#‘Crowley help I’m angy’
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#Aziraphale just go fetches Crowley when something goes wrong#‘Crowley help I’m angy’#‘But I’m the nice one’#‘Yell at them for me pls love you hugs and kisses’#And of course Crowley says#‘Yeah bbg ofc I’ll yell at them for you luv you too’#good omens#crowley#aziraphale#ineffable husbands#aziracrow#good omemes#good omens shitpost#good omens text post#ineffable cats
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Chapter 6 part 2 liveblog
Official English release and chapter 6 update? Twst really feeding us for the holidays.
Anyway, obvious warning for spoilers here, and also a warning for this post being very long because I am taking full advantage of the fact that my drafts don’t lag from having tons of stuff in it anymore for some reason. I am still not fluent in Japanese, so take what I say is going on with a grain of salt.
So, leaving off where we stopped in the 1st part, Idia welcomes the lads to STYX... and then immediately questions why they don’t seem surprised that he’s here. The lads explain that they already discussed Idia’s connection to STYX, then they get angry and threaten him. I really like Leona’s little growl at the end of what he says, but it quickly gets overshadowed by Idia’s voice actor really going supervillain once Idia reasserts his control
“I’m the boss”
Seriously bro how does your voice even do that? I can feel Idia rapidly creeping up my favorites list.
The boys are surprised too and Vil agrees to follow along with Idia’s orders before we go back to the scene in Crowley’s office where the guys there are discussing Idia’s connection to the Isle of Lamentation. Malleus drops the name アイドネ (Aidone) Shroud, maybe meant to be like Aidoneus, one of the many alternative names of Hades. This person is apparently Idia’s late grandmother, the mother of his father. She used to be the head of STYX, which has existed for like a century or more.
According to Lilia & Malleus, in the past, magicians were called sorcerers and witches, and the connection between magic and blot was unknown. Overblots were known as a sudden disasters. The Jupiter family’s ancestors were the ones who brought peace to the people by sealing oveblot in the Isle of Lamentation, and the Shroud family’s ancestors became the guards who would keep overblot from being unleashed on the world ever again. Even as things changed and attitudes about magic changed though, the research into blot continued and STYX was formed. yay lore
anyway look at this Jade face. angy lad :)
So after some more not-that-interesting discussion, everyone goes back to their dorms since they don’t have a means of getting to the Isle of Lamentation to save the lads yet. Ruggie and Rook run into Jack who just found out about what happened. oop... Hold up, excuse me, Rook’s nickname for Jack is Monsieur Tough Guy???? Really? Seriously?
After briefing Jack on who got kidnapped and whatever, Ruggie sends him and the Prefect to the infirmary to check on what’s going on there. There, Jack finds Crewel managing the massive amount of students there. Epel is also there looking after Deuce and Ace, who are still unconscious. Crewel blames the damage on the rundown, cramped space of Ramshackle making it hard to fight without debris raining down on you too. We get a nice heartwarming discussion with Jack reassuring Epel that even their strong dorm leaders have faced failures before, so instead of being all gloomy about failing to protect their friends they have to keep going.
Jack, Epel, and the player leave the infirmary. Since Ramshackle is all destroyed, Epel invites the player to stay at Pomefiore for the time being. Before Epel can enter the mirror to go back though, Rook suddenly runs in and pushes him out of the way while shouting “non!”. The fuck?
ROOK’S GOING TO THE ISLE OF LAMENTATION? Alright okay I see I guess he’s launching a rescue mission cause he’s really concerned about Vil’s wellbeing right?
NO HE’S JUST REALLY CONCERNED ABOUT VIL’S SKIN’S WELLBEING. BRO THE GUY CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT HIS SKINCARE PRODUCTS WHAT ARE YOU DOING WHO CARES IF HE GETS A PIMPLE WE’VE GOT BIGGER THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT!!! ah. he left.
ALRIGHT IT’S TIME TO CHASE THAT KOMAEDA CHARACTER FRENCH BOY DOWN
But not before we get to briefly see The Mouse, who wants to come and help us but can’t. okay ANYWAY (hwow I use that word a lot), very fun watching a furious Epel yell and chase Rook through the skies and launch fireballs at him.
Finally Rook lands and makes us a fire and some tea since we just left to chase him through the cold night in our not-very-warm school uniforms. Rook says he didn’t want to wrap anyone up in this, which, terrible job there man, but now he will let us go along with him. Oh. We’re not gonna go back and get some backup? Really gonna be 3 high schoolers storming a top secret base of a shady organization? bruh.
Yay Vargas Camp 2 (Pomefiore version). Oooooooo now we get to solve the mystery of how Rook knew where to go, and what his unique magic is!
“My unique magic allows me to identify the location of someone that I cast magic on.”
The name of his unique magic is 「果てまで届く弓矢」, “a bow and arrow that reaches to the end”. Kinda cool, but then the English is literally just “I See You”. Congratulations on winning the award for lamest unique magic name.
Rook explains that he cast his unique magic on one of the Charon guys during the attack, so that’s how he knows where to go. Then we get to see a fancy map! yay lore. wtf are these country names though
It’s kinda cool that when he uses his magic an arrow flying sound effect plays. Alright so to get over there, apparently some person in Rook’s family in the past was really into traveling and had vacation homes in every country.
Man, Rook really stealing the spotlight here. I feel sorry for everyone who despises him, gonna have to put up with him for a long while if they wanna keep up with the story. We switch over to what’s going on at STYX now though!
LMAOOOOOOOOO looking good vil. “noooooo how could you not give me any skincare products I’m a world-class modeeellllllllll” lmaoooo cry harder buddy boy
also look at this great expression to pause on as Idia was just starting to talk
Okay back to business. The choker thing everyone’s wearing acts as both a magic suppressant and as a way to collect data on their vitals and stuff. Now we’re gonna watch an introduction movie for STYX. Oooooo nice animation. Yeah yeah “to protect the peaceful lives of magicians” great thing to say to some magicians you just kidnapped.
So after the movie ends and Idia makes a joke that doesn’t go over well, we get an explanation to the “Phantom” thing. That’s the name of the big entity thing that appears behind people when they overblot and uses the blot from their negative emotions as an energy source. If the overblot isn’t stopped, the person will eventually run out of energy to give to the Phantom and their body will vanish, leaving only the super juiced up monster behind.
As we already know, you gotta have a lot of magical power to be able to accumulate enough blot to overblot, and those with that sort of power usually have the self discipline to keep that from happening, which is why 5 people in the same place overbloting in such a short span of time caught STYX’s attention.
Now we get an interesting little scene where Leona asks Idia if he informed STYX about them and Idia remains silent before Ortho butts in to say that info’s classified, hmmmm not suspicious at all /s. Ortho also explains that STYX is researching how to use blot as a source of energy, and this research could help the lads to never overblot again, aka “LET US STUDY YOU OR ELSE. Now sign this NDA.”
Oh what STYX is gonna finish their research on them in 24 hours and also they promise not to hurt them? Okay why do I feel even more uneasy knowing that. LMAO 1 HOUR LATER STILL READING EVERY INCH OF THE NDA DOCUMENT. okay okay they signed now, time for a... battle simulator. Yep yep of course, as predicted. First up are Riddle, Azul, and Vil, and so Jamil and Leona just gotta wait.
Oh apparently STYX is drugging Grim or something to keep him asleep. Why.
LOOK AT THESE DUDES HAHAHA SPOT THE MAIN CHARACTER
Okay so the battle simulation is in VR.
them. It looks like the battle does actually restrict you to these guys instead of letting you use your own cards... That’s cool I think, idk I don’t play the game.
After that 1st test, the 2nd one abruptly places them in the school cafeteria in their school uniforms. oh god I got a bad feeling about this. Simulations of Jade, Rook, and Trey then appear and greet them. OH GOD I GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS.
YEP YEP YEP HELLO THERE scorpio power couple GUYS. TIME TO FORCE THE TEST SUBJECTS TO FIGHT THEIR OWN FRIENDS AND WATCH THE HAVOC IT WRECKS ON THEIR MENTAL STATES FOR THE SAKE OF ~SCIENCE~. Idia are you into this research or not I really can’t tell whether it’s his excitement or his desire to do the gacha event that’s a lie.
Alright blah blah blah Ortho and Idia talking about the lads’ strengths and weaknesses in battle. Except apparently Vil is super good and skilled at both offense and defense despite not especially having combat training. bro wtf why, stop making Vil overpowered it’s so hard to like him if the narrative keeps praising him like it’s forcing me to like him.
Yay now we switch scenes and we get to watch Jamil and Leona make awkward conversation with each other! Oh now we get something even better, analysis time with Leona! NO ORTHO DON’T COME IN LET HIM TALK ugh alright battle simulation time again.
They also get the friend betrayal simulation, but Leona immediately realizes what’s happening and just starts attacking as Ruggie’s talking about a report for alchemy class lmao. Idia’s so confused about why they accumulated so much less blot than the other 3 by the end of the simulation.
WTF is this “healing room” Ortho is talking about, the test subjects are sleeping in there? Did you do the same thing to them as yall did to Grim? Okay I’m actually kinda digging Ortho and Idia’s analysis, I better see some RPG style fanart of the overblot gang based on the RPG classes the Shroud bros assigned them.
OH OH OH LORE!!! STYX HAS A TECHNOLOGY TO MESS WITH MEMORIES BASED ON THE LETHE RIVER IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY!!!... i am afraid.
our boy is here. Oh no he remembers attacking the player, oh no he remembers the 1st years trying to save him,
OOF
OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU CAN’T JUST CUT TO ROOK AND EPEL FLYING THROUGH THE SKY AS ROOK WAXES POETRY ABOUT THE BEAUTIFUL WEATHER AFTER THAT AAAAAAA
NO YOU CANNOT MAKE EVERYTHING OKAY WITH MORE ROOK BACKSTORY CRUMBS... but I will take them. Alright woah he has 2 older siblings and 3 younger siblings. Cool.
The Rook crew has reached the place where the STYX base should be, but it’s just open ocean. Then we cut back to STYX, where Idia notes that just 12 of the agreed upon 24 hours are left, and then immediately sirens start blaring and one of the staff notifies Idia that they’re being attacked. The base apparently has an invisibility shield, which explains the appearance of just ocean.
“BONJOUR! Everyone from the Isle of Lamentation. I am the beauty seeking, beauty serving, known as Le chasseur d'amour, Rook Hunt!!”
Yes what a great way to start out your secret research lab invasion. “I want to eliminate him, but do not eliminate him!” IDIA SDHGLSGHLSDGLHSDLGK
Oh alright the Rook crew is going to get purposefully captured so they can infiltrate from inside. Yeah great I was wondering how they would beat the Charon squad; they just won’t.
awwwwww Ortho’s imitation of Rook is really cute. Oh Idia’s gut instinct really just be like
Wow lmao the isle of lamentation is underwater, love that massive hole just opening up in the sea. And with another disney movie dream there ends this part. Fantastic, now I can finally scour for memes about the update. Thanks for somehow, for some reason, reading all of this post.
