure that they were safe, well-taken care-of  and happy. He tries his hardest to live a life of good principles and strong morality, but with his large extended family, he has eventually come to accept that some things had to be grey. Nic’s also a humble and stable person.  His greatest passion in life besides his family is FOOD and COOKING. The culinary world and everything to do with it are his greatest joys in life eversince he was a little boy. He’s very happily living his passion currently, working to the best of his abilities in a 5-star restaurant in his home city. Ever since his teenage years till now, this culinary prodigy has been highly-praised in the culinary world, due to his large talent, dedication and achievements and it’s up to anybody’s guess on how high Nic would soar in his career.  Nic has a little experience in the romance arena, due to always shelving and post-poning his romantic relationships, as there was always something far more important that he was busy with throughout his life growing up. If it wasn’t taking care of his family, it was school and if it wasn’t school, it was his extra witchcraft lessons with his parents, and if it wasn’t that, then it was all about exploring his passion in culinary. He had a couple of crushes and a brief romantic relationship, but that was it so far, for this Mikaelson.  Nic’s other hobbies are knitting and making little wooden handicraft decos.  Connections/plots: Bring me everything for him! Besties, Childhood best friends, Crushes, Old high- school rivals, many friends, neighbors, fellow coven witch members whom he is close with, friendly rival at work, colleagues, his ex-gf from his one brief relationship, people he met while in France, China and even while on a long holiday in Spain, etc.. Canons I want to see that have yet been taken up in this group: Freya, Keelin, Vincent, Marcel, his younger siblings ( tho these are OCs technically XD )

Your characters bio: For canons, any details about their life after the show finished and since they returned. Or for ocs, we would like as much detail as possible about your characters history)

I’m going to write this out in bullet points since I don’t have Nic’s immediate family members here yet, so I don’t want to get to much into their history without plotting with the prospective muns. 

Was born on February 14th, 2028 ( may subject to change later on)

Firstborn of Freya & Keelin ( bio son of Vincent )

Developed a strong love for food and his curiosity in cooking mounted higher and higher very rapidly at the age of 4. 

Throughout his growing up years, his hobby of cooking then became his passion and he entered numerous competitions, local contests, helped out in as many food fair, charity events and bake sale as he could, thus earning him a lot of awards and accolades especially in big-scale competitions. Did a lot of hard-working and adventurous research and eventually made a lot of his own delicious recipes with several unique tricks and difficult techniques. 

Won a full scholarship to The Cordon Bleu Institute in France when he was 17, and that was when he left NOLA to further realize his dreams. 

Graduated pretty fast with many glittering accolades due to his extraordinary talent and extreme dedication to his craft. And then was immediately offered a job in a very prestigious restaurant in China. He did fully utilize his stay in China by travelling around a lot during his free time to learn as much as possible about the various types of Chinese cooking and soak up the tips from different ethnic groups there. 

He keeps  several food journals from when he was young till now.

Finally returned to his home city when he was 24, and eventually landed a job as a sous chef in a 5-star restaurant in the Bayou District. 

Due to many years of practice under the tutelage of Freya, Vincent and his other magic teachers in school, he currently has full control his magic and has a pretty good idea of how much potential he has. 

He’s currently fast friends and roommates with Josie Saltzman. He met her when she showed up in his family home, immediately after she got unfrozen, seeking help from Freya and bumped into him instead. After finding out who she was and her backstory, the ever-hospitable and warmly helpful Nic, offered her a place to stay in his apartment. Due to their personalities meshing very well with each other, the two have very quickly grown into good friends and Nic is trying his best to help her with her magic and her emotions. 

[lets-break-free-from-our-chains]

Evangeline Herondale Bio

A/N: I will being adding more information, wherever needed, to Evangeline’s Biography as the series progresses on through each chapter. I know that sometimes I prefer to imagine an OC in a story I'm reading in my own way based off the description of the OC’s characteristics given in the story. With that said, I will not cast a specific girl to be the face of Evangeline. That way all my lovely readers can imagine Evangeline’s Physical features exactly the way they want to; aside from the eyes, hair, and skin tone, of course. Whether she be made up completely from your imagination or cast as your favorite actress who holds the same features. Feel free to send messages on who you feel is perfect to play Evangeline. I got quite the adventure planned for this series, so buckle up, my brave Shadowhunters! I feel the actors I did cast, for all the other roles, are notoriously well known enough. However if you don’t know the actor and would like to know or have a question about the people I chose feel free to message me anytime and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible. -xoxoxo

Warning(s): Possible Spoilers for people who haven’t read the dark artifices yet. Evangeline Herondale and Alec Lightwood are their own warnings. Information overload. Non-certified Crash Course for New Series ahead.