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Inspired by a post by @toedenandbackagain
The advertisements were how they found each other, every once in a while, when the world changed too quickly. The newspaper was the only form of media to remain consistent. There was just too many ways to communicate now, Crowley thought. He’d had a hand in creating the internet, and now the humans were so invested even he could barely keep up with it.
Of course, he had a cell phone, but Aziraphale didn’t. He’d already tried the bookshop’s landline to no avail. It was like the angel was allergic to any technology made after the mid-nineteenth century.
He paid the man at the newspaper stand, scooping up a paper and opening it to the personal adverts as he wound through the crowd. He barely needed to pay attention to where he was going; people just seemed to veer out of his way.
Halfway down the page, he found what he was looking for.
Angel will be feeding ducks at St. James’ Park on Monday at 10am. Company would be appreciated.
“Found you,” Crowley muttered. Or at least, he hoped. The last time he’d been wrong, it had been the most awkward of situations. It was… well, let’s just say there was a reason Crowley didn’t respond to adverts that fit his physical description anymore. Or those looking for an ‘evening companion’, as much as that sounded like a term Aziraphale would use. No, he only responded to ones that specifically said ‘Angel’ now. Less chancy.
Crowley glanced at his watch, the shimmery dark face reading quarter to ten.
“Perfect,” he murmured, snapping the newspaper shut and tucking it under his arm. Aziraphale might like to read it, he supposed. He also supposed that perhaps he should stop talking aloud to himself so much.
Thirteen minutes later, Crowley arrived at St. James’ Park. In the distance, on the bench where they usually met, sat a prim figure with a shock of light hair and a cream colored jacket. One side of his mouth drew back in a grin as he sauntered over, keeping his eyes on the ducks in the pond as he came up beside the bench.
“That one was a bit obvious, don’t you think, angel?”
“It’s Angela, actually.”
Crowley froze, turning to look at the person sitting on the bench, who was not in fact Aziraphale but instead an old lady with pinned up white curls and a glimmer of mischief in her eyes.
“Oh, I suppose I must have mistyped it when I was sending it into the newspaper. I just can’t get the hang of these computers.”
Crowley blinked, glancing around uncomfortably as the shock began to pass.
“I think I’ve answered the wrong advert,” he said, taking a step backwards.
“Oh,” the lady said, her face falling a bit. “Well you’re here, would you like to feed the ducks with me, anyway?”
Crowley hesitated. As disappointed as he was that it wasn’t his angel, there was something compelling about her.
“Well alright, I suppose,” he heard himself say as he sank down onto the bench beside her.
“Here you go, dear,” she said, handing him a chunk of bread from the bag beside her. He accepted it as she threw a handful of crumbs into the water.
“My best friend Peggy just passed away, you see, and feeding the ducks used to be a regular outing for us, especially as we got older. I only put the ad in the paper because I don’t have too many friends left and I’m just at such a loss without Peggy.”
She gave Crowley a sideways glance.
“It seems to me you feel the same way without whoever you meant to meet here, your angel, considering how disappointed you were to find me instead.”
Crowley gave a noncommittal shrug, shifting uncomfortably. She was right, of course, but he wasn’t going to admit that.
“The ducks seem to like you though, don’t they?” Angela continued. “Do you come here often dear? I swear they remember faces. They would certainly remember Peggy every time, though I think she was coming here to feed them long before we started coming together.”
She threw a bit more bread in the water.
“Oh, that reminds me.” She reached for her bag. “Would you like a sandwich, dear?” I brought an extra, it was always for Peggy, she was always running around and I swear she would never stop to eat unless I made her.”
She pulled out a paper-wrapped square, which Crowley accepted reluctantly. He would have refused, but there was something in the woman’s eyes that warned him against fighting too hard.
He unwrapped the paper, revealing a ham and cheese sandwich on good homemade bread. He took a bite to be polite, and Angela smiled.
“There’s a good boy. You’re quite a skinny one, aren’t you? You remind me of Peggy’s husband when he was young, only you’re much taller. Of course, that was before the war.” She trailed off, tossing another handful of bread to the eager ducks.
Crowley took another bite of the sandwich, surprising himself. Usually Aziraphale was the only one who could get him to eat.
“I just realized I never got your name, dear,” Angela said, turning back to look at him.
“Anthony,” he replied after a moment, deciding Crowley would be too hard to explain. “Though not many people call me that.”
“Oh yes,” Angela replied. “I know how that is. My given name is Angela, but I’ve never met someone who didn’t call me Angie instead.”
Crowley nodded. Nicknames were such a human thing, he thought. You have one name but everyone just calls you something else.
“Some people have called me Tony,” he said slowly, trying not to show his distaste. “You could call me that instead.”
Angie glanced over, her eyes shrewd.
“You don’t strike me as a Tony,” she replied. “Anthony suits you just fine, I think.”
Crowley relaxed a bit at her words.
“One of Peggy’s friends had a son named Anthony,” Angie continued. “Now he was someone better suited as a Tony. I always felt the name Tony was meant for a troublemaker, but that doesn’t seem like you at all. But young Tony, he can’t seem to stay out of trouble. I think he does it on purpose. No, you’re much too polite to be a Tony.”
Crowley’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. Where had this woman been for the last six thousand years? Under a rock? Crowley, polite. What a concept. Though, he supposed, Aziraphale would likely agree with her.
“My angel keeps telling me I’m a good person,” he said, tossing some bread into the pond. “I’m not inclined to believe it, though.”
“Why ever not?” Angie replied. “You seem perfectly nice to me.”
Crowley did his best to ignore the uncomfortable prickle her words sent over his skin.
“My job… it requires me to do some things, that most people would agree, do not make me a nice person.”
Angie was silent for a moment.
“And it’s not like I hurt anyone, of course not,” Crowley continued. “I just… inconvenience them.”
“Does it bother you?”
“What?” He jerked his head up.
“Does it bother you,” Angie repeated, “That you do these things? That some people might think you’re bad?”
Crowley blinked, truly stumped for the first time in four hundred years.
“I mean, it’s my job,” he replied. “It’s who I am.”
“Oh, psh,” Angie replied, waving her hand. “I can’t even count anymore the number of times I’ve had this very conversation with Peggy. Her job always had her doing these questionable, dangerous things. I’m not sure her employers cared about the means as long as she got to their end. It wore on her, too. But you are not defined by your job, you are defined by what you care about. Now I’ll ask you again, does it bother you?”
“I suppose it bothers me that I don’t feel like I live up to my angel’s view of me,” he admitted. And it was true. He never felt as good on the inside as Aziraphale seemed to think he was.
“Well then, there you are. Bad people, truly bad people, don’t care about being better. So from what you’ve just told me, that proves you’re not a bad person.
Crowley froze again as her words washed over him. Never, in all his time on earth or in hell, had he ever considered that. He still wasn’t inclined to believe her, but she said it with such conviction that he couldn’t help but wonder if it was true.
Angie glanced at him again, her gaze shrewd but soft.
“Surely if that’s what I see, your angel sees it too.”
It was all Crowley could do to nod.
They sat together a while longer, Angie telling stories about the trouble she and Peggy got into after the war. Crowley nodded and made the appropriate remarks required for polite conversation, and he found himself actually enjoying her stories.
All these years, he’d never bothered to connect with a human. They seemed so dull, and their lives were over so quickly. He hadn’t thought it was worth it. Besides, he had Aziraphale and that friendship was plenty for him.
About an hour later, their stock of bread was finally depleted. The ducks, of whom a great number had congregated on the water before them, began to disperse once they realized the supply of treats had run dry.
Angie dusted off her coat, watching the ducks swim away with a sigh. Crowley glanced at her, but her gaze was fixed across the pond somewhere in her memories.
“I know I wasn’t who you were hoping to meet,” she told him. “But I am glad to have met you. You’ve made me feel a bit less lonely just when the world was starting to seem big and empty. Thank you, Anthony, truly.”
He shifted in his seat.
“Well I suppose… well, I could meet you here again. If you’d like.”
“I would,” Angie said, her blue eyes misty as she gave him an enormous smile. “Same time next Monday?”
Crowley gave her a nod, stretching out his legs as she stood.
“Goodbye, Anthony. See you then.”
He watched her totter off down the path until she was out of sight, then turned back towards the water. What an odd turn of events, he thought. What she’d said to him ran through his mind as he sat there, waiting to see if perhaps his angel would still show.
For the next seven Mondays, without fail, Crowley would meet Angie at the park to feed the ducks and listen to stories about her life. She enjoyed talking about her adventures with her friend Peggy more than anything, which Crowley was surprised to find sounded a lot like some of his adventures with Aziraphale; In particular, one dicey evening involving a church, some German spies, and a few rare books.
One morning, on the eighth Monday in fact, Crowley was early. He sat on their usual bench, waiting for Angie to appear around the corner, when he felt a presence beside him. He turned his head slightly to the right, just enough to see a flash of cream coat, and his mouth tugged into a grin.
“Hello, Angie,” he said, turning his eyes back to the pond.
“Hello, my dear Crowley.”
Crowley froze. He knew that voice, and it certainly wasn’t Angie.
“Trying out a new nickname, are we?”
He whipped his head around to see Aziraphale standing there, looking ethereal in the morning light.
“Er, no,” he replied. “What are you doing here?”
“I was walking by and I saw you sitting alone. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, angel,” he replied, the words coming out a bit harsher than he intended. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t really want to tell Aziraphale about Angie.
“Alright,” Aziraphale replied, his face falling the tiniest bit. “I’ll leave you be. I’ll be at the bookshop later, if you feel like catching up. Perhaps we can get a bite to eat.”
“No wait, I’m sorry, you don’t have to go,” Crowley straightened abruptly, catching Aziraphale’s sleeve.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to disturb you.”
“Sit down, angel.”
Aziraphale took a seat beside him, settling in as he always did.
“Are you quite sure you’re alright?” He asked again, glancing at Crowley worriedly.
“I’m fine, I told you. I just come here sometimes to¬—”
“Anthony! There you are.
Crowley’s adrenaline spiked again as he turned to see Angie making her way up the path towards them.
“I see you’ve brought a friend today. I wish you would have warned me so I could have made an extra sandwich. Here’s yours, by the way— honestly, do you live on air, Anthony? You’re still so skinny.”
She paused for breath and handed him the paper wrapped sandwich.
“It’s nice to meet you, I’m Angie,” she said as she took her seat on his left, reaching out her hand to Aziraphale.
He shook it, his expression still dumbfounded as he glanced back and forth between the two of them.
“Angie, this is my friend, Aziraphale,” Crowley told her.