Disclaimers: I claim nothing as my own except for my OC that I created to co-exist with the Shadowhunter Universe that belongs to Cassandra. Any and all rights and claims to every Shadowhunter Universe characters, places or objects in this series that also rightfully belong to her. All text from the movies and books belong to Cassandra. This is purely a fanfiction story created for enjoyment, with the help of said previously existing fandom. My only claim is to my OC, my plot changes, and my series title. 

Word Count: 1845

Masterlist

Sneak Peak in The series: “Your Mother Loved You, Evangeline.”

A Tale of Frayed Gold Series

Full Birth Name: Evangeline Josephine Herondale

Full Marriage Name: Evangeline Josephine Herondale-Lightwood

Born: January 8, 1989, Herondale Manor, Idris Age: 23(as of 2012) Kind: Shadowhunter

Alias: Eve Josie Fray Evangeline Josie Fray Evangeline Josephine Herondale-Fray Evangeline Josephine Lightwood

Nickname(s): Little Angel(by Imogen) Josie-Bear(by Marcus) My Evangeline(by Celine) Evie(by Alec, Clary, Max, and Izzy) Big Sis and Josie(by Jace) Residence: New York Institute in Manhattan, New York London Institute in London, England(Former) Brownstone in Park slope, New York City(Former) East Village, Manhattan, New York City(Former) Herondale Manor, Alicante, Idris(Former; Unless on business in Idris; in which case both her and Alec prefer to reside in the manor until they return to the New York Institute)

Spouse/Shadow-Mate: Alexander Gideon Lightwood

Child(ren): TBA

****************************************************** Mother(s): Celine Montclaire-Herondale*(Biological)

Jocelyn Fairchild(Adoptive)

Father(s): Stephen Herondale*(Biological)

Luke Graymark(father-figure) 

Sibling(s): Jonathan Herondale(Younger Biological Brother)

Clary Fray/Fairchild(Adoptive Younger Sister)

***************************************************** Parabatai: Clary Fairchild

***************************************************** Family:  Herondale Family Lightwood Family Fairchild Family Montclaire Family(Disowned/unacknowledged by Eve)

Relatives: 

*= Deceased

Lightwoods

Maryse Trueblood-Lightwood(mother-in-law)  

Robert Lightwood*(Father-in-Law) 

Isabelle Lightwood(Sister-in-law)      

Max Lightwood*(Brother-in-law)

Fairchild

Jocelyn Fairchild(Adoptive Mother) Clary Fairchild(Adoptive Sister)

Herondales

 Imogen Whitelaw-Herondale*(Paternal Grandmother)

 Marcus Herondale*(Paternal Grandfather)

 Owen Herondale*(Paternal Great Grandfather)  Lydia Kingsmill-Herondale*(Paternal Great Grandmother)  Cordelia Carstairs-Herondale*(Paternal Great-Great Grandmother)  James Herondale*(Paternal Great-Great Grandfather)  Lucie Herondale-Blackthorn*(Paternal Great-Great Aunt)  Will Herondale*(Paternal Great-Great-Great Grandfather)  Tessa Gray-Herondale(Paternal Great-Great-Great Grandmother)  Cecily Herondale-Lightwood*(Paternal Great-Great-Great Aunt)  Ella Herondale*(Paternal Great-Great-Great Aunt)  Edmund Herondale*(Distant Direct Ancestor)  Linette Owens-Herondale*(Distant Direct Ancestor)  William Herondale*(Distant Direct Ancestor)  Tobias Herondale*(Distant Ancestor)

Montclaire

Lisette Montclaire*(Maternal Grandmother)                                                    Jules Montclaire*(Maternal Grandfather)

******************************************************* Personality Traits: Evangeline is wise beyond her years, but still managed to keep a young and fun personality similar but not exactly like her younger brother's personality. She is naturally funny and sarcastic. She is kind to people she deems deserving of it, which happens to be quite a lot of people; Downworlders among said group. She carries a very warm and calming atmosphere around her. One of the many things that her family enjoys about her. She is highly intelligent and you can nearly always find her with her nose in a book, or writing more pages in the book she's working on. Now that she has her shadow mate she can't see life without Alec and vice-versa. While she can sit in the quiet with a good book for hours on end. she also has quite a competitive streak in her. She knows that many people can find that annoying in a person and tends to fight with herself on keeping her competitive side at bay. However, oh boy. When she found out Jace had a competitive streak to rival herself, and that he actually considered it fun and endearing in a person who could enjoyed good, fair, and friendly competition. She almost couldn't contain herself. Jokingly calling Jace her long lost twin and asked him where he wandered off too; both still unaware of Jace's true heritage. Eve also has an amazing amount of patience and therefore is very hard to truly upset her, but the angel help anyone and everyone who crosses Eve, directly, or crosses her by crosses someone she loves.