“A.Z. Fell? Oh, you own that lovely little bookshop in Soho, don’t you? I’ve been meaning to stop in there for ages, but it never seems to be open when I drop by.”
Crowley could sense Aziraphale relaxing at the mention of the bookshop, and he let out a quiet breath of relief.
“Here you go, Anthony dear, I daresay these ducks have waited long enough,” she said, handing him a chunk of bread.
He threw some in the water, handing a piece to Aziraphale as well.
“Oh, here comes that swan again,” she told him, throwing bread in the opposite direction from where the white monstrosity was silently gliding towards them.
Aziraphale tossed his crust of bread towards it, and the giant bird slowly began to sink. He jabbed Crowley in the side with his elbow, and the swan resumed bobbing on the surface.
“You know, two weeks ago that naughty bird came right up and stole my bread bag right out of my hand. Anthony jumped right up and tried to get it back, and the poor dear almost fell in the pond! It was quite a sight, though, to see him fighting a swan in the middle of St. James’ park.” She let out a laugh. “But he’s always doing such nice things like that, he chased my hat when it flew away and he’s always helping me around puddles and such.”
Crowley sank a bit lower in his seat, his ears reddening as he saw a small smile of amusement on Aziraphale’s face.
“Cr—Anthony is such a nice person, I tell him all the time but he doesn’t believe me,” Aziraphale replied, casting a kind look at Crowley, who was presently trying to sink through the bench and the ground and down to somewhere he could escape this embarrassment.
He shot an irritated look at Aziraphale, who simply smiled back.
“Oh that reminds me, Anthony, I brought this for you,” Angie said, reaching into her bag to pull out a long, cream colored scarf. “It’s getting colder every day and you’re all skin and bones, you must get dreadfully cold and I don’t want you getting sick.”
Crowley took the scarf, reluctantly looping it around his neck. Aziraphale’s amused smile returned as Crowley shot him a look— one he knew the angel would understand even if he couldn’t see his eyes, that dared him to say anything about it.
Of course he wouldn’t get sick, but he wasn’t going to tell Angie that, nor was he going to hurt her feelings. She continued telling stories and Crowley began to relax as Aziraphale joined in the conversation. He smiled, thankful that the worst of the awkwardness had passed. He threw a handful of bread to the ducks, only half paying attention to the conversation for a few minutes until Angie leaned forwards a bit towards Aziraphale, reaching over to pat his perfectly manicured hand.
“I’m so glad he finally brought you to meet me, my dear. Of course, he’s told me so much about his angel I feel as though I know you already.”
Crowley’s eyes widened behind his glasses. He didn’t dare look at Aziraphale, though he was sure the angel’s smile mirrored Angie’s.
“Ngh,” he said, crossing his arms and shifting uncomfortably, wishing very much in that moment that he was elsewhere.
“Oh, you’re just like Peggy,” Angie chastised. “She was always so easy to rile. Very well, I’ll leave it alone if only so you stop looking like you’re trying to hide inside yourself. Here, feed the ducks some more.” She handed him another piece of bread, which he accepted.
“But really, Mr. Fell, you’ll have to tell me more about this knitting club. I could always use more good friends like Anthony.”
Aziraphale obliged as Crowley sat and listened, nodding and replying every once in a while as would be polite in a conversation between friends. The three of them sat happily on that sunny Monday morning and fed the ducks, as they did on every Monday that came after.
#good omens#good omens x marvel#fanfiction#feeding the ducks#I added a link to my wattpad on the off chance you’d like to see more of my writing
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Danganronpa Girls in Twisted Wonderland
yeah, it's me again with another idea that suddenly popped up in my mind. it won't have all the girls from all the games though! In case you guys like my sort of crossover, I can do a second part!
note: this post only have headcanons.
Tenko Chabashira - DRV3
How she would react being in NRC?
Honestly this would be a true nightmare for her. Like- being stuck in a school full of degenarate males? Outrageous!
When she first saw Crowley pretty much she knocked him out on the floor. ''W-Who are you?! Where is my master?! Where and why am I here you stupid male?!''
She definitely would kick the ass of pretty much most of the dorm leader and the other characters in general.
And the idiot trio would have to desperately stop Tenko to try using her Aikido skills to stop an Overblot. ''I'm pretty sure you won't be able to win against someone who uses MAGIC with your FISTS Tenko!''
Would scold de idiot trio 24/7
It would at least take 2 episodes for she slowly starts to warming up with the boys (a.k.a mostly Jack and Deuce and after being wary at first, Epel too)
Dorm Leader that would get along the best with her?
Good question buddy, good question
I feel she would get along the best not with a dorm leader, but perhaps with the 1 years like Jack and Epel
Epel definitely would ask Tenko to be strong like her/practice with her. And Jack would join too because he admires her determination.
And most dorm leaders would try to avoid her as much as possible.
Angie Yonaga - DRV3
How she would react being in NRC?
Oh great! Another place to start a cult spread Atua's word!
She would be pretty chill most of the time and would try to convert as many people as possible in Atua's religion.
It won't take a while for her be seeing as a wise figure or something, after all no one can prove otherwise that she isn't talking directly to Atua.
I'm pretty sure Deuce, Kalim, Rook and Sebek would join her cult.
And maybe Riddle if she uses her almost unhuman ability to touch someone's weak point.
I feel like that after stoping an Overblot, she would try to reassuring them that ''Atua has saved us once again! Praise be to our handsome God! Nya-hahahaha!" (even If actually the reason they stopped the Overblot was because the boys beat the shit out of the overblotted one)
Dorm Leader that would get along the best with her?
I believe Kalim. He is pretty naive and probably would listen and believe to everything Angie has to say
Depending on how she manipulates Kalim, Jamil would love or completely hate her.
Hiyoko Saionji - DR2
How she would react being in NRC?
She would straight up start whining and demanding to return back home. ''I don't want to stay at a school full of ugly idiots!''
Boy, she would be such a pain the ass for most of the characters. I even ask myself if she would make it out alive due to her heavy teasing and bully behavior
Idia's bully, Idia's bully, Idia's bully, Idia's bully, Idia's bully, Idia's bully, Idia's bully, Idia's bully, Idia's bully, Idia's bully-
Jack probably would be her personal bodyguard because of her size (even if she at the start yelled at him), and pretty much Hiyoko would take advantage of that and start crying if someone annoys her
Pretty much as Tenko, it will take quite a while until she warms up to the boys.
Dorm Leader that would get along the best with her?
Believe it or not, but I think Leona. It would be an endless teasing war and as much the lion got pissed off of her behavior, he truly respects her. Mostly because she isn't afraid of face anyone who dares to mess with her. Hiyoko has guts and he simply adores that.
Secretly would be watching over her in case things get really ugly on her side.
Yeah, the Savanaclaw boys would really like her.
Celestia Lundenberg - DR1
How she would react being in NRC?
Oh my! What an awful but interesting happening! I believe Celestia would be pretty amused by the situation, as she dreams about reaching royalty and NRC do has some princes/important people
In episode 3 who needs Leona or the idiot trio? She would easily trick Azul through her manipulation and acting. But actually if Azul comes with a deal where she can get benefits from letting the students being their slaves, I believe she may leave Ace, Deuce and Grim hanging-
Would go straight feral to Crowley once she takes a look at Ramshackle Dorm. ''Pardon moi? Just WHO do you think I am to let me stay in such a DISGUSTING place?!'
I guess different from the girls above, I don't believe she would follow the main story plot completely, especially because she is more focused to achieve her dream instead of finding a way back home/ solving overblots. (TWST would really become an otome game if Celestia was the protagonist and no, you can't deny that)
Mostly she would only help people if she gets benefits to it (yeah, with that mindset she would warm up pretty quickly to the NRC environment)
Also I feel like she would pretend to be friends with Adeuce but the first opportunity she gets to meet important people, she would let them go (she is going to have character development I promise !)
Dorm Leader that would get along the best with her?
Vil. That was sort of an obvious one. Vil would totally SIMP over Celestia and If I doubt would make Crowley transfer her to Pomefiore Dorm just to make her the most beautiful girl.
Celestia would pretty much be the few people who wouldn't complain about doing the tiring skincare routine Vil forces people do. She's feeling like a princess and she loves that.
yeah, I was lazy of doing more- but as I said in case you guys liked it I can part 2 (feel free to suggest which girls or even boys you prefer to appear in the DRXTWST headcanons)
#danganronpa#celestia ludenberg#hiyoko saionji#tenko chabashira#angie yonaga#twisted wonderland#twst headcanons#imagine#danganronpa headcanons
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ok here’s my interpretation of chapter 1 of tsuisute after skipping half the stories and only understanding 1/5 of the japanese used
ace: i’m a dumbass and fuck things up on purpose
riddle: OfF WITH YOUR HEAD
ace: >:-( im angy because i cant do my magic things
cater: i’m gonna kick ur ass but let’s paint the roses red tra la la
some faceless students: let’s fight in the cafeteria
sometime later, riddle goes OFF WITH YOUR HEAD again to ace and deuce because theyre dumbasses
the Trio of Dumbasses (yuu, ace and deuce): yo let’s make a tart to make riddle like us again
riddle: thats not good enough. off with your head
ace: i’m done with your bullshit bitch!!!1!!
ace: socks riddle
riddle: what the fuck,,, how dare you,,,,,, im head of the dorm,,,,,,,,,, off with your HEADS asakjfagjhjh afsghagggasuuahgsgsdhduugugdhsuhuhuhuuh
ace: yo help us
instagram dude and nerd: nah
crowley: oh no i’m gonna stand here and be a bystander
me: kicks riddle’s ass for like the fifth time
riddle: wah wah i have a depressing past because my mom was too strict. im sorry wah wahhh
ace: fuck y
everyone: look at this black rock on the ground
the one brother Grimm: itadakimasu
faceless students: liddel banzai
cater: feast selfie time uwu
chenya: montage time
the end
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Rules: Pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions. Don’t cheat. Tag some people. I was tagged by @briarosabelle!
1. Good Omens
2. Rizzoli and Isles
3. Lucifer
4. The Witcher
5. Doctor Who
Who is your favorite character in 2?
Oh god, I love Jane and Maura but... Jane I think
Who is your least favorite character in 1?
The Archangel Fucking Gabriel, tied only with Michael
What is your favorite episode of 4?
I think it was the 3rd or 4th episode, where Geralt can’t sleep and goes Djinn fishing and ends up with an injured Jaskier and meeting Yennifer
What is your favorite season of 5?
Good lord. Uh.... either season 5 or 6 of NuWho. Matt Smith’s Doctor was one I really resonated with, as much as I love Tennant’s Doctor. I watched it at a time where I was growing up far too fast and 11 helped me slow down and understand that it was okay to have that duality of childishness and maturity. Plus the Van Gogh episode in season 6 never fails to bring me to my knees in tears.
Who is your favorite couple in 3?
Decker and Luci are my OTP but with where I am in the show I really wish they’d just get on with it.
Who is your favorite couple in 2?
Tommy and Lydia are really cute, but I love Jane and Casey. Angie and the commissioner were hella cute too.
What is your favorite episode of 1?
The episode where Crowley drives through the ring of fire and his whole car is on fire and he’s kind of on fire but it doesn’t matter because Crowley believes he’ll make it. I think it’s the second to last episode?
What is your favorite episode of 5?
This is really fucking tough because each Doctor’s run is like a whole new show, but! My all time favorite episode has to be Vincent and the Doctor. It is just so good and as an art student, an art history lover, and Van Gogh fan... it hits hard man.
What is your favorite season of 2?
Probably 3. Frost is still around, Casey is included in the main story line, and there’s some pretty good stories in that one. Not to say that the season’s after Frost’s actor’s death aren’t good, but they are tinged with his ghost and it makes me sad.
How long have you watched 1?
Pretty much since it came out on Amazon. I love it a lot and keep coming back to it.
How did you become interested in 3?
I heard it was good from a friend and I thought it was an interesting concept since it came out, but I didn’t really start watching it until I saw it constantly in my Netflix feed. One day I just thought “fuck it” and binged the whole first season while cleaning. Good shit.
Who is your favorite actor in 4?
Joey Batey gives me life, but Anya and Henry do absolutely amazing jobs. There’s just something about Joey’s physical humor that I just fucking love.
Which do you prefer, 1, 2, or 5?
Depends on whether I’m alone or not really. Doctor Who if I’m alone because I’m not caught up by a longshot, but with my boyfriend Rizzoli and Isles, because that’s our show now.
Which show have you seen more episodes of - 1 or 3?
3 because it has more episodes, but I’ve rewatched 1 way more.
If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be?
I almost want to say some extra but this is The Witcher we’re talking about xD so probably a bard like Jaskier. I’d get to travel, hear about the heroic stories of life and death, and usually avoid it myself.
Would a crossover between 3 and 4 work?
Possibly, if Lucifer decided to go full Satan all the time and didn’t mind possibly becoming the newest target of our favorite Witcher.
Pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple?
Gabriel and Beezlebub. It’s in the fandom, it’s crackheaded and cute and I kinda like the idea of Crowley and Aziraphale spearheading relationships between heaven and hell.
Overall, which show has the better storyline, 3 or 5?
Well, 5′s storyline has gone through pretty much every trope out there and isn’t as consistent as 3′s, but 3 also hasn’t gone through 60+ years of writers and actors. Can’t really compare them tbh
Which has better theme music, 2 or 4?
4, definitely. Rizzoli and Isles has some great Irish ska tracks for certain episodes but usually it’s your run of the mill crime drama music. The Witcher takes from the game a bit and has more dramatic and dynamic music, plus Joey Batey’s wonderful vocals. Toss a coin to your Witcher....
This was really fun, thank you so much for tagging me ^-^
I tag @i-am-against-being-touched, @safyresky, @shittyelfwriter, and @sunstar-of-the-north <3
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Two Guys and a Baby: Day 7 part 2
Read on AO3, FF.net or under the cut, or read up to 2 chapters ahead as a $1 Patreon patron!
Angela’s grin grew wider and she looked at her daughter. “Just imagine, maybe, when his boss comes home, she’ll be so satisfied with your work that she’ll want him to be Adam’s permanent babysitter.”
Anathema caught on and winked at her. “Well, I, for one, think uncle Tony would make a great nanny. You know, traveling by umbrella, and telling Adam that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Oh! Maybe he’ll let a charming Dick sweep his chimney—”
Or, it runs in the family.
Chapter 10 of 20
Ongoing
1519 words
Romance/Humor
It was Friday night, which could only mean one thing: dinner at Angela’s. It was something Crowley and her had done ever since she’d moved out of their parental home twenty years ago, much to the chagrin of Angela’s ex-husband.
These days, it was usually just Crowley, Angela and Anathema, a bottle of wine split between the former two, talking about their weeks and complaining about their respective bosses, coworkers and in Anathema’s case, teachers.
But this Friday was different. Because instead of his usual bottle of South African red wine, he brought two jars of baby food in a bag and a very tiny guest.
Crowley unlocked the front door to their little redbrick house in Brixton with his own keys and made his way through the dark and narrow hallway to be met with the precious sight of Angela sitting on the floor, putting together the high chair with Anathema.
“No mum, I swear, this bit goes here,” Anathema asserted. Angela sighed.
“Anathema, my sweet darling, with all due respect, I don’t think you remember the last time your dad and I put this thing together for you to sit in.”
“Angie, my dear sister, with all due respect, your daughter is right.” Crowley grinned.
“Tony!” Angela called when she caught sight of him, leaping to her feet to greet him and Adam and leaving Anathema to put together the high chair. “Here I thought I’d never see you with a baby on your arm that wasn’t mine. And you must be Adam,” she cooed as she turned to the boy. “Such a handsome little man, you are.”
Crowley looked down at the boy and smiled. “Yeah, he’s a real heartbreaker.” But upon watching his niece struggle with the chair, he handed Adam and the baby food over to Angela without a second thought. “Alright Annie, this is embarrassing, hand me that leg. You hold the seat and I’ll shove it in.”
“I bet that’s what Mr. Fell said.” Anathema grinned and wiggled her eyebrows, but followed Crowley’s instructions nonetheless.
Crowley, shoving the leg of the high chair into the underside of the seat as non-sensually as humanly possible, made a face. “You watch your language, young lady.”
“I was just kidding,” Anathema said as she held the seat steady for the second leg. “Besides, he’s totally got eyes for you, uncle Tony. Would it kill you to make a move?”
“Yes,” Crowley nearly snapped, punctuated by shoving the third leg into place. “I asked him out for dinner back in the bookshop and I thought for sure I was going to pass out.”
Crowley’s gaze snapped towards the sound of a jar of baby food hitting the floor and running away. Angela stood gaping at him. He turned back to Anathema, who had a similar look of amazement on her face.
“Ohmigod,” Anathema uttered. “You finally asked out Mr. Fell!?”
Crowley shrugged, putting the fourth leg into the chair and turning it upright before he got up. “Not really. We’re just going to dinner as friends. We used to do things like that all the time.”
Angela swatted at Anathema’s ear once she got up. “Well, whatever it’s for, we’re very excited for you. Where are you taking him?”
“I’m taking him to the Ritz,” he said resolutely.
Angela and Anathema exchanged a look.
"You mean the obscenely expensive Ritz?" Angela asked.
"He deserves it," Crowley answered.
"The ridiculously romantic Ritz?" Anathema followed.
"It's not just for couples, Anathema. There are plenty of people who go there who are just friends, surely," Crowley deflected quite coolly, he thought.
He didn't catch the other look the mother and daughter exchanged.
"I think it's time to put dinner out on the table," Angela said.
"I couldn't agree with you more." Anathema nodded. The two disappeared into the kitchen.
*
“This is worse than I thought,” Angela whispered, arms folded over one another as her daughter gave the pasta a firm final stir before draining it.
“I know,” Anathema whispered back.
“Something has to happen about this.”
“I know.” Anathema tasted the sauce. It was perfect.
“And if Tony finds out we had something to do with it, we’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I know.”
“So… What do we do?” Angela enquired. Anathema narrowed her eyes at her.
“I thought you said that after that whole thing with Mr. Fell we weren’t going to get any more involved than we already were?”
“I know what I said!” the mother hissed. “It’s just that he’s my baby brother, and I want him to have what’s best for him.”
“Which would be Mr. Fell,” Anathema suggested.
“And a life out of that horrid office of his. Or a life out of this city in general. Maybe one day they could retire to a quaint old cottage in the South Downs and he could finally have some rest.”
“That sounds nice…” Anathema mused. “But I thought uncle Tony was really good at his job?”
“He is, but just because you’re good at something, doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”
*
This was exactly what crossed Crowley’s mind when he ducked into the bathroom to change Adam’s diaper.
Sure, he seemed to do exceptionally well with the boy*; he didn’t kick, didn’t squirm and didn’t start peeing on Crowley seconds after he’d peeled off the diaper, but that smell. No matter how much he liked children, that was something Crowley would never get used to.
(*Even Anathema gave Crowley more trouble at Adam’s age.)
Adam giggled and clapped his hands in delight as Crowley gagged.
*
When all was said and done, the four met again in the dining area. Angela and Anathema placed the pans on the table — Angela serving out the pasta — as Tony slid Adam back into his high chair.
“Did the little prince require your services again, Tony?” she asked with a little, satisfied grin on her face. The source of her satisfaction being that Tony couldn’t pass Adam back to her and say ‘your baby, your poopy diaper’ half the time.
“‘Little prince’?” Tony grimaced. “With the smells he’s producing, he ought to be Lord of the Flies!”
Angela’s grin grew wider and she looked at her daughter. “Just imagine, maybe, when his boss comes home, she’ll be so satisfied with your work that she’ll want him to be Adam’s permanent babysitter.”
Anathema caught on and winked at her. “Well, I, for one, think uncle Tony would make a great nanny. You know, traveling by umbrella, and telling Adam that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Oh! Maybe he’ll let a charming Dick sweep his chimney—”
Angela elbowed her in the side.
“Shut up, Annie. You know I’d rock that getup,” Tony said, his cheeks growing red behind those silly sunglasses of his.
“Okay, but seriously, take off those damned shades. You’re inside and with polite company, there’s no reason for you to keep them on.” She snatched the sunglasses from his face and tucked them into her breast pocket as she sat down and finally got to eating.
“That’s debatable,” Tony joked, glancing at Anathema. He took a few bites before feeding Adam. “So, you ladies seem invested enough in my life. How were your respective days?”
*
It wasn’t that Crowley didn’t appreciate his sister or her attempts of helping him out. He was glad, even, that Anathema seemed to have inherited this trait from her mother. If only she didn’t ‘help him out’ in his love life as much because so far, her attempts at ‘helping him out’ tended to end rather embarrassingly.
For example, in primary school, when Angela had somehow gotten Marjorie Smith* to ask out Crowley, which ended in his premature coming out.
(*The most beautiful girl in school**.)
(**Despite feeling no attraction to the fairer sex at all, Crowley still found himself in posession of a pair of working eyes and enough cultural indoctrination to identify a beautiful girl when he saw one.)
Or in secondary school, when Angela had somehow gotten Crowley to ask out Eric Harris*, which ended in his premature heartbreak.
(*The most beautiful boy in school**.)
(**Unfortunately, heterosexual.)
Or at his old part-time job, when Angela got him to ask out his manager, which ended in Crowley’s premature firing*.
(*No matter how you look at it, this one was destined to end in disaster.)