Evangeline is extremely loyal to her own. There is no such thing as anything other than 100% loyalty, to the ones she cares about, in her mind. Because of that fact about her, she is ruthlessly unforgiving to those she sees as traitors, Liars, thieves, and most of all cheaters of any kind. Eve loves the ones she cares for so fiercely, strongly, and whole-heartedly that she finds herself unsettled and perturbed; almost disgusted, by those who don't seem to cherish and define themselves by loyalty and honesty on some level, no matter how small or big. One example being when Robert cheated on Maryse. Eve showed him no mercy, and viciously came to her defense, followed closely by her mate Alec and brother Jace, whenever the two older Shadowhunters disagreed on any level. Eve would do nothing to hide her disdain for Robert even to his face. In Eve's mind, an attack to a family member might as well be a direct attack on her. 

*************************************************

Important Trivia: Evangeline was extremely close to her grandmother, Imogen, during her two years as a resident at the Herondale Manor. As soon as Evangeline was born Imogen loved her granddaughter as much as she loved her beloved Stephen; quite a few would say even more than Stephen. Imogen took care of Evangeline while Celine rested from the extremely hard labor she went through. Imogen was she first and only person to call her, little angel, derived from her first name. Imogen would also occasionally call her Josie-Bear when playfully teasing her. However, that was a rare occurrence as Imogen preferred little angel as she saw the name fit to describe the light that her little angel brought into her grandmother's world. After Imogen lost her shadow-mate and son she was devastated, but she managed to keep it together with the hopes that she would be with her granddaughter again. However, as soon as she received word that Evangeline was kidnapped, and likely dead after a raid in Herondale manor that left Celine and her unborn grandson dead. All the light left her and with the grief of losing her Evangeline turned her harshly bitter and hostile to the world around her. Imogen's once very warm aura died and was replaced with a shell of a woman who showed no mercy and kindness what so ever. In late 2007 she received word that a family of Shadowhunters that didn't belong to any institute showed up at the new York institute. One of which was the shadow mate of Alec Lightwood. However that's not what caught Imogen's interest. It was the fact that her last name was Fray but she was adopted and bared a striking resemblance to the Herondales and her first and middle name was Evangeline Josie. Imogen trying not to get her hopes up, after thinking her granddaughter dead for so long, decided to go to the new York institute and see for herself. There she identified Eve as her granddaughter based off the birthmark over her heart and blonde hair and gold eyes. Rare physical features supposedly only her granddaughter possessed; even though Jace held the same features, the only different being that the Herondale birthmark was on his shoulder and not over his heart. Imogen appeared to return to her old self instantly as her eyes welded up with tears and she gave Eve a watery smile while introducing herself as Evangeline's grandmother.

Evangeline was spoiled rotten by her grandfather, Marcus Herondale, who had always wanted a little girl. He was also the only one to ever call her Josie-bear and in response, after she was big enough to talk more, Eve would call her grandfather, papa bear.

Evangeline has a deep hatred for her mother's parents and the way they treated Celine. When Eve realized children would be the real outcome of her life now that she found her shadow- mate. She become nervous about motherhood. Concerned that she didn't know if she would be any good at it. Imogen and Jocelyn told Eve about how Celine's parents were towards her, and how different Celine was from them because of her childhood. Imogen spoke of how gentle Celine was with Eve. Always handling her like the most fragile precious treasure in the world. She always spoke so soft and gently to Eve, that in Imogen's mind, it seemed like Celine thought if she spoke to loud or to harsh that her beloved Evangeline might break and shatter. Imogen and Jocelyn told Eve not to worry so much, and pointed out the fact that because she was worrying so much proved that she wanted and would strive to be best mother for her children. 

Eve has always had a general love and great respect for her Biological mother, Celine, just because she was her mother by birth and title. However that love soon became very deep after hearing many stories from both Imogen and Jocelyn about how much Celine loved and cared for Evangeline before her abrupt and untimely death. However before Imogen or Jocelyn spoke in detail about Celine's relationship with her daughter; Eve deeply struggled with the small nagging doubts her mother ever truly wanted her or cared for her.

********************************************** Quotes spoken by Eve about the Montclaires: 

"Okay. Don't be like Mother's parents[Montclaires] under any circumstance goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyways. I'll just be like you two and Maryse. Did you guys happen to write personal survival guides during your time with raising kids. Cause I've always been on the opposite end up until this point." -Eve to Jocelyn and Imogen, on the do's and do not's of motherhood.

"They're NOT my family! Family doesn't do that to each other. Parents who claim to love their children do NOT do that to said children!" -Evangeline to The Clave, when questioned on her heritage and allegiance.

"I refuse to acknowledge they[Montclaires] were ever family at one point in time. Or at all for that matter." -Evangeline to The Clave, when questioned on her heritage and allegiance.

Quotes Spoken by Eve about her Enemies:

"Anyone who hurts my family, is no friend or ally of mine. They're my enemy." -Evangeline to Sebastian, delivering him a promising threaten when the two talked about Max's death and the Lightwoods grief over the youngest member's horrific death.

"I will hurt you for this. I'll kill you, one day, for what you have done! Not even the angel can save you. Your fate has been fixed." -Evangeline declares to Sebastian, infuriated over Max's death and the devastation it left her shadow-mate in.

"This is the beginning of the end. THEIR END, not ours." -Evie to Clary, in regard to their enemies and the end of The Dark War.

"I never lose, Jonathan. I hate losing. Failure is not a option for me. You should have learned that about me by now, Morgenstern." -Evangeline to Jonathan Morgenstern, on her Hatred for losing as she's seen, First hand, how costly it can be to lose. Especially if it's losing to Valentine and his followers.

Quotes Spoken by Eve about her mother, Celine:

"My mother LOVED me! I was WANTED and LOVED by my mother...and you[Valentine] took her away from me, along with my baby brother! Why did you do that?!" -Evangeline to Valentine, while desperately trying to understand why he would hurt her so deeply in such a way for no reason.

"You ripped my mother, my brother, and my world away from me...and because you took those things away; you also took my happiness away from me...and this is what you've done with it!" -Evangeline to Valentine, Outraged with Valentine, himself, and with his plans.

"I wonder anywhere from once everyday to infinity on what those two words would sound like falling from her[Celine] lips...My Evangeline." -Evie to Alec, about her mother's personal term of indearment for Eve.

Sneak Peak in The series: “Your Mother Loved You, Evangeline.”

[simplycarrie]

yeethaw and welcome to ‘sierra drops a muse because she’s bored’ i’m your host sierra. and i’m here to introduce you to my smol kid Carrington, who might i add broke my streak of space names but whatever. also i’m 110% sure this bio is going to be a) long and b) something v different from what i usually do

╰☆╮ HALEY LU RICHARDSON ─ CARRINGTON ‘CARRIE’ ALDERIDGE-SANGSTER identifies as CIS-FEMALE and uses SHE/HER pronouns. they’re a SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACTRESS, and they’re only TWENTY ! they’re said to be WARM-HEARTED, but also DOGMATIC. i guess that’s why they’re known as THE FERVOUR in the tabloids. ( florence welch / lauren jauregui )

the baby doll + the contingent — aka her early years [ infant to 12. musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ]

carrington amelia elizabeth alderidge-sangster was subject to the same cruelty as her half-sister anastasia, getting the longest fucking name possible. although she doesn’t go by carrington, both her friends and family call her ‘carrie’

she was born june 30th making her a cancer: ‘ the crab. cancerians are seen as sensitive and emotional, and in fact they are. they’re the cry babies of the zodiac, though they’re a lot tougher than people give them credit for. they’re maternal and caring and empathetic as all heck, with a tendency towards traditional values- deep down, they want the white picket fence. along with virgo and libra, they’re one of the most romantic of the signs.’ but this information won’t be relevant until later

was v spoiled as child, and got basically anything she wanted? caused her to be a bit of a brat as a kid and she constantly needed validation from others. she had the picture perfect childhood if we’re being completely honest

always wanted attention, always needed to make sure that she knew other people were aware that she needed their attention

then she was shipped off to le rosey to follow in her sister anastasia’s footsteps and boy oh boy thing changed for her

the sovereign + the opulent — aka her teenage years [ 13 to 18. musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ]

remember how i said that carrington was very needy and constantly wanted validation? yeah just about the moment she stepped foot on the lush green grass of le rosey she changed

was immediately the girl who was colgate smiles and perfect posture on school brochures, brandishing a tennis racket beneath a blurb about the institute’s proficiency in churning out well-rounded pupils, but underneath? she was the devil’s reincarnate of blair waldorf.

although her sister was two years ahead of her but left a reputation behind with her, and so in turn carrington was immediately popular, and she used it to her advantage

mixing in her family’s pre-established wealth ( which she flaunted at literally every opportunity she got ) with new-found popularity carrington ruled the school brandishing a fashionably velvet fist

she was bitchy to everyone, she disregarded other people’s feelings was callous and abrasive, and didn’t care what anyone had to say about her ( because she’d end up ruining their reputation and smiling in their face afterwards )

although her family wanted her to be like anastasia playing tennis and being the model student ( which she was for her first year ) she ended up finding her passion for music, quickly joining and leading le rosey’s school choir

carrington was smarter than anyone ( including herself ) gave her credit for, she aced all of her classes, and was on the road to becoming le rosey’s next valedictorian

then, she met him. the supposed ‘love of her life’. the one who was so close to making her soften and lose track of her studies, and just run away with him. until, she found someone ‘better’ stabbing him in the back, and promptly sashaying away from the damage

though leaving him was perhaps the biggest mistake she ever made, the ‘better’ thing she found turned out to be much worse. she was abused emotionally and physically, and they had sex whenever he felt like it.