This was why he, under no circumstances, wanted his sister and his niece involved with his courting of Ezra if what he was doing could be called ‘courting’ at all. It felt more like dancing on the edge of an active volcano: one wrong step in either direction would mean certain death. But he was sick of it. Sick of dancing around his problems for just shy of a decade. And so, he took a deep, shaking breath and steadied himself as he said:
“Angie, I need your advice.”
Angela and Anathema, both halfway into their second serving, gave Crowley a look. Adam, quickly picking up on the cue, looked at him as well.
“How do I ask out Ezra?”
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‘ i can’t believe i let myself let you down. ’ / for sam !
@reporterduty can spam me as much as she want / lost meme
SamWinchester wished that day never happen, that eventuality he might lost Deaninto another manners as he previously witness at the Leviathan’s end — butnot carried out his dead body upon a bed, to see a lifeless body, to becoming another spectator of Dean’s death. Asthe same time he missed his brother every coming day, something inside reunionterrified him — it wouldn't be the brother he knew anymore, the caring and tormentedbig brother who wanted doing it right — he lost his brother the moment Metraton killing him. ‘It was better that way’were his last reassuring last words but could be better? Any others times, he would have been angry at Dean. Hewould have blame him to be so reckless, blame him to think dangerous and expeditedecisions would be wise, blame him for thought his attachment to the FirstBlade was right…however Crowley wasthe only person he was pissed with — it was the one who proposed a solutionfor kill Abaddon, who pushed Dean to get the Mark of Cain, who giving him theFirst Blade…the whole time he knew.
He didn’twanted to take that anger out of the others demons in the bunker. He perfectlysaw Jason’s expression lowered down at time goes by, to forcing Dean to get aclean head and to calm down, feelingthe guilt increased into his voice. Even when he was somehow alone to deal withthis new problem, he was still here, trying to helping him to find his brotherinto a case he might been responsible of, protectinghim for Dean's danger.
Thoughtfuleyes on his computer screen, his researches hadn’t been conclusive. There werenights when he loathed it, when he could picturing Dean’s shadow around theroom — he missed his noisy way to waking him up, to welcoming him with breakfast,to find his others with sexual websites he hadn’t asked for or even his eyeswatching the screen asking him what he had found. Sighing, his attention centeredinto Angie’s gaze.
“ It hadn’t been simple for everyone ”Sam noticed without bitterness. “Andyou hadn’t let me down. You need time, as everyone does into the actual circumstances” He didn’t mention his brother. Ithad been years since he was in front of that possibility, of this scary perspective to have an entire newDean Winchester in front of others people — enough for preparing himselfemotionally to been beat up, killed byhis brother without obligation’s behind. “ I’m here for you. I can…handle myself. ” A half-lie — he wasn’t sure to manage his whole situation byhimself. He wished things were like before. Hewanted his brother back. He mourned his brother far too much into thesepast years.
#commentary's voice: canon is kind when it's only the MOC in cause & not dean#reporterduty#baureporter#ic :: sam winchester#season 10 tag#( answered. )
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Would you mind recommending some good sad books?
Hi, Anon!
Hm, how about:
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (Or any of his books, really.)My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi PicoultThings I’m Seeing Without You by Peter BognanniWords in Deep Blue by Cath CrowleyWonder by R.J. PalacioThe Loose Ends List by Carrie FirestoneSalt to the Sea by Ruta SepetysSecond Chance Summer by Morgan MatsonPlaylist for the Dead by Michelle FalkoffAll the Bright Places by Jennifer NivenMaybe One Day by Melissa Kantor
I wouldn’t call these ones sad, but because they deal with such timely topics that will incite strong and complicated emotions, I also strongly recommend:
The Hate U Give by Angie ThomasDear Martin by Nic Stone
I hope this list helps in your quest for your next read! (Make sure you’ve got some tissues handy!)
Feel free to recommend more to Anon!
Happy reading!
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Smitten Kittens
Long Time No See;;
Angie and Dean meet when he is hunting without Sam, both hunters working on a same case, a nest of nest vampires. [timeline: season 5]
From there on out, Angie occasionally teams up to help Dean, or both of the brothers on a few of their cases, this carrying on for quite some time. [timeline: season 5 to some time onwards]
Dean and Angie kept professional boundaries, though shared late nights and their fit flirtatious manners constantly testing their professionalism, hashtag oops?
One night of unprofessionalism. Angie realizes she had grown attached, and far too attracted to Dean. Resulting Angie to flee with a single note to Dean, without ever saying goodbye. Cue leaving her feeling guilty, Dean thinking one night was all she needed from him. [season 7 timeline, early season???]]
Feelings were hella mutual, though they never spoke them aloud.
Marked And Bound;;
Sam and Dean come across with Angie while working on a case related to Abaddon. A case related to people ending up soulless, enough to attract attention of many hunters. [9x17]
While meeting Sam and Dean going out to their own war, Angie has only heard rumors of someone big and bad, not knowing the entire story.
Dean is already with the mark and the blade has been found, although the Blade is behind, while the Winchesters are in search to find Abaddon.
While continuing to work with them and to help in their search, Angie realizes Sam and Dean are hiding something from her, lying to her. Confrontation happens when she walks in on Dean clearly /not okay/, and after witnessing him on a hunt taking great pleasure in killing a vampire to a heated leading conversation, cue angst. ALL OF THE ANGST. [somewhere after 9x19]
Angie is there when they kill Abaddon, witnessing the brutal nature of the Mark and how it is affecting Dean. After this Angie continues to try to help them, and especially Dean, to cope with his Mark after learning what is happening to him.
Angie is not there when Metatron stabs him to death, though she receives a stressed call from Sam, telling her to come to Bunker and what happened to Dean. When Angie finally arrives, Dean’s body is already gone and it leaves the two hunters confused and grief written.
All Souls Lost;;
Due to his little death Dean has turned into a demon and riding it alongside Crowley. In the meanwhile, Sam and Angie are together trying to find out what happened to Dean due to his Houdini stunt. Sam and Angie try to find Dean together, eventually leading them to Dean just like in the show.
While Sam and Dean are trying to find out what happened to Dean or to his corpse, Crowley has been taunting and tested Dean about his loyalty by putting thoughts inside Dean’s head, telling the two are looking for him and that he should get rid of the package of them on their backs, he’s even planted a thought into Dean’s head about Sam and Angie being more than just a tag team to find Dean.
Angie and Sam find out that Dean is a demon and with Crowley just in the way it is written on the show, except there’s no Cole to mess things up for them. Just like in the show, Crowley sells Dean out to Sam and Dean and tips the town Dean’s gone off to, Angie finds Dean just before Sam is able to get there.
While Angie calls Sam that she had found Dean, Sam tells they should go in together and for Angie to wait for him to get there, but of course that’s not what Angie does and she goes in to confront him despite knowing the risks because love makes her a fool. Going for him, little cat and mouse play happens and whatnot, they talk and Dean is. all for taunting the blonde until there’s a wee fight between the two, even offering Dean a chance to off Angie but his teensy bit of humanity and feelings for her stops him from doing so, eventually, just at this time Sam eventually comes in the middle of and is able to cuff and contain Dean. Moving to the Bunker.
There could be a scene shared between Angie and Dean while Sam is out there getting the blood work they need for purifying him. This is hella Dean trying to manipulate her and just be hella rude to her feels, though this is also when Angie no longer takes none of that shit and Dean is unable to take her off her guard at least for the most part. Dean is all there taunting Angie about the thing she’s agreed to do when Sam in order to find Dean, she may have not been all involved in everything, but her haands aren’t clean from it either, while he could also get to taunt her about the little, vague slip about her feelings for him that she made when she first came across with the demon bean.
After Sam and Angie began to inject Dean with blood to purify him (we spoke she’d even be the one to give him his first shot like the bad ass boss she is because Dean has made her frustrated and angry). Maybe because we don’t have Hanna, and Castiel is getting weaker, Angie at one point leaves the Bunker to get Cas since he’s getting close but also worse.
Canon events go down, Crowley getting some grace into Cas and Dean escaping and the games, shit goes down, Angie gets to Cas just in time to witness Crowley putting the holy spirit into Cas, and after Angie and Cas pop back into the Bunker just in time to stop Dean from killing Sam.
It Is Time For Purification;;
Angie is still around when Dean turns into a human, though she bolts almost right away after making sure Dean is alive and considerably well. She’s not in the room when Dean returns back to himself, she’s angsting outside the closet room. This time Angie doesn’t just leave without saying goodbye, so there’s that awkward ‘I’m glad you are okay.’ line with an extreme poker face and then kbye exits with an excuse, probably all of the lingering by Dean room’s doorframe.
How bad was it while Dean was a demon? He would probably think she wants nothing to do with him, if it was hella bad? While she has somehow convinced herself that Dean doesn't have any feelings for her, especially after her slip. Hashtag babes are angsting.
Angie eventually returns back to the boys after being away for a wee while, her reason to return would probably be Sam calling to her and telling her that Dean’s once again acting on his Mark. All this time she’s probably been low key keeping up with how Deans’ doing through Sam, Sam trying to convince her to return even earlier, but she’s been full of excuses.
Reunion happens though, we talked about the hug which spokes for all is forgiven and forgotten though still not talked about??? Things basically continue like they used to, Angie is occasionally present while they’re trying to find a way to get rid of Dean’s mark aside from Dean bean tryna suppress the aggression and hunt. Big part once again comes in Angie serving Dean distraction and looking out for him, witnessing his nightmares and also not sleeping very much due sometimes watching over him when he’s having nightmares (all this without Dean knowing just how much she’s there).
Once Sam and Dean discover the Book of the Damned, Angie is called in again, and after them canon events, Angie begins helping Sam in his attempts to hide it from Dean. Angie is both babysitting Charlie and Rowena, but also keeping Dean occupied while Sam is doing the runs to keep the situation under control.
We’re back to the canon event transcript with the Stein fam coming after the book while Angie is present in the room, Charlie dies like she did canonically while the creep fam captures Angie because they think that is their way to get the book in a form of trade, and probably in the means to slice and dice her.
Dean busts in rolling and saves the day, but he is also too far gone and almost completely taken over by the Mark, which is when Angie witnesses his merciless slaughter fest. Although Dean frees Angie and they leave the mansion of the psycho fam together, they wound up having a heated argument about Angie keeping secrets from Dean, doing things behind his back like Sam had been doing and about everything that comes to Sam and Angie’s attempts to save Dean from the Mark. They part ways after the argument.
During a time jump takes place Cas/Dean facing each other off like they canonically did in the Bunker upon Dean’s return to see the damage, that’s when Dean flees to hunt alone and Deal with his problems not so splendidly, eventually realizing there’s no fighting the Mark and. he comes with his own solution to get rid of it.