suddenly she was with child, and in a panic she called stas, who took her to get an abortion without her family knowing, to this day stas is the only person knows about her daughter that never came to be, supposed to be named cornelia anastasia daphne alderidge-sangster

finally senior year approached and not wanting to break her facade carrington continued on her studies, and when she graduated she was given the honor of valedictorian ( along with winning prom queen at both her junior and senior prom )

the fervour + the fallen angel — aka the current years [ 19 to present. musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ]

carrington had plenty of offers to go to college, but the one she settled on was the juilliard school in manhattan, new york she earned her aa in both acting and vocal arts, and also has full intentions of returning to juilliard in the spring to achieve her ba in those same two things

of course carrington’s talents didn’t go unnoticed, she was quickly offered a netflix show which is currently recording it’s first season, being one of the top rated netflix comedies/dramas ( think ‘one day at a time’ and ‘brooklyn nine-nine’ )

she’s very different from when she was a teenager, after her mother fell ill, and her step-father passed away she’s become very sensitive to the feelings of others, and her own feelings, she’s very maternal and will try to protect everyone, no matter how atrocious of a job she does

she’s very much a hopeless romantic, she’s read each and every single one of stas’s books at least five times, and she wants a love so deep she won’t have enough words in the english language to describe it

falls in love with just about anyone, no matter how bad they are for her, you could do something as nice as hold the door open for her, and immediately she’s falling head over heels for you, thinking about you, and planning your wedding together

wanted connections: ( there’s a lot skskksks )

familial —

half sibling - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] anastasia daphne margeurite sangster. when they grew up carrington was a bit of a brat, and they didn’t get along to well, but after spending so many years together they’ve not only become sisters, but also best friends.

romantic —

high school sweethearts - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] the boyfriend that she met and dumped at le rosey, she was in love with him, truly she was, and maybe a huge part of her always will be but she like to think that ship has long since sailed.

long distance relationship - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] an online relationship; something that actually lasted for a good while? he would’ve still been at le rosey so they’ve never met in person but something soft where they called and skyped all the time but over time things fizzled out because she got so busy with his school and work.

secret relationship - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] although carrington still isn’t out as bisexual, this was always the case, at one point she had to hide the relationship between her and the girl she loved, which is perhaps why it ended, but despite it all carrington will always love her to some degree.

toxic relationship - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] carrington probably got cheated on by this person, and dumped multiple times, but there was something about them that just made her keep coming back for more, and she did every single time. until one day, she just didn’t. Or maybe they didn’t come back, or maybe she moved on, either way they haven’t spoken since.

pr relationship - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] carrington is essentially america’s sweetheart, i mean imagine an heiress, turned singer-songwriter, and now a house favorite sitcom star, where’s the blemish in her status? that’s exactly what happened when their agents set these two up, i mean after all, how hard can faking a relationship be?

skinny love - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] carrington has an extremely bad habit of falling in love with people, the only twist is this time this person fell back, except carrington is much too afraid to admit to herself that they’ve moved their relationship past being ‘just friends’ and so she doesn’t.

unrequited crush - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] like i stated previously carrington has a really bad tendency to fall in love with those who don’t want her back, and this time is obviously no different, she’s probably never told them about her crush, and has absolutely zero intention to do so, but we all new york has a funny way of making people confess.

fwb - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] carrington is far from being known for her sexual prowess, but she is known for getting her heart broken, and that’s exactly what happens every time these two hook up. carrington tries convincing herself that it’s normal, and most of the time she’s successful, but every now and then she can’t help but wonder if they should stick to being just friends, after all she gets attached far too easily.

platonic —

squad - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] oh gosh these four have been inseparable from the moment they met, sure they fight but in the end, no matter what, they promised each other that they would stay friends until the very end.

best friend -  [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] after being the devil’s reincarnate throughout high school, carrington kinda pushed away the idea a best friend, she simply shrugged off the thought of finding someone who could understand herm and then suddenly she found them, her best friend, she loves them to bits and pieces, and somehow they just feel like an extension of her, nowadays carrington could never imagine going about life without them.

roommate - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ]  carrington has a fairly big penthouse, alright more than fairly big, and to keep herself from getting lonely she got a roommate, and about a billion animals for, although their house looks like a zoo, carrington actually loves her roommate? they’ve seen her at her highest and lowest points, and have decided to live with her dumbass through it all, they don’t even have a problem with the millions of animals living with them, honestly where would she be without them?

good influence -  [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] carrington is known for her impulsive decisions and irreversible actions, but with this person by her side the world seems like it’s at carrington’s fingertips. she’d probably rank them very high on the list of the best things that have ever happened to her, right next to anastasia and hot cheetohs.

bad influence -  [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] carrington has never been one for parties, maybe it’s the fact that she’s not old enough to drink, or that she’s a hermit half the time, but she’d much rather hang out by herself taking pictures of her pets, and going on her own little adventures around new york. but with them, her adventures seem to be hard to remember, and parties seem so much more fun.

unlikely friends -  [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] carrington is probably the exact opposite of this person, personality wise, fashion wise, but yet despite the odds these two are still friends, and she actually enjoys it? sometimes she wishes she was outspoken and brash as they are, that she could learn to distance herself so easily, but they constantly prove themselves to be one of the closest friends she has.

frenemies - [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] one minute they’re insulting each other, the next they’re getting mani-pedis and getting brunch together. no one can quite tell if they love or hate each other most the times, not even them.

enemies -  [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ] it’s just every little thing this person does just irritates carrington, for one reason or another, and at this point she’s given up trying to be cordial, or even pretending to be.

ex-best friend -  [ musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ]  maybe they were best friends back in their le rosey days or maybe they met and immediately clicked but somehow in some way it just stopped. and carrington hates knowing that people don’t like her, plus they were really close and carrington really thought maybe she could glue their friendship back together, or that somehow if she held on tight enough then her best friend would stop slipping from her fingers, but it turns out the tighter you grip something, the easier you lose it, she definitely still misses them, and still probably accidentally texts them from time to time.

[thexavierinstituterp]

–you– NAME YOU’D LIKE TO GO BY? Tyler YOUR PREFERRED PRONOUNS? She/Her AGE? 21+ TIME ZONE? Central US 1-10 ACTIVITY LEVEL? 7

Your app below for Original Character 4 has been accepted! Please IM the main from your character’s blog within the next 24 hours so we can link you to the ooc blog. Congrats!

–your character– CHARACTER NAME (Given name & Codename)? Noah Byler, Circuit THEIR BIRTHDAY (day and month)? August 31st AGE: 18 PREFERRED PRONOUNS: He/Him ACADEMIC STANDING: High School Senior ORIGINALLY FROM: New Wilmington, Pennsylvania CHARACTER BIO:

Noah Byler was born into a very conservative but loving Amish family in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. He was the youngest of nine children and was taught First Order Amish values from the day he was born. His family lived on a farm and worked from the moment the sun was up until it went down. When the day was over, the Byler family would sit around the living room and enjoy each other’s company. They were a very close family and that was the best part of his Amish life.

As Noah grew older, he started to realize he really didn’t fit in very well with the Amish community. His uncle owned a store where they sold crafts and in the back, was an old computer that was strictly only used to keep track of business expenses and Noah often found himself sneaking time to mess with the machine and trying to learn more about it. He didn’t understand why using technology was a bad thing.

All his siblings chose to stay within the Amish community after Rumspringa, an Amish tradition where teens go into the English (modern) world and decide if they want to stay within the Amish community or leave and be shunned from their families for the rest of their lives. It wasn’t until the brother, Eli closest in age to him at 7 years older that someone left the community. He wanted to be a soldier which was looked down upon in their world. Noah hated that his family completely shunned his brother, even talking about him was not allowed.

When Noah was 14, it was his turn for Rumspringa and he knew he wanted to spend his time learning about the English world and improving his education. The more he learned about modern technology, the more he realized he wanted to be a part of their world. When he was 16 and it was time to choose between the Amish world and the English world, he followed in his older brother’s footsteps and chose the English. His family completely shut him out, the same as his brother and Noah was completely on his own. When he went back to the apartment he had been staying in, the technology in the house started to react and turn on and off. Strange information started going through his head and he had no idea what was happening. He couldn’t do anything but curl himself in a corner and try to shut it out, making the situation worse the more he stressed.

Luckily, with all the technology reacting to him in the area it didn’t take long for him to be found by Xavier Institute. Noah was reluctant to go with them but he was on his own now, his brother long gone in the Middle East and he knew he needed the help they were offering him.   IDEA(S) TO DEVELOP/BUILD ON:

·         Dealing with getting used to his powers and learning about a world much different than the one he came from

·         Being able to be a part of a family again, the thing he misses most from home

·         Learning more about who he really is

FC:

1.       Logan Shroyer, his gifs are perfect for Noah and he is who I see when I picture Noah.

2.       Lucas Till

–statistics and skills– MUTATION: Manipulation of technology, being able to scan devices with his mind and read what’s inside them (eyes turn green and data like while doing this) ADDITIONAL STRENGTHS: Spends free time working out and training to fight because powers aren’t physical. WEAKNESSES: When stressed, technology reacts to him turning on and off, sometimes exploding

Must be close in proximity to object that is being manipulated

Can’t handle being surrounded by too much technology at once INTELLECT LEVEL: 2 PHYSICAL STRENGTH LEVEL: 2 DURABILITY LEVEL: 2 OVERALL COMBAT SKILL LEVEL: 2 HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS RP? (to help us figure out the best ways to keep promoting it):

Ash who plays Scarlet Witch

[thistleandthorn-rpg]

Congrats Tyler on your new character: Christian Clarington - townsperson.