Angie and Sam go on a search to find Dean once again after they hear a rumor about his brutal hunting ventures, after witnessing what Dean’s left behind him, they separately go to search for Dean across the town as they believe to cover more ground that way; this is how Angie finds Dean first, just about to leave to give himself to Death in order to stop himself from doing any more damage.
This is where their conversation takes place, Angie begs Dean not to do it while trying to convince that they find another way. Dean, however, is not convinced by her initial speech, which is when Angie is desperate and lays it all out of him, her feelings for him and going beyond begging while trying to make his stay. Dean responds to her feelings, though he lets Angie believe she’s gotten through to him, the two share a very emotional moment with Dean ending up taking advantage of the moment and knocking Angie out just so he can go to give himself to Death.
Basically, the scene with Death follows, while Angie wakes up realizing what Dean’s gone to do, and she thinks that’s it; Dean is gone because he went through his plan. Little does she know about what’s actually going down between Death, Dean and Sam.
The next time they meet one another after Sam has called Angie to let her know that Dean alive and the Mark is gone, but something else happened instead with a mysterious black smoke and infected people attacking innocent people, and of course, at this point they are only vaguely aware that Amara is out and.
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Aaron Maybin’s fight for Baltimore schools won’t end with turning the heat back on
A day with Aaron Maybin in the wake of his viral moment that helped give Baltimore school kids heat in the middle of winter.
A woman Aaron Maybin calls his sister, Catalina, walks into her beauty of a row home in West Baltimore. The house is adorned with nods to civil unrest. Posters of Martin Luther King Jr. with the phrase “Aids Is A Civil Rights Issue” line a shelf in the room next to the kitchen. The walls have pictures of black trumpeters and black amazons with jutting Afros. Angie Thomas and Maya Angelou novels scatter the floor along with Maybin’s own books and flyers for art shows.
A baby is running around the kitchen in blue pajamas, nibbling a green apple. Maybin is on a stool trying to unwind, but his eyes are on his phone, watching an interview that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous is giving about Baltimore’s frigid public schools.
“I’m so tired of these promises, man,” he says, before putting his phone down and walking to another room to do what he says is his 10th interview of the day. He finishes and walks back to the kitchen, relieved to be done. It may be the first time I’ve seen him happy all day.
The night before, Maybin got drunk after dealing with the barrage of his viral moment. It was all too much. The notifications, the messages, political banter, everything.
“How would you feel if your kids sat in a refrigerator for eight hours?”
“Most of the time in Baltimore, we gotta self medicate,” he says. “You’re giving your energy to everybody. You gotta sometimes take care of you.”
Maybin, a former NFL first-rounder turned Baltimore school teacher, often spends his mornings readings to kids at Matthew A. Henson Elementary in Sandtown. Last Wednesday, however, he couldn’t ignore that kids were shivering. The temperature in the room dipped below 40 degrees. Many didn’t have coats. “We can’t be in this space and have a normal day,” he tells me.
Maybin started taping a conversation with his kids on his phone.
“What’s the day been like for you guys today?” he asked them.
“Coldddddd!” his kids responded.
“Very, very, very, very, very, very cold,” a girl said.
“Super, super cold,” another boy said.
“Yesterday I had frost bite!” one last kid said.
Maybin tweeted the video of the exchange and was met with an overwhelming response. Publications swooped to his inbox, and thousands interacted with his Twitter account. He wasn’t expecting the reaction. He thought he was just venting. Maybin was disgusted with Baltimore’s unenthused response to freezing kids. He was fed up with his city.
“How would you feel if your kids sat in a refrigerator for eight hours?” he says. “Like, how do you think my kids are doing? They aren’t doing well.”
The city of Baltimore hasn’t been able to properly heat its classrooms, filled with mostly black children, for years. Baltimore’s heart has always had to fight for a better city — from the 1968 riots, to a fight for school integration in the ’90s, to the Baltimore Uprising after Freddie Gray’s tragic death. It is a city whose history is shaped by activism. People here have seen many calls for change before Maybin’s.
So, it’s not hard to imagine folks asking: “What’s different this time?” when they’ve seen it all before. Maybin is asking for Baltimore’s trust, to believe he can be one of the city’s good stewards.
“Any time we have black men, as teachers, especially in Baltimore, it’s a very powerful thing,” says Kwame Rose, a friend of Maybin’s and prominent activist in the city. “If more black, male athletes came home and did that, it gives kids real-life role models. If one of these athletes comes home and is now their teacher, that’s powerful. That gives kids hope. My hero ain’t on TV. My hero is right in front of me.”
Maybin doesn’t mind being a symbol, but he’s worried about being seen as only that. That’s the crux of his frustration in the days since his viral moment. He got the world’s attention, but attention is fleeting. Maybin wants results.
“We aren’t marching. We don’t have signs. It’s sitting and talking and planning and spreadsheets for the greater good of helping these kids,” Maybin says during the day while typing on his phone. “This is what leads to policy change, to me. This ain’t the sexy side of activism.”
The Washington Post/Getty Images
Kindergarten students at the East Baltimore Community School.
The sun is trying to trick Baltimore into believing it’s warm out. It feels subzero as I wait for Maybin at the bank. He’s coming to deposit money he has collected that will buy hats, coats, and space heaters for children until the school’s heating units are fixed.
“Damn, man,” I say. “It’s cold out here.”
Maybin is slender for a 6’4 former linebacker. His dreads are layered in fourths, an intricate fishtail design, accompanied with a full beard partially covering the scar on the left side of his face.
He grins.
“Ay, man. That’s Baltimore.”
Maybin walks into the bank with two women, Samierra Jones and Valerie Arum.
“We might be at $50,000 right now,” Maybin says. “I think someone about to make a sizable donation. My friend who’s a stylist for Chris Brown said so.”
Truthfully, Maybin has no blueprint for how to do this. Maybin was called well after the GoFundMe was started and became the face of the fundraising effort. Jones, a senior at Coppin State who grew up in the Baltimore school system, began the campaign. “I don’t think people understand,” she says shuffling with her phone at the bank. “We’ve been working at [this] non-stop.”
Jones called Arum, the stepdaughter of a Baltimore school teacher and organizer who helped lead a successful lawsuit that got additional funding for Maryland’s HBCUs, for help. By the time they were posting on social networks, Maybin was going viral. The trio knew each other before the campaign, and Jones and Arum reached out to Maybin. Black women, like many times across America’s organizing history, led this action.
“A lot of people were skeptical that it was two young, black women who started it but that doesn’t matter,” Maybin says. “At the end of the day we know where [the money] is going.”
No one wanted to begin the project without all of them being present for financial transactions. Arum stressed that the important thing is the children.
“There’s a lot of neglect when it comes to city schools, especially in the poorer neighborhoods. Poor neighborhoods don’t benefit the government and the growth of the city,” Arum says. “They are just a liability (to them).”
Since 2009, Baltimore city schools have lost around $66 million in state funding for repairs, according to The Baltimore Sun. Approved projects were more expensive than assumed. Repairs took too long. And any money allocated for new heating systems vanished overnight.
The Maryland Public School Construction Program listed Baltimore City as only having 17 percent of its schools in “good” condition. A 2012 Jacobs Report revealed that only 3 percent of the district’s 18.5 million square footage was built within the last 25 years, 74 percent of which was built between 1946 and 1985.
The result is hundreds of black children being condemned to a bad educational environment, making it harder for them to reach their potentials. And cold kids are only one of Maybin’s fights. Baltimore schoolchildren still can barely drink from water fountains because of a decade of lead contamination in their schools.
“For a long time we’re saying, How is it that you don’t get it?” says Monique Crowley, a 7th grade teacher at nearby Montebello. “For someone to stand up and say, unapologetically, This is what’s happening in the school system and what can we do to fix it. Someone like (Maybin) might be the someone who opens their eyes. He doesn’t have anything to gain or lose.”
The deposit at the bank must wait for another day. Some wires have gotten crossed and the transaction is taking too long. There’s another appointment to get to if he’s to deliver supplies to the city. Three coat drop offs that the trio organized via email just ended. If Baltimore schools are going to warm up any time soon, plenty needs to be done. Maybin buttons up and heads out into the cold.
Facebook
Aaron Maybin teaching a group of kids on a field trip to his exhibition at the Frederick Douglass Museum in Baltimore.
Maybin’s life since the viral moment has been frenetic. He’s constantly checking his phone, scrolling through Twitter and texts from unassigned numbers, as we swerve through Baltimore in the back of an Uber.
“Damn I haven’t been able to put this phone down in days,” he says. “If I showed you all the shit I missed, you wouldn’t believe it.”
In addition to a life of fatherhood, painting, and teaching, Maybin has added the balancing act of being a public face at a crucial time. Yes, the money is the reason we’re here. The children are the forefront of this charge. But if he stops checking Twitter, will the kids lose funds? Will J.R. Smith, whose camp is calling him right now, send the food these kids really need? Would Chris Brown, who Maybin met at Art Basel a few times, post about this online?
That’s unknown, but what he’s doing has seemingly yielded results. Bart Scott, the 11-year veteran, sent money. Adam Jones of the Orioles, Torrey Smith of the Eagles, and, yes, Brown, all donated, some calling Maybin personally.
There is no obligation for black athletes to give to troubled communities, but many do. Some donate money. Some donate time. Some donate platforms and voices. There are no perfect protesters; there’s just a need to have consistent ones, especially when no one is watching.
“Guys are always in their communities like this but no one cares,” Maybin says. “They don’t care until it’s a big enough stage and they wanna celebrate it. People love to fetishize poverty. And we’ve accepted that as the societal norm for how we see black people. When you do that, it marginalizes the position of the oppressed person. You trivialize the reality of that person.
“You can see the video of students freezing and cast blame. But who cares whose fault it is? What are we doing about it?”
That’s the crux of Maybin’s fight. He’s often impatient. He dislikes waiting for anything that doesn’t serve whatever he believes is a greater purpose. He enjoys seeing major networks discussing Baltimore. He smiles watching ESPN bring Baltimore’s education crisis to the national public. Ultimately, he cares about the kids, his family, and Baltimore — yet, he knows that publicity is necessary.
Driving along W. Franklin street Maybin stops checking his phone to point toward a barren field. “I grew up that way.”
Maybin grew up in West Baltimore off Edmondson Avenue. His grandfather was a sharecropper who migrated from the South to work in the shipyard of Bethlehem Steel. All of his uncles followed suit. His grandfather had 14 kids and fed the family off his salary, keeping fresh produce at their home from his farm.
Maybin’s father, Michael, wanted him to leave Baltimore and play football in Howard County. The idea was that there might be better somewhere else, if there wasn’t better here. Even if, as his father said, those counties were never made for black people. Though the decision reaped athletic gold, it made Maybin uncomfortable. He’s never felt stable anywhere but Baltimore.
“I don’t wanna be a part of the political machine,” Maybin says. “I feel like it’s hard to trust these people.”
The county life led to State College, an All-American career at Penn State, a first-round pick, and pro stints in Buffalo and New York. Maybin retired his parents with his rookie contract and got them homes in Hilton Head, S.C. He told them to design their dream house. And, ever the artist, he etched and “built that shit.”
This is his first full year as a teacher. He’s not yet full time. He wouldn’t have much time to be at school five days a week, anyway, because of art exhibitions, book signings, and speaking engagements. When he started his Project Mayhem foundation in 2009, he centered it on schools that lost art programs to budget cuts.
Maybin left football because he said he was unfulfilled. After being released from Cincinnati, teams still wanted to meet. He was packing his bags to visit Indianapolis when everything in him told him no.
“I didn’t wanna convince a whole locker room of dudes I didn’t bang with that I was gonna help get a Super Bowl,” he says. “My heart wasn’t in it.”
He was more passionate about artwork and grassroots organizing. He had made enough money to survive. His parents had a new house. What he was doing off the field felt more important.
“It’s always been a game to me. It was a kids game I happened to be good at,” he says. “What I’m doing now is fighting for kids to fight for the same opportunities I was blessed to do. This is now where my heart is at.”
Detractors have attacked him and the GoFundMe — some with legitimate concerns, he admits.
Some have said that buying and placing “dangerous” space heaters in classrooms isn’t a viable solution. Power outlets can short circuit, though Maybin says he has scheduled fire crews to do walk-throughs of certain schools to see what is possible.
Some have said that his effort isn’t doing anything, that this is too short-sighted. Some schools have more issues than just temperature. The kids need books, too, and less lead in their drinking water. Many items donated cannot be approved without the agreement of the city.
Given that, it’s easy for cynics to say that his efforts are useless. That thinking implies, to Maybin, that black lives are secondary, and he has no patience for it.
“There’s a lot of work here. I’ll drive myself crazy making sure we have to do what we said we can do,” Maybin says. “When I put my name on something, if I’m asking for folks to donate, I’m in it for the long haul.”
His first step is raising money. The next step is meeting with the lawmakers of the city. Maybe they can match his donations. Maybe they’d be willing to hear a new voice. He’s desperate for anything, really.
“We can’t have this be a singular solution.”
Maybin grapples with worry. He has it himself. Change might not be coming to Baltimore, but Maybin cannot afford to believe that.
“What should I do? Would you rather me teach these kids, look them in the eye, and let them shiver?” he says. “No. My students will never be cold again.”
Instagram
Aaron Maybin and his daughter, Tacori.
We pull up to Celestial Cafe, a beauty salon turned cramped political fundraising camp, on Belair Road. Marques Dent, a man running for delegate in Baltimore, invited Maybin to speak to donors.
It’s a room full of black people discussing Baltimore’s school district. These are voters, fundraisers, and suits of the city willing, at least during election season, to care about the issues Maybin has organized around.
Wale plays as folks eat salmon cakes. Maybin is thanked by people he has never seen. He feels an obligation to meet donors, but this isn’t really his scene. People pull him in every direction for hugs and handshakes. The colorful ascots and velvet jackets clash with his pea-colored bomber. This is often the job of the advocate, to schmooze and booze with the best in the city in hopes that they’ll care about the fight of the day.
Maybin is offered food and sheepishly pushes it away. “You sure?” Dent asks. “Yeah. I ate before I came.” Maybin says. He backs out of pictures he doesn’t think are mandatory. He shakes hands only when necessary. As he tries to move out of the way of the crowd, he awkwardly leans on several light switches, inadvertently turning off about half the lights at the small fundraiser.
For now, Maybin has an audience, and that’s all that matters. If a politician can glad-hand his way through a crowd and reassure Maybin that something will be done about freezing kids in Baltimore, then this effort could be worthwhile. That is, if something is done. It may be easier to care about black people in the warmth of a gala than it is in the middle of a cold street.
“I don’t wanna be a part of the political machine,” Maybin says. “I feel like it’s hard to trust these people.”
As he says that, more constituents ask about his latest book, but the conversation shifts.
“Aaron, before you go, she wants you to draw something for her,” one woman says.
“Oh. Uh, I really don’t do that,” Maybin says.
“No, I just want you to sketch this for a tattoo,” the woman says.
“Why, the tattoo artist can’t do that?” Maybin says, giving a strained smile.
The lights begin to shut off and Maybin shakes the last few hands in the place while turning toward the door.
“I need to find the exact stipulations out before I leave the house,” he says. “I wasn’t really cool with this. It strayed from what I’m doing. I don’t need people to pat me on the back. I wanna know how we will fix this as a collective. But I don’t wanna come off as an angry black man.”
It’s nearly 10 p.m. The day has dragged. He starts talking to a man known as “O.”
“We raised $55,000 today.”
“$60,000,” I say, having just checked. (As of publication, the campaign had raised nearly $79,000.)
“Wow.” He leans his head back, then exhales. “Sixty fucking thousand in two days!”
“You the man!” someone yells.
He thinks for a second. “This is incredible. But even with 60 grand we might be able to really help one or two [schools],” Maybin says.
“Even with all this,” he sighs. “This is a Band Aid on a shotgun wound.”
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5 Ways to Harness Time and Data in Your Content Process
November 7th, 2017
“The theory of relativity put an end to the idea of absolute time,” wrote Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time. “It appeared that each observer might have his own measure of time, as recorded by a clock carried with him, and that identical clocks carried by different observers would not necessarily agree.”
Do you ever feel, in your workplace, like different members of your team are operating from a different perception of time? You say it will take two weeks to get a project done; your colleague says three weeks. You’re both experienced content creators, relying on the same historical experiences in the same workplace. How can you determine who’s right? Or should you just split the difference and get going on the work, figuring a few days doesn’t really matter?
In recent years, content marketing has become increasingly data-driven, at least when it comes to analytics and results. The efficacy of our work is something we can and do measure and manage. But there’s a tendency to avoid content creation data—how much time and resources the work really takes—which can make it difficult to:
Meet deadlines
Accurately forecast future work
Tap into our team’s full potential
Justify new resources
Prove the ROI of our time
Push back against unrealistic requests
Clearly, there are significant downsides to ignoring this front-end data, but it’s something content marketers are almost universally guilty of.
“As content creators, we are very results-focused,” said Todd Patton, content marketing manager at Branch Metrics in Palo Alto. “I’d much rather go to my boss and report that we acquired 100 MQLs from a certain ebook than how long it took me to put that ebook together.”
I think this is partly because not every executive appreciates how much effort it takes to write, design, concept, and create high-quality, original material. We’ve all seen the suspicious looks and heard the disbelieving questions throughout our careers. “It takes how long to produce a blog post? Hmm . . . I can write a 1,000-word email in 10 minutes.”
But pretending to others (and to ourselves) that we churn out the work more quickly than we really can, while still meeting the necessary quality standards, will only hurt us in the long run. It’s time to stop hiding from the truth of our content processes. Here are five ways for any content marketer to be more transparent and successful with project planning for both recurring work and one-off initiatives.
1. Involve the Team Throughout the Content Process
In a recent speech about project planning and forecasting, PMO Manager Eric Lucas of Crowley Maritime Corporation said:
“There’s something I call Mighty Mouse syndrome: There are people who love hiding things and then giving a ‘big reveal’; they love the grandeur of saving the day at the last possible moment. But that’s not how humans are successful. You have to work as teams.”
He offered seven tips for how project managers can improve the accuracy of their forecasts:
Humans learn in iterations—getting better at forecasting is a repetitive process.
Involve all the right people.
Adjust the forecast often.
Ensure the forecast reflects reality, not desire.
Communicate the forecast often—and through multiple channels.
Conduct a “lessons learned” meeting at the end of projects to codify what everyone has learned.
Accept that forecasts are approximations of the future; forecasts have to be “good enough.”
2. Guesstimate Granularly
“When I worked in-house and had limited resources, it always surprised me how long a project would take,” says Megan Maybee, a content marketing strategist at ThomasARTS in Salt Lake City. “Something simple like creating a social contest had so many elements, from design and writing to compliance and legal review. There were a couple times I didn’t give myself enough time, and then it was a huge scramble.”
I, too, am often surprised at how long certain projects take, even those I complete over and over again. It’s because it’s human nature to gloss over the difficulty of the journey mentally and only remember the destination. This tendency to forget accounts for people going through childbirth more than one time (or so I’m told), running more than one marathon, agreeing to more than one dental procedure.
No content marketing project can be predicted or controlled with 100 percent accuracy from the outset, no matter how much experience we have cranking out similar projects. There are always variables, and we must always rely on guesstimation to one degree or another. The key is to get as granular as possible with your project and resource guesstimations—to leave nothing out.
Start by meticulously documenting your workflow, including each little step it takes to execute each content type. Account for every brainstorm meeting, every interview, every individual contribution, every outline, every draft, every proofreading session, and every round of review and approval. Get input from every person who has a role in the production process. Ask questions to understand every aspect.
What I’ve just described is called Bottom-Up Estimating in project management circles. You can also try Analogous Estimating or Parametric Modeling, as described here. But whatever approach you take, be aware of the temptation to underestimate your time in order to appear faster or more competent. It’s always better to under-promise and over-deliver than to do the opposite.
3. Expect Everyone to Track Their Time
Once you have your repeatable processes granularly documented, start tracking the hours and minutes spent on each project phase (brainstorming, researching, writing, illustration, design, etc.) to make your future guesstimations even more reliable. When you add up all the time you tracked and build in some buffer time, that’s how you’ll know whether the next project is likely to take two weeks or three—whether you or your colleague was right all along.
If you use a work-management software solution like Workfront, the “adding up” is done for you. Individuals can just navigate to the task and use built-in time-tracking tools—or add in their hours manually. Just don’t fall prey to the temptation to assume you’ll always be able to beat your fastest time on each step. Rely on a padded average instead. Not everyone will be thrilled about tracking their time on projects (see tip 5), but it’s an excellent way to reveal which steps are taking more time than you assumed or expected, where time is being wasted, and how you can work more efficiently.
“When I proactively track my time, it helps me focus more immediately and intensely,” says freelance content marketer Angie Lucas (no relation to Eric). “Any time I’m under the gun, the first thing I do when I sit down at my desk is to open my Paymo time-tracking widget and hit Start. I know every minute I spend from that time forward will be billed to a client, which keeps me laser focused on the task at hand.”
4. Rely on a Single Source of Truth
Even if you use nothing but a spreadsheet, it’s relatively easy to keep track of the quantitative data from your project—things like hours, dates, and hard costs. But your qualitative data—emails, shared documents, instant messaging activity, etc.—can be just as important, revealing how smoothly (or bumpily) the project progressed, what roadblocks you encountered, and more.