OOC INFORMATION:

Name/Alias: Tyler Preferred pronoun: He/Him Age (Must be 20+): 25 Timezone/Country: EST RP Experience: Y’all know. Activity Level: 7/10

IC INFORMATION:

Name: Christian Clarington Designation: Dominant Age: 24 Claim: NPC Faceclaim: Nolan Gerard Funk Orientation: Pansexual Occupation: CEO of Clarington & Pax; a thriving business firm based out of New York City, New York. Kinks: TPE, humiliation, breath-play, role-play, public-play, muscle worship, voyeurism, exhibitionism, open to anything not on the anti-kink list. Anti-Kinks: Scat, Vore, Water-Play, Cutting, Permanent injury or disfigurement

Key Points:

Cold and distant

Arrogant, cocky and vain

Possessive/Over-Protective

Independent, a natural-born leader

BIO

Christian grew up in the lap of luxury, and he worked hard to stay there. Being a Clarington came with a lot of challenges. He had three brothers, all of which were bound for the military by the time they neared the end of their high school experience. For Christian; as athletic as he was, as well suited for combat as he was, he couldn’t have been less interested in serving. This pissed his father off; who, as a colonel, wanted all his sons to follow in his foot-steps. Christian was never one to abide by anyone’s rules, though. He’d been categorized from an early age as a lone-wolf. He played football and other sports just because he thought he was supposed to, but at the end of the day Christian was content with being alone and quite frankly found nearly everyone else; his family included to be beneath him in intelligence and depth. While that might be entirely true, it couldn’t be denied that Christian was gifted. He never scored lower than a 95% on anything. He was the Valedictorian, naturally - and went on to accept a full ride to NYU to pursue business. This, of course, was against Christian’s fathers’ wishes. However, there wasn’t anything to be done. It was a full-ride, so Christian’s fathers’ money wouldn’t be needed, and Christian had long-since tapped into his trust fund and withdrew those funds so that he had enough to survive on his own for at least the duration of his college education. In the cold fashion that was Christian’s style, he bid his family good-bye with little more than a nod and left for New York, more-or-less content with the idea of going solo for the rest of his life.

As expected, Christian flew through college with near-perfect marks and graduated in record-time at the top of his class. Soon after, he joined forces with one of his few friends to start a financial services firm. Christian had built a reputation for himself amongst his peers, so it only took about six months for them to gain traction. There was one bump in the road, of course - and that was the fact that Christian had to enroll in a BDSM academy like everyone else. He settled on an academy just across the river in Jersey and attacked his education there at a hurried pace. He didn’t disagree with the system, per say. He was pleased with his mark, and when he wasn’t bogged down by work, he loved sex - especially when it called for him to be in control (and it always did). Still, finding a claim was so insignificant to Christian in the grand scheme of things. He wanted it for status, more than anything - but also, he just wanted to get back to his life without any rules; where he was his own boss.

That opportunity came soon enough. He met a submissive girl at the institute and they hit it off as much as he’d ever hit it off with anyone before. Her name was Juliet. She was gorgeous, well-mannered and thankfully, very quiet. She never gave him trouble and quickly enough, he started a trial with her and soon their claim was legitimized. After that, they both graduated and left the academy and moved into Christian’s penthouse on the Upper East Side overlooking Central Park. Finally, all seemed well. …That was, until Juliet started to speak up. Evidently, she hated city life. Christian had never gotten that deep with her, considering the fact that most of their interactions were carnal and hyper-sexual. She was a small-town girl and actually had family in some cow-town in Ohio. She was discontent, and Christian knew what a discontented submissive could eventually lead to; claim dissolution. He couldn’t bear having to find another claim, so he caved and purchased a luxurious apartment (well, as luxurious as Ohio can offer, anyway) out in Lima. Now, he and his submissive live there part-time. During the week, Christian boards his private jet and flies back to Manhattan for work, and then he returns to Lima in a desperate effort to keep his claim together. Time will tell if his efforts are in vain, but all he can do at this point is hope for the best.

BIO QUESTIONS :

Describe your occupational journey and how you got to where you are.  

In a phrase, my occupational journey can be described as a steady rise to the top. I won’t say that I came from nothing, because I didn’t. That said, I’ve built myself into something no one neither expected nor encouraged. While money has never been an issue, I’ve put in a great deal of effort into my education, my networking skills and my talent in the field of business. So, in answer to your question; I got to where I am through hard work, dedication and natural skill. It’s as simple as that.

How would you describe yourself as a Dominant/submissive?

I’m about as definitively Dominant as one can get. I’ve heard horror stories about the system failing people in their mark assignments and luckily that wasn’t the case for me. I’m strict, structured and communicative. I leave nothing to be desired when it comes to informing my submissives of my expectations. Further, I’d like to think that any submissive under my care is thoroughly taken care of physically, sexually and otherwise. Try to find a better Dominant than myself, I dare you.

How do you feel about authority?

I’m just fine with authority when I’m the one taking that role. I detest being told what to do; hence my ambitions to start my own business. I am my own boss, through and through; that mentality bleeds out of my occupational career and into my day-to-day life, as well.

[horsemen-rp]

Kitty Mallick

Age: 30 Affiliation: Famine Rank: Virtue Pronouns: she/her FC: Summer Bishil Status: Played by Becky

You are electric, deadly yet useful. Everything you do is carried out with simmering passion, a zap of palpable energy. You have no boundaries, are not constrained by the rules of those beneath you, the freedom to do as you please tasting sweet upon your tongue. The mundanity of normal life is a dull wasteland, much preferring to immerse yourself in the family’s back alley deals and empty car park meetings than the thought of an office job spent discussing the weather at the water cooler. Temptation lies in a smiled whisper, a taunting challenge, curious to know how far you can push people. Victory glints through dark eyes. You were made for this life.

ROLE.

You are often asked to sweet talk and bribe anyone Famine needs on side or, otherwise, make a mess of those who try to stand against you. It’s up to you to source new avenues for betting on, including spotting fresh boxing and horseracing talent to tempt into joining the crime family. Like a serpent with an apple, you lead them to sin.

BIO.

Fearlessness comes naturally to you; smiles that should be sweet on a face like yours turn sharp and deadly. You like to surprise people. There’s satisfaction to be had in forging yourself into something unstoppable, a force of nature in your own right. Words are weapons, it has been said, but as good as you are at stringing together an insult you’d far sooner point a weapon in the face of those who displease you.

It’s been that way since you were young, getting too riled up in an argument with a boy two years above you who assumed you didn’t belong in a private school ( he was right, but not for the reason he’d picked -- your grades were awful and it took more than one bribe to keep your name on the register ). His mistake at spouting ignorance teaches you two things: one, always know who you’re picking a fight with and, two, never, never, underestimate someone you’ve pissed off. Self-righteous, an angry fist to his face had left your knuckles coated in his blood, dark and sticky like the oil your distant family pumps up from the ground. They’re old money; rich enough that even you, no longer brandishing the family name, still reap the benefits.

Your mum presses a lipstick-tinted kiss to the forehead of her half-wild daughter afterwards and calls you an angel of vengeance from behind a pair of designer sunglasses, sunning herself in the heat of an Indian summer. You beam, pleased by the praise. A hunger has taken root in the pit of your stomach, a realisation that being powerful and dangerous can get you where poor grades and a certain disregard for institutional rules could not. Pieces fall into place as they have been for the last few decades. An ineffable plan.

You’re raised on a Femenias-branded silver spoon.  It’s no wonder, then, that when you’re offered an invitation to become involved in the family business by your uncle you jump at the chance. London breeds crime like it does rats and pigeons. Famine, you soon learn, is ingrained in the city’s underbelly the same way the brackish, sluggish water of the Thames exists between concrete blocks and archaic brick.  You slip into it, embracing that side of yourself. That side of your family.

Dark eyes glint in the glow of a nearby streetlight, flashing a smile to distract from danger. Laughter echoes down alleyways and silence pools along cracks in the tarmac soon after, matching the rust-coloured criss-cross patterns that decorate your palm as soap and water cleanse you of tonight’s trouble. Time and time again, you prove yourself worthy of your place in Famine’s ranks.

There is something to be said, too, of the way you hold your place amongst your cousins, keeping a tight grip on each as though worried someone may rip them from your grasp. Tenderly, you wish to carry their hearts in your mouth to keep them from harm. To swallow them for the sake of knowing they will always be yours. Sharp teeth may sometimes rip at the tenderflesh but you would defend those who find a way to love you with your life.

Sometimes, though-- sometimes love is not enough. A lesson learnt unwillingly, despite the precarious situation you gladly put yourself in. The burning fire in your chest was certainly suffocated by a past lover but it was by no means extinguished. That there is both your blessing and your curse: an inability to let go.

CONNECTIONS.

Jessica Reyes. There are very few you would actively soften for but you have a soft spot for your youngest cousin and would allow them to preen and parade you as much as they like so long as it makes them smile.

Saint Warden. The peace treaty made finding a lover in one of War’s spawn a little less controversial and you did what you could to convince others it was tactical, a way to get information, as your heart grew ever-fonder. In the end, though, it didn’t matter.

Thomas Rivers. Previously, you were their Power and they your Virtue. But since their fall from grace, you rose to take on their role and have the absolute pleasure of now being the one in control.