But who has time to track all of that? Am I seriously expecting you to file away every email into project-specific folders and copy-and-paste relevant IMs into a post-mortem document? Heck no.
There are work management solutions available that enable all of this communication to happen in the space surrounding the quantitative data. These allow you to visit one online location to not only see how long the last project took and how the schedule played out, but also view the finished assets and deliverables—and you’ll be reminded that design asked for two deadline extensions on the layout phase because they weren’t given enough time in the first place.
A single tool, or at least fewer tools, from which to draw data will give you more power to speak with confidence about what you’re working on, how long it will take, and whether you have the bandwidth for that next upcoming project.
5. Understand Polychronic versus Monochronic Time
Remember when I asked if it ever seems you and your team members are operating from different perceptions of time? The truth is, you probably are. Understanding this can open up windows of insight into how you (and others) approach your work.
We live in a monochronic culture, which sees time as “being divided into fixed elements that can be organized, quantified and scheduled.” Time is linear. Time can and should be organized into a daily routine. “Obviously,” you’re thinking. “Doesn’t everyone think that?”
Actually, no. Not only are there entire polychronic cultures (parts of Latin America, sub-Sahara Africa, and the Middle East), there are polychrons even within monochronic cultures who view time as “a never-ending river, flowing from the infinite past, through the present, into the infinite future.” That’s not just highfalutin nonsense. Those with polychronic tendencies actually see time as circular. They prefer task-switching and thrive in environments without a fixed schedule. (Incidentally, these preferences are also exhibited in a growing number of digital natives.) They’re often late because, to them, time is truly relative.
If you and your team members can understand your own natural perception of time, you can harness each individual’s strengths for a stronger, more balanced team. For example, you might not want to put one of your polychrons in charge of project scheduling and forecasting (and they’ll probably thank you for it). But you can and should expect them to track their time and meet deadlines just like their monochronic counterparts, recognizing that some employees will produce their most brilliant work with a little less structure.
Those with polychronic tendencies actually see time as circular. Click To Tweet
It Takes Time to Make Time
If there’s one thing content marketers are constantly running short on, it’s time. At any given moment, each person on your team might have dozens of projects in the pipeline—all in different stages of planning, ideation, and creation. With so many moving parts, it’s not easy to pause long enough to collect and analyze the up-front data about your content production process. But unless you do—and remember, much of these metrics are available via automated tools—you’ll always be left guessing how long things take, how much bandwidth your team has, and whether you have the resources you need to meet your goals, now and in the future.
This post is part of a paid sponsorship between Workfront and Convince & Convert.
http://www.successwize.com/5-ways-to-harness-time-and-data-in-your-content-process/
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5 Ways to Harness Time and Data in Your Content Process
November 7th, 2017
“The theory of relativity put an end to the idea of absolute time,” wrote Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time. “It appeared that each observer might have his own measure of time, as recorded by a clock carried with him, and that identical clocks carried by different observers would not necessarily agree.”
Do you ever feel, in your workplace, like different members of your team are operating from a different perception of time? You say it will take two weeks to get a project done; your colleague says three weeks. You’re both experienced content creators, relying on the same historical experiences in the same workplace. How can you determine who’s right? Or should you just split the difference and get going on the work, figuring a few days doesn’t really matter?
In recent years, content marketing has become increasingly data-driven, at least when it comes to analytics and results. The efficacy of our work is something we can and do measure and manage. But there’s a tendency to avoid content creation data—how much time and resources the work really takes—which can make it difficult to:
Meet deadlines
Accurately forecast future work
Tap into our team’s full potential
Justify new resources
Prove the ROI of our time
Push back against unrealistic requests
Clearly, there are significant downsides to ignoring this front-end data, but it’s something content marketers are almost universally guilty of.
“As content creators, we are very results-focused,” said Todd Patton, content marketing manager at Branch Metrics in Palo Alto. “I’d much rather go to my boss and report that we acquired 100 MQLs from a certain ebook than how long it took me to put that ebook together.”
I think this is partly because not every executive appreciates how much effort it takes to write, design, concept, and create high-quality, original material. We’ve all seen the suspicious looks and heard the disbelieving questions throughout our careers. “It takes how long to produce a blog post? Hmm . . . I can write a 1,000-word email in 10 minutes.”
But pretending to others (and to ourselves) that we churn out the work more quickly than we really can, while still meeting the necessary quality standards, will only hurt us in the long run. It’s time to stop hiding from the truth of our content processes. Here are five ways for any content marketer to be more transparent and successful with project planning for both recurring work and one-off initiatives.
1. Involve the Team Throughout the Content Process
In a recent speech about project planning and forecasting, PMO Manager Eric Lucas of Crowley Maritime Corporation said:
“There’s something I call Mighty Mouse syndrome: There are people who love hiding things and then giving a ‘big reveal’; they love the grandeur of saving the day at the last possible moment. But that’s not how humans are successful. You have to work as teams.”
He offered seven tips for how project managers can improve the accuracy of their forecasts:
Humans learn in iterations—getting better at forecasting is a repetitive process.
Involve all the right people.
Adjust the forecast often.
Ensure the forecast reflects reality, not desire.
Communicate the forecast often—and through multiple channels.
Conduct a “lessons learned” meeting at the end of projects to codify what everyone has learned.
Accept that forecasts are approximations of the future; forecasts have to be “good enough.”
2. Guesstimate Granularly
“When I worked in-house and had limited resources, it always surprised me how long a project would take,” says Megan Maybee, a content marketing strategist at ThomasARTS in Salt Lake City. “Something simple like creating a social contest had so many elements, from design and writing to compliance and legal review. There were a couple times I didn’t give myself enough time, and then it was a huge scramble.”
I, too, am often surprised at how long certain projects take, even those I complete over and over again. It’s because it’s human nature to gloss over the difficulty of the journey mentally and only remember the destination. This tendency to forget accounts for people going through childbirth more than one time (or so I’m told), running more than one marathon, agreeing to more than one dental procedure.
No content marketing project can be predicted or controlled with 100 percent accuracy from the outset, no matter how much experience we have cranking out similar projects. There are always variables, and we must always rely on guesstimation to one degree or another. The key is to get as granular as possible with your project and resource guesstimations—to leave nothing out.
Start by meticulously documenting your workflow, including each little step it takes to execute each content type. Account for every brainstorm meeting, every interview, every individual contribution, every outline, every draft, every proofreading session, and every round of review and approval. Get input from every person who has a role in the production process. Ask questions to understand every aspect.
What I’ve just described is called Bottom-Up Estimating in project management circles. You can also try Analogous Estimating or Parametric Modeling, as described here. But whatever approach you take, be aware of the temptation to underestimate your time in order to appear faster or more competent. It’s always better to under-promise and over-deliver than to do the opposite.
3. Expect Everyone to Track Their Time
Once you have your repeatable processes granularly documented, start tracking the hours and minutes spent on each project phase (brainstorming, researching, writing, illustration, design, etc.) to make your future guesstimations even more reliable. When you add up all the time you tracked and build in some buffer time, that’s how you’ll know whether the next project is likely to take two weeks or three—whether you or your colleague was right all along.
If you use a work-management software solution like Workfront, the “adding up” is done for you. Individuals can just navigate to the task and use built-in time-tracking tools—or add in their hours manually. Just don’t fall prey to the temptation to assume you’ll always be able to beat your fastest time on each step. Rely on a padded average instead. Not everyone will be thrilled about tracking their time on projects (see tip 5), but it’s an excellent way to reveal which steps are taking more time than you assumed or expected, where time is being wasted, and how you can work more efficiently.
“When I proactively track my time, it helps me focus more immediately and intensely,” says freelance content marketer Angie Lucas (no relation to Eric). “Any time I’m under the gun, the first thing I do when I sit down at my desk is to open my Paymo time-tracking widget and hit Start. I know every minute I spend from that time forward will be billed to a client, which keeps me laser focused on the task at hand.”
4. Rely on a Single Source of Truth
Even if you use nothing but a spreadsheet, it’s relatively easy to keep track of the quantitative data from your project—things like hours, dates, and hard costs. But your qualitative data—emails, shared documents, instant messaging activity, etc.—can be just as important, revealing how smoothly (or bumpily) the project progressed, what roadblocks you encountered, and more.
But who has time to track all of that? Am I seriously expecting you to file away every email into project-specific folders and copy-and-paste relevant IMs into a post-mortem document? Heck no.
There are work management solutions available that enable all of this communication to happen in the space surrounding the quantitative data. These allow you to visit one online location to not only see how long the last project took and how the schedule played out, but also view the finished assets and deliverables—and you’ll be reminded that design asked for two deadline extensions on the layout phase because they weren’t given enough time in the first place.
A single tool, or at least fewer tools, from which to draw data will give you more power to speak with confidence about what you’re working on, how long it will take, and whether you have the bandwidth for that next upcoming project.
5. Understand Polychronic versus Monochronic Time
Remember when I asked if it ever seems you and your team members are operating from different perceptions of time? The truth is, you probably are. Understanding this can open up windows of insight into how you (and others) approach your work.
We live in a monochronic culture, which sees time as “being divided into fixed elements that can be organized, quantified and scheduled.” Time is linear. Time can and should be organized into a daily routine. “Obviously,” you’re thinking. “Doesn’t everyone think that?”
Actually, no. Not only are there entire polychronic cultures (parts of Latin America, sub-Sahara Africa, and the Middle East), there are polychrons even within monochronic cultures who view time as “a never-ending river, flowing from the infinite past, through the present, into the infinite future.” That’s not just highfalutin nonsense. Those with polychronic tendencies actually see time as circular. They prefer task-switching and thrive in environments without a fixed schedule. (Incidentally, these preferences are also exhibited in a growing number of digital natives.) They’re often late because, to them, time is truly relative.
If you and your team members can understand your own natural perception of time, you can harness each individual’s strengths for a stronger, more balanced team. For example, you might not want to put one of your polychrons in charge of project scheduling and forecasting (and they’ll probably thank you for it). But you can and should expect them to track their time and meet deadlines just like their monochronic counterparts, recognizing that some employees will produce their most brilliant work with a little less structure.
Those with polychronic tendencies actually see time as circular. Click To Tweet
It Takes Time to Make Time
If there’s one thing content marketers are constantly running short on, it’s time. At any given moment, each person on your team might have dozens of projects in the pipeline—all in different stages of planning, ideation, and creation. With so many moving parts, it’s not easy to pause long enough to collect and analyze the up-front data about your content production process. But unless you do—and remember, much of these metrics are available via automated tools—you’ll always be left guessing how long things take, how much bandwidth your team has, and whether you have the resources you need to meet your goals, now and in the future.
This post is part of a paid sponsorship between Workfront and Convince & Convert.
http://www.successwize.com/5-ways-to-harness-time-and-data-in-your-content-process/
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